Tax on Employer Travel Loan

Kizcom1 · 12 September 2019 at 7:51PM

Hello All,

First post on here and I'd welcome some advice.

For the tax year 2018/19 I took out two travel loans through my employer which, combined, took me above the £10k threshold for the first time.

In mid July, I received a message from HMRC advising that I had underpaid tax and they are now taking £2,050 spread across four payslips in order to recoup this. The figure struck me as high, so I called to find out more and they confirmed it was because of the loan amount on my P11d. This, to be precise, was £10,445.80.

I spoke with my employer who confirmed that they had entered it correctly, under section M of the P11d form and that there was nothing further they could do. I called HMRC again to ask for more advice, only to be suddenly told that I had underpaid by an even larger amount - subsequently, the agent triggered a P800 and advised that I would soon receive this in the post with a deadline to pay by end of year.

This means that by going over the threshold by £445.80, I am now being told to pay over £4,000 in tax! I am a higher rate tax payer but I am not convinced this has been calculated correctly.

Can anyone offer some advice? HMRC say there's nothing further they can do unless the P11d figure is amended, and my employer simply doesn't want to know and has stated that this is correct.

If it is right, then I will reluctantly drop the issue but to be hit with such a huge amount really doesn't seem justified.

All help and insight greatly appreciated, including how and who I can escalate this with from here if necessary, as one thing that's very clear is neither HMRC or my employer will budge.

Thank you!