I think I just worked out my last employer underpaid me for an entire year- what can I do ?

[giddyg]

I thought it was a tax issue, but when I put my gross salary in the HMRC online tax calculator and compared it to what I was actually paid- I was underpaid by a substantial amount in the ' gross ' section of my pay on my pay slips as reported to HMRC by the company.

What can I do about this ?

are you sure you are not confusing gross salary with taxable gross salary?

I understand that not everyone is great at maths.

But I don't understand how anyone can be in a £110k job yet have such a poor grasp of maths that they had to use the HMRC calculator to work out that their monthly gross should be £110k / 12.

But anyway.

OP, just speak to your HR department and ask them. No one on here can possibly know what the difference is. We can all make educated guesses that you've agreed to a salary sacrifice for something without realising, but we don't know.

And yes, if your pension scheme is a salary sacrifice scheme, then the gross pay shown will be AFTER your pension contributions, and there won't be any pension deduction shown on your payslip.

Not all schemes are salary sacrifice, though, and if yours is not, then your payslip will show your gross pay and then the pension deduction separately.

@TheWordWomanIsTaken maybe. You mean once your personal allowance was taken off ?

Not on HMRC no.
HMRC gross salary amount will be your salary MINUS pension contributions.

This is so you don’t pay tax on pension contributions.
This is why you need to look at your payslips.

The payslips hold the answer here

I think people are trying to help but might be getting frustrated due to you drip feeding little bits of info. You have also given lots of figures but can't say whether you pay anything via salary sacrifice so it's not easy to advise.
It isn't really your accountant that should be first port of call, it is your employer.
Do you have a payslip you could post with your identifying details blacked out? That would help people to understand and hopefully help you.

Yes post your November payslip or list the numbers for the month and we can assist.

I don't have payslips to hand. I only have a P45. I'll get hold of my payslips on Monday.

The gross pay on the Government Gateway is not your annual salary, it is the taxable gross pay which will not be the same if you salary sacrifice, you need to look at the monthly pay slips which will show the values used.

In my gross section it shows

Salary £2000
Pension contribution 1000
Gross Salary £1000

And then sone deductions to get to net pay in bank plus a memo of how much paid to pension £1,200 as included my salary sacrifice plus the employers part.

We recently had a talk in my new company and lots of people had no idea if they'd been on the salary sacrifice scheme in previous jobs and they were telling everyone to go back and check. I'm not the only one..

Do they though? 😂

@ForOpenLeader what I see in my online HMRC account.

@giddyg HAVe you got all your pay slips??? if you have not been given them then ask for them! they may even have sent them to your email address/ remember student loans ni contributions cm and tax are taken off at source,

When dud you leave?

Does your accountant have your payslips

It's vital everyone gets their payslips each month and checks things are correct asap. Also sends them to their home email if only available via an employee portal.

I also (when in payroll) reminded people to check tax codes regularly to ensure they understood them.

I am surprised that no tax return at £100k now -how do they collect the personal allowance withdrawal between £100 and £125k if no tax return (which catches out a lot of people at my place each year)

When I started, I was expecting 6 k net, as I had worked it out on the HMRC tax calculator.

When I kept getting 5k, I reached out to my accountant and he said he'd look into it, maybe I was on the wrong tax code.

Then today, I looked at the gross amount in my gateway account and compared it to the gross amount on the HMRC calculator, which I hadn't done before. And I noticed a difference. That's what I ' just worked out '. I thought it was a tax code issue initially and when I saw that today, I started thinking maybe it's an issue with how much I actually got paid.

End of March 2024, which is why I don't have a P60. I wasn't working in April 2024.

I'd check the tax codes on your payslips