Tax return help please

Hi,

Helping a friend file his tax return for 2011/12 and he earned a tidy sum in the region of £130k. He owes roughly £2.5k in tax because he had a personal allowance in the year when his income had shot over the 115k limit. This year his income will drop back to approx £100k again. HMRC must have got wind of this as his tax code for 2012/13 is 565 (K code) so I assume they are clawing this back in tax year 2012/13 which makes sense.

My question is does he have to pay the £2.5k owed for 2011/12 by 31st Jan for an amount HMRC have been clawing back this tax year or can he ask the tax office to net them off? It says on their website 31 Dec is latest filing date in order to collect through a tax code but it seems silly to settle the tax bill and then ring them up immediately afterwards to ask for a revised 2012/13 tax code to get the refund? Does this all make sense? Help much appreciated?

 

Bump! Either my question is tough, this forum is not frequented, I have posted in the wrong place or I smell. Anybody? 96 viewers must have an opinion?

 

He needs to pay the £2.5k owing by 31 January to avoid interest charges. He would have had to file by 30 December 2012 to have this coded out.

HMRC will have reduced his code for 2012/13 on the assumption that he would continue to earn over £100k. So he should call them and have the code amended for the February and March payroll - effectively getting enough of a rebate to cover the 2011/12 tax liability (give or take)