Replay a tax year and see what your code really cost you
Rewind reconstructs any year since 2016 twice over — what you actually owed, and what PAYE actually took. The difference is usually the tax code, and nobody ever checks it.
Free, with no account. Runs entirely in your browser — your figures never leave your device.
- The reconciliation
- Free, every year, always
- Your figures
- Never leave your browser
- Years covered
- 2016/17 to 2026/27
What it finds
The coding errors that quietly cost people money
Your tax code is built from an estimate of what HMRC thinks you'll earn. When the estimate is wrong, or a second job gets its own code, the year ends out of balance — and PAYE has no mechanism to tell you.
A second job taxed with no allowance
Common when you change jobs mid-year or hold two at once. Your allowance sits on one code and the other taxes everything.
A non-cumulative code that never caught up
Each pay period taxed in isolation, so nothing reconciles at year end and the overpayment just sits there.
Benefits priced at the wrong rate
A K code collects tax on benefits and untaxed income. Priced off a wrong earnings estimate, it collects too much or too little all year.
An earnings estimate nobody corrected
The number most people never look at. Everything rate-dependent in your code is priced off it — and it's often years out of date.
The allowance taper set from a guess
Every £1 the estimate is wrong moves your allowance by 50p — an effective 60p in the pound. The most expensive coding error there is.
Several codes in one year
A bonus or back pay triggers a recode, and HMRC projects the one-off forward as if it were recurring salary.
Claims must reach HMRC within four years of the end of the tax year, so the oldest year you can still claim for is always the one to check first.
How it works
Paste one page from HMRC and every year fills in
HMRC's PAYE Income Tax history page lists five years of employments with taxable income, tax paid and tax code. Select it, copy it, paste it in. No typing, no photographs, no account.
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01
Copy your PAYE history
Sign in to your Personal Tax Account in an ordinary browser, open the income tax history page, and select all the text.
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02
Paste it into Rewind
Every year and every employment fills in, on your own device. Nothing is uploaded and no account is created.
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03
Check every figure
Confirm the numbers against your own P60 or P45 — never against the website you copied them from.
Rewind then rebuilds the year twice, independently
The liability
Taxable pay for the year, your personal allowance, and the 20, 40 and 45 per cent bands applied across the whole year.
Your tax code plays no part in this figure. It cannot change what you owe.
The deduction
Every code you were on, the free pay each one gave, and what each individual pay period actually deducted.
This is the only path a tax code touches — and where a wrong one shows up.
The difference
The size of the gap, and the coding decision behind it
Band-by-band working you can check, for every year at once. An estimate built from the figures you entered, not an HMRC calculation.
Use a normal browser rather than the HMRC app — the app opens the same page inside itself, which makes selecting text awkward and breaks its own print function. Rewind explains the workarounds if you only have a phone.
Your tax figures never leave your device
There is no account, no upload, and no server that sees your income. The whole calculation happens in the page you're looking at. We couldn't sell your data, hand it to a broker, or lose it in a breach, because we never receive it.
This isn't a policy promise. It's how the thing is built, and you can check it yourself.
Turn off your internet.
Open the file and run a full reconciliation.
Everything works.
Price
Finding the money is free. The letter that claims it is £15.
No commission, no percentage, no nomination form. HMRC pays you directly and we never touch your refund.
The reconciliation
- Every tax year from 2016/17
- Multiple employments and mid-year code changes
- Band-by-band working you can check
- The specific coding reason for the gap
- Runs offline on your own device
The claim pack
- Your overpayment relief claim, written and ready to sign
- The grounds stated the way HMRC needs them — naming the employer, the code and the amount
- A pre-post checklist so nothing is missing
- Where to send it and what happens next
- Generated on your device, like everything else
For organisations
- Rewind embedded in your own site or app
- Your branding, your domain
- Members' figures stay on their devices — never reach you or us
- Rate tables updated every April
If the reconciliation shows nothing is owed, there is nothing to buy. Most people who run Rewind will never pay us anything, which is the point.
For organisations
Give your members a tool that doesn't ask them to hand over their tax data
Rewind licenses as an embedded tool rather than an API. You host it, brand it, and put it in front of your people — and because the calculation runs on their device, their PAYE figures never reach your servers or ours.
That removes most of the reason this kind of project stalls. There's no data processing agreement to negotiate over member tax records, no breach surface, and no third party to explain to your board.
- Annual licence, priced by organisation size
- Your logo, your colours, your domain
- Rate tables refreshed every April, with a version stamp on every output
- Optional co-branded claim pack, or leave it free for members
- Trade unions
- Uniform, subscription and coding claims as a visible membership benefit
- Umbrella companies and agencies
- Contractor populations with recurring mid-year code churn
- Payroll bureaus
- A self-serve answer to the question employees ask every April
- Accountants
- Fast triage of PAYE-only clients without opening a file
- Financial wellbeing platforms
- A benefit that returns real money rather than another budgeting screen
Questions
Before you start
Are you connected to HMRC?
No. payereward is a private company with no connection to HMRC or any government department. Rewind works out an estimate to help you frame a query — you check it, sign it and send it yourself.
Do you need my Government Gateway login?
Never, and nobody legitimate should ask for it. Rewind reads figures you copy from your own account, or that you type from your P60, P45 or P11D.
Will you take a cut of my refund?
No. HMRC pays you directly. We never handle your money and we never ask you to sign a nomination.
If a company asks you to sign one so your refund reaches them first, that is how commission gets taken. You do not need one to claim.
Why is the calculation free?
Because it costs us nothing to run — it happens on your device, not on a server we pay for. We charge for the claim letter, where the work is in stating the grounds precisely enough that HMRC can act on them.
Does it work in Scotland or Wales?
Not yet. Scottish rates and bands differ materially, and Rewind refuses S and C codes rather than producing a figure that looks right and isn't. It's the largest thing on our list.
How far back can I claim?
Four years from the end of the tax year. Rewind shows the deadline against every year and puts the ones closest to expiry first.
Is the result the amount I'll get?
It's an estimate built from the figures you enter. HMRC checks its own record and confirms the final amount, which can differ if their information doesn't match yours. Check every figure against your P60 or P45 before you sign anything.