I worked a 60 hour week during school holidays when 16, at a steel processing factory co-owned by my dad.
In 1987 and before minimum wage I was offered £2/hour, which seemed absolutely fine to me after paper round wages. Work Slog Work Slog, H+S would have had kittens at the thought of an untrained 16-year old driving fork lifts with no licence, or operating cranes hauling 10-ton coils of steel 20 feet up in the air out of stacks of others, (no training), or operating compressed air banding machines that pinched the coils tight with metal strip and crimped a staple to stop it unwinding (good bye fingers if you weren't clever). At one point I almost put a fork lift on its side because of the high-ish speed gas engine and very highly geared rear-wheel steer.

But at the end of the first week, very long days of dangerous dirty work, my pay packet came. JOY! MONEY! I AM RICH! £120! WOW-wait, what? This isn't £120, this is (counts) more like about £65! I've been ripped off! Conned! By my dad's own company!

Reads pay slip to see if there's any clue, any mistake, any evidence of what went wrong.

A little later on I picked up the phone on the shop floor and dialled my dad's extension.

'Dad....what does "Emergency tax code" mean?'.

Not dad's fault at all, of course. I mean THE MAN, i.e. Nigel Lawson, Chancellor of the Exchequer

I don't think I ever got that dosh back. So I'm going to pay the next plumber I engage with cash in hand to even the playing field.

EDIT I'd like to know at which point the Exchequer thought my earnings constituted and Emergency in the tax system. Obviously I'm Barclays or some such, having a job on the side.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 3 Aug 2012, 23:26, 6 replies)

I feel, you only remember the bad shit, and have forgotten your check in the post the following April.

( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 4 Aug 2012, 9:20, closed)

I honestly don't recall having a refund
Besides, even if I did get one, would you a expect a 16-year old person to be happy with 'I'm just going to take 40% of your first couple of weeks wages and, y'know, just hang on to it for 9 months', especially if you're working a week in hand thus prolonging the anticipation?
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sat 4 Aug 2012, 14:05, closed)

I didn't think you were taxed until you reached 18?

( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Mon 6 Aug 2012, 8:45, closed)

Wrong
Sorry.
(Mork, Mon 6 Aug 2012, 11:02, closed)

You're subject to income tax if your annual earnings exceed the lower earnings limit - regardless of how old you are.
When I left school this limit was about £4000, it's (probably) gone up since then.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 1:37, closed)

You were put on that because your dad's HR department cocked up
Whoever did payroll should have sorted this for you.

Could have been different back then, but it is actually not the governments fault.
(The Kwyjibo A big, dumb, balding North American ape., Mon 6 Aug 2012, 12:12, closed)