How long it takes to get a P45?

[curious]

I have finished my contract with previous employer and I told my umbrella company to send me the P45 ASAP (as soon as I get my last payslip) - they said it was OK, but now they are telling me that I have to wait until next month as their fiscal month will not end until then. Are we having a laugh or what? This has never been a problem with any other previous employers (including other umbrellas)..... I have searched for this info on gov.co.uk and it says that they are supposed to send their FPS to certain deadlines. My last payment was fallen into one of these, so there were no excuse for them to quickly sort this out for me. Is this not just simply lazyness? So now, they are jsut wasting more time and I would end up paying emergency tax on my next role because of them....

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

If your last payment has been processed by your umbrella company then there is no reason why your P45 can't be issued

[curious]

Thank you! This is exactly what I meant. I can only assume that some umbrella companies are not aware of how P45, FPS and EPS works..... (Especially that giving a copy of P45 to an employee has nothing to do with their legal obligations towards Full Payment Submission and Employer Payment Summary for HMRC). Wow....

[TykeMerc]

Thank you! This is exactly what I meant. I can only assume that some umbrella companies are not aware of how P45, FPS and EPS works..... (Especially that giving a copy of P45 to an employee has nothing to do with their legal obligations towards Full Payment Submission and Employer Payment Summary for HMRC). Wow....

They probably do know (or some of their staff at least do), but they want to delay for a reason I can't grasp either, there's no excuse for this, I'd be getting quite serious in my communications with them by now.

[curious]

Here is another "feature" from the same umbrella company in question: before I finished my contract with them they had deducted pension contribution from my previous payment before I had the chance to opt out from it. When I brought this up with them they said they had to do it and they would not be able to refund that amount to me until I officially opted out from the pension scheme (despite that I had finished my contract by then with my agency and I was not even officially enrolled into the pensions scheme at that point).
Next, I opted out from the pension scheme (officially) and asked the umbrella company to refund the money with my last payment (which was still due to come). They did, but after I received my last payslip I have been checking on the deductions (and of course the refund of the pension contribution) and it did not add up....The only way to get the very same figures on my payslip if the refund was indeed the half of the amount I was supposed to get back. This is because when they deducted the contribution in the first place then they have deducted X on my behalf and Y on the "employer's" behalf. (Quick note here: I do find it utterly ridiculous that umbrellas deduct "pension contributions" nowadays, which is only YOUR contribution twice, the employer will not pay anything into it, just as you pay the employer's NI....)
In order to prove myself that I was right, I have made my calculations on my last and my previous payslips without deducting and refunding any pension contributions. Guess what, the grand total net amount (sum of the two payslips) were significantly different from the grand total net amount on those two payslips in question. I just could not get my head around that how it was possible in the first place that I get significantly less into my pocket after refunding my pensions contribution as opposed to the option if they had never deducted and refunded pension contribution in the first place???? I brought it up with them of course, but they are making all sort of excuses instead of checking on their calculations.....

[SueEllen]

Pension contributions are deducted without tax. If you get a refund it will have the tax applied it before you get your money.

[VelcroPower]

Here is another "feature" from the same umbrella company in question: before I finished my contract with them they had deducted pension contribution from my previous payment before I had the chance to opt out from it. When I brought this up with them they said they had to do it and they would not be able to refund that amount to me until I officially opted out from the pension scheme (despite that I had finished my contract by then with my agency and I was not even officially enrolled into the pensions scheme at that point).

That's right I'm afraid - the pensions legislations state that providing you meet the qualifying criteria the Umbrella Company are compelled to automatically enrol you. You can't pre-emptively opt out - you can only opt out once you have been enrolled.

(Quick note here: I do find it utterly ridiculous that umbrellas deduct "pension contributions" nowadays, which is only YOUR contribution twice, the employer will not pay anything into it, just as you pay the employer's NI....)

The money has to come from somewhere for the employer contributions - the only money the Umbrella company makes is the margin retention. If they had to fork out for everyone's employer pension contributions from their own pocket you'd see higher margins to cover that cost.

In order to prove myself that I was right, I have made my calculations on my last and my previous payslips without deducting and refunding any pension contributions. Guess what, the grand total net amount (sum of the two payslips) were significantly different from the grand total net amount on those two payslips in question. I just could not get my head around that how it was possible in the first place that I get significantly less into my pocket after refunding my pensions contribution as opposed to the option if they had never deducted and refunded pension contribution in the first place???? I brought it up with them of course, but they are making all sort of excuses instead of checking on their calculations.....

The net deduction should be the same as the refund (your employee element) the gross (employer) amount should also be the same but may net down to a different amount depending on many factors including your tax & NIC allowances for that period. If the employee refund is exactly the same and the gross employer refund matches the same as what was deducted initially then you've not suffered any loss.

On the subject of your P45 it's possible that you signed up to a Swedish Derogation contract of employment and were "advanced" some money as Pay Between Assignments. In order to ensure there is no liability on either side for that advance the umbrella company will state that you worked off that period of "advance" and *then* issue your P45. Did you have anything advanced on your payslip?

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Here is another "feature" from the same umbrella company in question: before I finished my contract with them they had deducted pension contribution from my previous payment before I had the chance to opt out from it. When I brought this up with them they said they had to do it and they would not be able to refund that amount to me until I officially opted out from the pension scheme (despite that I had finished my contract by then with my agency and I was not even officially enrolled into the pensions scheme at that point).
Next, I opted out from the pension scheme (officially) and asked the umbrella company to refund the money with my last payment (which was still due to come). They did, but after I received my last payslip I have been checking on the deductions (and of course the refund of the pension contribution) and it did not add up....The only way to get the very same figures on my payslip if the refund was indeed the half of the amount I was supposed to get back. This is because when they deducted the contribution in the first place then they have deducted X on my behalf and Y on the "employer's" behalf. (Quick note here: I do find it utterly ridiculous that umbrellas deduct "pension contributions" nowadays, which is only YOUR contribution twice, the employer will not pay anything into it, just as you pay the employer's NI....)
In order to prove myself that I was right, I have made my calculations on my last and my previous payslips without deducting and refunding any pension contributions. Guess what, the grand total net amount (sum of the two payslips) were significantly different from the grand total net amount on those two payslips in question. I just could not get my head around that how it was possible in the first place that I get significantly less into my pocket after refunding my pensions contribution as opposed to the option if they had never deducted and refunded pension contribution in the first place???? I brought it up with them of course, but they are making all sort of excuses instead of checking on their calculations.....

Umbrella companies, as with any other employer, have to operate pensions auto-enrolment by law Automatic Enrolment | The Pensions Advisory Service. As the name would suggest, there is no choice for the employer but to enrole their staff into a pension scheme - there is then an option for the workers to opt-out but there are rules and regs surrounding this process Opting Out | The Pensions Regulator. You should have had something from the umbrella company or their pensions provider explaining all this.

[curious]

Pension contributions are deducted without tax. If you get a refund it will have the tax applied it before you get your money.

Thanks, it was not really the point... I was talking about a mistake made within the calculations (have never assumed that I would not pay tax on it....).

[curious]

That's right I'm afraid - the pensions legislations state that providing you meet the qualifying criteria the Umbrella Company are compelled to automatically enrol you. You can't pre-emptively opt out - you can only opt out once you have been enrolled.



The money has to come from somewhere for the employer contributions - the only money the Umbrella company makes is the margin retention. If they had to fork out for everyone's employer pension contributions from their own pocket you'd see higher margins to cover that cost.



The net deduction should be the same as the refund (your employee element) the gross (employer) amount should also be the same but may net down to a different amount depending on many factors including your tax & NIC allowances for that period. If the employee refund is exactly the same and the gross employer refund matches the same as what was deducted initially then you've not suffered any loss.

On the subject of your P45 it's possible that you signed up to a Swedish Derogation contract of employment and were "advanced" some money as Pay Between Assignments. In order to ensure there is no liability on either side for that advance the umbrella company will state that you worked off that period of "advance" and *then* issue your P45. Did you have anything advanced on your payslip?

Thanks for the info about Swedish Derogation - I did not know about that, however I did not have anything advanced on my payslip, but it is useful to know about this.