Tax return from the your income in the UK

You have the right to ask for tax refund back in the following cases:

1. You paid more on taxes, than you were supposed to.
2. You ended your job.
3. You are leaving UK and you do not plan to work in UK in the same tax year any more.
4. You have sent the tax return (as self-employed) and you have paid more than you should

These four types are the most common for my clients. In case that you have a different problem, please have a look on this page, where you can find additional information.

Employees

1. Request for the tax refund in the same tax year

First, you must check your tax code and inform the tax office, if anything is wrong.

In most of the cases, you get a new tax code shortly and the overpaid amount of money is included in the next salary.

2. Request for the tax refund from the previous tax year

Here, you can check, if you paid the right amount on your taxes. However, the final calculation is made only at the end of the tax year.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) would send you a form P800, in case that they recognised a mistake in your taxes. This calculation is sent at the end of July. In most of the cases, you get a cheque in next 14 days from the moment you received the P800.

If you do not want to wait until the end of July, or you did not receive the form P800, you might ask for the tax refund before the end of the tax year. Basically, you have two options, how to request this amount of money:

1. Online:

   You have to fill in this form and let them verify your identity.

   You should have these documents prepared before filling in the document:

   • PAYE reference number (in form P60).
   • National Insurance Number (NIN).
   • Form P45 (if you have it).
   • Information about state benefits or taxable incomes.
   • Verified account from GOV.UK Verify – registration takes around 15 minutes.
2. Contacting tax office:

   You should have these documents prepared before contacting the tax office:

   • National Insurance Number (NIN)
   • Information about all your jobs that you have (had) and the state benefits that you have received li>
   • Form P45 (if you have it).

   Phone numbers:
   UK phone number: 0300 200 3300
   International calls: +44 135 535 9022

   Opening hours:
   Monday to Friday (8:00 – 20:00)
   Saturday (8:00 – 16:00)
   Sunday and bank holidays – CLOSED.

   The ideal time to cal is in the morning at around 10am (Monday – Friday), because the call centre is not so busy.

   Address:
   You can also write a letter to the tax office (HMRC) on this address:
   Pay As You Earn and Self-Assessment
   HM Revenue and Customs
   BX9 1AS
   United Kingdom

   The tax office is going to proceed in the following order:

   Taxation office (HMRC) will do one of these steps:

   • The HMRC will first contact you to get more information.
   • Then, they will send you the tax refund in the form of a cheque, or directly to your bank account that you filled in your application.
   • Or, they will send you the tax refund in the form of a cheque, or directly to the bank account of the authorised person that you entitled in your application.
   • They might tell you that you are not entitled to get tax refund and explain why.

   You can also apply for the tax refund for the last four tax years.

If you end your job

You should contact the tax office and say that you have the overpayment on your taxes, because of the reduction of your income.

Example:
You start working at a new job on 1st September. Until the end of the tax year 7 months remain (until 5th April of the following year). You get a salary of £1, 000 per month. Your employer reduces automatically 20 % of taxes, that means £200 per month.

You decide that you want to end the job after 3 months and you will find out that you have reduced £600 from your income. You know that you did not work before this job and you will get the same salary in a new job. Therefore, you can easily calculate that you cannot overcome the limit of £11, 000 per tax year. It means you do not have an obligation to pay taxes.

The tax office should give you back £600 which you paid.

You cannot request the money, if you got one of the following benefits:

• Unemployment benefit.
• Employment and supporting contribution.
• Nursing contribution.

In case that you did not get these benefits, contact the work office (‘Jobcentre Plus’) and give them Parts 2 and 3 of your P45.

You get the tax refund, when you have the right for it:

• At the end of the tax year.
• When you start a new job.

You can send the request to get the tax refund also earlier, if you are not working for the period of less than 4 weeks – for example, you finish a job on 10th January and start working only at on 30th February. You did not work for less 4 weeks, so you can ask for the tax refund, as described in the point 1 – contact the HMRC.

In case that you do not get any benefits and not work for more than 4 weeks, you fill in the form P50.

• Basically, you have two options, what to do (via mail and /online).
• For the online applications, it is necessary to have an online account opened at GOV.UK Verify – video and explanation in English.

Leaving UK

Detailed information is available on the official web page of HMRC.

To put it shortly, this is valid for people, who are leaving UK after a part-time job or after a couple of months in the UK.

Example:
You arrive to the UK to work since mid-June and you are planning to leave the country in September. Later, you decided to travel back to the UK and work again (during the following tax year). This is completely fine. However, you cannot ask for the tax refund, if you came back in the same tax year (it means before 5th April of the same year)

You earned 1 000 pounds per month in last three months and your employer reduced 20% from each salary. Therefore, you paid £600 that should be given back to you.

You earned only £3, 000 pounds and the non-taxable amount is £11, 000, so you are not obliged to pay the taxes.

In this case, you will send a request to get your tax refund back at the moment, when you receive the form P45 from your employer. Based on this form, you find out how much you paid on taxes – you might find that you paid 0 and in that case, you cannot ask for the tax refund, as you don’t have the right for that. You should compare the difference between taxes and the insurance that is reduced from your salary. Therefore, you do not have the right to get it back.

The most common is to fill in the form P85 and send it to the HMRC.

• Again, you have two options of filling in the form and sending it to the tax office (via post or online).
• For the online application, you must have an online account at the GOV.UK Verify – video and explanation in English.

You should remember that it is not possible to fill in some parts and return to the form later. Everything must be done at once and sent. I would recommend having all the documents prepared (Parts 2 and 3 of the P45). It is necessary to include all the forms for all your jobs in that year.

• If you do not have this form, you can explain why and you fill in all the information about previous employers. HMRS will verify everything before it prepares the documents for you.
• The tax refund will be send directly to your UK bank account, or sent in form of a cheque. You can transfer your money from the UK account to the Czech one later, or you can reimburse your cheque in Czechia as well.
• The whole process takes from 3 weeks to 2 months and it depends on the provided documents and the work of the tax office.

Only for the self-employed

These instructions are only partially valid for the self-employed, so I would recommend the following website, where you can find more information in English.