Are my Tax Bands wrong? Help needed!!

tombull82

While going through some of my papers recently I noticed that my higher cut of point is set at 68,000 on my P60, is this right?

I have been married for 3yrs now but when I got married my wife was working, So I assume a band of 68k was right for this, but for the last 2.5yrs my wife has been claiming disability allowance as she fell sick with a long term sickness. During this time I noticed that our higher cut of point was still set as 68k and it also left her employer details attached.
I assumed that this was because she had never actually left the company and could someday return.
In Feb she was been moved onto the Invalidity pension because she will no longer be able to work.

But when I received a statement lately it read out like this.

My employer is listed on the statement.(obviously)
My wife's ex-Employer is still listed.
Our higher cut is still at 68k but then they have taken away 11k as she is receiving the Invalidity pension?
So it reads
68,000
-11,000
= 57,000

Surely the fact that she is now getting the Invalidity pension means they should have taken her old employer off and brought our tax band down to 45k like a normal 1 income family??

Also more importantly Will this cost me when I go to put it right??

Mrs OBumble

I think the fact that you're married means that you get to share tax credits, whether or not both of you are working. (Not 100% sure here). Which would mean no problem. (If you're married, you can choose to be assessed individually, and thus not share the credits, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that.)

Either way: you need to ask the Revenue about this. If there is a problem, the longer you leave it, the worse it will get, and the more you will worry about it. Far better to know the truth, and you won't get that from the speculation here.

Mollywolly

I was let go from my job in mid-December and when I rang the tax office in January to see what happens to my tax credits, I was told that they had already been transferred to my husband. So the simple answer is yes, if you are married you share the married allowance.

Still, no harm in checking with your tax office just to be sure.

leeroybrown

The €68,000 is right. The Invalidity Pension is a taxable income (like a lot of social insurance payments) so your wife will still be entitled to a tax credit for it. I'm not sure of the exact details but the €11,000 is probably a standard deduction placed against the recipient's credits.

leeroybrown

I checked and it appears the current Invalidity Pension for someone under 65 amounts to almost exactly €11,000 per annum, hence the deduction. It all seems perfectly correct to me.

The only remaining question would be why the standard rate credits remain for you? Are you're sure that you're actually benefiting from them when you're being taxed?

tombull82

Thanks for the replies guys..

Thats a bit of a relief so ... If I do ask them to check into it, hopefully I won't be hit with a massive bill as I had thought I would be.

As for credits ?
I was talking about my Tax Bands, I don't believe I mentioned a problem with my credits.

Our did I imply some?

Thanks again