Should my bonus have been taxed at 40%

Fionaanne141

Hello

I was hoping to get some advice. I'm a basic rate tax payer but my £2k bonus this month was taxed 40%. My income is........
Salary 29k
Widows Pension - 6K
Bonus - 2k
My tax code is  636L. Was it rightly taxed at 40%? or should I contact HMRC / await an automatic adjustment over the next few months?

Thanks
Fiona

AnotherJoe

Sounds wrong to me, its as if they've taxed you as if you will be getting that £2k every month.

I would contact your payroll dept in the first place, failing that HMRC

[Deleted User]

Hard to see why. Are we talking July payment? What is the year to date figure on your payslip? More likely, is your code 636L m1, or month 1?

getmore4less

With PAYE some might be at 40% you get it back in future months.

Save a bit of NI over it spread out

Fionaanne141

Thanks guys. Its my payslip for July salary being paid tomorrow, My to date figure on my payslip is £11,666.68

[Deleted User]

getmore4less said:

With PAYE some might be at 40% you get it back in future months.

Save a bit of NI over it spread out

I can’t see that. On a code of 636L the op would have to have earned £14623 by this month to pay any at higher rate. By my calculations earnings, including the bonus, would on,y be £11667 by the end of July.

chrisbur

Fionaanne141 said:

Thanks guys. Its my payslip for July salary being paid tomorrow, My to date figure on my payslip is £11,666.68

You may be on a non-cumulative tax code, or possibly having extra pay it just looks like you have paid extra when compared to normal earnings.  Best way to check is if you can give the tax paid to date that goes with the gross to date figure of 11666.68

EDIT  Tax paid to date of around £1908 would indicate that the tax code is cumulative and no 40% tax was paid.  Somewhat higher would indicate a non-cumulative tax code with some tax at 40% deducted.

[Deleted User]

chrisbur said:

Fionaanne141 said:

Thanks guys. Its my payslip for July salary being paid tomorrow, My to date figure on my payslip is £11,666.68

You may be on a non-cumulative tax code, or possibly having extra pay it just looks like you have paid extra when compared to normal earnings.  Best way to check is if you can give the tax paid to date that goes with the gross to date figure of 11666.68

That’s the figure I had in my last post - 4 months on £29000 salary with £2000 bonus. Looks like non-cumulative code to me.

Fionaanne141

chrisbur said:

Fionaanne141 said:

Thanks guys. Its my payslip for July salary being paid tomorrow, My to date figure on my payslip is £11,666.68

You may be on a non-cumulative tax code, or possibly having extra pay it just looks like you have paid extra when compared to normal earnings.  Best way to check is if you can give the tax paid to date that goes with the gross to date figure of 11666.68

EDIT  Tax paid to date of around £1908 would indicate that the tax code is cumulative and no 40% tax was paid.  Somewhat higher would indicate a non-cumulative tax code with some tax at 40% deducted.

Thanks for all your replies! Below is my payslip details 

Fionaanne141

Here:

chrisbur

You have not paid any tax at 40% it just seems like you paid a lot.  Your normal wage has allowances for tax NI and student loan on which nothing is paid.  When you get extra eg. a bonus these allowances are used up so you pay 20% on all of your bonus, 12% on most of your NI and from memory 9% student loan on all of it.  Tax on a rough calculation would normally be £377 and with the bonus would be £777 that is £400 more which is 20% of the £2000

EDIT    Just to put some exact figures to this
Gross to date 11666.68 less tax allowance for month 4 which is 2123.04 (Table A figure) is 9543.64  You ignore any pence so 20% of 9543 is 1908.60
You can get a rough but close table A figure by putting a 9 on the end of your tax code then divide by 12 and multiply by the month number you are checking.
You did save a bit on the NI as earnings went over the upper earnings limit so about 250 of the bonus had 2% NI deducted rather than 12% which would have been deducted had this bonus been spread out over every month.