When/how do you get overpaid tax back?

[MitchT]

In the 2015-2016 tax year the OH paid 40% tax on about £4k of her income, but left her job to take some time out early enough during the tax year to not actually earn enough in that tax year to incur 40% tax, so 20% of £4k is effectively due to be refunded, right? Are HMRC supposed to send a refund (and if so, when will it come) or does she needs to chase it?

A quick Google suggests that she needs to fill in a claim form and send it off with her P45 to HMRC, but she doesn't have her P45 as she since started a new job and gave it to her employer, so her P45 should already be with HMRC.

[telford_mike]

Same thing happened to me last year when I retired. Refund came without me doing anything, but it did take a few months.

[Eric Mc]

The P45 contains a number of pages, one of which is supposed to be retained by the employee. Did she not keep her page?

In any case, she should phone HMRC telling them of the situation so at least they are aware.

[uknick]

Assuming the tax was paid through a normal PAYE system, she'll probably get an automatic refund sometime before the end of July.

This may be a cheque or a change to her personal tax code, I've had both in the past.

However, if you want to spend a few minutes or three on the phone you could call HMRC just to make sure they are aware of it.

[MitchT]

Thanks all. She tells me she had three parts to her P45. One went to her new employer to pass on the HRMC and she still has the other two.

As far as phoning HMRC is concerned ...

Been there and done that when she was given D0 as her tax code when it should have been 1100L. Painful process during which she was asked a series of questions by a computer which then told her they were too busy and hung up on her, so hoping to avoid having to contact them by phone.

[ecs]

They'll send a refund after a while automatically or you can claim it somehow. When this happened to me (was on an emergency tax for about 6 months due to a fk up) one of the guys in our finance team recommended I completed a tax return, I got a cheque from HMRC within a couple of weeks. He offered to help me with it, but since I'm PAYE and only have one job it was just a case of entering the details from my P60 so wasn't difficult at all.

[Your Dad]

I was in a similar situation in 2014, only worked for a short time during the 2014/15 tax year (by choice) and thought I'd overpaid. Phonecall to HMRC sometime in April/May last year to confirm tax code, amounts I was paid and taxed and they confirmed I'd overpaid. Cheque came through about 2 weeks later.

[schmunk]

https://www.gov.uk/claim-tax-refund/too-much-tax-t...

[Ste1987]

Your Dad said:

I was in a similar situation in 2014, only worked for a short time during the 2014/15 tax year (by choice) and thought I'd overpaid. Phonecall to HMRC sometime in April/May last year to confirm tax code, amounts I was paid and taxed and they confirmed I'd overpaid. Cheque came through about 2 weeks later.

This. Be warned though, when I did it, it took me about 25 mins to get through to someone and 2 mins to sort!

[MitchT]

The answer to this question arrived today in the form of a fat cheque! She didn't do anything in the end - it just turned up of its own accord.

[Welshbeef]

Fill in the online self assessment job done.

[malks222]

MitchT said:

The answer to this question arrived today in the form of a fat cheque! She didn't do anything in the end - it just turned up of its own accord.

good news, but I'd just make sure they haven't adjusted her tax code!! I used to claim back tax for using my own car for work and every year they'd try and change my tax code so they didn't owe me a refund. but seeing as my mileage could vary hugely I didn't want this. so just keep an eye out that they don't change the tax code!