Work doesn't pay

Put a little more into your pension to put yourself back into the lower tax bracket if it bothers you.

Nope.
You pay 20% or 40%, or possibly 45%
Plus nic. But never 100%
If you lose benefits, well, with your higher salary, you're not entitled to them
.
Long term though, it's a stepping stone and si should be worth it. Try to look beyond the short term

And this comes from someone who gets heavily taxed and has to pay child benefit back.

On the pensions point, there are actually some pretty good societal reasons to incentivise people to pay more in, and they don't just apply to lower earners either. UC uses people's post pension contribution income to calculate their entitlement, so recipients aren't penalised because they're doing what they can to supplement their retirement. That's a good thing.

@fitzwilliamdarcy I completely agree.

The entire system needs an overhaul with Joe Public deciding what's acceptable and what's not.

Those currently milking the system on £100k pa will, no doubt, in years to come, be denigrating those who have been carers/with disabilities as 'scroungers' who have not 'provided for themselves' in retirement.

Hypocritical c*ntos.

What boils my piss is that my tax is going to fund benefits for people on the same salary as me (or those in a household with double my earnings) who’ve decided to work less so they can pick up their kids or whatever. That should be a personal choice funded by their household, not the state. I can’t afford to reduce my hours - I’m single and have no dependants, so I need every penny I am paid and the prospect of promotion too. I’ve never been entitled to anything despite living in near poverty in the past, because I was a single adult.

The state isn’t there to provide you with more money because you’ve put all of yours in your pension or decided to go part time. That’s not what it’s there for, and I resent that my money is being given to anyone doing that.

And then you have people with disabilities and carers, who have to live on fresh air and who have no freedom to game the system to ensure their income goes further.

It’s a joke.

The term "Benefits" are catch all description of a business subsidy. They stopped being a safety net years ago.

Don't be fooled by the changes of names throughout history. There was married persons allowance, post war - family related benefits - MIRA's - benefits for home owners, Tax Credits - subsidy for businesses. UC is an extension of that.
BUT benefits as in dole etc is long gone.

OP, I have seen on other threads that people in your situation increase their pension contribution as a way to avoid entering the higher tax bracket. There's some info on it here https://www.brewin.co.uk/insights/how-pensions-could-lower-your-tax-bill

Precisely!
Benefits should be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice.

There are a loooooooot of blanks being filled in here.

You’re crediting the public with wayyyyy too much foresight and work ethic.

This promotion may not pay off but the next one or the next career change that is built on this one might. Turning it down resigns yourself to a life dependant on benefits and makes you vulnerable to benefit cuts and inflation. It also turns down opportunities to live a better life and offer your children better opportunities.

Like what?

I'm not saying people don't make this decision. It's more of a question to OP of why she wants to live like this ?

Haha it is! OP is a rich bitch or dolescrounge, depending on one's preconceptions and preferred group to complain about. UC recipients are to blame even though she could easily be one herself, she's not paying into the pot even though she could well be covering the costs of the people telling her that. I'm not sure if this is real or not, so perfectly wide have the parameters been set, but it's been an interesting discussion nonetheless.

Personally, I think it's inevitable that people aren't going to be that keen on working more for no or not much benefit, and that even delayed gratification is undesirable and impossible for some people. The principle is the same regardless of the point in the income distribution the person occupies, whether their complaint is about losing UC or the personal allowance. It follows that moralising about it is stupid. The solution is a system that does better with bottlenecks and cliff edges.

Oh come on.

Lets not pretend that working 16 hours and having the taxpayer make up the rest isn’t much easier and more relaxing than slogging away at a full time job.

It makes me laugh when I see posts about how ‘nobody would choose to work part time and claim when they could be working 40+ hours a week’. Of course they bloody would.

This. The purpose of benefits has been completely diluted. They’re supposed to be a last resort, not to prop up people who fancy doing less hours, or want to pick their kids up from school. You have had a pay rise that has replaced the benefits, so you no longer need them.

This is how you end up a lifetime on benefits and at the mercy of cuts and inflation.

I mean she's not living that great a life if she's on benefits. I don't know why you would want to keep yourself in that position by choice instead of aiming to keep making decisions that raise your salary until you don't have to worry about stuff like this.

If you're complaining you've lost benefits as you earn too much now and are thinking of planning to deliberately reduce your income so you can receive benefits instead of earning the money - that's so so selfish.
Who do you think is paying for your
benefits?

yes

You should work towards the next payrise. If you resign this one you will always be on benefits and never make anything of yourself .

This thread is like Schrodingers cat, op is both on benefits and earningaround £100k

@Bucketheadbucketbum would really help if you could give some clues

What were you on? what was take home?

What are you on now? and what is take home

There are far too many people who treat their benefits as income, rather than a support mechanism for when you don't have enough income. Anyone who has the opportunity to get themselves off benefits and chooses not to isn't being fair on the rest of us.

Anyone in any system can take the amount the earn and the amount of tax they pay and calculate their effective rate as a single percentage. But that amount paid is made up of several calculations of different rates for different portions of their income. The nominal income tax brackets are progressive, like the UK, and each higher rate applies only to the additional income above the bracket’s lower limit. NerdWallet does a fairly good explanation ( https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets ).

When tax is taken out as you earn, the calculation is done under the assumption you’ll be earning the same amount until the end of the tax year and they work out what all those different amounts will add up to along with some deductions you tell them about and take the approximate amount you will owe at an average rate so that your wage is consistent and you can budget properly. But when you do overtime, all that extra income is on top of the regular income they calculated, so it gets taxed at the full rate of the tax bracket it puts you in.

See a finacial advisor.
You might be able to be part paid into a superannuation fund or set up a family trust so that you can allocate some income to other family member members before tax.