Sudden Sharp Increase in tax

dubsgirl

Hi there, hoping someone can give advice. Received my payslip today and have had a huge increase in tax taken.
Called tax office they say that I had taken my husbands paye tax credits using paye anytime last Jan and I shouldn't have.

I did do this but I thought I was supposed to as he was out of work at the time. Anyway ok so the tax is owed I suppose but they instructed my employer without any notification to me to reduce my tax credit amount and to backdate to last January.

Basically leaving me to find out when I was paid that they have taken an extra 700EUR from me?

Do they not need to inform me there is a problem with my tax? Seems grossly unfair to leave me now unable to pay my mortgage! Surely they could have arranged staged payments?
The person I spoke to in tax office did say that the way this was done was a mistake but basically tough, now whats done is done...

Alan Shore

So you took your husbands personal tax credit as you are entitled to. A number of questions arise

1. Did he have any income.

2. Why did the tax office assign the credits back to him? Has he taken up employment? You are entitled to assign the credits as you see fit, they should not be reassigning then without your instruction.

It's a little harsh that they have not issued a week one notice to spread the pain a bit better. If your husband has income he will get the benefit in his pay.

srsly78

If your tax has increased that means your husbands has decreased. Your combined earnings should be the same as before, if not then you were paying too little in the past and this is being corrected.

jayobray

Is it possible your husband's PAYE tax credit was transferred to you in error, or his employment expenses (if any)? These are not transferable between spouses. Also, are you sure they didn't issue a revised tax certificate to you through the PAYE Anytime system, as this would be the norm if they are issuing a new deduction cert to your employer?

To effectively change your income suddenly at this stage of the year seems harsh, and I would have though, like Alan said, that a week one cert was not issued.

namenotavailablE

Seem odd that it just happened out of the blue.

Is it possible that your husband instructed a change but forgot to tell you? For example, if he recently started work could he have requested a transfer of tax credits back to him?

allthedoyles

I think you should ask the tax office to put you on a week 1 basis from 1st August , and tell them that you will ask for a tax review ( balancing statement ) in January 2014 .

And tell them that any tax owed can be deducted weekly in 2014 / 2015 , in the same way as they treat all underpayments .

dubsgirl

Thanks everyone, I re-assigned the credits on PAYE anytime myself back in January when my husband lost his job seems I also managed to assign his personal credits at the same time - surely if this is not allowed to happen I should not have had the option to do it on the site?

Also no communication was issued to me when they made the change notification to my employer.
My husband recently started work again and thats when they noticed the error and instructed it to be backdated to January out of my payslip.

The tax office told me that it had been handled badly but that there was nothing they could do now? They say the tax was owed and its now paid, case closed.

Do you think it is worth my while to call back and try speak to someone in a senior capacity? Do the tax office reverse these decisions and offer payment plans?

Thanks again to all

I carried a watermelon

dubsgirl wrote: »

Thanks everyone, I re-assigned the credits on PAYE anytime myself back in January when my husband lost his job seems I also managed to assign his personal credits at the same time - surely if this is not allowed to happen I should not have had the option to do it on the site?

Also no communication was issued to me when they made the change notification to my employer.
My husband recently started work again and thats when they noticed the error and instructed it to be backdated to January out of my payslip.

The tax office told me that it had been handled badly but that there was nothing they could do now? They say the tax was owed and its now paid, case closed.

Do you think it is worth my while to call back and try speak to someone in a senior capacity? Do the tax office reverse these decisions and offer payment plans?

Thanks again to all

No, the tax office won't change the tax cert now. The tax owed due to the mistake has now been paid, Revenue won't refund the money back to you.