Your P45, P60 or P11D Is Missing or Wrong: How to Fix It Before It Costs You

In short: a missing or incorrect P45, P60 or P11D usually costs you money through the wrong tax code, not through a penalty. Your employer cannot reissue a P45, but a starter checklist, your Personal Tax Account and a corrected submission from the employer will put almost every case right.

These three forms are the evidence behind your tax code and your tax return. When one is missing or shows the wrong figures, HMRC works from incomplete information, and the usual result is that you pay too much tax for several months or get a bill you were not expecting. This article covers what to do in each case, who you need to contact, and how to recover anything you have overpaid.

Why a Missing or Wrong Form Costs You Money

The damage comes through your tax code. HMRC sets the code from what it knows about your pay and benefits, so missing or wrong information produces a code that takes too much tax, or too little.

Taking too much tax is the more common outcome and the easier one to fix, because the money comes back either through an adjusted code later in the year or as a refund after the year ends. Taking too little is the more expensive one, because HMRC recovers the shortfall afterwards, often through next year's code, and you have already spent the money.

There is a second cost if you complete a Self Assessment return. The employment pages are built from the figures on these forms, so filing from a form you know to be wrong puts an inaccuracy on your return that you are responsible for, not your employer.

Starting a New Job Without a P45

Your old employer cannot issue a replacement P45. Your new employer should use a starter checklist instead, which gives them enough to set a code without one.

The Starter Checklist and the Statement You Choose

The checklist asks you to pick the statement that describes your situation: this is your first job since 6 April, this is now your only job but you have had another since 6 April, or you have another job or a pension as well. The statement you choose drives the code your new employer applies, so choosing the wrong one is the most common self-inflicted cause of an unexpected deduction.

Why an Emergency Code Takes Too Much

An emergency code gives you the basic personal allowance but ignores what you have already earned and the tax you have already paid this year. Where a code is applied on a week 1 or month 1 basis, each pay period is treated in isolation, so unused allowance from earlier months is not carried forward and the deduction is larger than your real liability.

Getting the Overpaid Tax Back

In most cases HMRC issues a corrected code once your new employer's first submission reaches it, and the overpayment is repaid through your next payslip automatically. If the year ends before the code is corrected, HMRC reconciles the year and repays what is due. You can speed either route up by signing in to your Personal Tax Account and checking that your employments and estimated pay are recorded correctly.

If Your Employer Has Not Given You a P60

An employer must give a P60 to everyone still employed on 5 April, by 31 May after the end of that tax year. Unlike a P45, a duplicate P60 can be issued.

Ask payroll first, since most employers now issue the P60 electronically through a payslip portal and it may simply be sitting in an account you have not opened. If you left before 5 April you will not receive one for that employment at all, because your P45 is the record of what you earned there.

Proving Your Pay and Tax Without the Form

A P60 is often wanted by a lender or a letting agent rather than by HMRC. Where that is the case, your Personal Tax Account shows the pay and tax each employer has reported for the year and can be printed, and your final payslip of the tax year carries the same cumulative figures. Either is usually enough to satisfy a third party while you chase the form itself.

A Missing or Incorrect P11D

Where a P11D is due, your employer must give it to you by 6 July after the end of the tax year. A P11D that never arrives is often not an error: the benefit may be taxed through your payroll instead.

Check Whether the Benefit Is Being Payrolled

If your employer payrolls a benefit, the taxable value is added to your pay each period and taxed as you go, and no P11D is produced for it. You can usually see this on your payslip as a benefit figure that increases your taxable pay without increasing what you are paid. Treating a payrolled benefit as missing and asking HMRC to tax it again is a real risk, so check the payslip before you report a problem.

From 6 April 2027, payrolling becomes mandatory for company cars, car fuel, vans, van fuel and employer-provided medical benefits, with most remaining benefits following from 6 April 2028. Employment-related loans and living accommodation stay outside the mandatory rules for now and continue to be reported on a P11D. Benefits provided in the 2026 to 2027 tax year are still reported on a P11D, due by 6 July 2027.

What to Check on the P11D You Do Receive

• A car you returned part way through the year but which is shown for the full year.
• Private medical cover for a partner or children you were never enrolled on.
• An interest-free or low-interest loan that was repaid earlier than the form suggests.
• Expenses you repaid to the employer, which should reduce the taxable amount.
• A benefit that belongs to a colleague with a similar name or payroll number.

When the Figures on a Form Are Wrong

Only the employer can correct the figures, because the form reflects what they reported to HMRC through payroll. Never amend a form yourself and never file from a figure you know to be wrong.

Start by checking the form against your own records. Add up the net pay actually received, compare the cumulative figures on your final payslip, and look at what HMRC holds in your Personal Tax Account. If the employer's reported figure and your payslips agree with each other but not with your bank account, the problem is a payment issue rather than a tax one.

Put the discrepancy to payroll in writing, with the figures you believe are right and the evidence behind them. The employer corrects it by amending their payroll submission, after which HMRC's record updates and your code is adjusted. For a wrong P11D the employer submits an amended return for that benefit.

If the employer will not correct a figure you are confident is wrong, contact HMRC directly, explain the discrepancy and provide your payslips. HMRC can query the employer's submission. Where you file a Self Assessment return, report the figures you can evidence rather than the ones on the disputed form, and keep a record of why they differ.

If Your Former Employer Has Closed or Will Not Respond

HMRC holds the pay and tax the employer reported, so a closed business does not leave you without a record.

Your Personal Tax Account shows each employment, the pay reported and the tax deducted, which covers most of what the missing form would have told you. Where a company has entered insolvency, the administrator or liquidator usually handles outstanding payroll queries, and their details appear on the Companies House record for the company.

If the employer deducted tax from your pay but never reported or paid it over, tell HMRC and provide your payslips. Payslips showing the deduction are the evidence that matters, which is why keeping them is worth more than keeping the year-end form.

Fixing It, in Order

1. Check your Personal Tax Account to see what your employer has actually reported for the year.
2. Compare it with your payslips, particularly the final one of the tax year, which carries the cumulative totals.
3. Ask payroll for the form or the correction in writing, setting out the figures you believe are right.
4. Complete a starter checklist straight away if you have begun a new job without a P45.
5. Check your tax code on your next payslip once the correction has been made, rather than assuming it has flowed through.
6. Contact HMRC directly if the employer will not act, or has closed, and provide your payslips as evidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

General information for UK employees, based on GOV.UK guidance on PAYE forms and on HMRC's published timetable for mandatory payrolling of benefits in kind. It is not advice for your circumstances. The reporting of benefits changes from April 2027, so check which tax year your situation falls in.