Student loan repayment on my APN- ??

[difficulttimes]

So yesterday I got another APN and I thought the income tax component was too high and on closer inspection they have included 'Student Loan repayments'. My outstanding student loan is around the £2K mark which as I'm now PAYE I'm due to pay off in December but this is for nearly £4K!!
This seems really unfair and I've had another APN that hasn't included this so it looks like a new strong arm tactic by HMRC.
Has anyone else had this? Have you managed to have this reduced/removed through representation? If so how?

[MrMarkyMark]

You say you owe 2K and they are asking for 4K? Could it be interest accrued?
When you took out the loan, there will have been an agreement, I suggest you dig it out and have a look.

I, too, took out a student loan, however I paid mine back very early doors, maybe you should have done the same.

[difficulttimes]

Sorry the outstanding balance on my student loan is around £2K and I'm due to pay this off in December. When HMRC did the calculation on my income tax I guess they don't take into consideration what you have already paid off so in other words I would be paying more than my outstanding student loan amount.

[MrMarkyMark]

I would give them a call then. Hopefully you are a patient sort, as you could be on hold for a while

[handyandy]

Congratulations to both of you for being young enough to have a student loan! Being an old fart myself we got a grant - I still think it's a bloody cheek to make students take out loans then pay them back as on average the country gets its investment back many times over from people who learn complex skills and then spend the next 40 years in work paying higher levels of tax.

Political rant over - I know I'm off topic.

[MrMarkyMark]

Congratulations to both of you for being young enough to have a student loan! Being an old fart myself we got a grant - I still think it's a bloody cheek to make students take out loans then pay them back as on average the country gets its investment back many times over from people who learn complex skills and then spend the next 40 years in work paying higher levels of tax.

Political rant over - I know I'm off topic.

I got a grant, also, but had to top it up with a loan.
Paid it back soon after I left, whilst under the salary threshold. At the time it was "enforced" by some dodgy leg breakers based in Glasgow, so that may have been an incentive
I'm 47, so no spring chicken

[NotAllThere]

Congratulations to both of you for being young enough to have a student loan! Being an old fart myself we got a grant - I still think it's a bloody cheek to make students take out loans then pay them back as on average the country gets its investment back many times over from people who learn complex skills and then spend the next 40 years in work paying higher levels of tax.

Political rant over - I know I'm off topic.

Still off topic. When we got our grants, only 13% of the populace went to university and it was indeed an investment for the government. Nowadays, with 40% going, the r.o.i. is somewhat lower, as is the level of complexity to be mastered. Hence the need to self-fund. Enlarged access to university is all about unemployment figures - at least until after graduation.

[Fred Bloggs]

Unfortunately, the current pay scales for graduates not fortunate enough to land a blue chip graduate trainee ship is abysmal. My daughter graduated two years ago with a decent 2:1 BA(Hons) from a good (Russell group) university. She earns a rather pathetic £22k a year. All her mates who are also graduates earn way less than that. The days of getting a decent degree and starting a well paid career are for the most part, sadly gone.

[webberg]

My (limited) understanding of student loans is that they become repayable once a threshold of taxable salary/income is reached.

If you declared £100 of salary, that's probably below the threshold.

If HMRC now say that the true taxable amount (on no authority except their own) is £100 plus £900 of loans and that is above the threshold, then you become liable to pay back the loan?

I'm old enough to have qualified for a grant but never had one because I never went to Uni. My children all have loans though and I'll probably end up paying them.

If I had not worked in tax for 40 years where the word "fair" is abused pretty much daily, I'd probably be quite upset.

[DotasScandal]

You say you owe 2K and they are asking for 4K? Could it be interest accrued?

APNs do not include "interest accrued".
Most likely: HMRC trying to "maximize the amount of tax collected", as per their new mission statement.