Welcome to our guide for students
Our guide takes a step-by-step approach to explaining the world of tax for students. But here, and throughout this website, we can only offer general guidance on tax topics. You should always obtain specific advice before taking any action. Even if you are here because you have a particular problem to solve, for instance, you think you are paying too much tax on your wages, we would encourage you to look through the rest of this guide. You will pick up information to stand you in good stead for dealing with your tax affairs in the future.
You should also take a look at the government website Directgov for information we cannot cover here, such as student finance and general employment rights, including restrictions on working hours and entitlement to the National Minimum Wage.
Back in 2001, we produced a report on students and the tax system. Unfortunately many of the problems we highlighted then remain true today!
What you can find in the Students section of our website
This section aims to cover tax and related issues for a range of students, from young people, perhaps getting their first job and studying at the same time, to mature students.
Tax – the basics gives you an introduction to tax matters and directs you to other parts of this website where you can find out more.
Getting the tax right on any earnings can be a particular problem for students. Under our Working section, we explain the issues and try to guide you to solving them. It also covers National Insurance contributions.
Other tax issues, covers some common concerns for students, such as whether or not you have to pay tax on your savings.
We then move on to Tax refunds to advise you how to get your money back if you have paid too much tax.
As students need all the financial support they can get, Tax credits and benefits provides you with a factsheet on when you might be able to claim tax credits and tells you where to get more information about state benefits you might be able to claim.
While we do not cover taking out student loans, our Student loans guide looks at repaying your student loan, after you have stopped studying, through the tax system.
Sometimes if you do not agree with HMRC or feel that you have been badly treated, you will want to appeal, or complain about your experience. Our section - Appeals and complaints will help you to do that.
If you do not understand a particular word or expression you may get help from What do we mean by....? - our glossary of tax terms.
A quick summary of current tax and National Insurance rates is set out in Tax and NIC rates.
Many people are baffled by the questions that HMRC ask on their forms, so we have provided some help in our Understanding HMRC forms guide.
Sometimes it is helpful to have the computer do the hard work and provide you with a calculation of some sort so we scour the internet for those that we think might be most helpful and provide descriptions in our Calculators section.
Finally, if you do not think we have covered what you wanted to know or you would like to tell us of your experiences so that we might learn and try to get things changed then please do contact us.
