HMRC claiming I have underpaid in 19/20 by £1200 - I think I'm due a refund of approx £650!

brassmonk

Hello,

I have received notification of my tax codes for 20/21 and they include a reduction in my personal allowance due to a supposed underpayment of £1200ish pounds in the 19/20 tax year. My employment situation is slightly complicated, in that I worked for one employer on an agency contract, paid via an umbrella company (Nasa) and also did ad hoc work for a university (the odd tutorial/lecture, marking etc.). I also had to pay my own professional subscriptions of £680 and claimed tax relief for these.

I knew that I would be working for both at the start of the tax year so when hmrc split my basic allowance across both, that seemed fine to me.

I am also in recipet of a full time phd stipend of approx £15k a year- I have been advised that this would be tax free.

From the agency in this tax year I earned £16,016.52 and paid £1532.60 in tax.

From the university I earned £2182.15 and paid £248.69 in tax. The first contract of three months on tax code S365T and the rest on BR.

Even without accounting for the tax relief, I have substantially overpaid by my calculations. Even if I include my phd stipend, I still wouldn't have underpaid by £1200.

I managed to phone HMRC before the pandemic to query it, and was told that they recorded "signficantly higher" earnings for me, but couldn't tell me from what employer or how much and that I would have to wait for the reconciliation to take place in april. This isn't really much help as they have adjusted my tax codes for the 20/21 tax year and I'm now being taxed even more to cover the overpayment.

Is anyone able to offer any insight? Thank you!

molerat

What does your on line tax account show for employments / payments / tax paid ?

brassmonk

molerat said:

What does your on line tax account show for employments / payments / tax paid ?

It reflects exactly what I think the situation is, so matches what I've written above.

sheramber

How is the code S365T made up?
 

brassmonk

sheramber said:

How is the code S365T made up?
 

So you mean what was the code on my other income? If yes, it was S884L.

penners324

Your tax code breakdown will be on your online tax account.
It will start with 1250L and tell what adjustments have been made

brassmonk

penners324 said:

Your tax code breakdown will be on your online tax account.
It will start with 1250L and tell what adjustments have been made

Yes it tells me what adjustments have been made, what it doesn't tell me is why other than to say "you've underpaid tax in a previous tax year". I can't get them to tell me anything more specific to try and fix it.

sheramber

So your code number was split 8840 to the  agency income  and 3650 to the university income.
  You can't do anything until you know the total income figure that HMC  hold for you.
In the meantime
HMRC  estimate your tax  liability as 1532.60+ 248.69+ 1200 (  you do not give exact figure) = 2981.29
2981.29 x5 ( 20% charge) = 14906.45   chargeable to tax
14906.45 + 12500 ( personal allowance) = 27406.45 taxable income 
16016.52 + 2182.15  + 9207.78 = 27046.45
any idea where extra income of 9207.78 comes from?

brassmonk

sheramber said:

So your code number was split 8840 to the  agency income  and 3650 to the university income.
  You can't do anything until you know the total income figure that HMC  hold for you.
In the meantime
HMRC  estimate your tax  liability as 1532.60+ 248.69+ 1200 (  you do not give exact figure) = 2981.29
2981.29 x5 ( 20% charge) = 14906.45   chargeable to tax
14906.45 + 12500 ( personal allowance) = 27406.45 taxable income 
16016.52 + 2182.15  + 9207.78 = 27046.45
any idea where extra income of 9207.78 comes from?

Thank you for doing this maths, I couldn't even work out how much extra income I was looking for. Absolutely no clue where an additional 9k would come from!

penners324

Your personal tax account has 5 years worth of income and tax data on it. Have you checked each year?

brassmonk

penners324 said:

Your personal tax account has 5 years worth of income and tax data on it. Have you checked each year?

Yes, and they all look fine to me. They actually refunded me £50 last year.