How you could be losing out on thousands of your salary each year by not completing one simple step

Irish workers could be losing out on thousands each year by forgetting to check their statements of liability for an overpayment of tax.

An overpayment happens when you have paid more tax than you were liable to pay.

If you have overpaid, you will get a tax refund, but you must claim it within four years after the end of the year of the overpayment, or you will not get the refund.

If you are a PAYE taxpayer and you are registered with Revenue's PAYE Services, you can view your tax credit certificate online.

Your certificate will show the tax credits that your employer is deducting from your tax bill.

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If you find out during the year that your tax credits are not correct, you should contact Revenue, and any refund you may be due will be paid to you by your employer.

It is also essential to check that you are not claiming tax credits you are not entitled to, resulting in an underpayment of tax.

To find out whether you owe tax or are due a tax refund, you can:

• View a preliminary calculation of your tax liability using your Preliminary End of Year Statement
• Request a final review of your tax liability using your Statement of Liability

You can get your Statement of Liability for the last four years, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

You may have overpaid tax if you become unemployed or are out of work sick.

You may also have overpaid tax if your tax credits are incorrect or you haven't claimed tax relief for certain expenses.

If you have overpaid tax, Revenue will refund you the overpayment by:

• Bank transfer: Your refund will be transferred directly to your bank account if you provided your account details in 'My Profile' within myAccount
• Cheque: You will receive a cheque for the amount overpaid by post

However, if you have an underpayment of tax, you have paid less tax than you were liable to pay, you will owe Revenue the difference between what you actually paid and what you should have paid.

You may not know that you have paid too little tax, but you are still responsible for paying Revenue if an underpayment of tax has occurred.