UK tax question about partial-year residency

Quick question-

I only worked for part of the past year in the UK.  I am on PAYE and my tax code is 503L (meaning I have a personal allowance of £5035).

I didn't make much money this year....I think that by April it will be approx £9000. They've taken out approx 22% of my earnings for income tax so far. 

Am I entitled to a refund?  I went to a tax calculator at (www.worksmart.org.uk) and it calculated that the income tax on these earnings is much less than what I have paid to date but the Brits I work with say I am not due to get anything back.

If I am due to get a refund what is the best way to get my money back ASAP? 

Thank you for your help!!!!!

If you are resident in the UK for tax purposes (because say you have been present for at least 183 days ignoring days of arrival and departure) then you will be entitled to a UK personal allowance (exemption) so should indeed get a refund.

You can ask your tax office to issue you a tax return form after 5 April 2007.  If you file that you'll get some money back.

Thank you for your reply.  That is exactly the answer that I was hoping to hear.  Good news!

We're in a similar situation. We arrived in the UK on August 1, 2006 so -- if I understand correctly -- we meet the 183-day requirement if we're talking about the UK tax year (April 1 to March 31).

My husband just received his P60 and colleagues are telling him that he's probably due a refund, as taxes were withdrawn from his paycheck based on a full-year salary.

What form(s) do we file? How do we find our nearest tax office? Can we do it online? Thanks for your answers!

Your husband needs to phone his tax office (his payroll department can tell him which it is) and he should ask for a tax return to be issued.

Don't forget he'll need to do an employment page and a non-residence page plus a foreign page if he remitted money to the UK from the US.

Depending on your tax residency status there will be various kinds of deductions and reporting required...

Thanks, Guya. We'll call Payroll and get the process started.

We have a pretty straightforward tax situation. In your opinion, is filing our first UK return something we could/should handle ourselves, or take it to a tax specialist (as we do for our US returns)? Our British and EU friends seem to think that hiring an expert is unnecessary and uncommon in our situation.

In general, Brits don't bother to hire a specialist to sort out their taxes as it's usually all sorted out by your employer/payroll. People who have worked for a full year and are not entitled to any kind of refund do not even need to file taxes, as far as I know. The only person in my family to fill out tax returns/forms is my dad and that is only because he is self-employed.

I'm not sure if the situation is different for non-Brits, but all I had to do to get a tax refund last year (I was on the wrong tax code) was call my tax office, send off my P60 and within 2 weeks, they sent me a cheque for £1,500 for the previous tax year, and all the refunds for the current year were just credited on my payslips. No forms to fill in, just a 10-minute phone call!

However, it may be different if you didn't work a full year - there could be forms to fill in, but it shouldn't be anything you can't do yourself fairly easily, hence there being little need for a specialist to do it for you. As a student I had to claim my tax back from vacation work - this consisted of sending off my P45 and filling out a 1-sheet form (a couple of tick boxes and a signature) - it took five minutes to fill out!

We don't know:
1. How long you intend to be in the UK
2. If your husband had any non-UK workdays
3. If you remitted any income or gains to the UK from the US
4. If you have any continuing sources of income or gains in the US - such as bank interest, dividends etc
5. Who paid for the moving expenses
6. If there is a continuing State tax liability

So you'll see that there are a bunch of thing that quickly occur to me without knowing your circumstances that may need to be declared or claimed and so it is not possible to know for certain how complicated your life may be.

Yes it is true that only about one-third of Brits file tax returns compared to 95% of Americans; but non-UK domiciliaries with non-UK income only don't need to file if no remittances have been made to the UK so for non-UK domiciliaries far more than the average one-third will need to file tax returns.

Guya:
I appreciate that there are many nuances in any tax situation, no matter how seemingly straightforward. And I'd be happy to answer your six questions below... but I think you'd agree that a forum isn't the best place to get individual tax advice. I was simply seeking a broad opinion on the matter, seeing as most Americans use professional tax preparers and most Brits don't.

Thanks anyway for taking the time to answer.

SuzyQ.

That is the right answer!!

As this is a public forum you should not be going into every detail.

On balance my experience suggests that your husband should probably be filing a UK tax return.  The questions I listed were designed to get you thinking about deductions as well as the residence, ordinary residence and domicile status so that you get get the best tax answer.