Overall annual USC charged at once.

Titch90

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could help me with an issue I'm having concerning my recent payslip. I hadn't been charged any universal charge thoughout the year but today i recieved my last payslip of the year and without any notice of it happening i had been charged the total tax due at once. I honestly know nothing about taxes so never realised I hadn't been taxed for USC throughout the year, and obviously payroll hadn't either up until now.

The woman in payroll blamed this happening on the tax office "saying they must have updated their systems and noticed it", but after looking it up on Citizens Information it was clearly her error as it is up to her to deduct the relevant charges per month.

Employers and pension providers are responsible for deducting the Universal Social Charge from their employees’ salaries. They deduct and pay it to Revenue on behalf of employees.

I was just wondering if it is possible for her to do this without any prior notice or consultation of her mistake and what is going to happen with my wages? Of course I am willing to pay the USC but could it not possibly be done over a certain amount of time rather than all at once?

Especially with it being 4 days before Christmas having almost half of my wages taken from me due to a mistake not caused by myself has been a huge shock!

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Mr. Incognito

Your payroll woman is a clown but 99.999999999% percent of payroll people use purchased software and may not know anything about the actual calculations

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do- you have had the benefit of additional monies all year.

Sorry

thesimpsons

Revenue issues employers with instructions on rates of tax and USC and these rates are usually downloaded directly into payroll packages. Employers really have to adhere to these deduction rates and even when I phoned Revenue a nd queried the rates, I was told to use the issued rates. I had an employee who paid 7% USC on all wages for about 6 months and then in early December, Revenue updated their system and employee received a lovely USC refund. Employee didn't even know or understand when I tried to explain the situation to them and unfortunately too many employees don't understand what taxes they have to pay. At the end of the day it is the employers duty to deduct what Revenue instructs them to deduct, and it is the employees duty to ensure their own taxes are paid correctly. I would always keep an eye on any payslips that appear out of wack but if I was running a payroll with hundreds of people on it, it would be difficult to do this.