16 year old - not been taxed .... yet ....?

picardygirl

Before my son rings up his employer, just wanted to see if we could find the answer here ?

My son has just turned 16 and is going back to sixth form in September but has a casual job during the summer and will hopefully lead on to just weekends when he goes back to school.

On his first wage slip it states his tax code is 944L:

1st week wages - gross earnings £110 no stoppages (didnt expect any as under weekly tax/ni threshold)

2nd week wages - gross earnings £285, no tax paid but £16 NI paid.

As far as i was aware, the limit this year is approx £159 per week before NI is payable and £171 per week before tax is payable. So therefore thought he would be taxed on his earnings this week, then the tax would be eventually rebated as his earnings wont be this high on a regular basis.

Does it work different as he is classed as a casual worker ? Or am i just totally misunderstanding how it works? Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Lokolo

NI is based on weekly earnings.

Income tax is based on yearly earnings. On a normal simple PAYE system, you take your personal allowance and divide by the number of paydays. So a monthly payroll would mean a person would have £787 each monthly. £181 for weekly (9440 / 12).

However, the year starts in April, so your son has some "unused" allowance between April 6th and now. This is considered when calculating tax.

picardygirl

Thanks Lokolo, that makes sense!

I was always led to believe a "PAYE system" would always assume the weekly earnings in any week would be the same thereafter, thats why i mentioned would a "casual" member of staff be any different.

Looks like i misunderstood! Thanks

xylophone

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/students/work_in_term_and_hols_9_1.htm
might be worth a look.

Savvy_Sue

picardygirl wrote: »

I was always led to believe a "PAYE system" would always assume the weekly earnings in any week would be the same thereafter

I think you're about right there, however if you multiply £285 by the remaining weeks in the tax year, you get to a figure less than £9440, therefore no tax due. (At least you do on my very rough sums!)