BR tax code

DSNv

Morning all, I’m hoping someone could offer some advice about how to help my wife resolve an issue with her tax code.

She’s changed full time jobs three times in the past 12 months (Once in Sep 2021, and then again in Feb 2022), and currently she's working through an agency. When she started in Feb she went onto the BR tax code. The agency told her they had submitted all the necessary documents to HMRC (including her P45 from her previous job) to get this updated, but told her it may take up to 6 weeks for her to see her code change.

Fast forward to now and she’s still on the BR code. The agency are insisting they’ve done everything they need to do, but the code still hasn’t been updated. To avoid us going on a wild goose chase could anyone advise what common sense things we could do to get her sorted ?

As always, many thanks in advance !

Dazed_and_C0nfused

If the agency had the P45 from the previous job why didn't they use the tax code from that???

Is this the only job she has been paid by in the current tax year?

NB.  Ignore when she "worked", it's when she was paid that matters?

p00hsticks

Does she have (or can she get) access to her online tax account to check that HMRC have her correct emplyment details ?

https://www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account

DSNv

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

If the agency had the P45 from the previous job why didn't they use the tax code from that???

Is this the only job she has been paid by in the current tax year?

NB.  Ignore when she "worked", it's when she was paid that matters?

I've no idea I'm afraid !

I've just looked at her P45 from her previous job and she was on tax code 1041L. Our thinking was to ask the agency to send us a copy of the information they have submitted to HMRC so we can review it and see if anything doesn't look right.

No this isn't the only job she's worked in during the current tax year, her final pay from her 1st job would have landed during Sep 2021, then she received pay from her 2nd job during Oct/Nov/Dec 2021, and she started receiving pay from her 3rd Job in Feb and Mar 2022.

DSNv

p00hsticks said:

Does she have (or can she get) access to her online tax account to check that HMRC have her correct emplyment details ?

We haven't tried this yet so we'll give it a go, thanks for the suggestion.

DSNv

p00hsticks said:

Does she have (or can she get) access to her online tax account to check that HMRC have her correct emplyment details ?

So, she logged into her personal tax account and for jobs 1 and 2 she was on 1257L, but then for job 3 she went straight onto BR. There was this accompanying narrative:

All your income from this employment or pension was taxed at the basic rate of 20%.

This could be because you had more than one employment or pension.

We've also checked her tax code for 6th April 2022 to 5th April 2023 and she is still on BR. There is the option to check or update her details if we believe the code is wrong, but given we don't really know what we're doing we don't want to make any changes.

Would it be quickest to just call the tax office ourselves ?

littledog70

Quite possible the wrong option was ticked on the new started checklist form.
Best option is just to call hmrc,they can quickly fix it whilst your on the phone and get the correct tax code sent out.

unholyangel

Her new employer wouldn't submit a p45 to hmrc to correct her tax code. Nor would I expect hmrc to allow an employer to request a change to an employees tax code (data protection and the employer doesn't know what other income the employee has). 


She needs to contact hmrc. Either starter checklist had wrong option ticked or one of her employments didn't tell hmrc she'd left. 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

DSNv said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

If the agency had the P45 from the previous job why didn't they use the tax code from that???

Is this the only job she has been paid by in the current tax year?

NB.  Ignore when she "worked", it's when she was paid that matters?

I've no idea I'm afraid !

I've just looked at her P45 from her previous job and she was on tax code 1041L. Our thinking was to ask the agency to send us a copy of the information they have submitted to HMRC so we can review it and see if anything doesn't look right.

No this isn't the only job she's worked in during the current tax year, her final pay from her 1st job would have landed during Sep 2021, then she received pay from her 2nd job during Oct/Nov/Dec 2021, and she started receiving pay from her 3rd Job in Feb and Mar 2022.

Don't waste your/her time with the employer.

Contact HMRC, explain this is the only employment in 2022:23 and ask for the correct tax code to be issued.

It could be the standard emergency code (1257L) but providing it's issue on a cumulative basis her employer will make any refund due for the current tax year the first time they pay her using the new tax code.

DSNv

Thanks very much for all the advice everyone, she's going to give HMRC a call shortly and see what's what. I'll post back with an update once she's spoken to them.

DSNv

So just as an update to this, we spoke to HMRC and it quickly became obvious no-one in the agency’s HR team had forwarded my Mrs’ P45 on to them, so she was being taxed as though she had two jobs.

We managed to get this fixed now and also requested a refund for her via HMRC’s website so all in the way to being sorted now. Thanks very much to everyone that commented 👍🏻