[Finance] October's Pay

[Jam The Man]

Did anyone else suffer a small net pay drop in October?
My employers are saying they've changed nothing, so I called HMRC and they claim nothing has changed... yet I'm £35 out of pocket.
I know it's not much, but it's still £400 a year.

Google says employers might be passing on NI contribution increases to employees...

 

[Biscuit Barrel]

It can't affect you as you are clearly a "working person".

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Did anyone else suffer a small net pay drop in October?
My employers are saying they've changed nothing, so I called HMRC and they claim nothing has changed... yet I'm £35 out of pocket.
I know it's not much, but it's still £400 a year.

Google says employers might be passing on NI contribution increases to employees...

Can you not compare your payslip from September to October's and see where the extra deductions are ?

 

[Muzzman]

I got more than I was expecting, maybe I have it?

 

[RandyWanger]

I'm PAYE and my pay changes each month, it can fluctuate by £40.Have you moved job recently or do you have any salary sacrifice schemes at work that could be the cause, pay rise or anything? These things tend to balance out come the new tax year but always good to keep a record.

 

[Bozza]

Did anyone else suffer a small net pay drop in October?
My employers are saying they've changed nothing, so I called HMRC and they claim nothing has changed... yet I'm £35 out of pocket.
I know it's not much, but it's still £400 a year.

Google says employers might be passing on NI contribution increases to employees...

It won't be Employer NI as...

1. That doesn't come into effect until April 2025.
2. It can't be "passed on" by directly reducing employee pay. It may be indirectly passed on in the form of lower future pay rises.

 

[beorhthelm]

NI change will come in April 2025. most likely some tidy up, error correction or change from pension contributions, taxible benefits etc. either way your employer will know, just have to push them to explain.

 

[Weststander]

Compare your Sept and Oct pay slips, are the tax codes identical?

 

[FatSuperman]

Did anyone else suffer a small net pay drop in October?
My employers are saying they've changed nothing, so I called HMRC and they claim nothing has changed... yet I'm £35 out of pocket.
I know it's not much, but it's still £400 a year.

Google says employers might be passing on NI contribution increases to employees...

I would anticipate November* pay may have changed, since that is when pension auto-enrollment happened again - it is done every three years, so if you opt-out, you have to opt-out again.

Did you take holiday in the summer but not in October, and/or did you reduce your hours in the past year? If you are a shift worker, you can benefit from getting paid extra when you take holiday, due to the way pay is calculated. In the UK, there is some legislation in the working time directive to do with holiday pay supplement. Effectively, when you take holiday, pay is not based on what you would have worked based on your contracted hours, it's based on what you work in practice. So it goes back 52-weeks and calculates your average pay per day for the work you did (including overtime, extra shifts, etc), then applies that to the number of days you took off (this means it covers people that are contracted for 20-hours but regularly do more than that... also for people on 0-hours etc).

*Also note that some companies (weird ones) don't pay fully in arrears, and in fact pay partially in advance. So your October money could be affected by November forecasts, and even by retrospective changes based on September pay!

 

[Brian Munich]

You may have underpaid a bit of PAYE during the previous 7 months and your tax/NI is being adjusted so that it's all correct for the year by the end of March. Have you received a pay rise, bonus or any other benefit in kind since April this year?

 

[Jam The Man]

Can you not compare your payslip from September to October's and see where the extra deductions are ?

Yep.. NI and Tax rose ... but no one can tell me why.

 

[Jam The Man]

I'm PAYE and my pay changes each month, it can fluctuate by £40.Have you moved job recently or do you have any salary sacrifice schemes at work that could be the cause, pay rise or anything? These things tend to balance out come the new tax year but always good to keep a record.

I'm technically in the same job, but have been TUPEd with the exact same conditions and contract.

 

[Jam The Man]

NI change will come in April 2025. most likely some tidy up, error correction or change from pension contributions, taxible benefits etc. either way your employer will know, just have to push them to explain.

Yeah this is what i'm thinking... that said I'm 49 years old and have been employed since i was 15, and am yet to know a properly functioning HR.

 

[Jam The Man]

Compare your Sept and Oct pay slips, are the tax codes identical?

Yep

 

[Jam The Man]

You may have underpaid a bit of PAYE during the previous 7 months and your tax/NI is being adjusted so that it's all correct for the year by the end of March. Have you received a pay rise, bonus or any other benefit in kind since April this year?

I wish!

 

[Weststander]

I wish!

Then assuming taxable gross pay including overtime etc is the same, how do the employees national numbers figures compare?

 

[CheeseRolls]

No idea if it is relevant here or now, but employee benefit rules are changing and will have to be deducted from pay rather than a true up at the end of the financial year. You would think if JTM's company had made an administrative change like this, they would know about it, but then again........

 

[Jam The Man]

Then assuming taxable gross pay including overtime etc is the same, how do the employees national numbers figures compare?

My NI, Tax and Pension payments had been exactly the same for the past 6 months, but then in October then all fluctuated.
NI and Tax contribution slightly up
Pension contribution slightly down

 

[Jam The Man]

No idea if it is relevant here or now, but employee benefit rules are changing and will have to be deducted from pay rather than a true up at the end of the financial year. You would think if JTM's company had made an administrative change like this, they would know about it, but then again........

Unlikely - we didn't even know we'd been TUPEd til the day it happened! Absolute shambles!

 

[Weststander]

Yep.. NI and Tax rose ... but no one can tell me why.

With an identical tax coding in both months, I can think that your gross taxable pay differed.