Tax code question / second job

A few maybe know, maybe MCTD expertise….

Son does a few hours a week helping at a bubble tea place, helping out a mate and earning 18yo min wage boosted by the odd free bubble tea from time to time when he’s passing. All legit and on payroll etc. with payslips and p60 (OK the free tea might not be being declared)

He’s recently started a second job kitchen portering – again for a few hours a week, all on payroll etc.

He’s got a 1257L code for the tea job, and pays no tax or deductions ‘cos at £35 a week odd he’s way below threshold.

Just found out that his second job has a second job tax code BR for basic rate so all his income from this is being taxed at 20%.

I get the philosophy is that for most people the first job uses all your allowance up and therefore all the rest can be assumed to be taxable, but even with both he’s below allowance threshold.

Is he going to have to do a tax return or is there another code he should be on / does the tax office make the connection and adjust deductions accordingly?

Quite often you’ll do a tax return – they aren’t difficult. See it as a bit of ‘saving’

Obviously it’s many years ago now, but when I was a student this was a regular thing as I always had two jobs. Come the end of the year the tax office would figure out I’d over paid, and send me a cheque. I just saw it as a convenient way of reliably saving a chunk of money!

I’m trying to sell that as a good outcome

I guess better option would be the kitchen job (90% of income) becomes the main job and the other 10% as the (taxed) second

I believe you can request to have your tax code (allowance) split between two jobs if the income is likely to be stable. But that would involve a call to HMRC (good luck with that!).

https://community.hmrc.gov.uk/customerforums/pt/8ca3044b-ddd1-ec11-bea1-00155d975a55

thanks, that forum is useful, also suggests swapping the primary and secondary jobs

But that would involve a call to HMRC (good luck with that!).

I know. I’ve taken a day off to get through the queue!!

I am often in the position of having different sizes incomes from different employers.

So you can do nothing – it will all get sorted at the end of the tax year and he’ll get a nice refund, or you can phone them as long as you’ve had a payslip from each. I’ve always found them quite helpful on the phone !

Equally the HMRC app isn’t awful and you can change employers on that.(although maybe not split you tax free allowance not tried that)
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So you can do nothing – it will all get sorted at the end of the tax year

Does it? – also Hannah said

Come the end of the year the tax office would figure out I’d over paid, and send me a cheque.

or do you have to ask for it (directly or via Tax return)

You may be able to sort this online though it is a bit labrynthine, last year this was not possible as CRAPITA built some really shit webpages for the government. I am similarly afflicted and despite having a reasonably senior HMRC employee as a partner they still managed to louse it up on the phone. I’ve managed to get out of this by requesting removal via the portal.

They have now messed it up by applying the tax code to the variable income rather than the fixed one as happened last year. 10 days for a response to SA tax, 15 for PAYE.

I guess better option would be the kitchen job (90% of income) becomes the main job and the other 10% as the (taxed) second

That would make sense.  HMRC will ordinarily just sort it themselves after next April.  You don’t need to make a tax return.   It would make sense to do the sums to know what they should tell you.  Have either of the jobs assumed he’s getting tips at all?   When I was young I did some waitering – HMRC nicely made some assumptions on tips and taxed me accordingly…  what I didn’t realise was that had been left on my tax code years later when I was actually doing a normal job with no tips.

(OK the free tea might not be being declared)

Those are for quality and training purposes!

I would second phoning them. I do it every year after making a one off pension contribution.  Usually takes 30-60m to get through. I just put my phone on speaker and do something else while I wait.

Not my corner of the pit,  but I know my lad just sorted it at the end of the tax year and treated the refund as a bonus.

It goes something like this.

Around December you get lots of letters saying your tax code is going up/down at apparently random as they try and resolve it, you might end up paying little/no tax as a result those months.

In April you get a letter saying “your refund is £……. give us your bank details and we’ll pay it in automatically otherwise we’ll send a cheque”, wait a few more weeks and the cheque comes.

While it would be nice if I had the money straight away, it’s also nice to get a little lump sum just in time for summer.

I know. I’ve taken a day off to get through the queue!!

Phone at 8am is quickest IME.

He could go the self-assessment route, but it seems to be a disproportionate faff in his circs

Ask about getting a work clothes laundering allowance, assuming that he wears a “uniform”; another £60 in his pot

Can you get that if you aren’t reaching the threshold? The taxman sending you money as opposed to just not taking any?

The work clothes allowance is +60 onto his tax code, rather than cash money

Sure, but won’t reach the level to pay tax, as per OP, so having extra allowance is neither here not there.

Just get him to fill in self-assessment. Easy. Quick. Effective. Almost like a savings plan in this kind of case. Albeit with no interest returned.

Sure, but won’t reach the level to pay tax, as per OP, so having extra allowance is neither here not there.

It costs nothing to add to the conversation with HMRC and it might be of benefit in the future

But will need another conversation if he changes to a job without a uniform.