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The SLC and HMRC are numpties… The entire process flawed in its very design…

As a student loan recipient, I make payments via PAYE of 9% above £15,000.

Flaw 1 – My final payment is almost certain to be an overpayment, unless by remarkable coincidence my balance is exactly equal to 9% of my salary over £15,000.

The SLC have no idea what I’ve paid until HMRC tell them at the end of the tax year.

Flaw 2 – I’m being charged interest on a balance that is 11 months out of date.

HMRC only remember payments made by the last employer of the tax year, so if I change jobs or if my company restructures itself, some proportion of payments will be ‘forgotten’.

Flaw 3 – I’m making payments that HMRC conveniently forget about, and then don’t tell the SLC about, pushing my imaginary balance even further out of alignment with reality.

The SLC will wait until HMRC tell them at the end of the tax year to figure things out, like if you’ve been overpaying for the past 11 months… or the SLC will take proof of payments, but only via post or fax: the latter having proved itself useless of late due to being unreadable.
They’ll then notify HMRC to stop taking payments, who’ll then notify my employer to stop taking payments.

Flaw 4 – This process takes “up to a couple of months”, taking even more money that I already don’t owe the SLC.

The woman at the SLC helpfully suggested I ring back in a couple of months if payments were still being taken, despite the fact that I’ve already paid off my loan. I wouldn’t be so annoyed if it weren’t for the fact that my repayments aren’t exactly small.

So, my advice to any other ex-students repaying is:

1. Check your “Final Annual Statement” from the SLC against your payslips during the previous tax year. I’ve made my loan repayments for 5.5 tax years and they’ve been incorrect in 3 of them.
2. Two months before your expected final repayment, contact the SLC to arrange your “stop notice”. Send them all your payslips in the current tax year so they can update their records.

It would all be unbelievable if it were not our government. In a brewery. Sober.