53 week tax year?

[AyBee]

I got a letter last year from HMRC telling me I was due a NI refund due to a change of employer mid-year in the 2019/2020 tax year. Unfortunately it took me a long time to get a missing final payslip from my previous employer but eventually I had all the information to provide to HMRC who then sent me a refund. The refund was significantly below what I calculated so I wrote back asking how they calculated it (yes, they don't provide a calculation, just a refund amount). I've just had a response from them and their calculation is based on weeks which seems to be where the discrepancy comes in.

Although I calculated the refund amount based on the 12 months I was paid for (I'm paid monthly), HMRC seem to have used 53 weeks for their weekly calculation (why do they use weeks when I'm paid monthly?). Having looked at the tax calendar, there seem to only have been 2 days in the 2019/2020 tax year that were in week 53, Saturday and Sunday so it seems odd that they've used 53 weeks. I can't seem to find anything on google to suggest that 2019/2020 was a 53 week tax year but I'm sure someone here knows better than I do

[bigandclever]

There were 53 Saturdays and Sundays between 6 April 2019 and 5 April 20, so, yes it was a 53 week tax year. Not much help is it

[AyBee]

bigandclever said:

There were 53 Saturdays and Sundays between 6 April 2019 and 5 April 20, so, yes it was a 53 week tax year. Not much help is it

Not really I know there were technically days in 53 weeks, but I couldn't have been paid on a Saturday or a Sunday, so surely there were only 52 weeks for tax purposes? All very confusing and I know I shouldn't expect more from HMRC sadly.

[Drumroll]

Whilst getting paid monthly may make it easier for you, it doesn't make it easier when calculating actual tax, etc. (all months don't have the same number of working days)

There was an item in the news a few weeks back where somebody was getting paid on a 4 weekly basis (13 payments in a year), but in November he got two wage slips. This meant he went over the universal credit limit and all his benefits stopped. Puts your problem into perspective.


Just checked back and last year there were 53 weeks in the year (week commencing 28th December 2020)

Edited by Drumroll on Friday 31st December 12:26

[AyBee]

Drumroll said:

Whilst getting paid monthly may make it easier for you, it doesn't make it easier when calculating actual tax, etc. (all months don't have the same number of working days)

There was an item in the news a few weeks back where somebody was getting paid on a 4 weekly basis (13 payments in a year), but in November he got two wage slips. This meant he went over the universal credit limit and all his benefits stopped. Puts your problem into perspective.


Just checked back and last year there were 53 weeks in the year (week commencing 28th December 2020)

Thanks, a first world problem, I know, I just didn't know anything about this 53 week year until I was doing some googling yesterday,

Thank you, it's the year before that that is relevant though given it's the 2019/2020 tax year ending April 2020.