How do you dispute tax owed with HMRC?
Discussion
I have spent the last few weeks on the phone bouncing between my employer ands HMRC. They state I owe them tax for the 2025- 2026 tax year, however my employer funded by MOPAC and who tax me through PAYE are saying the tax deducted is correct.
My P60 and tax is all done at source, there are no additional complications. HMRC state I owe £2k in tax but when I ask why they just say I have underpaid. My employed says I haven't. I can't get anywhere between the two of them so am stuck in the middle and nobody can explain why or how this has happened. I did reach out to an independent tax specialist who through a light touch of the details says my PAYE was £1,172 short for the year. But my employer just keep saying it's not.
What is the correct avenue for me to resolve - with each party saying contact the other and both refusing to assist?
My P60 and tax is all done at source, there are no additional complications. HMRC state I owe £2k in tax but when I ask why they just say I have underpaid. My employed says I haven't. I can't get anywhere between the two of them so am stuck in the middle and nobody can explain why or how this has happened. I did reach out to an independent tax specialist who through a light touch of the details says my PAYE was £1,172 short for the year. But my employer just keep saying it's not.
What is the correct avenue for me to resolve - with each party saying contact the other and both refusing to assist?
I say this as a payroll manager, your companies payroll department will be no help at all, they just put in the tax code that HMRC send them and the software works out the tax. It may be that they didn't put the tax code in correctly or didn't receive the new one although this is unlikely as most payroll software receives automatic updates from HMRC.
HMRC should send you their calculation. You will need to check this and then argue with them. Good luck though as HMRC aren't particularly helpful.
HMRC should send you their calculation. You will need to check this and then argue with them. Good luck though as HMRC aren't particularly helpful.
When I was working I always found HR / payroll never got involved in any tax conversations beyond telling me that any codes they had sent HMRC were always correct.
Any such conversations then became between just me and HMRC although when I then appointed an accountant they obviously sorted things out instead.
Any such conversations then became between just me and HMRC although when I then appointed an accountant they obviously sorted things out instead.
You could always select Self Assessment if you want to do your own calculations based on your P60 figures and any other income/allowances etc.
I didn't want to but HMRC, despite me being retired, have now put me on it due to untaxed savings interest. Once I finally got through proving my ID to access SA online (despite having logged in to my HMRC Gateway Account that has already proved my ID), armed with all the info completed it in less than an hour. I've now got the delight of paying them what I owe before 31 Jan and also paying tax 'on account' for 2026/27 predictions. I knew I should have bought another car instead of banking the proceeds from the last one
I didn't want to but HMRC, despite me being retired, have now put me on it due to untaxed savings interest. Once I finally got through proving my ID to access SA online (despite having logged in to my HMRC Gateway Account that has already proved my ID), armed with all the info completed it in less than an hour. I've now got the delight of paying them what I owe before 31 Jan and also paying tax 'on account' for 2026/27 predictions. I knew I should have bought another car instead of banking the proceeds from the last one
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