Making deductions from an employee’s salary

As the employer, you can be ordered to make deductions from an employee's salary, including their holiday pay, to cover an unpaid claim against the employee.

If you must make deductions from an employee’s salary and holiday pay, we’ll send you a letter. 

In the letter, we’ll inform you, among other things, about

  • the basis for the enforcement proceeding and the type of claim, for example, underpaid tax, advance tax, employer’s withholding tax, incorrectly paid benefits, or others,
  • the amount you must deduct from the employee each month
  • when you can finish making the deductions
Important information

If you, the employer, make deductions in an employee’s salary without forwarding this to us, your business is responsible for this amount.

If you, the employer, cannot withhold the entire amount or parts of the amount, you must contact us. It’s important that you state the amount you wish to pay and the reason for not withholding the entire amount.

Please note that as the employer, you can be held liable for non-payment of the deducted amount. 

If the employee is laid off or on long-term sick leave, and you’ve stopped salary payments, you must inform us as soon as possible.

If the employee has quit, you must inform us at once. If the employee has quit and you do not inform us of this, you’ll get reminders to make deductions from the employee’s salary.

You must also report in the a-melding that an employee has quit.

If you’ve paid too much to us, please contact us.

Your company’s account number must be registered with us to pay you a refund.

If you’ve paid too much, you must send us information about

  • what this is about
  • the incorrectly paid amount
  • the period 
  • the name of the person in question
  • the employee’s payslip for the month(s) this is about.

You can submit this information via RF-1356 Contact form - Child support and repayment.

You can also contact us online directly.

You can register or change the account number for refunds of tax and employer's national insurance contributions.

Please contact us if you’ve paid too much and have questions for us about this.

You can register or change the account number for value added tax (VAT) refunds.