Applicable income tax rate for cash allowance overpayment

Curtley-Óg

Registered User
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Hello
I learned today from HR Payroll that my car/cash allowance has been overpaid since Aug 2022.
I work a 3 day week and the error was that the allowance wasn't prorated, ie the 100% allowance was paid rather than the correct 60%.

TLDR: I missed the error and got a nasty surprise today *more below in case relevant
Regardless I will need to repay the overpayments in full.

The overpayment is in the region of EUR 4000 Gross.
HR Payroll have not indicated the Net equivalent, so I am assuming they'll require me to pay the Gross amount and claim tax refunds from Revenue

My questions are
1. Is my assumption correct that I'll need to repay the Gross amount, or are there grounds for me requesting my Employer to charge me for the Net amount I actually received and then recover the tax themselves.
2. In calculating the Net amount, should the income tax on this overpayment be at the standard (20%) or higher (40%) rate?

Thanks in advance.



* In Aug 2022, I received a generic HR email to say all allowances were being reviewed/benchmarked with an increase in Aug 2022 and backdated to Apr 2022.
This email didn't give a value/percentage increase for my case, only that it would be reflected in Aug payslip.
What should have been a 7% increase (prorated) appeared in my Aug 2022 payslip as a 78% increase (ca Eur 290 to Eur 510).
I have only now checked payslips either side of the increase (they contain arrears in both Jul and Aug so take a little untangling), and calculated the 7% / 78% increase I just mentioned, so can see what I thought was a generous review of the allowance scheme was an error I should probably have caught at the time.
Today, HR Payroll have been apologetic in person and in the follow up email, and offered to liaise again about managing the repayments.
 
It all works off Gross Pay, the simplest is for them to reduce your Gross Pay by the required value, in one go or over time.
 
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