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I was overpaid this month at work. I brought it up with my supervisors and I offered to pay back the difference. This happened because I was off ill for 2 days, and they did not deduct the pay for those 2 days. I owe them roughly £500.

How do I figure out the exact amount I need to pay back? How does being taxed affect this?

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    What has your company said they want you to do? Sometimes it's easier just to take the difference out of your next paycheck rather than have you try to write the company a check. – David K Sep 7 '17 at 12:31
  • They said there's two options, either take it out of next months pay or I can pay back now (We were on;y paid yesterday) – Tfish Sep 7 '17 at 12:34
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    Just let them take it out of next month pay. No need to make complicated transfers. They will have a computer program which calculates wages and taxes etc. Much to complicated to get this right for humans nowadays :) – Daniel Sep 7 '17 at 13:01
  • Darn. I thought you were going to say your compensation rate was way to high for what you do. I was going to congratulate you. – PoloHoleSet Sep 7 '17 at 13:21
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    why are you not being paid for sick days are you on a zero hours contract what does you company handbook say about sick leave? – Neuromancer Sep 7 '17 at 15:37
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Actually, that's something that your Human Resources or Payroll department should handle. I'd go to them and tell them what happened and ask them to figure it out because taxes and other deductions will have to be accounted for as well. Calculating the taxes is their responsibility and they'll have no problem figuring that out for you. You could do it yourself, but there's a lot of room for error and you're (probably) not an accountant.

In other words, they need to figure out how much you should have been paid and then you subtract that from the amount you were paid. That will be the amount.

On the other hand, they may wish to just deduct it from your next check rather than deal with the paperwork of having to deposit a personal check into the payroll account and other hassles with doing it that way. But that's also why you need to talk to your HR/Payroll department. (H/T DavidK)

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    Yep, payroll will deal with it appropriately. Nothing wrong with checking the calculations though. – Neo Sep 7 '17 at 12:34
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    @Tfish You're thinking about it wrong. What you're going to pay back is the net difference between what you were paid and what you should have been paid. The correct check needs to have taxes calculated on it as well, because depending on how big the difference is, they could have deducted a higher percentage on the incorrect check. In short, you will be paying the post tax amount which is why it's important to have your payroll calculate the amount. They can just calculate it like they would any other check. You can calculate it but it's a lot more work. – Chris E Sep 7 '17 at 13:03
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    @Tfish: As explained by Christopher, probably you won't have to pay anything, they'll just deduct it from your next payment(s). – sleske Sep 7 '17 at 13:14
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    In fact, I would even ask them to just take it out of your next check and they'd probably prefer it since it assures they'l get the money back and they don't have to worry about accounting for your check in their paperwork. It's just a simple adjustment in their records. Also, kudos for owning up to it. We usually get these types of questions and the person is just asking what to do, i.e. should they pay for it. The smart person realizes that already. :) – Chris E Sep 7 '17 at 13:40
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    @Neuromancer except that he said he does. ` I said that I will pay them back the difference.` and I'm answering what was asked, not speculating on things that aren't in the question. – Chris E Sep 7 '17 at 16:47

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