Payroll tax question please?

Petel

Hello.
Employer has recently changed the firm that runs the payroll/salary service for them. Seems new company have made an error on the first months salaries.

This is that they have not calculated the tax deduction correctly and we have all been overpaid. Our employer has made no mention of this, though we noticed that our wage slips were not accurate.

An email sent from one of the managers to another, says that the new company has informed them of the mistake, that they will correct it in the next months salary payment and that in the mean time, we should be asked not to spend any of the extra money.

We have not been told by our employer and in any case, it is unclear how we are supposed to know by how much each of us has been overpaid in order not to use the money.

Can anyone please advise, if they are aware of any law, regulation, or previous court case president, that would indicate that we would not be obliged to repay the over payment OR to have it recovered from a future wage packet?

Thanks in advance,
Pauline.

makeyourdaddyproud

A quick search on the net confirms that the money has to be paid back. In this situation, the new payroll company will reconcile the overpayment in the following month's pay. Like they have advised, only spend your usual amount using your last complete payslip as a metric.

I don't also think there's any obligation on the emplayer to waive the overpayment either.

Dan

JKSandy

Look to your previous wage slips and see what you normally get paid, put the rest in your savings account and don't spend it.

As above you spend it and you pay it back, best just to make sure you don't rather than have the drama of it all next pay packet.

metalmosher

Unfortunately you don't really have any choice. What will happen is that next month's pay will be automatically reduced by the amount of the correction, so you can spend the extra this month if you want but you'll get less next month, so might as well just keep hold of the cash for now.

It might be helpful to note that your tax liability, is yours, not the company you work for, regardless of the fact they do your PAYE. So, if the company had got your tax wrong for the whole year AND not told you, you'd still be liable for the tax!

AP007

Petel wrote: »

We have not been told by our employer and in any case, it is unclear how we are supposed to know by how much each of us has been overpaid in order not to use the money.

Can anyone please advise, if they are aware of any law, regulation, or previous court case president, that would indicate that we would not be obliged to repay the over payment OR to have it recovered from a future wage packet?

Thanks in advance,
Pauline.

Are you salaried? If so do you get 12th salary paid each month? If yes, the net pay would have been the same as last month

Why do you think you souldn't have to pay it back?

It's an honest mistake to make and you really should know what you are due to take home or how would you have known it was wrong to begin with?

Petel

Many thanks to all for the replies and the clarification.
Thank you, Pauline.

getmore4less

I would be more worried on why the company has employed an payroll company that cannot do payroll properly.

There needs to be an investigation and communication what went wrong?

Petel

Agreed. We are looking into this
Thanks