emergency tax?

[Rockabilly Spike]

hi all

for 4 years i worked for an independant PC shop and on april 12th 2008 i was made redundant as they "couldnt afford me" and the shop was downsizing (tho now one of the owners has his son working in the shop!!!).
i was finished with only 10 mins notice and eventually was paid my 4 weeks redundancy pay, begrudgingly from them.

in the meantime i had signed on, then found a job with Currys.Digital. was out of work a total of 9 days.

at the PC shop, my Tax code was 522L.
Currys i have had 3 payslips so far and all on the code BR, which I understand is one of the emergency tax codes used.
I DID give my new employer the P45 on the day I started.

I dont have income from any other jobs.

How do I go about resolving this?
Do i need to speak to my manager or is it something i have to do myself?

When i was at the PC shop i was also on working tax credits and was overpaid apparently cos i estimated what i would earn for that tax year and they work out how much i should receive based on that estimation and my previous years.
my previous year i'd been working 39hrs and then from august 2007 til i finished this april, i was cut to 30hrs.
tax credits was overpaid and i now owe them £269 back!

at Currys, we have our basic rate of pay per hour, but we also get performance pay if the shop does well, theres no real individual commission now.
So i have no idea what my earnings would be from month to month.
if i re-apply for working tax credits, am i gonna be in the same situation, owing them money back if i earn more due to team and shop bonuses?

please help

[Charlie_Bubble]

You need to contact your company payroll office. They are the ones who will deal with your wages and contacting the tax office about codes etc. You could talk to the person you gave your P45 to, just to make sure that they did forward it on for you. Are you paid weekly or monthly, if it's weekly, then having received 3 weekly payslips is nothing to worry about, but if it was 3 months then you should chase it up.

The answer to your working tax credits question, is that you are always going to be overpaid if you don't know roughly what you annual pay is going to be, especially if you get monthly bonus payments, because they could seriously affect your pay if you receive one every month.

[Rockabilly Spike]

get paid every 4 weeks. the first payslip i got was only a fortnights pay cos when i started, it had been a fortnight since the last pay day.

the manager who hired me has just recently been moved to another store, so I'll have to chase it up on monday with my existing manager.

[Julian]

Firstly on the "redundancy" issue, in addition to your 4 weeks redundancy pay you should have received 4 weeks pay in lieu of notice. If you didn't I would be approaching your past employer and asking for what you are legally entitled to.

Any tax you overpay while your code is being sorted out will be refunded to you later. This will not affect your claim for WFTC as that is based on pre-tax earnings.

I would be contacting the WFTC people and giving them all the details of your new job. Ask your new manager to give you some idea of realistic bonus earnings, he should be able to do that.

Contact the company pay office and ask for a progress report in respect of your P45. If they claim not to have it then ask for a P46 form for you to complete.

[mr,m]

May be wrong here bit I think the 4 weeks pay in lieu of notice is only applicable after 6 years service.

[Scarlett]

Originally Posted by mr,m

May be wrong here bit I think the 4 weeks pay in lieu of notice is only applicable after 6 years service.

I guess it depends what his contract states If it says that they must give you 4 weeks notice then they they owe the money and the OP should request it.

His old co are pushing their luck anyway because you cannot make a position redundent and then fill it again with someone else 2 weeks later. You can re-defnine the position and then make the original person redundent but I suspect that it was simply 'My son wants a job.' So I'll get rid of the guy doing the job now.

My wife was pushed out of a shop manager job before on a similar situation but the owner was up front that it was because the son was getting the job and did offer her another job (albeit as a normal member of staff with the cut in wages that would entail!) He also got her to work her notice period and didn't pay any redundency because she'd not been there long enough to make him pay some.

As for the original comment, you should probably call the tax office directly and ask them why they have not updated your tax code. I've (again!) had my code messed around this year and it took the tax office 2 and a half months to correct the tax code.

[Rockabilly Spike]

thanks all.

the shop i used to work for WERE indeed having financial troubles, fine from the VAT people for bad book keeping and one of the owners was prosecuted by Virgin media for selling dodgy cable boxes around the pubs etc and from his house. he was fined 40,000.

I was let go with 10mins notice with the excuse that they couldnt afford me and would re-assess the situation in 2 months.
i wasnt willing to go back anyway.

i dont know if the owners son will be officially on the books as employed there and if he is, he isnt doing my job, which was sales.
the 2 owners now split the sales/counter job between them taking turns while the other and the guys son work upstairs building and repairing.
So he may have been taken on as a technicial or trainee tech.
either way, they got rid of me and did eventually pay me 4 weeks wages in lieu of notice.
I wasnt given any sort of contract when i started there in may 2004.

as for Currys, I'll see my management team 2moro and ask them to look into it for me.
they new manager is a good guy.

cheers for the help

[Julian]

Originally Posted by mr,m

May be wrong here bit I think the 4 weeks pay in lieu of notice is only applicable after 6 years service.

It's after 2 years - See Here

[Angua]

And you are also entitled to any holiday pay you were still owed.

[AndyCambs]

Sorry to hear about your being laid off, but hopefully, as I found, you will discover as one door closes, another opens - and Currys.digital will give you loads more opportunity.

In response to you contract, you should have been given a contract of employment when you started - this would have given details of salary, holiday entitlement, notice periods etc. As has been mentioned above, you should receive the following technically upon being made redundant:
1 - Statutory redundancy (that's generally one week's salary for each year worked over the age of 21)
2 - any holiday entitlement unused (taking into account any holiday used, and the amount of holiday entitlement available for the amount of year worked. (For example if the holiday year starts April and you were laid off 30th May, you would be entitled to 2/12ths of your holiday entitlement - assuming 20days, that would be 3 or four days).
3 - any notice period according to your contract. Ten minutes is not sufficient.
4 - optionally any ex-gratia payment.

To the best of my knowledge, the notice period and holiday pay would be taxable, but the redundancy package is tax free.

if you have been let go without the statutory redundancy and notice period payments, then you perhaps should make enquiries with your local Citizens Advice Bureau who may be able to assist you further.

Good luck in Currys!

[Rockabilly Spike]

ta loads. to be honest i'd rather have nothing more to do with them.
i feel i've moved on, i managed to get 4 weeks pay out of them in small lump sums, without too much hostility.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Rockabilly Spike

either way, they got rid of me and did eventually pay me 4 weeks wages in lieu of notice.
I wasnt given any sort of contract when i started there in may 2004.

as for Currys, I'll see my management team 2moro and ask them to look into it for me.
they new manager is a good guy.

cheers for the help

You have an implied contract and proof that contract is over 2 years old from payslips or tax records.
If you were on a month to month payroll then you normally have the same period as notice so you could well be entitled to another 4 weeks pay.

Now Currys. You handed your P45 to your manager say on day one. It probably only got to payroll a week later and by that point was too late to be incorporated into the payroll run a week later.

Hopefully it will be included for the next payroll run, you could call payroll and check they have recieved it.

When they do they will recompute your pay for the year and refund any overpayment of tax from the BR code on the previous slip and any time you were unemployed and not making use of your personal allowance.

---------- Post added at 10:31 ---------- Previous post was at 10:29 ----------

Originally Posted by AndyCambs

To the best of my knowledge, the notice period and holiday pay would be taxable, but the redundancy package is tax free.

Correct.

---------- Post added at 10:32 ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 ----------

Originally Posted by Rockabilly Spike

ta loads. to be honest i'd rather have nothing more to do with them.
i feel i've moved on, i managed to get 4 weeks pay out of them in small lump sums, without too much hostility.

If someone owes you money you should ask them for it. A months pay plus holiday pay is not small change.