HMRC says I need to pay £2440 tax on £1300 earnings. Can anyone help me figure out why?

[CountySheriff]

Not the most exciting topic, sorry, but hoping the mumsnet hive will have some idea or steer me in the right direction.

I pay tax through PAYE as I'm an employee but I do have additional income on the side - mainly freelance work, including some abroad.

I am a high rate tax payer and have not had any underpaid or overpaid tax in any previous years. 2017-2018 tax year PAYE coding notice did not show any tax underpaid.

Completed my self assessment to declare an additional £1300 earnings (additional to my £54000 salary, already taxed through PAYE), and got a massive shock when the calculation showed as £2,440 owing to HMRC. (Plus another £1200 for 'payment on account'!).

Have tried to call them today but the line was busy and kept cutting me off. And now the office is closed.

I can't figure out what is going on.

I've filled in a self assessment return each year for similar amounts and can't work out why this year the tax owing shows up as greater than additional earnings?

Am trying to submit today so any additional money owed goes out of my PAYE rather than a lump sum I need to pay in Jan.

Thanks @talkinpeece. Do it’s just a manual adjustment to change the figure?

reveal I'm thrilled to hear that someone is so invested in this thread!

I've now gone back and corrected the details - thanks to Mumsnet detective work pointing me where to look - and checked numbers with talkin..

And!! Once I filli n the correct pay details as per my P60.... The calculation says that I owe HMRC the total of £13!

In other words, Mumsnet collective problem solving at its finest, thank you everyone!

@bishalisha
I do not use the HMRC software (now I really know why) but it should let you
@spiderbaby13
Working backwards through my software, its a salary sacrifice and somehow the RTI spewed the wrong number into the wrong box :-(

spider the pension contributions are a salary sacrifice.

Good result!

Quite scary how much can go wrong with RTI... glad it can be sorted!
The payments on account will also go away now as the tax liability is now less than £1,000!

Spiderbaby
TBH I think its AWFUL
If county had accepted their numbers, she'd have been out of pocket by thousands of pounds and it would have taken years to sort out.

I have so many outstanding complaints against HMRC its crazy.
Current tactic is to get MPs involved as they love to be distracted from Brexit and HMRC are scared of them

Ah, I see I'm not the only one who has struggled with the HMRC online form!

And hopefully this thread will be useful to others.

Thank you Talkin and all Mumsnet accountants!

So glad you've got it sorted.

I do not miss the rti software thing from when I was sort of self employed years ago. Boo!

TalkinPeace
You I believe are the legend who enabled thousands of online sellers to stay on the right side of HMRC? I recall doing my first self employed tax return with a printout of your guidance in front of me.

So thank you.

Hi there @FeministFairy
The very same ... remember this?
talkinpeace2.blogspot.com/2014/09/here-is-list-of-questions-i-most.html

If you can think of a web location where I can keep it up to date like I did on ebay I would do so in the blink of an eye

Another irritated accountant standing by and massively frustrated by HMRC. They make things so hard for people to follow, and I've got family I've helped out with tax returns where they are owed thousands due to PAYE and pension issues and it's taking forever to get back.

I'm not even a tax accountant so I don't have any software at all, so I'm doing it all by hand!

Nacreous
Taxcalc give a 30 day trial to a fresh email each year .....
just saying ;-)
I used to use Iris but this one is so much better

and yes, knowing that RTI is populating the system with wrong numbers does not bode well for MTD

Talkinpeece Amazing! I will definitely nab that one for next year (managed to force everyone to be organised this year so they were all in by October!) Thank you - that should save a lot of time :)

@Nacreous @TalkinPeace

I've discovered Taxfiler at £12 per month (depending on your number of returns (it also does accounts and draws amounts in from common cloud systems)

Another vote for taxcalc!

That's the one TalkinPeace

What about on Mumsnet? There's an eBay board and a Money Matters board for starters? And I bet there are many thousands of self employed women on here?

Ahh, a good tax thread draws all the accountants out of the woodwork on a Saturday night

@Kewcumber
NICE

• I'll stick to my Taxcalc as I have lots of clients (incl companies and partnerships) in it for my £1000 a year

and I use VTcashbook and VTfiler for a lot of other things

but for those trying to get past the dodgy HMRC software the more the better

are you still on the UKBF? Maybe we should get back into posting there ?

@feminist
The cool thing about ebay back in the days of James the pink
was that you could write your own HTML layouts to include shed loads of information
(remember Cuddlyhippo for web shortcuts)
Hence why I still have the HTML of the Me page

But I cannot see a way to include it on here in a format I can edit
(MNHQ are aware of the issue and cannot see a work around either - they know who I am and what a resource that page could be )

I'd be happy to "store" it somewhere
but have a mega problem with having to link it to my real name (as has been the case since 2009)

ideas very welcome

Ah - James the Pink and the weekend bunfights on the boards before they were all sanitised.

Another vote for taxcalc....

thank you for a very helpful thread

feminist
Friday nights baiting Tiddy - the good old days
but
I do wish there was somewhere I could keep the page up to date

So glad to have read this, need to do dh's return as he's had untaxed additional income and is clueless. I'm using the opportunity to claw back all the gift aid!

Just had an afterthought.. for the 2017-18 if you are self-employed and your expenses are less than £1,000, it would be worth claiming the new £1,000 trading allowance instead ... hope this helps someone out there!!!