Employer didn't pay me my last 'wage' but it was actually just overpaid tax return...

question85

I left a company and they did not pay me my last pay check due to 'uniforms not returned' - at the time I didn't care about it as it's amount around 80£. What I realised recently was that amount on payslip to be paid that was never paid me, was not my wages but only my tax that I overpaid. So basically now HMRC will not pay me 120£ back for tax year 15/16, but only 35£, as they assume the rest was paid back by my employer and it wasn't- they withheld that.
What should I do? Contact the company or HMRC? Did they have a right to do so?
Thanks for any help!

moneysaver242

Salary payments and other earnings are protected from unlwaful deductions under the Employment Rights Act 1996. However tax rebates are not earnings and so do not receive the same protection. (In any case, if you had a contract that includes terms about recovery from a final pay this would not be unlawful anyway)
They have a right to recovery the money from your tax rebate if they can.
Depending on the circumstances you could report them to HMRC for not reporting your P45 in a timely manner, but they're unlikely to do anything unless a significant period of time has passed, and you're unlikely to get the money back.
Appreciate probably not the answer you were looking for, sorry!

London50

question85 wrote: »

I left a company and they did not pay me my last pay check due to 'uniforms not returned' - at the time I didn't care about it as it's amount around 80£. What I realised recently was that amount on payslip to be paid that was never paid me, was not my wages but only my tax that I overpaid. So basically now HMRC will not pay me 120£ back for tax year 15/16, but only 35£, as they assume the rest was paid back by my employer and it wasn't- they withheld that.
What should I do? Contact the company or HMRC? Did they have a right to do so?
Thanks for any help!

Send back the uniforms you kept and ask for the money;)