working for a charity

[hazelcs]

I have just gone from a volunteer to a paid member of the work force for a local charity. I will work 3 x 4 hrs at an hourly rate but the office said they dont need my last p45, will i have to pay nat insurance myself and although i will not be earning alot per week, what is my situation with tax. I certainly dont want to get on the wrong side of them.

[antiguru]

For a whole variety of reasons I won�t bore you with some employers bypass the P45 process by getting you to fill in a P46, which is just a form for registering employment with the taxman when there is no P45, and you should be doing this. Even if your pay comes out below the tax threshold both you and the charity still have to tell the taxman but a this stage the responsibility is the charity�s as they almost certainly run a Pay As You Earn payroll. You shouldn�t need to pay any NI yourself in relation to this job as if it�s due it should be collected at source by your employer. Only the self-employed pay their own stamp.

That said, if you are below the NI threshold for this job then in a year or two you might get a letter inviting you to make a voluntary contribution of NI to protect your stamp for this period of time.

Hope this makes sense.

AG

[Buenchico]

If the last time you were in paid employment was prior to the start of the current tax year (in April), no employer would require your P45. (A P45 is just a statement of how much you've earnt and how much tax you've paid during the current tax year. At the end of the tax year it ceases to be of any importance).

The current personal allowance for income tax is �5035. You can earn up to that amount without paying any tax at all. Assuming that you have no other paid employment (and that you haven't had any other paid employment during this tax year), you could work 12 hours per week throughout the whole of the tax year, at any rate up to �8.06 per hour, without crossing this tax threshold.

National Insurance currently becomes payable when your weekly pay reaches �84. This means that, if your hourly pay is less than �7 per hour, there will be no NICs to be paid. (If your pay is higher than �7 per hour there will be a very small amount of National Insurance to be paid. Your employer shoud deduct this and also pay the corresponding employer's contribution).

As most part-time jobs for charities only offer fairly low rates of pay (i.e. you're probably on less than �7 per hour), it looks as if you'll be able to keep every penny of what you earn without worrying about tax or national insurance.

Chris