Tax bill of the nurse with two NHS jobs

Mrs L.W. writes: My daughter is a single parent with a small child. She has recently been sent letters by Revenue & Customs, demanding £3,200, and saying she has underpaid income tax since 2016. She tried to telephone the tax office but gave up because of the cost of waiting to be answered. She also tried to contact Revenue & Customs online, but it refused to deal with her as it wanted her passport details and she has none. Why has it taken five years to notify her, with only three months allowed for payment?

I ASKED officials at Revenue headquarters to look into this, and they very quickly explained the root of the problem, which is that your daughter has two jobs, both as a nurse. Both employers believed they were her only employer, so she has been receiving two lots of annual tax allowances instead of one. And since both employers told their tax offices that your daughter only worked for them, the different tax office staff were none the wiser.

The employers submitted tax forms quoting your daughter as saying, ‘This is now my only job’.

You have explained that your daughter was not trying to trick the tax man, and you told me that ‘nursing is nursing, whatever department you are in’, and it should only count as a second job if your daughter took completely different parttime work, in a bar for example. You felt that as your daughter worked for different parts of the NHS, this should be regarded as one employment, and that Revenue & Customs staff were negligent in not realising she had two jobs, so they should scrap the tax bill.

The NHS is one organisation, with one payroll, you said.

Unfortunately, this is not true. NHS Trusts around the country have their own budgets, and they are separate employers.

On the bright side though, I can see that Revenue & Customs staff have written off hundreds of pounds that could have been demanded, and your daughter will be allowed to pay off the rest over a long period, and not just three months.