Income tax and national insurance when it is a second job

[WhenTheDragonsCame]

At the moment I am completing a healthcare related degree and working two jobs for cash and experience.

The first job I started last year and the second job has been since July. Both are bank work so I can pick when I work. Some weeks I do over 30 hours and other weeks I don't do any. I am fairly sure I won't earn enough over the year to have to pay tax but from January I will be increasing my hours so it is a possibility.

My question is if you take a second job should they tax you as if you will be earning enough to pay? How do the second job know that I won't earn enough in the first job? I'm worried that I haven't paid any so far (apart from when they included all my training in one weeks pay) and will be hit with a big bill in April.

Thanks.

Your tax code should be 1185L.
That means you can earn £11,850 this tax year and no pay income tax/national insurance.
You can find this on your payslips.
The tax code on your payslip might be different if you are paid by 2 different companies and your pay varies month from month, so you might get taxed at a higher rate. This overpayment can be claimed back.

Call the tax office and ask then to split your tax allowance between both jobs

NI isn’t cumulative so if you earn over the threshold for paying in the second job, it will be deducted and can’t be refunded.

That means you can earn £11,850 this tax year and no pay income tax/national insurance.

NIC isn't cumulative/aggregrated. It's "per employment". The threshold isn't £11,850 either, it's around £8k. It's on a "per pay period" basis.

So, if you earned £8k in each employment, paid evenly throughout the year, you could earn a total of £16k and pay no NIC. But if you earned, say, £200 in one job in a single week, you would pay some NIC.

Would my employers know whether to take tax though? I haven't paid much from either job yet. I didn't think my second employer would know so I would pay tax and then get it back at the end of the year?

Thank you for the replies.

You should have either signed a p46 or made a Starters declaration (unless you had a P45 for one of the jobs)

So for your 1st job you should declare that this is your main & only job & your personal allowance would be allocated to that. For your second job you would declare that I have another job & you would pay Basic Rate tax on everything.

But with the new RTI system after your employer has made the first couple of Full Payment Submissions the system might work out that you have two jobs & split your code between them (in which case both you & your employers would get an email notification. If not you can ring HMRC or go onto your digital tax account & request this.

Thank you. I told my second employer that I already had a job before I started so maybe they have sorted it out.

Thank you

Have a look to see what tax code it says on both your payslips.

sorry for some wrong advice, I confess I know nothing about NI so my advice was about income tax, but I didn't state that, so sorry!