Tax Code

[feellikezerobucks]

Apologies for double posting as I have also put this in the Work topic.

I need some help with tax codes as each time I ring the tax office I get more confused.

My tax code was previously 1257L, however this has been changed to 1395L.
My questions are
1 - is that correct?
2 - is what figure do I used on my tax return for determining my tax code?

The change occurred following my (first) tax return (employee but over the CB thresehold) and I'm not sure if I used the correct figures...again the tax office confused me more when I spoke to them!

I am conscious of any errors as I already owe the last two years of child benefit back and don't want to owe anything else 🤦🏻‍♀️

Earnings for 22/23 and 23/24 below.

22/23
Gross pay £69,043.31
Pensionable pay £65,499.96
Employee pension paid £2,620.02
Assessed pensionable pay £5,458.33

23/34
Gross pay £80,217.93
Pensionable pay £69,187.68
Employee pension paid £2,776.49
Assessed pensionable pay £5,765.64

Any help appreciated! 😬

Are you able to log on to the Government Gateway and see whether there's a breakdown of how they arrive at 1395?

Thanks @Bromptotoo the more I try to look into (calling or website) I get more confused 😬

For your tax return you just include your taxable pay and tax from your P60

You have a higher allowance than normal which suggests you entered some pension allowance or something on your tax return

@PickledPurplePickle so I just need to use my gross pay and go back to the 1257L tax code?

1257L means the first £12,570 of income is tax free. This is the standard personal allowance.

The 1395L means that they would be not taxing your income until £13,950, so they are assuming you have something in your tax return to gain you "more" personal allowance of £1,380. As Picked said, this is likely pension relief - do you pay into a personal pension as well as the workplace one? Or do you make additional contributions that you reported.

You are entirely within your rights, however, to go back to HMRC and request a 1257L tax code. If the 1395L code was right it will just mean HMRC owe you money back at the end of the tax year.

If you prepared your own tax return, you should have a Government Gateway account. If you login there you should be able to access your coding notices and this will show the reason for the change in the code. There's a section for "This is how we worked out your tax code".