Week 53 pay

khickey88

OK so I get paid weekly every Friday and I know we had 53 weeks in the tax year 2018/19 so I ended up owing £52 tax. But last week we got paid on the Thursday the 8th (Friday bank holiday) and it was week 53 again which surely can't be right. I've calculated my tax myself so I have now paid £54 less for the 2019/20 tax year which il have to pay. Does anyone know if its a mistake the company have made and is it right having week 53 when it could should of been the 1st week of the new tax year. 

comeandgo

It's very unusual to have two week 53's in a row but it will depend on which day the payroll was run on.  You got paid on the 8th so payroll must have been run on Friday 3rd.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

khickey88 said:

OK so I get paid weekly every Friday and I know we had 53 weeks in the tax year 2018/19 so I ended up owing £52 tax. But last week we got paid on the Thursday the 8th (Friday bank holiday) and it was week 53 again which surely can't be right. I've calculated my tax myself so I have now paid £54 less for the 2019/20 tax year which il have to pay. Does anyone know if its a mistake the company have made and is it right having week 53 when it could should of been the 1st week of the new tax year. 

That sounds odd.  Are there figures on your "week 53" payslip showing the accumulated amount earned for the whole of 2019:20 or just the amount for that one week's pay?

chrisbur

The day that a payroll is run does not decide which tax week that payment falls in; that is decided by the day that payment is made.  This is also not affected if a payment is made earlier for example if paid early due to a bank holiday; in these circumstances the tax week is decided by when the normal payday would be were it not for the bank holiday.
Unless there has been some permanent change to the payday it is impossible to have a week 53 for two years running.  A week 53 occurs when payday falls on 5 April or in a leap year on 4 or 5 April this did not happen this year for anyone paid on a Friday.
As advised by Dazed... what is your cumulative taxable gross figure, one week or the full year?

khickey88

Yes my week 53 payslip has the accumulated pay for the whole year stated on it. No permanent change to pay date but like I said only change was it was bank holiday Friday so we got paid on Thursday the 8th instead of the good Friday the 9th. 
I've looked at my week 52 payslip which was pay date 3rd April and work out the tax I paid from my year earnings and it was spot on. But obviously now I've had a week 53 it's doesn't work out right.
Also I've noticed our week 53 pay slip which we got paid on Thursday 8th state's the pay date as 3rd of April the same as week 52. I can't work out why its happened. Anyone think something dodgy is going on?
Just to add looking back previous years we've had week 1 pay on Friday the 8th in 2016 and 7th in 2017.

chrisbur

Have you queried this with your employer?  Perhaps just an error in inputting the pay date.

khickey88

No the office staff are all working from home at the moment. But even if it was an error on the pay date surely they don't make a mistake on the pay week. 

chrisbur

khickey88 said:

No the office staff are all working from home at the moment. But even if it was an error on the pay date surely they don't make a mistake on the pay week. 

I would assume that the tax week is being picked up from the pay date.