Boy oh boy, what a headache! My tax code had always been NT before now, so all this tax stuff is new.

Got a basic question that I can't find the answer to on direct.gov.uk, HMRC, or the NUS website.

Firstly, a few details. I'm paid weekly, and it's a part-time job. This week I earned £150.01 My tax code is BR0, which I believe is standard (and correct).

So my question is - seeing as we are all entitled to £6,475 a year without paying any tax, and that 6475/52=124.51 why is my taxable income for this week £150.01, not £25.50?

The national insurance seems to work this way - I only paid £4.40 this week, but I've paid £30 in tax.

Anyone able to answer this for me?

it seems that you are on emergency tax until the tax office gives the correct details to your employer
a phone call to your local tax office may quicken the process along …

I see.

Once I come off emergency tax, will it work the way I expect, as in my taxable income this week would have been £25.50?

All I know is, they take just over 25% of my monthly income

It's probably emergency tax, as said. You need to sort it out, and then you'll get a rebate with no interest some time next year.

I'm currently being taxed at over 9000%

I f*cking hate the council tax - it's 90x what I earn

BR0 is basic rate - otherwise known as "emergency tax". You should be on 647L or something. You need to fill out a P46 and give it to either your employer or the tax office so that they can assign you a normal tax code. The tax and N.I. is roughly a quarter of what you earn, but you get used to it.

I always get annoyed if I've had a good month at work and then the tax man takes a four figure sun in income tax. It makes me wonder why I work so hard.
There's been no danger of that recently though.

25%? You lucky lucky bastard! </monty python>

I pay around 40% (because I am on the low rate of tax here) for income tax and the equivalent of national insurance...

But as a result there's a better standard of living and better services are there not?

It's also because the German government largely aren't a bunch of useless corrupt halfwits who spend as much time arguing about what their expenses should be as actually running the country. If you add an average amount of indirect taxation in, people in Britain are actually quite highly taxed compared to a lot of the developed world. We just waste a lot of it. We've got the 4th biggest military expenditure in the world, for example.

Jon

Equally applicable throughout any of our Governments eh? Especially the European Parliament, what do the MEPs call some of their expenses 'CISOs' aren't they? Clock In and Sod Off or something?


Agreed, indirect taxation makes those on lower incomes disproportionately taxed compared to some of our European cousins.


Yup, quiet a few pennies go that way.

Cheers for all the replies.

I'll phone my employer's HR department on Tuesday. I don't think I need to fill in a P46, because I gave them my P45. They must have lost it, or forgotten to hand it in/handed it in late.

Anyone able to tell me whether my assumption is correct, and that if I had been on the correct tax code then my taxable income would have been £25.50?

Depends on the employer. But when I was at uni and worked part time I never got taxed until I hit the tax free limit, then it started at the full rate.
In my current job it's all worked out over the year & the government just steal as much as they feel like.
They're fast enought to take it from you but don't like giving it back.

Which is what I'm worried about, I was on the wrong tax code for a while...How do I go about getting any money paid back?

You want to complete a P50, I think. It took them a fair few months to get my tax from the summer back, though (8-().

Edd