Tax/Salary sacrifice advise

@Aidy, it does in ours – we’ve an average salary pension scheme (Higher Ed), so based on gross salary after deduction of benefits. It’s too big a hit given around 23% is paid in on top of my contributions.

you on a defined benefit rather than a defined contribution scheme?  I think you may be right the DB schemes often calculate AFTER any other salary sacrifices have been made.  For defined contributions it would be unusual if the employer contribution (say 5%) was based on salary after other sacrifices rather than contractual salary.

am I right in thinking that your contribution to DB schemes is deducted from your pay after NI though not through salary sacrifice so not directly comparable to the OP?

I don’t have the details on the figures behind your calculation, but I’m not sure the front figures stack up. What LTV are you assuming? And why 30 years for someone on £100k PA?

Most people on £100k will not be at the beginning of their earning, and house buying journey will they? Fair enough, I don’t have a clue about dahn sarf, but there’s vanishingly small people around here on £100k starting off a £600k purchase in the ~90-100% LTV area. Most people on £100k are likely to have bought a house ages ago.

Not that it’s really of huge importance, so perhaps I should just shut up about it.

its not too difficult to end up on a 6 figure salary in London at the age of 30 – software devs are on that kind of money, as are doctors and a bunch of other professions. At that age you’re unlikely to have a significant deposit. The figures I threw up were for a 100% mortgage but even if you chop 20% off all the numbers you would still end up on monthly payments of £2,500 per month, on a 30 year mortgage. And why 30 years? because if you have a shorter term the payments are even more unaffordable. At that rate you’d have to spend ~half of a six figure salary from 30 till 60 to be able to be mortgage free.

We live in a london commuter village and I know a reasonable number of folks who are on 6 figure salaries, mostly in their late 30s or early 40s. Nearly all of them have very large mortgages. My point with the calcs was just to show that a good salary does not mean your house is paid for.

Things are more expensive in the south, and wages are appropriately higher, so people get taxed more, as a proportion of their income, than those up north living a similar lifestyle. Its a form of weath distribution, and is likely needed to balance out everything

Righto. I hear you.

I’m confused, you drop below NMW but also earn above £43k, how many hours a week do you work?!

My salary sacrifices has brought my base wage below NMW. My allowances and overtime brings this back up to over £43k

Does it really?

Yes it does, especially when I am doing overtime knowing half the money is goings in Tax and NI before I even receive it.

If I new NMW was £43k I’d have changed my job a while ago!

I dont think you have read the OP fully or I have not explained it clearly enough

Something doesn’t stack up here, I think there’s a misunderstanding.

I don’t think you have read the OP fully or I have not explained it clear enough

Says a Tory voter who only earns the Minimum Wage.

I don’t vote

I guess if:

£1.5k a month salary sacrifice lease car

(Maybe his work pay most of it as a company car allowance)

AND £400 per month paying off a £7k bike on C2W

AND £600 per month pension contributions.

That could take our poor violated OP below NMW. Must be a lot tough life even with the schools, hospitals and other public services up here being in such good shape

My base is £35k which it’s calculated from. I salary sacrifice around £12k a year between all the benefits so your figures are way off.

National Minimum Wage = @£20100 annually.

So are you putting £23k+ into pension, car and c2w?

Or do you have a low base salary with allowances for shift, or bonuses or similar?

Yes you are correct with the low base salary and extras.

Well this is going well for you OP 🤣

The title is Tax/salary sacrifice advise but the majority of people that have replied don’t even know what salary sacrifice is

The title is Tax/salary sacrifice advise but the majority of people that have replied don’t even know what salary sacrifice is

*advice

You’ve a car & a bike, sounds like you’re not prioritising your pension anyway.

I balanced them all out keeping within the salary sacrifice rules but now my pension is getting affected as it’s the easiest target for my employer

What the OP is alluding to is real although rather extreme in their case due to the combination of high pension contributions and whatever they are sacrificing for the car plus bike schemes. That is salary sacrifice so for the purposes of minimum wage calculations is taken off the gross figure. The OPs gross salary minus the salary takes their net gross salary below the minimum wage calls.

This was a reason given to us for not wanting to do an EV car salary sacrifice scheme as it wouldnt’ be available to lower earners as it would take them below the NMW. Tosh of course, HR just didnt want to administrate it and were looking for excuses.

OP, are the allowances contractural, if not they may not contribute to your salary for NMW purposes.

And yes paying over 50% tax on £43k is disgusting despite what many here think. Instead of dealing with the real cost of living issues governments just hammer middle earners time and time again.

Thank you for the genuine advise, I believe the allowances are contractual as they are mention in current job adverts but how do confirm this?

I know plenty of very well off people doing there best to pay as little tax as possible, so I won’t jump on him for that

But yes I don’t understand how you can be falling into the higher rate tax band and earning minium wage….

I am definitely not well off but I can see why you might think that as I choose not to include my whole family situation

Base salary approx £35k, £12k of salary sacrifice is brining me below NMW. Then overtime and allowances are bringing me about the higher tax band.

Whereas another view is that it is disgusting that some people earn £100K a year while other earn £20K a year with none working any harder than the other but the £100K person just having been more fortunate in life.

Take the amount of tax you pay out of it and just look at net income and see if you feel better. i.e. £100K person gets around £60K, £20K person gets around £20K. £60K person still doing alright aren’t they…

I think in your example the majority of the time the person earning £100k is working harder or has worked harder to get there than the person earning £20k though obviously some have just been more fortunate in life.

We have a very complex tax system and some odd and painful addional tax bands.   If Scotland is like England just wait until the taxable salary hits £60k and the op starts paying additional rate income tax to repay the child benefit on those toddlers.   I’ve been in a 70% income tax band for a while,  just got out of it but now in 55% band….yep, pension contributions seem very attractive.

This is how it works OP – you’ve obviously maxed out your salary sacrifice to a big extent – well done.

By the way, the sacrifice on the car and bike also affects the amount the company pay into your pension, one of the big reason’s I’ve not got myself a nice shiney EV ay £700 a month on our scheme – that’s a massive amount of pension (over £150 a month in my case) that my employer wouldn’t be contributing.

One thing is certain, you’re now in the 40$ bracket, tough shoot. that’s how it works – you’ve maxed out your salary sacrifices.

You have made me double check and my company calculates it on my base salary which is good but obviously by paying me allowance instead of higher wage they don’t need to pay pension contributions on that part

to answer your original question. Some types of payment count, some do not. You’d be better placed checking the .gov.uk site than asking here with vague questions. One thing to be aware is the NMW is determined on your pay period (eg monthly) not annually and so some low basic very high commission people paid quarterly or annual bonus can trip over these sort of issues too.

you’ll find it difficult to get people to feel much sympathy for someone maximising their salary sacrifices to avoid tax, who has discovered some limitations on it.

Thanks for the genuine reply I have searched but could not find anything on what payment types count so I have asked on hear,

I am not looking for sympathy but I do feel it’s treated so differently having 1 parent working lots of hours Vs 2 working parents

To come back to the OP’s question. I don’t think there’s any rule that they can’t do both, but they are under no obligation to do so and it will probably cause them a load of admin hassle and potentially break IT systems so I wouldn’t be surprised if they say no.

YOU can make additional contributions yourself, which would then entitle you to make a claim to HMRC for the difference (for the PAYE element, not the NI element).

Would me setting up myself be any less tax efficient than my employer doing it?

You could always set up another private pension outside of the work one. You get 20% credit on payments in. If it is higher rate tax you are saving then you will need to file self assessment tax return to claim back the rest. Not as efficient on NI I believe, but there you go.

Thanks for the genuine advise, I am going to research this route but not sure I want to go through then hassle of a tax return.

I’m surprised the organisation let you sail so close to the minimum wage by taking on your last SS.

Also when you give up your SS you are going to still incur significant costs for the following tax year.

Its not up to them to give you financial advice – the rules are, you cannot salary sacrifice so much that it takes you under minimum wage, thats it. So if you want a bike to work, increase pension etc, fine, your choice, so long as you dont breach that requirement. The OP has now bust that figure, so they need to fix it.

Its black and white, and not the employers job to decide what shade of grey is right for the employee.

I believe they let you get so close as the more you salary sacrifice the more money the company saves in employer NI but I could be wrong about this

This is how it works OP – you’ve obviously maxed out your salary sacrifice to a big extent – well done.

By the way, the sacrifice on the car and bike also affects the amount the company pay into your pension, one of the big reason’s I’ve not got myself a nice shiney EV ay £700 a month on our scheme – that’s a massive amount of pension (over £150 a month in my case) that my employer wouldn’t be contributing.

One thing is certain, you’re now in the 40$ bracket, tough shoot. that’s how it works – you’ve maxed out your salary sacrifices.

You have made me double check and my company calculates it on my base salary which is good but obviously by paying me allowance instead of higher wage they don’t need to pay pension contributions on that part

to answer your original question. Some types of payment count, some do not. You’d be better placed checking the .gov.uk site than asking here with vague questions. One thing to be aware is the NMW is determined on your pay period (eg monthly) not annually and so some low basic very high commission people paid quarterly or annual bonus can trip over these sort of issues too.

you’ll find it difficult to get people to feel much sympathy for someone maximising their salary sacrifices to avoid tax, who has discovered some limitations on it.

Thanks for the genuine reply I have searched but could not find anything on what payment types count so I have asked on hear,

I am not looking for sympathy but I do feel it’s treated so differently having 1 parent working lots of hours Vs 2 working parents

To come back to the OP’s question. I don’t think there’s any rule that they can’t do both, but they are under no obligation to do so and it will probably cause them a load of admin hassle and potentially break IT systems so I wouldn’t be surprised if they say no.

YOU can make additional contributions yourself, which would then entitle you to make a claim to HMRC for the difference (for the PAYE element, not the NI element).

Would me setting up myself be any less tax efficient than my employer doing it?

You could always set up another private pension outside of the work one. You get 20% credit on payments in. If it is higher rate tax you are saving then you will need to file self assessment tax return to claim back the rest. Not as efficient on NI I believe, but there you go.

Thanks for the genuine advise, I am going to research this route but not sure I want to go through then hassle of a tax return.

I’m surprised the organisation let you sail so close to the minimum wage by taking on your last SS.

Also when you give up your SS you are going to still incur significant costs for the following tax year.

Its not up to them to give you financial advice – the rules are, you cannot salary sacrifice so much that it takes you under minimum wage, thats it. So if you want a bike to work, increase pension etc, fine, your choice, so long as you dont breach that requirement. The OP has now bust that figure, so they need to fix it.

Its black and white, and not the employers job to decide what shade of grey is right for the employee.

I believe they let you get so close as the more you salary sacrifice the more money the company saves in employer NI but I could be wrong about this

but not sure I want to go through then hassle of a tax return.

It is only a hassle when you owe them money! If they owed me I would be cheerfully doing it on the 6th April every year. If your main income is from a single employment it is a doddle anyway.

my pension is getting affected as it’s the easiest target for my employer

if you’re concerned about your employer nibbling away at your pension pot as what happened with BHS then you can arrange a transfer each year to take your pension balance and sweep it into your SIPP [assuming DC pension, not DB) which is under your control. Most at risk that way is one years’ contributions.

Secondly, if you drop your pension contributions down to the minimal amount to receive the biggest employer match contribution. You can then pay the excess into your SIPP.

Automatically get your 20% back each month and tax return each year to get your additional rate back. You’ll receive this as cash so can put it into your SS ISA so it’s not locked away ‘till State retirement age.

Despite what many on here say, I would not feel bad at all about making your tax contributions as efficient as possible- you need to look after your family first and foremost. No one else has their best interests in mind.

The govt. have plenty money; only the current lot chose to wang it all to their mates instead of funding essential services.

Fair play to OP for maximising his tax situation, I couldnt be bothered with all that work.

How much impact is all this salary sacrifice having on your total pension pot though? Correct me if I am wrong but pension contributions are after Salary Sacrifice salary deduction ie your pension contributions will be lower, as will your employers (if they contribute)

OP – another option is to pay into a SIPP (private pension) outside of salary sacrifice. You will get all the tax back, but not the national insurance (which is the difference to doing it in salary sacrifice).

scotland has more odd rates of tax than the rest of the UK does – see https://fraserofallander.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Chart1-600×390.png

If Scotland is like England just wait until the taxable salary hits £60k and the op starts paying additional rate income tax to repay the child benefit on those toddlers.

If he hits that threshold using allowances having salary sacrificed down to the NMW he’s doing something impressive!

Thanks for the genuine reply I have searched but could not find anything on what payment types count so I have asked on hear,

In fairness though you’ve been a bit cagey about the allowances so anyone here with the facts has to guess!  So what you are looking for is probably here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/calculating-the-minimum-wage/calculating-the-minimum-wage but you are going to need to do quite a bit of reading and thinking to work out what applies to you.  Thats the reality of tax avoidance – if you want the lazy option you’ll pay slightly more tax!

I am not looking for sympathy but I do feel it’s treated so differently having 1 parent working lots of hours Vs 2 working parents

And yet you don’t vote!  Do you know your wife can potentially transfer some tax allowance to you?

Would me setting up myself be any less tax efficient than my employer doing it?

The most tax efficient way is for your employer to do it via salary sacrifice.  After that it makes no difference if they do it or you do it, but you’ll have to put in some more admin effort.

but not sure I want to go through then hassle of a tax return.

then I think your claim you feel violated (perhaps you need a dictionary!) is exagerated.

“And yet you don’t vote! Do you know your wife can potentially transfer some tax allowance to you?”

Only if you are not a higher rate taxpayer.

I was also told by the taxman by phone that even though I had made pension payments to reclaim my higher rate tax I was still no longer eligible for the married couple tax transfer.

So the effect of the Scottish tax thresholds is that someone whose wife is a non taxpayer who earns £1000 over the £43k threshold loses out of that £1000 – £520 tax and  NI plus £200 by losing the marriage allowance – £720.

https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance

Which is why I make a pension payment to avoid  higher rate tax.

How pensions lower your tax bill – Scotland

For info of OP I have not had to do a tax return to reclaim the higher rate tax after paying into a pension. I am on PAYE.  Each year in February I work out roughly how far over the £43k I will be.  then make a single payment of the appropriate amount. Then I phone the inland revenue and tell them.  They sort it out. Either by tax code adjustments  or a rebate payment.

@poly That link has answered one of my original questions, allowances do not count towards minimum wage. I was looking at salary sacrifice information when I should of been looking at the minimum wage section. Thanks again for the help.

Looks like my options are setup my own pension where I will automatically get 20% tax relief and get more if I do tax return or I could pay into a pension in my partner’s name and receive 20% relief even though she isn’t working which might be beneficial when the day comes to retire

@irc looks like I will be receiving a letter from the tax man reclaiming the marriage tax allowance,

Your non working spouse only gets tax relief on pension payments upto £2880 iirc. Although again Scotland may be different to England.

“or I could pay into a pension in my partner’s name and receive 20% relief even though she isn’t working which might be beneficial when the day comes to retire”

I have done this. The advantage being that as my wife has no other income every year’s £2800 is boosted to £3500. £700 free cash. Then whereas when I take my pension I will pay tax on any withdrawals (after the 25% tax free lump sum) she can withdraw £12k a year tax free if she does it in the tax years before she starts claiming her old age pension.

If you’re in the 100 to 125 bracket then fair enough. But if you’re approaching 150 then the best option is to alternate.

Beat option is to go four days a week. Time is the biggest luxury there is.