How to claim tax back that was overpaid through your work place

Sometimes, when you are working, you can end up paying too much UK Income Tax , particularly if you change jobs often or have more than one job at the same time. That said, we always start with the premise that you may well have overpaid UK income tax and review every possible aspect of your personal taxation affairs, to determine whether or not you have paid too much UK income tax. Then, we set about claiming tax back for you!

When might you have overpaid tax through your job?

You may have paid too much tax, meaning we can begin our process of claiming tax back for you, if:

  • you started a new job and had an emergency tax code for a while
  • your employer was using the wrong tax code
  • you were only employed for part of the year
  • you’re a student who only worked at holiday times
  • you had more than one job at the same time
  • other income you have that is taxed through your tax code for example, savings/investment income has reduced since you last told HMRC about it – which means the amount of income included in your tax code is too high
  • you stopped working and didn’t get any taxable earnings or benefits for the rest of the tax year
  • your circumstances changed – for example you changed from full to part-time working or became self-employed
  • you were made redundant
  • you received payments after leaving such as arrears of pay, payments in lieu of notice, unpaid holiday pay, redundancy or termination payments including compensation for loss of office or employment

PAYE (Pay As You Earn) and tax codes

Your tax code is issued by HMRC and based on information they have about your income and entitlement to allowances. You’ll find it on your PAYE Coding Notice (it’s usually sent to you before the start of the tax year and it may also be sent to you at other times if something has changed). Not everyone gets a Coding Notice but the code can also be found on your P45 or your payslip. It tells your employer what your tax-free allowances are and how much tax to deduct from your wages before you get paid. This way of paying tax is called PAYE and, if you have several jobs or you work and get a pension, you may have more than one tax code. It’s important to know what your tax code means so that you can check that you are paying the right amount of tax. owever, if you are currently overpaying, or have in the past overpaid, tax then this is where The Taxback Service excels in claiming tax back for you.
However, just because your tax code is the same as a work-colleague doing a similar job, doesn’t mean that your tax code is correct! We check your tax code, ensure that it includes all your personal tax allowances and any and all additional work-related allowances and/or reliefs and, in the event of any errors or omissions, set about claiming tax back overpaid in any or all of the last four tax years. And, once any such claim has been agreedwith HMRC, you will continue to save tax in the current and future tax years – so, our claiming tax back for you is a service that continues to benefit you.

How to reclaim PAYE overpayments

How we set about claiming tax back will depend on your individual personal circumstances.
If you’re an employee

If it appears that you are paying too much tax in the current year we will advise HMRC accordingly. They may already have everything they need to check your tax position but, if not, they will tell us what information they need and any income tax refund due for the year will be repaid via your wages.

If it appears that you have paid too much tax in previous years, we will begin the process of claiming tax back from HMRC by asking them to raise Tax Calculations for the relevany year(s).

If you’ve become unemployed or retired

If you’ve been working but have recently become unemployed or retired, the process of claiming tax back is rather different and has to be dealt with, as have all income tax repayment claims, within specific time limits set down by HMRC for claiming tax back though there are different time limits for claiming tax back for ‘self assessment’ cases.