Lots of folks know they've paid an excessive amount of tax, but - for all sorts of reasons - they don't have their original P45 or P60 certificates to prove it. Very typically they've been lost or misplaced, but increasingly we're finding that the documents were basically by no means issued inside the first location.
In this article, we take a take a look at how you go about claiming a tax refund if you are missing a P45 or P60. Let's kick off with an obvious question: what even is a P45? And what exactly is a P60? Properly, a P45 can be a tax certificate which is given to you by your employer when you leave them for beneficial. It contains details of the earnings you may have received and tax you've paid during the tax year - and is used by HM Revenue & Customs (the tax office) to work out how much tax you should be paying in your next job.
A P60 is very similar; it shows basically the same information as a P45 but, rather than showing 'year to date' income and tax information, it's an annual tax statement which is issued at the end of each tax year (April 5th).
The idea that some employers are failing to provide their employees with P45s and P60s is very worrying - least of all because it is really a legal requirement for them to do so. In our case, it is particularly worrying because HMRC needs to see these documents in order to process your tax rebate claim.
Like many large government departments, HMRC doesn't exactly have a great reputation when it comes to being easy and straightforward to deal with. For starters, HMRC will only accept original copies of your P45 and P60 tax documents. So as helpful as a photocopy may be, it just won't cut it when it comes to securing a tax rebate. This can be a huge problem - especially if the document you are missing should have been given to you by an employer you left way back in, say, 2004.
At this point, HMRC will usually tell you that they're happy to accept your original pay slips as support for your claim. But how many of us have kept the last six years worth of pay slips? Come on.
Fortunately, there can be a way around the problem which doesn't involve physically turning your house upside down and shaking it until the elusive document magically appears.
Previous employers are required to hold your tax and pay records for at least 3 years after the year to which they relate - and many keep records still beyond that for their own internal purposes. This being the case, the easiest way to secure proof of the tax you may have paid is to obtain what's known as a Statement of Earnings.
A Statement of Earnings (sometimes known as an Income Statement) can be a document issued by your employer, detailing your earnings and tax paid for a given period - i.e. the same information that would otherwise be found on your missing P45 / P60. Provided it has been signed by your employer, and either marked with their company stamp or printed on their company letterhead, HMRC will usually accept it as a substitute. Job done!
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