NI Refund - How to tell if due one

kiwiscotKen

For the last tax year I believe I am due a refund of National Insurance from the class 1 contribution I have made. I've read the process you go about it with your employer or HRMC. Before I do I want to check if I need to use the total amount over the year as the basis for having overpaid or do I need to check each individual payment for overpayment?

I've had two sources of income outside of bank interest which is Universal Credit and One employer.

Income - £15,454.99 with £1,017.99 NI taken off.

Universal credit - 648.10, no NI taken off which I believe is because you don't have it deducted from UC

Caz3121

National Insurance works per pay period, unlike tax which works on an annual figure
https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/how-much-you-pay
why do you believe you have overpaid?

calcotti

There re only two situations in which NI is likely to be overpaid

• if you have paid National Insurance after reaching the state pension age,
• if you are highly paid and have more than one employment or are employed and self-employed on high earnings and didn’t apply for deferment.

It seems unlikely that either of these apply to you, given what you have said.

[Deleted User]

OP there is no reason to suspect that you have overpaid N.I. or due a refund.

kiwiscotKen

Caz3121 said:

National Insurance works per pay period, unlike tax which works on an annual figure
why do you believe you have overpaid?

Oh just from running one of those online calculators to work out how much tax I should have paid. They always work out NI contributions so I thought I'd overpayed, but the information I found online made it seem like getting a refund was easy. I was pretty sure it was useless, but must have missed the bit where they point out its not on annnual totals.

calcotti

kiwiscotKen said:

Caz3121 said:

National Insurance works per pay period, unlike tax which works on an annual figure
why do you believe you have overpaid?

Oh just from running one of those online calculators to work out how much tax I should have paid. They always work out NI contributions so I thought I'd overpayed, but the information I found online made it seem like getting a refund was easy. I was pretty sure it was useless, but must have missed the bit where they point out its not on annnual totals.

The calculators probably work on the assumption that whatever figure you put in as your total income has been earned evenly throughout the year. 

kiwiscotKen

Anyone know a version of this for other tax years?

chrisbur

kiwiscotKen said:

Anyone know a version of this for other tax years?

As far as I know this is only available for the currant year.  However just about any tax calculator eg https://listentotaxman.com/ will do to check NI provided that you pay at the usual rate A band and you check each payment separately. The answer will probably be a few pence out but will be fairly accurate.
Or you could look up the the bands here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-national-insurance-contributions/rates-and-allowances-national-insurance-contributions then for each payday deduct the threshold figure and take 12% of earnings above that.  If earnings go above the upper earnings level take 2% for that part over the UEL instead of 12%.