Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Original poster

Advice please.....

17 replies

secretsquirrel1 · 15/03/2011 19:10

I'm one of the unlucky ones who has just got the nasty letter from HMRC to say that I've underpaid tax for the last financial year....they say I owe them £1600 which they will deduct monthly from April.

I am a single parent, with no maintenance coming from my ex husband 9and no chance of ever getting any - long story!).

I'm an NHS employee and have been for 30 years. This is the first time that anything like this has gone so horribly wrong and I'm beyond livid that they have screwed up big time and I'm having to pay for someone elses incompetence.

I cannot afford to lose this money/month.

How do I know that HMRC are right about this, and if not, how can I appeal?

Any advice would be very gratefully received.

Thank you.

OP posts:
davidtennantsmistress · 15/03/2011 19:12

what tax code were you/are you on during that year?

do you have any additional benefits on your job?

davidtennantsmistress · 15/03/2011 19:13

(sorry I should say, is yours the standard 'working man's code?')

Chil1234 · 15/03/2011 19:24

That's quite a lot of underpayment. Is it April 2009 - April 2010 that it applies to? You say you work for the NHS. Are you on straight PAYE? Do you have any perks to declare? Do you have any other sources of income?

To check if what they are saying is correct you should probably talk to your wages department. Dig out any notifications of tax code that you have received together with all your payslips for 09/10 and your P11D from last April. Ask HMRC for a full breakdown of why they estimate you owe money. If your wages team have messed up then you may have some recourse against them. If HMRC have given you the wrong tax-code or charged you for some perk you don't get, you can argue against that.

Another way of checking is to use one of the many personal taxation software packages out there. I use one called 'TaxCalc' each year because I've had persistent problems with over and underpayment of tax and like to submit a self-assessment each year rather than leave it to HMRC to calculate. It costs about £25.

Good luck

Original poster
secretsquirrel1 · 15/03/2011 19:33

666L (til 04/2011).

I've had 3 letters from HMRC today; 2 saying that my code is being changed to D0 and the other one saying that its going to be 427L - my salary went up on my incremental date in June so now I'm having to pay 40%.

I'm well confused - is there any point in ringing them tomorrow?

OP posts:
Original poster
secretsquirrel1 · 15/03/2011 19:36

I don't have any perks, either!!

OP posts:
Chil1234 · 16/03/2011 07:02

Do call them. You need to understand why there is an underpayment. If you don't have any perks to declare then your income should have been taxed at a fairly straightforward rate. The fact that your income went up in June 2010 does not affect the April 2009 - April 2010 tax year. However, if you've only been paying lower rate tax on your higher income since June 2010, you may find that is why you are behind today and why they need to change your code from April.

Really do recommend you get in touch with your payroll team to talk this through with them.

Chil1234 · 16/03/2011 07:06

BTW.... did you inform HMRC when your income increased?

davidtennantsmistress · 16/03/2011 07:37

agreed do ring them,

that isn't the usual standard code as it were for most people (being 647L) were you given any reason as to why they put you on 666L (this suggests you can earn more before you pay tax) - not sure about D0 however, I have been out of pure payroll for a few years but ti's not a code I ever remember seeing.

Original poster
secretsquirrel1 · 16/03/2011 17:21

Chil, yes they knew all about the incremental rise (we're only talking about £200pa); DTM I shall have to try tomorrow re: 'our payroll office' (it is now some stupid centralised office - they got rid of our on site payroll office).

OP posts:
Chil1234 · 16/03/2011 17:31

If you want to work out your tax, and you have no perks or benefits to allow for and no other sources of income, it's quite simple. Take your gross income for the 2010/11 period which will be the cumulative amount on your March payslip plus another month's gross pay.

  • Personal allowance 2010/2011 = £6475 .... 0% tax on that
  • Basic rate tax on everything between £6475 and £37400..... 20% tax on that = £6185
  • Higher rate tax on everything over £37401... 40% tax on that.

Add that up and - barring the last month - your cumulative 'tax paid to date' figure should come close. The thresholds for 2009/2010 were the same so you can also check your April 2010 payslip and see if that adds up

Gottakeepchanging · 16/03/2011 17:34

My dh got all from his company today to ask if he was aware he wouldn't be paid. Hmrc have taken in all back in year. 11k this month alone going to tax so no salary at all.

Original poster
secretsquirrel1 · 17/03/2011 19:30

Shock @ Gottakeepchanging! At least I'm still getting a salary, although they are taking more money off me....

Managed to speak to someone @ our workplace today - they are investigating it.

OP posts:
Original poster
secretsquirrel1 · 17/03/2011 19:32

Thanks, Chil....I'm a numpty when it comes to figures (I have the equivalent of Dyslexia when it comes to numbers)

OP posts:
mranchovy · 18/03/2011 02:41

Didn't look at this first time round - I don't want to panic you but you need to get this sorted, if they put you on D0 it would be very bad. It looks as though they think that you have two jobs, do you have any idea why this is? Check the information on the coding notices they have sent you, do they all refer to the same job? What tax years do they refer to?

But the mess over the tax codes is one thing, what you really need to get to the bottom of is whether you did actually underpay tax in 2009/10.

Good luck with NHS payroll, I hope they manage to sort both these issues for you. If they don't and you are not financially inclined you are probably going to need some help.

Original poster
secretsquirrel1 · 18/03/2011 12:30

Still waiting to hear - thank you all for replying.

Looked again at the dates - the underpayment refers to 2007/8. I was doing extra 'bank' shifts (on top of my normal hours) but was taxed accordingly....so I thought. Obviously not, according to HMRC! Although it's the same job they won't put them together which is why I have all these letters - HMRC see it as two separate jobs. Payroll tell me I'm not the only one this has happened to so I feel a bit better about that!

I have only done about 5 'bank' shifts in the past year so the payroll people are looking to see why my code has changed so drastically.....

OP posts:
mranchovy · 19/03/2011 03:44

2007/8? They are having a laugh. You should write to them referring to Extra Statutory Concession A19. Look this up if you need some help.

I assume that the D0 code is only for the bank shifts? HMRC have done this because your earnings in your main job have gone over the higher rate tax threshold: it means higher rate tax is deducted on the whole of your bank shift earnings (which in the circumstances is probably right). You have probably got two of them because one is for 2010/11 and one for 2011/12?

So the tax coding may not be a problem, but collection of the underpayment for 2007/8 is. HMRC will only apply the concession if you ask for it, so do that and if they think it does not apply they have to explain what information was witheld from them.

Original poster
secretsquirrel1 · 19/03/2011 06:39

Thank you kindly for that mranchovy....until Monday then!

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread