PAYE (short for “Pay As You Earn”) is a way of paying Income Tax and National Insurance through your salary if you’re an employee. Your employer will do this automatically for you based on your tax code, and then send the taxes over to HMRC.

What you need to remember about PAYE:

• you usually can only pay the taxes related to employment
• most other sources of income (for example, you have a side gig, or also rent property, or you sold some shares) can’t be taxed via PAYE. You need to file something called a “Self Assessment” for them. See who needs to file a tax return here.
• you also need to file a Self Assessment tax return even if you’re only a PAYE employee, but earned over £100,000 in the last tax year. Your taxes will already be paid – this is just something HMRC asks “high earners” to do.