This months wages…

My wife is a consultant therapy radiographer working on a cancer ward, she gets paid for 40 hours per week, yet due to her commitment to the NHS, works 80/85 hours per week, including saturday and sundays, is often up at 4am, to work at laptop, before actually going to work.

She doesn’t get paid overtime, but keeps getting Time off in lieu, but when she tries to take it, it gets cancelled, or her work load is so high, she doesn’t feel like she can take it.

She sat at home in tears the other day as a great deal of her role now is working out how urgent patients are to treat and having to constantly cancel or put back patients who’s treatment is not as urgent as others, they are now copping abuse and surveys show that patient goodwill for the NHS is long past.

Her and her NHS colleagues are absolutely on their knees with fatigue, especially as so many have left and with high stress and sickness.

So if the increase in NI actually does go to supporting the NHS, then i am for it, i suspect that it will actually go to lining the pockets somewhere of some po*rn-watching, Eton educated scum as they try to privatise the health service bit by bit…

Salary into bank , a bit less this month due to NI … should be back up in July
Council tax a little more monthly this month .. won’t change again this year

Gas and electric quite a bit higher but could have been a lot worse, I made little changes to settings, timer for heating on 1 hr less per day and 1degree lower ( realise I’m luck, not everyone can do this )
All in all I should be ok with a few careful lifestyle changes …

It’s the elderly, folks on benefits, min wage or zero hour contracts I worry for …….. so much so I’ve started looking into local food banks… not so I can use them but so I can maybe donate a few useful things now and again …. I won’t miss a takeaway but donating a similar value may make all the difference to them …

@monkeysfeet @scotroutes

Hope you guys are doing ok. My wife had 4th dose of chemo on Tuesday. 4 more then surgery and probably radiotherapy. Stay safe.

I’ve started looking into local food banks… not so I can use them but so I can maybe donate a few useful things now and again

Most supermarkets have a foodbank donation point – we throw a few extra things in the trolley each week and drop them in.

I got my bonus…

The tax man took over half of it.

Is that code for saying that you earn £150K a year and got a bonus as if you are not earning over £150k you won’t have paid over half of your bonus in tax.

Assuming it’s on top of normal pay.

Higher rate 40%
NI rate 13.25%

= more than half.

@db @monkeysfeet and also @scud

Mrs S had her last batch of radiotherapy last week, following in from chemo and surgery. Sure, there is still medication involved but the cancer had been beaten and she is now determined to get on with her life -including getting back to work in the NHS. To those still fighting it, I think it’s important to bear in mind that treatments are great these days. I also mention @scud as we had fantastic support and treatment from both the NHS and Macmillan. They all earn their salaries many times over and can’t be appreciated enough.

That’s fab Scot, best of luck and strength to you both.

that code for saying that you earn £150K

But you don’t pay 50% tax above £150k…🤔

Assuming it’s on top of normal pay.

Higher rate 40%
NI rate 13.25%

= more than half.

Nonsense. As that nice man pointed out on the other thread you only pay 2% NI above the threshold!

The poster is obviously earning either (£100,000 – bonus/2) or (£125,140 – bonus/2) as you pay 60% effective tax between those two bands because your personal allowance tapers.

So to get a rate of 50% clearly he is paying half the tax on his bonus at that 60% effective rate and half at the 40% rate.

I’m quite pleased with working that out, do I get a prize?

< Edit. Sorry, can I change my answer to (£140,000 – bonus/2) or (£165,140 – bonus/2) including employer’s pension contribution ….because nobody would be stupid enough to fall into that trap until they’d paid the max possible in pension contributions that year>

You get to work in a HMRC call centre.

I feel really dirty posting that after Scotroute’s contribution.

I echo Weeksy’s thoughts on that far more important subject.

Xx

< Edit. Sorry, can I change my answer to (£140,000 – bonus/2) or (£165,140 – bonus/2) including employer’s pension contribution ….because nobody would be stupid enough to fall into that trap until they’d paid the max possible in pension contributions that year>

Can you explain this bit for the hard of thinking?

Which bit?

This bit:

The complexity of the UK’s tax system has created tax ‘sinkholes’ that could result in you paying more tax than you expect. An example is the 60% tax trap, created by the tapering of the personal allowance, which leaves those earning between £100,000 and £125,140 paying 60% tax.

From https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sjp.co.uk/news/dont-get-caught-in-the-60-percent-tax-trap%3famp=1

Or this bit:

Your annual allowance is the most you can save in your pension pots in a tax year (6 April to 5 April) before you have to pay tax.

You’ll only pay tax if you go above the annual allowance. This is £40,000 this tax year.

From
https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-your-private-pension/annual-allowance

My assumption is that nobody would willingly pay that 60% tax rate, so as soon as they are earning above £100k they will be offloading as much as possible into pensions cycle2work etc etc.
But 40k is the max they can get tax relief on in a year, once they go beyond that they have to suck it up ( tongue firmly in cheeck)

@db @scotroutes @monkeysfeet

Mrs FB was diagnosed 5 years ago. Surgery, chemo, radiotherapy has seen the bugger off (cancer that is). It didn’t take her long to get back to strength after the radiotherapy stopped. Roll on the consultant appointment that marks 5 years this autumn.

@db whereas Mrs FB had surgery then chemo, a friend had chemo the surgery late last year, early this. The difference in tumour size that needed removing meant surgery was less invasive so hopefully the same for yours.

Best wishes to your other halves.

@scud I’m sure that patient survey is probably from those that had to wait 4hrs in A&E for a papercut.

As a family we’ve probably had more out of the NHS than most- our son spent time in NICU & SCBU, has CP so has lots of services involved and Mrs FB’s cancer treatment so there are plenty of us that appreciate the NHS.

Tho they couldn’t cure little Miss FB’s gingerness

Tho they couldn’t cure little Miss FB’s gingerness

Move to Scotland. She’ll be less noticeable.

You can pay higher rate tax at 41% and 13.5 NI if you live in Scotland. Higher rate of 41% at £43k. Still paying 13.5 NI until £50k.

I changed jobs 3 months ago. My tax code, tax from the last remnant of the old job + the new one (changing mid month) is a total cluster. What it’s going to end up with is having to do a tax return mid year and then see whether I owe them or they owe me. Bleedin hard to plan as it is opaque.  I’m fortunate enough that we won’t be going hungry. But the effects of the Covid mus-management (never mind £37bln wasted, more like £500bln)  and the conveniently masked Brexit cost has to be taxed back. Which Richie and his Mrs won’t be paying more for will they. No. Lower and middle incomes to fund it.

I always find it amusing when people say they pay the higher tax rate, aye fair enough mate, but lets have a look at the effective rate over your whole wage, you aren’t really paying that much.

The whole Uk tax system is actually quite linear in that sense. You need to be earning above 170k before you are hitting an effective 40% tax rate. If you are sitting in the 50k, you are about a 27% effective rate.

This is for Scotland(England won’t be far off, the linear rise will be similar) and I’ve used the 12.5k threshold for the full year (couldn’t be doing with melting my brain with that 3 month weirdness they are doing)

That chart makes my skin itch.

So, over £200 down on the family income this month

I appear to be £30 down… I expect we’ll cope.

But you don’t pay 50% tax above £150k

They certainly don’t but they pay more than under 150K. Anyway the point is the person claiming they paid more than half their bonus in tax is either lying or if telling the truth they need to contact HMRC as they have been over taxed.
Okay I got my bonus before the NI change earlier this year but after deductions it was 57% of gross.

That chart demonstrates the NI thing well. I wonder what the 15K line looks like (that’s pretty much the £300 per week example which was raised yesterday)

But look at the 20K and even 30K, they might be getting on for national average wage (is that actually mean, mode or median) – but these are not rich people or families. A £10K increase from 20-30 and you lose £1300 of it to NI

A 10K increase above 50K and you lose £350 of it. £110-120K – yep, £350 of that extra £10K goes to NI and the NHS.

That simply can’t be right. Higher earners need to shoulder more of the burden, when in a rich western nation lower earners are queuing at foodbanks.

That simply can’t be right. Higher earners need to shoulder more of the burden, when in a rich western nation lower earners are queuing at foodbanks.

That’s exceptionally hard to argue with… but can you really see anyone putting that in place ?

I mean, even hitting people at over £200k a year with an extra 1% would have to make a MASSIVE difference wouldn’t it… But i just can’t see a government doing that.

‘a’ government, or this Government. Who’s been excused paying a fair share? The wealthy, and well off pensioners. Who’s likely to vote for them next time…..

Been done to some extent. From 2007 to 2019 the top 1% of earners share of income tax increased from 24% to 30%.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/13/richest-britain-income-tax-revenues-institute-fiscal-studies

42% of adults paid no income tax.

To my mind jiggling tax rates isn’t the answer.

Things like if we are to have a BBC it should be paid from tax not a flat rate licence fee.

If the govt wants to subdidise wind or solar energy they should be a govt expenditure from tax not added on to bills

Those two changes would make 42% non tax payers and other around £500 a year better off.

FWIW @kerley @jam-bo @thegeneralist i don’t pay a single penny in UK income tax, or NI, i haven’t for near enough 2 decades. So no, i don’t earn over £100k. No way near.

Bonuses get taxed at well over 50% here.

Good luck once you’ve spoken to them, I live in constant state of owing tax as I paid too little or getting refunds as I paid too much (a £700 refund last year). I’m PAYE so not exactly a challenge to work out FFS, I have no other incomes and I’m not employing an accountant to game the system for me, so how it’s so constantly wrong I have no idea.

It’s because you’re paying high(er) rates of income tax, but maybe by not much so the ‘system’ isn’t 100% sure how to properly through the year – only knowing at the end how much you’re actually due to pay.

That graphic of gross to net is missing a lot of elements that most folk have.

Student loan deduction for example, someone earning £35k will be near enough £80 pcm (earn £50k and it’s nearer £200), and never paid off – so it’s a tax.
So at £50k, the 28% tax becomes 32% tax.

and I’m not employing an accountant to game the system for me

It could be worth it, 4 years ago I was recommended a £100 service from an accountant to sort out hmrcs mess for me and she found me a decent credit in excess of what it cost with PAYE back on the straight and narrow.

Oh, and FWIW, over here personal allowance is only about 120 quid a month, and our supertax bracket (at ~52%) starts at about £42k.
Bonuses are apparently taxed at 57% On the entire value.

I personally still have less total deductions than in the UK. So that’s nice.

Been done to some extent. From 2007 to 2019 the top 1% of earners share of income tax increased from 24% to 30%.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/13/richest-britain-income-tax-revenues-institute-fiscal-studies

actually, the rate increased steadily through the noughties and then has substantially levelled off since 2010.

https://fullfact.org/economy/do-top-1-earners-pay-28-tax-burden/

Can’t think why it would change in 2010?

mert, you can see the confusion. A thread discussing UK tax and NI and you start whining about tax on your bonus when you don’t even live in UK!

I always find it better to come from the angle of what a person is taking rather than what they are giving. i.e. someone taking £100K versus someone taking £10K.
It stops the why should I pay more tax question as people tend to think about why they are taking/receiving so much more than the £10K person.

That simply can’t be right. Higher earners need to shoulder more of the burden, when in a rich western nation lower earners are queuing at foodbanks.

Here we go again!
I’m going to put my head above the parapet on this one. I am very, very well paid. But it does get quite annoying when statements like this get made. In the last tax year I paid just over 43% of my income in direct taxation (Income tax plus NI). That’s the average by the way NOT the marginal. Also living in Scotland the marginal rate my bonus was taxed (Income plus NI) at was 48% so not that far off half. To be clear I do not begrudge paying taxes, I’m not on the poverty line, and no the cost of living won’t really impact me but what share of income should people like me be expected to pay?

gonefishin, i guess the question is, could you live with less, i presume possibly. could someone on minimum wage/benifits live with less, probably not?

Does anyone else feel like this is the start of a new way of living. Climate change will drive energy scarcity, which will drive people to extremes and cause more wars and conflicts, which will make the energy crisis worse. inflation and living costs rise. At some point everyone will hurt, its just a case of when?

or is this all a bit too much doom and gloom, and pessimism?

gonefishin, i guess the question is, could you live with less, i presume possibly.

I’ll let you know in year as I’ll be earning less.

This was a response to the rather glib statement that always rolls around that “high earners should pay more” when many don’t necessarily realise that they (we) already pay quite a lot. Personally the changes I would make are

Treat capital gains as income and tax them accordingly.
Combine NI & income tax into one thing (that simplifies things and treats dividends a real income)
Make the sale of you personal home liable for CGT (well income tax if you do the first one) the same as any other asset. After all that is where most of the wealth in the UK is “stored”
Make inheritance tax payable by the recipient as income in the year it is received.

Those are ideas that would actually tax the wealthy not just those on high incomes.

I don’t think continually squeezing PAYE is the answer. I actually don’t understand why those at the top of companies need to earn so many multiples more than the workers either, most, from my experience aren’t any more bright or harder working. I would like to see a much fairer distribution of salaries not tax….

And we really need to go after the waste in the system, the back handers, the excess company profits. Make our money go further, not just raise more to throw on the flames of ineffiency

We are fortunate, I moved roles specifically because of the cost of living crisis, and had a small increment, missus had a decent payrise. Overall we are about £40 pcm better off. But then we get smashed by an increase in utility bills of £150 (and likely to increase) and all the other cost of living increases. I guess we are £250pcm worse off. We are lucky that we can tighten the belt and have dropped some DD’s to cover some of the shortfall

I don’t think we will have energy scarcity. I think the Government’s have relied on Fossil Fuels for so long, the switch to renewables has just not been as swift as they should have been.
Take Nuclear – 4 years ago Wylfa Power station on Anglesey should have had a new build, but due to costs sod all has happened. Maybe now they can start to build new reactors on already functioning nuclear sites. Its just a matter of cost and a willingness from Government to pull their finger out and invest. The sites are there, the tech is available and the support infrastructure is already in place.

This was a response to the rather glib statement that always rolls around that “high earners should pay more” when many don’t necessarily realise that they (we) already pay quite a lot. Personally the changes I would make are

I don’t get that either, here have a proportionally bigger penalty for doing better than average.

To be clear I do not begrudge paying taxes, I’m not on the poverty line, and no the cost of living won’t really impact me but what share of income should people like me be expected to pay?

Do you want a direct suggestion? Then how about 50%?

Less direct? If more money needs to be collected in tax, I’d rather you paid a bit more than someone struggling to feed their family, for the reasons you’ve outlined yourself. You’re doing okay, others are struggling for the basics of life.

here have a proportionally bigger penalty for doing better than average.

So, if more tax needs raising on earners (not sure it does, but hey), you’d rather the additional “penalty” be born more by those doing “worse than average”?!? Don’t view direct taxation as if it is a “fine”, but more about raising funds based on ability to pay, or about redistribution to help deal with the fact that some people are paid far more than others due to different kinds of work being valued (in money terms) very differently.