Hi,
Not sure if this is the best place to ask this but I need some advice with my self assessment.
I've finally completed 2000-2001 / 2001-2002 self assesements last week (yes, I know they were a bit late but that's another matter!) and yesterday received the painful tax calculations. For 2000-2001 I owe 1600.83 & for
2001-2002 it's 788.66. Not the end of the world in the great scale of things but I don't really have that sort of money available at my disposal and I dread to think what interest / surchages they'll wack onto it :-(
I thought my tax affairs were all straight. All my earnings are PAYE, I'm just into the higher tax bracket and have a company car & fuel card . I'd never completed a tax return until I started with my current company in April 2000. When I finally got round to completing the tax return it was indeed very simple as I have no property, am single with no children, no other incomes etc etc. All that was entered onto the self assessment form was the information from my P60 & P11D. So it looks like the extra tax I am required to pay is down to me underpaying tax due to the wrong tax code...
Which leaves me wondering why have I been supposedly underpaying tax for the last two years. When I started with the company I was getting a new tax code nearly every month. Initially the payroll department put me on the wrong mileage allowance band but that was supposedly rectified by yet another change in tax code, so is it them? Looking at my payslip I appear to be paying lots of tax / NI (569.80 Tax / 211.40 NI on a K73 tax code in Feb 2002, which drops to 551.40 Tax / 215.00 NI on a 56L in April 2002 even though my net pay increased by 90/month) . Our payroll / HR department are incredibly arrogant and unhelpful at the best of times and have been known in the past to make a complete hash of tax matters. Or is it the IR who have not kept up with matters?
Does anyone have an idea as to my best approach on this one? I'm going to see the IR asap & see if I can get to the bottom of it but what really gets me is that it's a matter that is, in effect, out of my hands. Someone else has screwed up my tax code yet I'm to pay! I wish I was working for myself again, at least I'd only have myself to blame ;-) If it's the IR at fault (ie not issuing me with a correct tax code) will they acknowledge & nullify the demand? And if it's the payroll deparment will the IR accept it's not my fault and hound them accordingly or, as I suspect, will I have to pay up & argue the toss later?
Any help on this one would be greatfully received, thanks.
Paul.