Two jobs, one casual...what tax should I expect

ciderxwithxrosie

Hello,

Apologise in advance for a small amount of knowledge about the tax system. Until my current job I have never been taxed from work as it has been part-time and due to being a student. I'm 23 and live in East Yorkshire.

I'm currently a casual healthcare assistant for a private healthcare company. I worked full-time on a permanent contract for this company from late 2013 until early March this year. Due to a change of address which made it too difficult and expensive to get to work for 36 contracted hours a week, I requested to go on the company's bank and cover annual leave and sickness. I live back at home now with only around £50-£70 necessary outgoings a month - cue all the aren't you lucky comments haha! - so I have so far been okay working like this. It's minimum wage work but as a casual member of staff I am paid slightly more as I don't get holiday pay - I am unsure of exact hourly wage as I am yet to be paid from last month's work but I believe it to be closer to about £6.80.

I have recently got a new job in the NHS which I am waiting to start. It will be 16 hours a week contracted, and working out the hourly rate from the pro-rata salary figure I will be on about £8.70 an hour. But on this job alone I will take £550ish a month. Over the year this is obviously nowhere near the personal allowance for tax. However, with having a second job am I going to be taxed? Even though it is irregular zero hour contract work? If my current pattern of work, which is about 8 hours average a week as the casual HCA, continues alongside this 16 hour position in the NHS I am due to start I will still not make the 2015/2016 personal allowance. But it has been brought to my attention that there is potential for tax due to having two jobs on paper, though one is not contracted.

I'm so confused and I am not in a position to lose unnecessary money to the taxman!

Thank you for reading, any advice or resolution much appreciated. Please use layman's terms as I am VERY unsure when it comes to finances and need what help I can get!

:j

macman

You are taxed based on your total income within the tax year, whether from one job or ten. If your taxable income in 2015/16 exceeds the personal allowance, then you will have tax to pay.
I am not altogether clear as to whether you are employed or self employed in the first job though, if the latter then of course you can offset your business overheads against tax, although it will make your tax return more complicated.

ciderxwithxrosie

macman wrote: »

You are taxed based on your total income within the tax year, whether from one job or ten. If your taxable income in 2015/16 exceeds the personal allowance, then you will have tax to pay.
I am not altogether clear as to whether you are employed or self employed in the first job though, if the latter then of course you can offset your business overheads against tax, although it will make your tax return more complicated.

I'm employed by the company, definitely not self-employed haha I just work on a casual basis for them now. Thanks for the help.

Savvy_Sue

You may have to speak to HMRC and ask for your tax code to be split between the two jobs.

What tax code do you have on payslips for your current 'casual' job?

agrinnall

NMW at your age is £6.50 per hour, and the uplift to salary to replace holidays (I'm not entirely clear on the circumstances in which this is legal) must be at least 12.07%, which would add 78p to your hourly rate. So when you get your payslip if the rate isn't at least £7.28 you're being done.

Savvy_Sue

Coming back to this now I'm more awake.

Even if you did in the short term pay too much tax on the contracted job, you'd get it back at a later stage.

As you won't have a P45 to give to your new employer (because you're still doing the 'other' job), you should be given a New Starter form to complete - it used to be a P46 but that's been done away with.

On the New Starter Form, you'll have to state that this is not your only job. Therefore your new employer should, I believe, put you on code BR, which means you'll lose 20% of everything. However, when you contact HMRC and say 'this new job is my main job', they'll issue a new tax code. If you estimate what your earnings until 5th April 2016 will be and tell HMRC that, and say you have another job and ask for your code to be split, they will issue two new tax codes, one for each employer.

You'll get a copy of those tax codes, so look on your payslips and check your employer has acted on them. If you start on BR and then it changes, you should get a lump of tax back.

Over on the Cutting Tax board you'll find more expert explanations of how this works.

EmmaMichelle_2

I have three jobs (three part time jobs) #1 earns £50 a week, #2 earns £170 a week and #3 earns £97 a week before tax. I received a letter to say on #2 my tax code will be BR meaning I will pay 20%. I am still on emergency tax on the #3 but when that sorts out will I also be paying 20% on that wage as well? Job #1 my tax code is 1000L. So what will my tax code be for the third job?

Savvy_Sue

EmmaMichelle wrote: »

I have three jobs (three part time jobs) #1 earns £50 a week, #2 earns £170 a week and #3 earns £97 a week before tax. I received a letter to say on #2 my tax code will be BR meaning I will pay 20%. I am still on emergency tax on the #3 but when that sorts out will I also be paying 20% on that wage as well? Job #1 my tax code is 1000L. So what will my tax code be for the third job?

If these are all fairly consistent, then phone HMRC and ask them to split your tax code. This tax year the 'normal' tax code is 1060L which means you can earn up to £1060 free of tax: the three jobs together (I think) take you over that, but if you had a tax allowance on jobs 2 and 3 and were BR on job 1, it should work out about right, I think.

Have the details of all three jobs to hand when you phone.