Figures on my P60 don't match my monthly income advice slips

uptomyeyeballs

I retired in April and left employment. I then received a private pension for 11 months before the end of the 2016-17 tax year.

For the first 4 months my Pension was paid by Provider A. The provider then changed and the next 7 months was paid by Provider B. It was however the same Pension they were administering.

Provider A was showing my final April payslip details as 'Previous employment income' on it's advice slips. The numbers were correct. When pension payments came from Provider B, the 'Previous Employment' total now included April Employment + Provider A figures. Again, the numbers were correct.

When I got my P60 from Provider B at the end of the 2016-17 tax year, the 'Previous Employment' totals were totally different to the numbers on my monthly advice notes.

I contacted Provider B, who told me that they'd been told to change the 'Previous Employer' totals by HMRC, along with my Tax Code in January.

I now have a P60 which does not reflect the Income Tax I paid (£2,800 below actual) or Earnings I received (£6,000 above actual).

Help!

LHW99

Have you a personal tax login with HMRC?
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/government-gateway-registration-frontend/choose-your-account?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fonline.hmrc.gov.uk%2Fhome&origin=unknown


Otherwise maybe worth contacting HMRC by phone / letter? If you do write, only send copies of P60's pay slips etc. and keep the originals safe.

Dazed_and_confused

Do the 'previous employment' figures on the P60 match either what you were paid by the employer you finished with in April 2016 or what the first pension company paid you?

HMRC no longer get a copy of your P60, each employer/pension company reports their payments so i wouldn't be overly concerned (subject to final paragraph below!)

You may think you've just had one pension but HMRC will treat you as having had two in that year.

What impact did the change to tax code have in January? Could you now owe HMRC some tax or they owe you some as a result?

uptomyeyeballs

No, the P60 'previous employment' figures don't match the previous employment or any combination of employment + pension payments. But, my total 'previous employment' figures were correct on my Provider B payslips.

Looking at my own records, my last change of tax code was in November, so not sure what Provider B are on about. The November change was to allow a small profit on property income to be taxed by PAYE through pension payments.

My tax, i've actually paid about £3,800 more than the P60 shows, and earned nearly £6,000 less.

uptomyeyeballs

I'm due to fill in a short tax return, so because the P60 is not sent to HMRC, should I just submit the correct details from my records and ignore the incorrect P60? I can back up all my figures from pay slips and bank statements to prove my income/tax. It's really quite simple!

Dazed_and_confused

Yes, you should show the correct details for each individual employment/pension on the return. You may have to add the pension amounts together for the return entries but i would only rely on the P60 for the pension in payment at the end of the year, for the previous pension (provider A) i would use info from payslips (or P45 if you got one).

uptomyeyeballs

Ok thanks, that's what I thought. Provider B seem to have applied an adjustment but have made a bit of a Horlicks of it. I'll go back to basics. I can do the return straight away and hopefully get a tax refund sorted.

greenglide

Yes, you should show the correct details for each individual employment/pension on the return.

There is no point sending details to HMRC that differ from the PAYE end of year details submitted by the pension provider because this will just confuse HMRC further.

It is best to contact HMRC and explain that the P60 details do not correspond with the payment details and they "should" look into it.

You need to be careful about putting P60 details on a tax return for which you have no corresponding actual P60 details.

Dazed_and_confused

But the op wouldn't be doing that. They would be including the P60 figures for the pension in payment at the end of the year and for the other sources they would get the details from payslips or a P45.

The pension payer who provided the P60 will not/cannot tell HMRC about the 'previous employment' figures as this is not part of what they send to HMRC. Since the HMRC copy of the P60 was abolished each employer/pension provider only tells HMRC about the payments they make, not about any 'previous employment' figures they may have used when calculating the tax/NIC deductions.

I am at a loss at to what HMRC would "look into" given they won't have been provided with the figures the op originally asked about in the first place??

uptomyeyeballs

If I put the figures in from my P60 as it stands I would be willfully submitting information I know to be wrong. That makes me liable. I will try to get HMRC to investigate from their end, but the numbers I'm going to put on my tax return will be the right ones, not Provider B's fudged ones. ;-)

Dazed_and_confused

You've lost me, I'd always understood that when completing your tax return you only needed the "in this employment" figures from your P60 which you did not suggest were wrong in your original post.

There is nowhere on a self assessment return to enter "previous employment" figures from a P60 and you would be asking HMRC to investigate something they don't have

Where on the return were you going to enter the details you know to be wrong?

For your original employment you should use the figures from your P45 (plus any payment after this was issued if there was any late payments)

For your first pension you should also use figures from your P45 from provider A if you have one, if not just use the payslips they provided.