To not pay back all the overpaid salary?

[M3lon]

I've been overpaid for 3 months due to system malfunction (apparently).

Now my employers wants the money back, but they want the gross salary error back rather than the bit they have mistakenly paid to me. Is it really on me to pay back everything they have miss paid, including the additional money paid to HMRC, pension fund, national insurance etc? Or do I just owe them back what they have mistakenly put in my bank account, and its on them to chase the rest of the money they have paid out incorrectly?

It feels pretty unfair to put me into debt while I chase around to get their money back from the people they sent it to in error?

Ahha! So when they say they will deduct the 2000 from my future wages, they don't necessarily mean that I will loose 2000 net? I will loose 2000 gross, and only the ~1100 net?

I wonder if I trust them to do that given they apparently couldn't work out how many days a week I am actually working!

tbh I don't care what they do as long as I don't have phone half a dozen places to track my money down!

When i was over paid by a full month i put it in a savings account and they adjusted my next 2 pays to pay half pay and i used the money in savings

Thanks all - I think I understand what is happening now! You are all correct, I just need to leave it to them to make sure it all ends up balanced by the end of the year across pension, tax, NI and pay.

Did you not notice an extra 1k in your pay? If so you should either have told them or saved it for if/when they asked you to pay it back.

I was overpaid before and only had to pay back the net pay I received not the gross pay. Your payroll should be correcting your records with HMRC.

I do the payroll for a couple of businesses and would do exactly as Oneofthosedreadfulparents says. No way would I expect you to pay back gross. It's really not that difficult to get it back as the employer.

Yep - all sorted now. When they said pay back, they meant to deduct the gross salary from the next payslip which would include recouping the overpaid tax etc.

So by the end of the month everyone should have the right money again.

Phew. I am massively relieved!

No. I'm responsible for payroll at my workplace - if I overpaid you, I would expect you to repay your net salary (and I'd apologise for making the mistake in the first place!), but it would be my responsibility to rerun the payroll reports, and contact HMRC and the pension company to rectify my mistake. In effect, this would probably just mean making an adjustment and a lower payment at the next payment period. I don't know your role or background, but I wouldn't expect any of my team to undertake those tasks as it's not the type of task they normally perform and there would be real potential for further errors.

I am a HR Manager and @Oneofthosedreadfulparents is spot on. You only pay back the net amount - your employer (or the jobsworth in their payroll office) is being a complete loon.

That’s good! I was going to say that I once had my bonus double paid to me and they just took back what they had accidentally paid into my bank account. I hadn’t even thought about the tax/pension etc implications!

Just posted and saw it was all sorted OP! Well done, phew! Now....ALWAYS CHECK YOUR PAYSLIPS! :-)

Definitely call ACAS it’s a free advise line but I can’t see how they can make you pay back NI, tax etc as it wasn’t your error. As far as I was aware it was net salary only as that’s what you got.

badass

So I always used to check my pay slips and I've even found errors in the past and sorted them! BUT we moved to electronic payslips that you have to log in to some god forsaken platform to access and...well I haven't been.

I really should know better as the previous time I logged into it nearly 2 years ago, I discovered they hadn't actually processed my promotion (having lost my consent form)!

I think that THEY should doing whatever it takes to rectify the situation with the money that didn't go directly to you. Whether they reduce their future payments to your pension or taxes, work out the return of the money from those agencies to them, or whatever. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the OP to be able to pay back money that she has no control over or access too. It was their mistake. Luckily she's able to pay back the portion that went into her account, but she should not be penalized for their mistake.

You should only repay the net pay that you actually received - it is the employer's responsibility to sort out the tax, NI, pension contributions etc.

I've seen this happen to a fair few people over a number of different employers (usually when someone goes part time and the wage isn't adjusted etc, but the reason isn't really relevant). I have NEVER known anyone have to pay back more than they were paid. The employer has always claimed back the tax, pension etc themselves. Get legal advice, either CAB or your union. Pay back the over payment you received and explain you are seeking legal advice about the rest.

You should pay back the £1100 but the onus is on your employer to sort out the tax and NI etc.

there best bit would be to deduct it gross from your pre tax salary over the coming three months. That should even out Tax and NI and leave nobody worse off. You received the Net amount they shouldn't expect you to pay the gross amount.

Payroll should know how to do this ( I have done payroll in a few jobs at the start of my career so I'm not saying this without experience)

IT was paid through payroll IT MUST BE DEDUCTED BACK THROUGH PAYROLL do not transfer the difference

*their

I work as a tax advisor, you need to speak to the head of payroll at your company, they've made an error therefore they need to ring HMRC through the employer helpline and explain everything to them so that they can refund you the deductions back.

Do people not understand that the payroll system will automatically sort it out?

In simp!e terms it doesn't matter when they payments are made, once the total gross pay is correct the net position will be correct

Glad to hear it's sorted OP, but for PP who say that your employer should be responsible for sorting out tax and NI - recouping overpayment by gross deduction is how this is done.

When tax is calculated, it's done based off your tax code (so 1250L means you annually get gross £12500 tax free but this is split over 12 months. 12500 /12 = 1041.66. Then 20% tax is deducted from any amount over this. 40% kicks in over about £3500pm off the top of my head) NI is calculated on 12% on any gross amount over £720 per month, so it's not as easy as saying your employer should sort out your tax or recalculate it - they are very definite calculations set by HMRC. Easiest way is to deduct gross pay which in turn reduces your liability for tax and NI and corrects your pay over the year.

(there are lots of variables around this, but this is the basic bogstandard explanation)

This happened to me in my old job - they carried on paying me after I'd been TUPEd over to a new service provider. I asked them to calculate the correct amounts, correcting pension, tax, NI etc and send me an invoice - might be different if you still work there though

You should only pay back what they paid you! You shouldn't have to pay back tax etc that they've paid to the HMRC, that's their job to sort out.

Do you have a student loan? If you don't normally earn enough to pay it back you will have to reclaim it yourself afaik. This month will have triggered the threshold