Confused about how much tax I'm paying?

Beeatrixx

I'm probably being a total idiot but I've gotten so much conflicting advice that I'm really confused as to how much I should be getting taxed.

I started a new job at the end of last month, my last job before this one finished last August. I was told that all I needed to do in order to avoid being extortionately taxed was to give my new employer my P45 from my last job and that was that. However while it doesn't look like I'm being emergency taxed my tax is still crazy high - for example on my last payslip I'd earned 350 and after tax was left with 280. Compared to my last job this amount of tax seems insane.

Once and for all, what EXACTLY do I need to do now and how can I claim back any tax I've overpaid? Do I need to apply for tax credits again? Does my new employer - who hasn't once said anything about a form 12A or anything, and hadn't even asked for my P45 until I mentioned it - need to do anything?

relax carry on

Beeatrixx wrote: »

I'm probably being a total idiot but I've gotten so much conflicting advice that I'm really confused as to how much I should be getting taxed.

I started a new job at the end of last month, my last job before this one finished last August. I was told that all I needed to do in order to avoid being extortionately taxed was to give my new employer my P45 from my last job and that was that. However while it doesn't look like I'm being emergency taxed my tax is still crazy high - for example on my last payslip I'd earned 350 and after tax was left with 280. Compared to my last job this amount of tax seems insane.

Once and for all, what EXACTLY do I need to do now and how can I claim back any tax I've overpaid? Do I need to apply for tax credits again? Does my new employer - who hasn't once said anything about a form 12A or anything, and hadn't even asked for my P45 until I mentioned it - need to do anything?

P45s from prior tax years shouldn't really be given to new employers. If you had a p45 from 2015 then it would have been fine to provide that to your new employer. The employer would then complete their details and submit to Revenue to register the employment for tax purposes.

A certificate of tax credits would then issue from Revenue to your employer to allow them to tax you correctly. The time frame for all of this to be implemented can vary from 1 or 2 weeks to several weeks depending on staffing resources in Revenue and how quickly your employer implements the tax credit cert when received.

If you either didn't have a P45 or wanted to speed things up, you could ring the PAYE 1890 number for your area and provide details of your new employment over the phone. This would register the employment for tax purposes and the tax credit cert would issue.

In your case I would just ring Revenue to speed things up. Once the employer starts operating the new tax credit cert you should receive any overpayment of taxes in your wages. This is assuming that the cert issues on a normal cumulative basis (they mainly do)

Re the Form 12a, that is only required for your very first employment in Ireland. Once that form is received you exist on Revenues systems and can register employments via the P45 route or by contacting Revenue directly.

The links below will assist with some reading material regarding the tax system which everyone should be familiar with.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/personal/faqs/starting-work-tax.html

http://www.revenue.ie/en/personal/faqs/tax-credits-emergency-tax.html

http://www.revenue.ie/en/personal/faqs/how-do-i-work-out-my-tax.html