WIBU to expect HMRC to fix my tax code in February?

[politelywaiting]

Thanks to stat mat pay, I earned less than £10K in 2021/22, even after starting a new job in Feb 22. All PAYE, no self employment or other income.
I knew they’d overtax me, they have form. So I did the online form early Feb, they said they won’t process it til 10 March, they took £200 PAYE in Feb. I phoned in Feb and asked nicely, after an hour’s call they promised they’d put me on a non cumulative code, then didn’t. I phoned again before March pay run, another hour on the phone being spoken to like I’m scum and they wouldn’t correct it as it’s too close to the end of the tax year (because of their delay/error), and instead took £300 PAYE in March. From prior experience I can expect at best a cheque for £500 in November (at worst a bill for £300, which after an hour on the phone they agreed I didn’t owe).

YANBU- in this modern world it takes merely moments to calculate that £10K is smaller than the personal allowance, apologise and switch a tax code, they should have corrected PAYE by March latest. In a cost of living crisis, after a skint year on SMP, with nursery fees to pay, you need it.

YABU- You jumped up peasants think you know how to calculate 20%, your mere £500 refund should be prioritised far below everything else, there’s been a pandemic and now there’s a war on, get over yourself and stop wasting important time of people who earn real money, you’ve got cheek after you already had free money to doss about on mat leave.

You surely wanted to be on a cumulative code not a non cumulative code. Are you sure you didn’t add to the confusion?

Hopefully it won’t take until November for the refund however, that seems an unusually long time.

It’s your employer that is supposed to refund you,every time I have been emergency taxed I get it back with my pay.

This sounds odd, what tax code is on the P45 when you left your last job?
Did you give this to your new employer?
It isn't actually HMRC that tax your wages your employer does and they may have put you on the wrong code.
You want a cumulative code to get your tax back through your wages, if it has an X or WK1 after your tax code this is not cumulative. They are right that it is too late now, it's the 24th of the March.

You need a cumulative code ... And your employer legally has to use whatever code HMRC provide them (normally codes are provided to employers electronically and auto update in system). Employer cannot override what HMRC tell them.
Having said that, it is annoying, my husband realised he was on a month 1 code for some reason,called HMRC and fixed for next pay run so you may have been speaking to someone who is just very unhelpful. I've had similar with passport office recently.

www.gov.uk/new-employee/employee-information

@Fedupbuyer

It’s your employer that is supposed to refund you,every time I have been emergency taxed I get it back with my pay.

It’s nothing to do with the employer - they are only allowed to do what HMRC tell them. They can’t just give you a refund - only if HMRC change the tax code accordingly and inform them.

I do agree though OP, HMRC is a shot show. My husband recently has a tax bill for a few thousand pounds from 5 years ago! Despite always updating HMRC via telephone or changing circumstances.

Oh how stressful! I have nothing to suggest other than phoning them again?

@politelywaiting

Thanks to stat mat pay, I earned less than £10K in 2021/22, even after starting a new job in Feb 22. All PAYE, no self employment or other income. I knew they’d overtax me, they have form. So I did the online form early Feb, they said they won’t process it til 10 March, they took £200 PAYE in Feb. I phoned in Feb and asked nicely, after an hour’s call they promised they’d put me on a non cumulative code, then didn’t. I phoned again before March pay run, another hour on the phone being spoken to like I’m scum and they wouldn’t correct it as it’s too close to the end of the tax year (because of their delay/error), and instead took £300 PAYE in March. From prior experience I can expect at best a cheque for £500 in November (at worst a bill for £300, which after an hour on the phone they agreed I didn’t owe).

YANBU- in this modern world it takes merely moments to calculate that £10K is smaller than the personal allowance, apologise and switch a tax code, they should have corrected PAYE by March latest. In a cost of living crisis, after a skint year on SMP, with nursery fees to pay, you need it.

YABU- You jumped up peasants think you know how to calculate 20%, your mere £500 refund should be prioritised far below everything else, there’s been a pandemic and now there’s a war on, get over yourself and stop wasting important time of people who earn real money, you’ve got cheek after you already had free money to doss about on mat leave.

I'm afraid that I think that yabu. It was never likely to be resolved spontaneously.

On average, it can take HMRC up to 12 weeks to process a tax refund claim. Then anywhere from several days to 3-4 weeks on top of that to receive your rebate. But if eligible will receive the money.

You can apply for a refund online at any time, you don't have to wait til November. I did it as I left my job to become a full time student so wasn't going to be earning any more this tax year, filled in the form on Christmas Eve and had a cheque in my hand a couple of days into the new year.

I've always found the employee helpline people to be very helpful and efficient. I've had to help numerous clients who've been on the wrong tax code, and sometimes HMRC have agreed to issue a new tax code on the strength of a phone call, sometimes they send out a form to complete and return.

It's always been sorted within a few weeks, sometimes a new notice of coding has been issued in time for the refund to be in the following month's pay.

I wonder what's changed?

Set up your personal tax account online and you will be able to request a refund on there after 5th April.

You can also check your page code in there too and make sure there isn't anything in there that shouldn't be.

Make sure next years is correct too.

@Fedupbuyer

It’s your employer that is supposed to refund you,every time I have been emergency taxed I get it back with my pay.

Only if the same tax year. Now the code wasn't corrected in time for the March payroll, it's too late for this tax year, so it's now a waiting game for HMRC to repay.

YABU if you started the new job in February then the FPS sent in Feb advised HNRC that you are now employed by company B, if you haven't provided your P45 from company A (or there's a gap between the leave date from A in your P45 & your start date with B) then you'll go onto an emergency tax code usually 1257L wk1/mth1.

Sometimes HMRC have the relevant information to send an updated coding notice in time for the March pay run but that depends on a number of factors such as have company A advised HMRC that you've left their employment, have company B sent their Feb FPS on time etc.

HMRC do send out coding notices in March though unfortunately there has been some reason as to why you haven't received one.

@Teeturtle Sorry for my typo, it was a non cumulative code that I was on and a cumulative code that I requested and they promised in Feb but didn't apply. Fingers crossed but it was November last time this happened.

@Rumblebear is correct our tax codes go into our payroll system direct from HMRC.

@NoProbLlamaa thanks for the sympathy, ouch I'd be fuming if I was taxed a lot years late, I don't know which is worse!

@icklepiglet , @tigger1001 thanks I did do the online form in early Feb, and yes next years was wrong too, in a random different way.

@JenniferWooley I continue on a zero hours contract for company A, (but am not doing any work for them) so there is no P45, however this has been explained twice to HMRC and appropriate allowances applied but with a non cumulative code which cost me the £500.

Apologies to everyone for the rant, in the light of day far worse things happen at sea, also in port, in Ukraine and in many other places.

I had an awful problem where I did some one off work another employer and they thought that I had a permanent job with them and changed my tax code to recoup loads of money. I couldn't get through on the phone at all so emailed my MP and it was sorted out straight away. Try yourMP as they have caseworkers who have a direct line to the top to get goings sorted out.

When hmrc changed my code to something drastic. I went online and saw they were estimating my usual self employed earnings alongside my current paye contract.
I updated the app coerced earnings to zero and a new code came through.
Can you update expected earnings for that job to zero?

'App coerced' = self employed

YANBU HMRC are utterly shit in all areas.

HMRC allows me to tell them about my income from different PAYE sources on-line. I think this will feed through to tax-code changes. I wonder if OP could have altered her own tax-code on-line, rather than arguing on the phone?

^^^ I did this. And also altered my expectations for the next tax year too

I don’t understand.

Surely if you started a new job in February you’d have given them a P45, they wouldn’t check the M1/W1 box when entering you onto the system so it should all be fine so you’d be on a cumulative code?

How did you end up on an M1 code in the first place?

@Papershade5 I can’t bring myself to bother my MP but you’re right it’s probably the one route left to expedite the process.

@Getoff and @jay55 yes I updated it all online first way back in early Feb, they still got it wrong after that.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone thank you, that sums it up well!

@Merryoldgoat because the zero hours contract that my stat mat pay was paid on is still running (just in case), no plan to work on it in this tax year. Allowance was correctly split to cover all earnings but use of non cumulative code let HMRC take £500 in Feb-March despite me expressly asking them not to twice.

I don’t think you can blame this on HMRC so close to the end of the tax year.

They can’t just take your word for it - you are still employed by the other place and you could feasibly work for both in March leading to an underpayment.

@Merryoldgoat

I don’t think you can blame this on HMRC so close to the end of the tax year.

They can’t just take your word for it - you are still employed by the other place and you could feasibly work for both in March leading to an underpayment.

Surely even if HMRC assume that despite having a 1yo I'm also going to find time to work two full time jobs at the same time and lie about it just to screw the system, if they had applied cumulative codes with the split allowances as I asked in Feb, it would than have correctly taxed anything I earned above the split allowances. (Purely theoretical as one job is more than enough right now!)