Paid a lot of PAYE in one paycheck - why might this be?

Teacher23

Hi there,

I have a query about PAYE and I was wondering if anyone would be able to advise - I am clueless when it comes to tax, embarrassingly so.

Late last year I took on a second, part-time job as I am trying to bring in as much money as possible to save for a house. I am a teacher (regretting username choice these days haha), and for my second job I get taxed at 42%, as I have allocated all my tax credits to my primary job. The work is somewhat casual, and usually I work in 6 week blocks, a couple of nights a week for a few hours.

Anyway, I recently got paid for a couple of months work. I ended up coming out with less than 25% of my gross pay. Over 67% of my earnings was deducted in PAYE. The rest was USC.

Two things that might have influenced this: I missed a deadline for last months payclaims and had to put two claims in together. I also filed my P21 balancing statement and I had underpaid in 2015 but overpaid in 2016 - the underpayment was more than the overpayment, but the underpayment was only about a tenth of the PAYE I ended up paying. These two factors could have had some impact but I got a serious shock when I received my payslip.

I plan on contacting payroll tomorrow but I was wondering if anyone could shed any light - I'm fairly devastated as I was really relying on the money but sure look

Thanks so much for reading, and sorry it was so long! I didn't want to leave anything out

Stheno

Have you gotten an updated tax credit certificate from the revenue recently?

goldenhoarde

Could be emergency tax if you or the second employer have not notified revenue.

Get their employer number and ring revenue so they can add to your file if its not done.

If you are setup online you could check it out there to see if two employers are setup

As per Stheno's post did you get a new tax cert either by post or online

Teacher23

Hi Stheno,

I haven't that I know of, unless it got mixed up with the post - our house is a bit mad at times so that is entirely possible! Maybe it could shed some light? Thanks for that!

Teacher23

Hi goldenhoarde,

Thanks for your response! I did notify revenue so I would be surprised if it were emergency tax (this is my third paycheck from them). However I've just noticed, for my first tow paychecks I was only taxed at 20%, perhaps this has something to with it? If that's the case I've only myself to blame as Revenue did tell me I would be taxed at the higher rate. Got too excited about the extra money I guess, eep. Thanks for your help!!

GrumpyMe

Teacher23 wrote: »

Hi goldenhoarde,

Thanks for your response! I did notify revenue so I would be surprised if it were emergency tax (this is my third paycheck from them). However I've just noticed, for my first tow paychecks I was only taxed at 20%, perhaps this has something to with it? If that's the case I've only myself to blame as Revenue did tell me I would be taxed at the higher rate. Got too excited about the extra money I guess, eep. Thanks for your help!!

It is possible that you WERE on emergency tax for the first two payrolls - emergency tax is almost "standard" for wks 1-4 including tax credits and weeks 5-8 again a qualified "standard" ex tax credits applies.
Payroll 3 is "payback" time. As you say you have no credits or standard rate cut off for this employment - all will be (and should have been) taxed on all at higher rate. So underpayment for Payroll 1 + 2 was possibly taken and higher rate on all income for this period! Leaving little for you!

Stheno

Teacher23 wrote: »

Hi goldenhoarde,

Thanks for your response! I did notify revenue so I would be surprised if it were emergency tax (this is my third paycheck from them). However I've just noticed, for my first tow paychecks I was only taxed at 20%, perhaps this has something to with it? If that's the case I've only myself to blame as Revenue did tell me I would be taxed at the higher rate. Got too excited about the extra money I guess, eep. Thanks for your help!!

If you were open to it and on the premises that your primary job puts you in the 40% bracket for your second job, if you posted your gross from the second job year to date it would be pretty quick to calculate total liability ytd.

Or you could use the likes of deloitte tax calculator (google that exact phrase)if you have your last two payslips for each job plug in the total gross and it will tel you what you should have netted

jimmycrackcorm

At the end of the day it will balance out. Your mistake was in allocating all your eggs in the primary basket.

The key is understanding what you're likely to gross for the whole year so you know what tax you well pay overall. Then you need to allocate your income and allowances to suit how you want.

If you aren't registered online for myAccount with the revenue then do so because you'll be able to adjust your expected incomes and credits. You can do it during the year and revenue send out updated info to your payroll. So if you expect to get a significant extra income from the second job temporarily then re-adjust online.

Basically I did this last year when I wasn't working for a period but transferred credits etc to my spouse income during that period. After I started a new job, I did it again to re balance back. Effectively my spouse's income was like having a second job in your situation.

This year though revenue changed it so my spouse income got the bulk of the allowances and I had to get them to manually change it though an online query.