Payroll/Tax code error

stitchmaker85

Called HMRC today as I realised my tax code was incorrect, and has been for several years now, due to me transferring some of my personal tax free allowance to my husband, however my payslips are showing basic tax rate of 1257L. I hadn’t noticed until now. 

The lady I spoke to at HMRC then advised me that they are unable to send my employer electronic notification of my correct tax code, as they received a P45 notice from them on 5th April 2023 to say I had left their employment. I was unaware of this. As far as HMRC are concerned, I don’t have a job. My online personal PAYE account also shows that my period of employment with my company ended on 5th April this year. 

This is not correct and I have been getting paid with no issue throughout this period, all my payslips look fine (albeit with the wrong tax code) so I’m not sure how on earth this could have happened. I currently earn under the tax threshold hence why I transfer part of it over to my husband. 

I’m currently panicking this will affect my national insurance credits towards my state pension and I’ll end up with an incomplete year. 

Has anyone come across something like this before and is it easily rectified? How am I still getting paid?

I have contacted my HR/Payroll department today but they are only contactable by email and haven’t got back to me yet, I’m not able to call them and speak to someone as they don’t take incoming calls. 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

The lady I spoke to at HMRC then advised me that they are unable to send my employer electronic notification of my correct tax code, as they received a P45 notice from them on 5th April 2023 to say I had left their employment.

I would take that with a pinch of salt.

It might be correct that your employment is not still open with HMRC but employers stopped sending P45 details to HMRC about 10 years ago, they report everything under the Real Time Information (RTI) system now.

I suspect the problem is at HMRC's end and not with your employer.

You could try contacting HMRC again and ask if they have received RTI information for the current tax year and if so then they need to update things at their end.

And if your employer has been filing their RTI reports there will no problem for your State Pension (assuming you earn enough in the first place).

penners324

Possible duplicate record in hmrc's systems. 
I got HMRC to see this, had to use my employer PAYE number which will be on the payslip. They are currently merging this into my proper account.

I used hmrc's chat service to do this

tizerbelle

It being 5 April 2023, I wonder if payroll somehow managed to mess up their year end processing for 2022-2023?