Personal allowance reduced

[loveyorkshiredales]

I have filed a Self assessment return for my husband for Child Benefit Charge in Oct 24 and tax was due and made the payment in January this year.HMRC has decreased DH s personal allowance by £3700 approx for next year,as £1480 tax due from last year. He has this money sitting in Self assessment credits. Will this be readjusted or need to speak to them?
They adjusted the tax code before deadline of 31/01/25. In previous years, i used to file the tax just after 20th Jan, for this year's tax I thought file it earlier and make a payment before deadline.
Please advice

Accountant here, it will be one of two things which you should be able to tell by looking in the tax code breakdown. They will either be collecting the amount due for 23/24 by including it in the tax code in which case a lump sum payment wasn’t due by 31 Jan, it sounds like it might be that as you say there is a credit on the self assessment account. Or it could be an adjustment to collect this years child benefit during the year so you don’t end up with an underpayment at end of year. The amount included in the code is higher becuase in calculating the tax it is multiplied by the tax rate, appears that your dh is higher rate tax payer as £3700 x 40% is £1480.

You don’t need an accountant to sort, ring hmrc and get them to either repay the lump sum you paid or take out of tax code

You can opt out of CB payments if he earns too much. This means you won't have this headache in future.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/high-income-child-benefit/

https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge/stop-child-benefit

I get this (without doing a tax return) for interest on savings above the allowance. They adjust my tax code in anticipation that I will receive a similar amount of interest next year. I will then get a demand for payment in around June/ July for 23/24 tax year.

It is confusing but it all sorts itself out in the end.

Is it best to leave it like that or get it corrected? I'm unable to understand. We don't want to pay more tax . DH is only 10k in higher taxpayer range.

Will he benefit from the increased CB allowance bands, so be exempt from 25/26.

It really doesn’t.

It requires a phone call to HMRC.

It doesn’t really matter either way, it will correct itself in the end but you’ll be overpaying whilst it’s sorts and then eventually get back

Agree, I’m an accountant and stuff like this is a nightmare for us to sort out, it’s not complicated but we have to do all the money laundering checks, engagement letter etc to be able to act and then basically just phone hmrc and hang on the phone for a long period of time before they answer. What we’d have to charge to make it worthwhile doing is totally out of proportion with the value the client is getting from having us acting for them, they are far better just phoning hmrc themselves

Don’t pay an accountant if you’re PAYE, no need. Give HMRC a call and ask them to explain.

Thank you for all the responses. I really appreciate them.