unexpected work deductions

magicman62

I work part time and I do not fall into the tax or ni brackets...we were recently advised by our company that our pay dates were being moved by 1 week .To compensate for this my last payslip incorporated 3 weeks wages as I am normally paid fortnightly, when I checked I found that because of the increased amount for that tax date o got stopped £70 in tax etc...can they do that...my yearly wage is the same it is just because we had 1 week in advance...how do I get this back, if I can.  .many thanks

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Why do you think it is wrong?

You have received 50% more pay than normal on your latest payslip.

NI is calculated per payday so that won't change but the tax may well be refunded if your earnings return to the previous pattern.  That will happen automatically with your employer making the refund as part of your pay each payday.  You don't need to do anything.

For example,

Payday 1 = £600 total pay so annual earnings are £15,600 and tax calculated on that basis

Payday 2 = £1,000 total pay so annual earnings are £13,000 and tax calculated on that basis

Payday 3 = £1,400 total pay so annual earnings are now just £12,133 and so on

Grumpy_chap

The tax works exactly as DaC has described.

However, I can see how this is a big hit to cashflow in the immediate term - if normal pay is <£240 per week (to be below standard personal allowance), then a reduction of £70 in one pay period is significant even if that will be drip-fed back over the coming period. 
I am not sure whether the "bump" in one pay may also affect benefits, if applicable in the OP's case.

To what extent is the exact date that this change in pay happened critical? 
It is possible that the higher pay landed in 2021-22 tax year and just pushed the OP over the personal allowance, so making income tax due. 
It is also possible that had that pay landed in 2022-23 tax year, then the OP would have been below the personal allowance and there would be no tax due.
I doubt there is much the OP can do if that is the case, but at least they will know.

molerat

I suspect this is 3 weeks pay arriving in wk1 22-23 so the tax will sort itself over the coming year.  Unfortunately any NI deducted will not come back - not sure how multi week pay should be treated when crossing tax years.  This is something that is going to happen most years as 52 does not divide by 3.

magicman62

Sorry this did not cross the the new tax year this was paid in march the last pay slip of the year

magicman62

I also retire in July

Dazed_and_C0nfused

magicman62 said:

Sorry this did not cross the the new tax year this was paid in march the last pay slip of the year

Then the tax should have been correct and you won't be getting any of it refunded.

chrisbur

magicman62 said:

I work part time and I do not fall into the tax or ni brackets...we were recently advised by our company that our pay dates were being moved by 1 week .To compensate for this my last payslip incorporated 3 weeks wages as I am normally paid fortnightly, when I checked I found that because of the increased amount for that tax date o got stopped £70 in tax etc...can they do that...my yearly wage is the same it is just because we had 1 week in advance...how do I get this back, if I can.  .many thanks

There are of course very limited details here so there could well be other factors that I am not aware of affecting this payment.
However on the limited details....
The point at which you start to pay national insurance is lower than the point most but not all people start to pay tax.  This raises the possibility that you may be on a non-cumulative tax code and have not had the full annual tax allowance.
If you would like this checking you would need to give from your last payslip the taxable gross to date and tax paid to date along with week number and the tax code along with anything following it.