Query on USC

Kanney

I began employment with a company in Aug 2015. I paid USC for those 5 months until Jan 2016. My work was then sent my tax cert saying I was exempt (because my salary for the 5 months was less than 13k). This led, unbeknownst to me, to me not paying USC for 2016/2017 financial years. It was then changed , again I wasn't aware, and I paid USC from 2018 until now where I am still in employment and paying it.

I only found out about this underpaid taxes when I applied with my partner for the Help to Buy Scheme. Having gone back and forth with the Revenue, it is clear that I will have to paid back this unpaid tax as I didn't inform the revenue of my salary being over 13k (Never thought to look to be honest).

Would anyone have advice on this and also, if I set up to pay this back through my wages over time, say it takes 12 months, does that prohibit me from applying to the Help to Buy scheme even if I have an agreement with the revenue that it is being paid back in regular installments.

Thanks

Stratvs

USC is a problem and what happened to you is not unusual.
Where there is an underpayment on PAYE ( and USC comes into this for a PAYE employee ) Revenue will usually code the underpayment(s) form the relevant year(s) into your tax credits and deduct from credits over one or two tax years forward. So you end up paying it via payroll. The employer will not know the reason for your deductions increasing. It's nothing to do with them. So once you have Balancing Statements (P21) for the relevant years Revenue will usually do that. You can contact them to be sure. Once that is in place I doubt it would adversely affect the HTB scheme application but again check with them to be sure.

Kanney

Thanks for your reply