Huge work overpayment

Banana5pancakes

Thank you for your replies!
Yeah I have had around £40 each month taken off for student loan repayments. I am also part of the CWU so will be contacting them once I've spoken to payroll.

From what I've read it sounds as though they will take it back before tax and ni are calculated. This is the part that is confusing me though.

If I repay what I owe net why am I then going to be paying back what I owe gross? I still can't get my head around this. It will reduce my net pay so that I can pay back deductions that have already been deducted previously, which isn't tangible money to me as I've not had any benefit. Yet the repayments will impact my finances going forward. 

Banana5pancakes

Incase it's any use to anyone my part time salary is £12000, I have transferred my husband 1k of my tax allowance so I will still pay a nominal amount of tax going forward I think.

t0rt0ise

Banana5pancakes said:

Thank you for your replies!
Yeah I have had around £40 each month taken off for student loan repayments. I am also part of the CWU so will be contacting them once I've spoken to payroll.

From what I've read it sounds as though they will take it back before tax and ni are calculated. This is the part that is confusing me though.

If I repay what I owe net why am I then going to be paying back what I owe gross? I still can't get my head around this. It will reduce my net pay so that I can pay back deductions that have already been deducted previously, which isn't tangible money to me as I've not had any benefit. Yet the repayments will impact my finances going forward. 

The idea is that you pay it back gross but will then pay less tax and NI that month because you are earning less so it works out. So as an easy example.. say you usually earn 1,000 pounds but you are paying back 100 pounds.. so you only get 900 that month and so you are taxed on 900 instead of your usual 1,000. You will need to work it out when it's paid to see if you are out of pocket.

getmore4less

Banana5pancakes said:

Hi everyone,
If anyone can explain the best course of action here I'd really appreciate it.

I came back from maternity leave last year on 30.5.20. I went on the sick because I had postnatal depression and covid just made it worse.

I returned to actual work 1.8.20. I told work at that point I wanted to go part time from 37.5 to 20 hours. No problem they said. I didn't hear anything from work in the build up to my original return date to clarify why I told them at that point.

So I returned on a phased return that would last 8 weeks and by then my change of hours would be done and all would be well.

Except it wasn't, my change of contract has just been put through today so when hr open on Monday they're going to ask for a plan to payback the difference between the full time and part time hours.

I've been putting the net difference aside but I've checked the hr portal and come across some sections I hadn't seen before that states I would have repay gross.

They've also included the months where I was on a return to work as part of the part time contract so that's 8 months in total of about 1k a month gross difference.

My head is about to explode trying to comprehend how this will work with tax, ni, student loan contributions which is money I've not had.

I can't afford to pay back more than 30/40 a month which just seems absurd. 

I've contacted payroll several times to be told they can't do anything until hr amend my contract. Hr told me the request had been lost in December and I had to resubmit it. I've been totally upfront and tried to chase it is as much as I could but got nowhere 

Does the fact we're at the end of the tax year have any implications?

Can someone explain mathematically how paying back the gross amount before deductions doesn't leave me out of pocket because it really feels like it will.

Sorry if this is rambling I've just finished an 11 hour shift.

You came back phased return 1Aug(8months inc. this march) on part time why did you think the phased return was full time for those 1st 2 months not putting it aside like you did for the others?

Were you getting full pay on phased return don't know how that works?

You have the money for 6 of the months(you said you put that aside) just 2 months to find

How much do you have in that pot to pay back?

if your part time 20hr is £1kpm(say no tax(maybe a bit of NI) then the 17.5hr would be around £875 gross less 20%tax  and 12%NI(as a start on deductions) leaving ~<£600pm  net, around £1,200 for the 2 months not £2k

Any holiday left that you accrued during maternity/sick you can use up to cover some of the hours paid but not worked?




.

Banana5pancakes

@getmore4less I was told by my manager it would be full pay on my current contract until the change of hours went through, which I was told would just take a few weeks.

Work didn't know I was going to ask for part time hours as there had been no contact between us in the run up to my return from mat leave or sick leave. Except to confirm receipt of the fit notes. 

getmore4less

Banana5pancakes said:

@getmore4less I was told by my manager it would be full pay on my current contract until the change of hours went through, which I was told would just take a few weeks.

Work didn't know I was going to ask for part time hours as there had been no contact between us in the run up to my return from mat leave or sick leave. Except to confirm receipt of the fit notes. 

The key is when YOU actually changed hours on what agreed date, if you carried on working full hours then you should get paid for them but that is not what I though you said I read it as you asked and it was agreed for the 1 Aug 2020

If you think it is a different date like the end of phased return get it changed

What hours did you work during the phased return and what are the agreed terms of pay for those daya and what hur for the next 6months including this one to make up for the 8month

if you are saying they set the reduced hours start  back date further back say to the 1st June then that is a talk with your manager.,  but then those first 2 months were sick pay what rate was that .

Banana5pancakes

So I was working reduced hours as part of my return to work but I did ask about pay and was told it would be full pay on my then current contract as part of my sick pay package.
I had to be retrained for my role after being off and when I returned this hadn't been organised so in effect there was no work for me to do until a trainer could be allocated. I had told them I would be returning 3 weeks or so before so it wasn't a surprise. This took weeks. They were happy for me to browse the intranet and do bits that I could but usually got sent home after a couple of hours because there was nothing they could give me to do.
Once I went back into my role, it was the 28th September, I full expected to only be paid for the hours I worked. But prior to that it was just me floating about not really doing much.
My return to work form wasn't filled in until October when it was noticed it was missing by hr. 

getmore4less

You need to discuss with your manager getting the transmission in hours date right for what was agreed.

Banana5pancakes

Yeah I agree. He's been off since Christmas so writing it all down has just made realise how badly this has been handled