Tax assessment £500 more than expected.

[Magdachristie]

Dh has just filled in self assessment form as per every other year, he has a normal job, paye deducted at source. Hasn’t changed jobs hadn’t changed thresholds.
Our child benefit came to about 1400 but they’ve assessed his tax at 1900 and we’re not sure why. We have about 1300 charity donation too. Has anyone else found an increase? Maybe a tax code problem but doesn’t seem v much for that.
any ideas welcome.

They provide a detailed breakdown of the calculation. Did this not help?

We couldn’t see that before submitting. Having gone through old payslips it looks like his tax code changed in the May, maybe because of his fuel card, so it looks like that’s the reason. Bit annoying though. Last year with v similar figures was under £1000.
Never mind it is what it is. Will now need to try and find the extra money.

I would give them a ring OP.

Have you included pension contributions?

Work through the calculation to make sure you've included all the right information and there are no errors.

But if a fuel card is taxable, then that could be the reason. He should probably work out if having his work provide a fuel card and therefore pay for his private fuel makes financial sense, especially if it means that he's not just paying tax on his 'free' fuel, but also paying more of his income at 40% instead of 20% and having to repay CB.

For the first time mine was higher than expected this year despite me being mostly PAYE. I had a long discussion with a really helpful person at HMRC who was very patient with me....it didn't reduce my tax bill but did at least give "comfort" that it was right. I still haven't managed to get to the bottom of why my PAYE didn't cover it though.

@Cornelious he doesn’t have any extra pension contributions, just his normal salary sacrifice ones.

@BarbaraofSeville , I’m going to look at the fuel card I think. We don’t actually use that much petrol, so need to do some calculations.

@wornoutdad yes I think it’s right now but still a bit puzzled why it wasn’t sorted at paye

thx for all the suggestions will be having a bit of a think. We’ve never used an accountant as have quite simple finances but think perhaps we’re missing a trick. Might look at one for next year.