Sometimes an employer might withhold some or all of your pay.
The first thing you should do is to check there isn't a reason for them holding back that money. There might be good reasons why they've held back some of the money you think you're owed, and these will differ depending on whether they've employed you through their payroll or as a contractor. Your options for recovering unpaid wages will also be different for each of these two situations.
When you are a direct employee of a company, there are some deduction employers must take such as National Insurance (NI), repayment of Student Loans, pensions, and Deductions against a court order. There are other things that might mean the paypacket is less than you were expecting, for example unpaid holiday pay, Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) and Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP).
If you think your employer has withheld money that you are entitled to, then firstly you should speak to them directly to try and resolve the matter.
If you worked as a subcontractor in the construction industry and your payment is less than expected then one explanation might be that your employer has made a deduction against the CIS (Construction Industry Scheme). These deductions count as advance payments towards the subcontractor’s tax and National Insurance. Contractors must register for the scheme whilst Subcontractors don’t have to, but those that don’t have deductions taken from their payments at a higher rate.
If you have not been paid or have had other deductions taken from your payment then we suggest the following actions:
If, after trying the suggestions above, you are still owed money then you could appoint a third party debt collection service to help resolve the matter. Quite often third party intervention is all it takes to resolve outstanding matters and help settle disputes.
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