Tax with more than one employer

[d8mok]

Sorry if a stupid question but I've never needed to ask as only had one job at a time. However my girlfriend is slightly different in that she is a supply teacher with various agencies.

She has given her p45 to one agency but what about the others? When she gets paid from this one her tax seems correct , but the others she pays loads. Any way around this ? As it sounds like emergency tax or something maybe.

She only started working a couple of months ago so hasn't even reached the threshold yet anyway.

Thanks

[Eric Mc]

One job will be deemed to be her Main Job. Most, if not all of her personal tax allowance (currently £8,105 - changing to £9,440 on 6 April) will be allocated to this "Main Job".

If the salary from the Main Job is equal to or greater than £8,105, then all her allowances are used up by the Main Job and therefore the other employers will be obliged to deduct tax at 20% in full on the salaries they pay her.

If her Main Job gives her a salary LESS than £8,105, it means, in theory, that she has some surplus Personal Tax allowances. In theory this surplus should be allocated to her other employment, although, in reality, this is an area where HMRC don't always get it right as it is currently difficult for them to join up multiple employments for individuals during the tax year.

As she is coming up to the end of the current tax year, when she received her P60s from her employers , it might be worth her while to do a a little summary and review of her income and tax paid for the year 2012/13 to see if she has overpaid or underpaid tax for 2012/13.

[d8mok]

Thanks for the reply.

She's definitely under the limit for 2012/2013 as she hasn't worked enough. So maybe the has overpaid a little.

So there's no way of hrmc combining two employments? Will the p60 show her complete earnings from all jobs?

Cheers

[Eric Mc]

d8mok said:

Thanks for the reply.

She's definitely under the limit for 2012/2013 as she hasn't worked enough. So maybe the has overpaid a little.

So there's no way of hrmc combining two employments? Will the p60 show her complete earnings from all jobs?

Cheers

In theory, HMRC should be able to combine the details and issue appropriate codes. In reality, they find it very difficult to marry up separate tax details for an individuals that are held in different parts of the system.

For the new tax year (2013/14) starting on 6 April 2013 (i.e in a couple of weeks). HMRC are bringing in a new element to the PAYE system called Real Time Information (RTI). The hope is that with employers providing up to the minute and hopefully accurate information about their employees every time they run a payroll (weekly or monthly), HMRC will have the information they need on a much more timely basis and therefore errors in PAYE Codings will become a thing of the past.

I will believe it when I see it.

For tax year 2012/13, your partner, as I mentioned earlier, should carry out a review of her tax position as soon as the tax year ends and she receives her P60s from the various employers she has. It should be a fairly simple matter for her to work out what her correct tax liability for 2012/13 should have been. She can then compare the correct liability against how much tax she has paid by deduction through the PAYE system for 2012/13.
The tax deducted in 2012/13 for each employment will be shown on the P60s.

[mph1977]

I think Eric has covered this pretty comprehensively, the tax system is not brilliantly set up to cope with multiple 'main jobs' although you can split your tax code across a number of employers ... and the final answer involves refund claims or going onto self assessment in the way the self employed / contractors might even if you are PAYE with each employer.

[Eric Mc]

Yes - once the taxpayer has ascertained has not paid the right tax (either under or over paid), they need to contact HMRC to get the situation rectified.

Self Assessment is one way of doing it. Although many PAYE Basic Rate Taxpayer only individual;s are probably better off contacting HMRC directly and explaining the situation to them.

[d8mok]

Really appreciate the advice. We'll see what happens when the P60 's arrives. Next year she will be above the threshold but this year she didn't start working until recently.

One option she has been offered is a umbrella company. So all the agencies can pay the umbrella and then they deduct the tax etc. I need to cal them to find out there fees though as I can t imagine its free.

So maybe next year hmrc will sort it out themselves. However I'm not holding my breath either as I only have 1 job and they still manage to get mine wrong every year.

Thanks again

[Barkychoc]

If she's getting stressed about it consider using an accountant at the end of the year - just keep every payslip etc.
Possibly worth chatting to one now to understand the best way forward.