Tax after maternity leave

[FSteph]

Hi there,

wondering if anyone can help me figure something out - this tax year so far, I’ve been on maternity leave + smp only with a few KIT days as top up. I’m about to start receiving full pay again as I returned to work in September, but frustratingly I was missed out of pay run so can’t check my payslip! Does anyone know if I’ll pay the full tax amount on my pay between now and March, or if I’ll take home more and pay less tax since my overall earnings for the year will be much lower (around 2/3s) a regular years salary?

thanks!

Yes as you have your tax free allowance and pay tax on anything above that if you have less income for part of the year you will then take home more for the time you are earning your usual amount

Thank you, that’s great! I had convinced myself I must be wrong so very helpful to know I’m not!

Sometimes it only gets corrected at the end of the tax year. Has your tax code been changed for this year? I did a tax return after my mat leave year and was owed £7k from government, a lovely surprise for once!

In the long run you won't pay more tax than you should have, it just depends on how efficient your company's payroll team is I think. I'm just about to come off unpaid shared parental leave (I'm a dad) and my company paid me my previous overpaid tax as a rebate in the months I wasn't earning, but when I was off with our first child I had to get it off HMRC. If you ask your payroll directly they should be able to tell you how they manage it.

It is worth checking your tax code when you go back to work. If it is something like 1257L you should have dynamic tax sustem so they take into account the tax you have paid earlier the in the year to adjust the tax you pay that month.
I get my bonus in month 2 of the tax year and it used to mean that I ended up paying way more tax than I should have done by the end of the year. Now I pay the tax on my bonus and over the next few months I pay -£ tax or less than usual. After a couple of months everything averages out and I get taxed my normal amount each month.
You might have a M1 tax code which is "month 1" and that is taxed as if each month is monthly 1 of the tax year and as if you will get this amount every month of the tax year. As you have had part of the year not earning this amount you might then find yourself paying more tax and waiting until year end to claim it back.
These are just my novice interpretation of tax and I'm happy to be corrected!
The website take home pay calculator might be useful they have lots calculators for various scenarios to calculate tax and what your take home pay might be.

HMRC has real time updating now. So if you get taxed the full amount in one month you’ll get paid the amount of tax back the next month in your pay.

generally payroll will divide your tax free allowance by 12 then factor that in on the first pay then HMRC will notify that you’ve overpaid in the year and instruct payroll to pay you back.