To think this epitomises the squeezed middle - HMRC shitiness

[lurchersforever]

So the weekend before Christmas I have received the joyous news that I have not paid enough tax this year so my personal allowance for the rest of the tax year will be adjusted so I can pay it. This will wipe out the pay rise I have just received (it was the teachers' 5.5% and the first 3 months were pretty much wiped out anyway as they were received in a lump sum in November so taxed more, so that what I received for 3 months was the same as I what I got for one month this month). Next month I'l get nothing as a result of the unpaid tax. I am due another pay rise next month as will start a promoted role so I'll see what that brings but it won't be much as not a huge step up this time.

Next month my mortgage will go up £100 as I've had to renew for the first time since the rates rose (it could be worse) and I also have to pay back pretty much all my child benefit from last year which, as a single parent with an ex who pays nothing (I am with CMS - he's low income but owns a house outright and has money for stuff he wants) stings a lot.

I did exam marking in November, which nearly killed me in terms of workload, and got £630, which is £100 less than the tax I owe so is essentially wiped out by that.

I'm so fed up. I earn a salary that I never thought I would and would have thought if I did it would be great, but disposable income isn't that different from what it was pre-Covid as a result of col etc, but, worse than that, every time I do get a bit extra it's taken away. Enormous increases in workload and stress for next to nothing in the end. What is actually the point in working yourself into the ground for it just to be taken?

That was meant to quote @westieisbest

I know a fair number of part time (job-sharing) teachers and teachers working as HLTAs who have young families.

@lurchersforever
Did you read my post?
Tax message is likely an error.
Earning more is not going to leave you worse off. I'm an examiner too.

I know a fair number of part time (job-sharing) teachers and teachers working as HLTAs who have young families.

Same but that’s not relevant to my point about people on teachers pay scales having their arrears spread? A HLTA will be on a support pay scale.

Another way to reduce the benefits bill would be to make absent fathers pay for their children and then include this in the mother's income when calculating benefits eligibility. The state could pay if needed and recover the debt later to make sure children didn't suffer
Indeed, 100%!

It isn’t tone deaf…the ones who are tone deaf are the sympathy brigade whose sole aim seems to suggest there is no sympathy for those working their backsides off and just get taxed to hell so decide …well to hell with it.

The evidence is pretty clear that this level of taxation has such high levels of disincentives that people adjust behaviours

Your thread is not tone deaf, OP. There are some people on MN who think that no one earning more than NMW should be able to grumble about anything to do with money. It's all very tedious and "race to the bottom"y

OP I had a similar issue a few years ago. I got a letter on Dec 23rd from HMRC cheerily explaining they’d under taxed me and would be taking £3,200 out of my next 3 payslips. At the time I took home £1,300 p/m net. I rang them and cried. I really cried. I don’t think the call handler knew what to do with me. I was, in retrospect, just sobbing.

He popped me on hold for ages and came back and said they would reclaim the money over 3 years. I have never felt so grateful. It is worth a call.

In addition to being a lone parent and disadvantaged through the 'individual' (not household) tax allowances, I am also assessed as a 'household' for the purposes of student loan, and so when I did earn about £2k more last year, it was all taken away from me through a combination of tax and less student loan amount from my child at university which I then had to compensate the child for!

No increase in household income at all, I suppose that makes their overall loan to pay back a bit less?

I keep wondering how to get more income into the household, but if you are on a tax threshold and/or taxed as an individual and don't have a second individual receiving their tax allowance, it's quite hard. I'd need to make a very significant amount more, say £10k extra to earn about £3k extra a year, and the amount of extra work makes it undesirable at the moment.

Why are tax allowances individual and student loans calculation household based? Make it make sense!

Why are tax allowances individual and student loans calculation household based?

As a single parent individual and household amount to the same thing. Tax allowances are individual because some of us back in the dark ages wanted to be treated autonomously and not as an appendage of our husbands.

I agree that the tax system is grossly unfair to single parents, it made my blood boil.

Feeling this too, OP.

If, like me, you have a student loan that you’re never going to pay off before it gets written off (in many, many years time) log in to your student loans and click the refund for overpayments button. With your pay rises, you mind find that you get a nice little lump sum back - it doesn’t absolve your complaint at all, but every little helps.

YANBU. As soon as I had a bit of money saved as I wasn't commuting and paying out for clubs etc during the pandemic HMRC came after me for the higher rate child benefit charge and wiped it out. It was a fair cop but I only made the error because they wrote to me and told me to stop doing tax returns after being self employed then going all PAYE so I assumed that money that actually came from the government that they know about was accounted for by tax another government body tells you is due as they already know all about your income. Also it took them five years to realise. Stupid system. With that and their constantly writing to my DM in her mid 80s for tax she has already paid (and her income is only just above the threshold to pay any tax), safe to say HMRC are not on my Christmas card list.

Squeezed middle?! You're a higher rate tax payer, so amongst the highest earning decile in the country, a privileged minority. With assets too I'm willing to bet, ie pension and house. Which in terms of the world's population puts you in a tiny wealthy minority.

I'd be counting your blessings.

Children have two parents regardless of residence. It’s the maintenance system that’s not fit for purpose

Squeezed middle?! You're a higher rate tax payer, so amongst the highest earning decile in the country, a privileged minority. With assets too I'm willing to bet, ie pension and house. Which in terms of the world's population puts you in a tiny wealthy minority.
I'd be counting your blessings.

Always the race to the bottom

It goes well beyond the maintenance system. Single parents have all the expenses of a couple on one income but that isn’t reflected in taxation. It would make a huge difference if single parents had a higher child benefit cap and still got the equivalent of the old child tax allowance.

@Pleasebeafleabite mostly this is true, but in my case, my children's dad is dead, so not able to contribute a second income in the future, although I have tried to invest some money to compensate for that. Clearly, it's not as much as had he carried on in his successful career. I'd like lone households to be treated as the same as two (or three!) parent households for the purposes of tax allowances, as it's unfair that we carry a heavier tax burden than two individuals in the same household.

Right on cue 🙄

@BIossomtoes yes, completely, there's several ways in which being a lone parent disadvantages you as you reach your tax thresholds quicker, lose child benefit quicker compared with a two-parent household and then get the whole household income taken into account for student loans, even though yours is less than other people's due to the above.

I'm not moaning too much, I do have a medium household income and am lucky to have a good job, but I would like to be taxed the same as the medium household income delivered by two people.

Support staff are on far less money and more likely to qualify firvtopnup benefits though

I know @TrollTheAncientYuletideCarol. I was a single parent for a long time and the taxation system made me really mad. My dad was the sole breadwinner and was able to utilise my mum’s tax allowance!

But there’s another parent that should be paying who has their own allowances

That fact went right over their heads.

And also has a household to support. And probably doesn’t contribute enough to make much difference.

Yep. Exactly. Where is the aspiration for people to keep more of their hard earned money instead of shelling it out to the ever increasing number of people “unable to work” for which the U.K. seems to be an international aberration….or as the Europeans say..stop having such generous benefits which are payable on a never ending basis