How to reclaim up to £6,139 in 2025 including tax overpayments and mis-sold car finance

START the new year in the best way by reclaiming money you may be owed – from mis-sold car finance to tax refunds.

Ruth Jackson-Kirby explains how . . . 

CAR FINANCE MIS-SELLING

£1,100

IF you bought a car, motorbike or van with personal contract purchase or hire purchase before January 28, 2021, you could be owed thousands of pounds.

This is because some car salesmen earned hidden commissions by negotiating deals with high interest rates for customers.

The Financial Conduct Authority estimated that, on average, people paid £1,100 more interest on a typical £10,000 four-year car finance deal than they should have.

But if you bought more than one car on finance between 2007 and 2021, you could be owed far more.

To make a claim, contact the lender that provided your finance — not the car dealer.

To find out who to contact, check your loan paperwork or, if the finance was taken out within the past six years, review your credit report for lender details.

PPI PAYOUT

£3,000

PAYMENT Protection Insurance was widely mis-sold in the Nineties and Noughties, and you could still get a payout now.

The insurance was designed to cover your loan or credit card repayments if you had an accident, fell ill or became unemployed.

While the official claims deadline passed in August 2019, there’s still hope.

Law firm Harcus Parker is attempting to launch a group claim against banks for £18billion in secret commissions taken from PPI customers.

If successful, claimants could get an average £3,000 back.

To make a claim, you need to have had a credit card, store card, loan, overdraft or car finance in the past.

To join the claim, register for free at ppiglo.com.

CLAIM TAX ON PPI

£100s

IF you have already had a PPI payout, you could still be owed hundreds in overpaid tax on the money you reclaimed.

Many people paid tax they did not owe when banks automatically deducted 20 per cent tax from payouts.

PPI refunds typically had three parts — a refund on premiums you paid, a refund of extra interest on loans caused by PPI charges and eight per cent interest on both refunds.

This last part was taxed as savings interest.

If you were not paying income tax when you received your payout or qualified for the Personal Savings Allowance, which allows up to £1,000 tax-free savings interest, you could reclaim the tax.

For example, if the PPI you reclaimed was £3,000, you could be owed £300 in overpaid tax.

You can reclaim the tax from the past four years (back to 2020/21) by filling out form R40 at gov.uk.

If you have your Final Response Letter from when you received your PPI money it should show you a breakdown of what you were getting, which will show how much tax was deducted.

You can ask the bank that repaid you to provide a certificate showing the tax deducted if you cannot find your letter.

TAX OVERPAYMENTS

£1,562

IF you are taxed through PAYE, you could be overpaying due to errors in your tax code.

At the end of each tax year, HMRC should send you a P800 notice showing if you are owed a refund.

According to data from Rift Refunds, the average payout in 2023 was £1,562.

In the past, these refunds were all paid automatically, but that’s no longer the case.

You can claim your refund either through your personal tax account at gov.uk or through the HMRC app or by calling HMRC on 0300 200 3300 and asking for a cheque.

MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE

£252

MARRIED couples or those in a civil partnership could save up to £252 a year on tax with the Marriage Allowance.

One partner must earn less than the Personal Allowance, currently £12,570, while the other must be a basic rate taxpayer, earning up to £50,270.

The lower earner can claim the Marriage Allowance, and £1,260 of your Personal Allowance will be added to your partner’s.

This can reduce your overall tax bill by up to £252 a year.

Apply at gov.uk or through your tax return.

You can also backdate claims up to four years, meaning you could get more than £1,000.

WORK EXPENSES TAX REFUND

£125

YOU can get employee tax relief on your work-related expenses.

That means if you have spent money on job-related expenses such as uniforms, tools or professional fees, you could reclaim the tax from HMRC.

The average claim is £125, according to the taxman.

You can file a claim directly through gov.uk.

It is a straight-forward process, so there is no need to pay an agency to do it on your behalf.

Error hits pension pots

THOUSANDS of savers could be at risk of losing out on retirement cash due to a pension failure.

An investigation by The Sun found hundreds of cases where employers have not invested staff pension contributions into their funds, shrinking their final pot.

In a workplace pension scheme, a portion of your salary is deducted and contributed to your pension each pay period.

But our analysis found that does not always happen.

The Pensions Ombudsman has upheld hundreds of complaints in recent years over employers not paying employees’ contributions into the scheme.

In dozens of cases, savers discovered thousands of pounds had not been allocated.

The Pensions Regulator dishes out fines for non-compliance.

Since auto-enrolment rules were introduced in 2012, it has issued more than 250,000 fixed penalty notices and recovered more than £700million in missing contributions.

Regularly check your pension paperwork to ensure that the money deducted from your salary is paid into your pension.

If you notice missing or late contributions, write to your employer.

They should explain what’s going on and when you can expect payments to be made.

If you’re not happy with the response, or you don’t get a reply within eight weeks, contact the ombudsman, which will investigate for free.

Your employer must comply with its decision.

ELLIE SMITHERMAN

NI gaps leave you short

TEN pensioners received just 52p in state pension last year, which is not enough for a pint of milk.

These retirees were given 1p a week in the year to May 2023, The Sun can reveal after a Freedom of Information request.

A pensioner who received the full new state pension would have been given £203.85 a week.

These pensioners may have missed out because they do not have enough years of National Insurance contributions.

You need to pay in for ten years to get any state pension and 35 years to receive the maximum amount.

You may have gaps in your record if you were not earning enough or were unemployed and not claiming benefits.

One way to fill the gaps is to claim missing NI credits.

These credits are given to people who are not paying NI, for example if they are looking for work or ill.

You can check your NI record at gov.uk.

You can also fill in any gaps in your record, by topping up your contributions.

This is important, especially if you are nearing the state pension age but do not have enough qualifying years to get any state pension or if you want to boost your payments.

The cost to fill these gaps depends on the NI you have already paid.

But you can only pay to fill gaps in your NI record for the past six tax years.

If you do not think your state pension payments are correct then contact the DWP.