Possibility of shortfall in first PMG pension payment to newly retired teachers

 

Here are the details of my experience with my first PMG pension payment.

• I was moving from a monthly payment (Kilkenny Carlow ETB) to a fortnightly payment (PMG)
• In order to make the switch, my first payment consisted of one full fortnight plus another payment which was listed as “arrears”
•  Although the ETB had handed over details of my PAYE cut off points, tax credits etc to the PMG, I was taxed on a “week one” (non cumulative) basis
• This resulted in me overpaying tax and USC by a considerable amount on this occasion
• I contacted the PMG by phone and they said that I had to contact my tax office to report a change of employer and ask for a new certificate of tax credits etc to be issued. In contacting the tax office, I needed to quote the PMG employer number (available from PMG) and my new personnel and group numbers (available from my PMG payslip)
•  The tax cert was issued quite quickly, but it took about 6 weeks for the changes to go through
• Happily, I got a PAYE/USC rebate of almost €700 recently

I feel a lot of newly retired teachers might not notice this overpayment, as the first payslip also contains the lump sum and so might be difficult to decipher the various payments.

Hope this will be of use to some members –  Majella O’Neill South East RMA branch.