Five refunds you can claim now worth thousands of pounds and you’ll get the cash before Christmas

WITH Christmas just around the corner, families across the UK are saving hard to enjoy the festive season.

But with the cost of everything from food to toys soaring, many people are feeling the pinch more so than ever this year.

The good news is, that by claiming any refunds you’re entitled too, you can boost your bank balance and remove some of the strain.

And, far better than finding a few quid down the back of the sofa, some of the refunds are worth thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds.

Many of them can be arranged by filling in a form or making a quick phone call. 

Student loans

Student loan repayments are automatically deducted from people’s pay packets every month.

That means it’s easy to overpay – and sometimes by thousands of pounds.

In fact, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by MoneySavingExpert (MSE) found that over a million graduates overpaid their student loan in the last tax year alone.

Common reasons for this include your income fluctuating from month to month, which could mean it’s deducted in higher paying months, even though you don’t earn enough in the year to meet the repayment threshold.

Another is that you’re on the wrong plan by default.

The MSE FOI data found that this was the case for over 160,000 students in the 2020/2021 tax year. 

You could also be owed a refund if you started re-paying your loan too early, usually because of an admin mistake by you or your employer.

Finally, lots of people may have student loan repayments deducted after they’ve finished paying the whole debt off.

This could be due to the timing of their company payroll, or due to self-assessment if you’re self-employed.

If you’ve overpaid because your income fluctuates each month and you shouldn’t have paid anything at all that year, you can use this form to claim it back.

If you started repaying too early, or you’ve been put down for the wrong plan, you need to ring the Student Loans Company (SLC).

If you’ve finished paying, the refund should be automatic, but if the money doesn’t come in, call SLC.

It’s impossible to say exactly how much you could be owed, because it depends on what plan you’re on, how much your repayments should have been, and how long you were owing money for.

But there have been examples where people have reclaimed thousands of pounds.

Council tax

There are lots of reasons why you might be due a council tax refund.

It could be because you’ve moved and forgotten to cancel the payment to your old council.

Or, it could be because you’ve been awarded council tax support, a discount (such as the single person’s discount), or an exemption.

It might even be because your band has been reduced.

The process for getting a refund will vary depending on where you live.

You can find your council’s website using the government’s tool online. From there, you may need to make a phone call or log into your online account.

The average Band D council tax set by local authorities in England for 2023-24 is £2,065 a year.

This is usually done in 10 instalments, so if you are due a refund of just one month that would be £206.50 back in your pocket.

Marriage allowance

The Marriage Allowance lets the lower-earning spouse transfer up to £1,260 of their Personal Allowance to a husband, wife or civil partner.

This reduces the higher earner’s tax by up to £252 in the tax year. To benefit, the lower earner must have an income below the Personal Allowance, which is usually £12,570.

The government has a handy calculator which lets you know exactly how much you would save.

You can backdate your claim to include any tax year since 5 April 2020. If you were eligible for all four years and get the maximum discount, this would be worth £1,008.

You can apply for Marriage Allowance online.

Pension tax refunds

If you’ve retired and accessed your pension for the first time, you might have paid more tax than you need to.

The amounts overpaid this way can be an eye-watering – in many cases thousands or tens of thousands of pounds.

You’ll usually get a refund automatically at the end of the tax year, but there are ways to get your money back sooner if you need it.

The problem is that many people are charged the “emergency” tax rate when they first start accessing their pension.

It doesn’t apply to the 25% tax-free cash allowance, but anything over that is taxable.

The issue is that the government assumes that whatever you withdraw in the first month, you will also take for the rest of the tax year.

This could lead to massive over-payments each month if, for instance, you withdrew a large sum one-off to renovate your kitchen or pay off your mortgage.

You might have been affected if you’re over 55 and have either taken a taxable sum from your pension or withdrawn an entire pension pot at once. 

If you withdrew £10,000, you could be overtaxed by around £1,500 on that and withdrawals for the rest of the tax year could also be overtaxed. 

If you don’t want to wait till the end of the year for your cash back, you need to fill in one of three forms. These are:

• If you’ve fully withdrawn a pension pot and had no other taxable income for the tax year, you can use P50Z.
• If you’ve fully emptied a put, and will have other taxable income in the same year, you need to use P53Z.
• If you’ve taken a taxable sum, but haven’t fully emptied the pot, you need to use P55.

Delayed travel

If you’ve had any delayed flights or trains this year, you should be entitled to a refund. 

For train travel, some operators will give you a partial refund for just a 15-minute delay, and most give you 50% back if you are delayed by 30 minutes or more.

If you’re stuck waiting for an hour, you’ll usually get the whole lot back.

For flights, you should be able to get compensation if your flight was:

• leaving from the UK 
• leaving from the EU, Iceland, Norway or Switzerland 
• arriving in the UK on a UK or EU airline
• arriving in the EU with a UK airline

The further you were flying, the longer the delay needs to be to get compensation.

For a flight less than 1,500km you need to be delayed more than two hours, then up to 3,500km it’s three hours, and above that it’s four hours.

To get the money, it needs to be the airline’s fault. You won’t get a refund if the delay is caused by something beyond the company’s control, for instance bad weather or a security risk.

The refunds are worth between £220 and £520 depending on how long the journey is and how much you were delayed by.

You can read more about compensation on the Citizen’s Advice website.

If you think you might be owed money by a company, you can contact our Squeeze Team for help.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

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