Am I being charged too much Income Tax?

dixirab

Hi
I started work 7 weeks ago and didn't know much about income tax. I have a casual 2nd job too, which is irregular.

Now, I know that the government takes some of the money each payslip, but all my colleagues have said that too much is being taken from mine. :huh:

I read some information from www.direct.gov and the amount they're taking seems right, but it does seem a lot.

Last week I did 25 hours and earned £139 - the government took £30 income tax. My colleague told me that she did 27 hours and they only took £23 income tax.
Big difference.

As far as I know, my tax code should have a code with 3 numbers & 1 letter in it - but I'm on tax code BR - basic rate (currently 22%).

I read the information a bit more yesterday and it said that they take all the tax I owe from BOTH jobs and take it from the one with more money. At least, thats how I interpreted it.

I'm going to ring up the Inland Revenue asap, but don't know what to do after that. Someone told me that they take a while to return the extra 'tax' to you and that I'd have to be on their case to get it.

Does anyone have previous experience of a similar situation and do you know what I can do to resolve the situation (apart from ring the Inland Revenue up)?

Thanks for reading
Dixirab

fengirl_2

If both your employers are operating code BR, then this is wrong. Your main job should have code 522L, which is the basic personal allowance, and the second job only should have code BR, or basic rate tax.
Ring HMRC, give them details of your earnings at both jobs and they will issue code 522L to your main job and your refund will come through your wages.

dixirab

Okay, I've checked out the tax codes on my wage slips. My main job has the code BR (this is the one I'm confused about).

Now I have got another worry, cos I decided to see what the tax codes on my other job payslips were.

I know that last tax years code was 503L and I had that code up till the end of the last tax year. Then it got changed to 522L for 4 weeks, and then it was changed again to 285L. Its been on 285L ever since. This is really confusing. I can find info on 503L and 522L, but not 285L. Can anyone help me work out this one?

dzug

285L gives you an allowance of £2859 per year instead of the normal £5229. (Well officially £5225 but the tax code rounds it upto just below the next £10) 503L would have given you £5039 tax free.

The normal reason for it being 285L rather than 522L would that they are collecting some arrears of tax.

tigtag02

Or that they have split your tax code between jobs yet only applied it to the second.

You need to spreak with HMRC.