To think this epitomises the squeezed middle - HMRC shitiness

OP I had a similar issue a few years ago. I got a letter on Dec 23rd from HMRC cheerily explaining they’d under taxed me and would be taking £3,200 out of my next 3 payslips. At the time I took home £1,300 p/m net. I rang them and cried. I really cried. I don’t think the call handler knew what to do with me. I was, in retrospect, just sobbing.

He popped me on hold for ages and came back and said they would reclaim the money over 3 years. I have never felt so grateful. It is worth a call.

Your thread is not tone deaf, OP. There are some people on MN who think that no one earning more than NMW should be able to grumble about anything to do with money. It's all very tedious and "race to the bottom"y

It isn’t tone deaf…the ones who are tone deaf are the sympathy brigade whose sole aim seems to suggest there is no sympathy for those working their backsides off and just get taxed to hell so decide …well to hell with it.

The evidence is pretty clear that this level of taxation has such high levels of disincentives that people adjust behaviours

Another way to reduce the benefits bill would be to make absent fathers pay for their children and then include this in the mother's income when calculating benefits eligibility. The state could pay if needed and recover the debt later to make sure children didn't suffer
Indeed, 100%!

I know a fair number of part time (job-sharing) teachers and teachers working as HLTAs who have young families.

Same but that’s not relevant to my point about people on teachers pay scales having their arrears spread? A HLTA will be on a support pay scale.

@lurchersforever
Did you read my post?
Tax message is likely an error.
Earning more is not going to leave you worse off. I'm an examiner too.

I know a fair number of part time (job-sharing) teachers and teachers working as HLTAs who have young families.

https://ifs.org.uk/news/42-million-working-age-people-now-claiming-health-related-benefits-could-rise-30-end-decade

Sounds like 1 in 10 working age people are on disability benefits and that among young people a lot of this is for behavioral or mental health issues.

I think fraud is the wrong word as I people may genuinely have these conditions but might be led to exaggerate the impact to get benefits. Honestly I think the country can't avoid it and we ought to limit to conditions where there is a severe cognitive disability or has had to have in patient treatment for a major mental illness. We could usefully spend some of the money saved on improving mental health care.

I also think that it is simultaneously possible that as well as widespread misuse, honest applicants in need are being turned down for these benefits.

Another way to reduce the benefits bill would be to make absent fathers pay for their children and then include this in the mother's income when calculating benefits eligibility. The state could pay if needed and recover the debt later to make sure children didn't suffer.

And obviously it’s in a countries interest to have a healthy & educated population so it’s not just about the individual.

If you take 15 yrs of state pension that’s approx 172k. If you earn 50k a year that’s 10.5k a year in tax & NI so that’s 16 yrs before you break even pension wise. Add the costs of your schooling, education, healthcare, etc than you can see how most people are only going to be net contributors for a small portion of their lives.

One problem with disability benefits especially those relating to mental healthi or conditions such as ADHD is how easy it is to commit fraud by exaggerating symptoms

I don’t think there can be so many fraudulent claims that it actually impacts the bottom line? 50% of people receiving more in benefits than paying in taxes is not that unexpected when you think about it. It’s more the demographic switch that is making it a problem.

On that point it does make sense to raise the retirement age, though there will be a limit after which people can't usefully continue to work.

Except healthy life expectancy hasn’t changed & it would need to be well in the 70s to mitigate the impact of an ageing population.

You don’t get disability benefits for cancer. Anyone who thinks it’s “easy” to fraudulently claim disability benefits has never met a successful claimant.

On that point it does make sense to raise the retirement age, though there will be a limit after which people can't usefully continue to work.

Have we thought about 16-22 year olds as well. Rather than continuing at school or at university maybe more would benefit both themselves and society by getting into the work place with on the job training.

One problem with disability benefits especially those relating to mental healthi or conditions such as ADHD is how easy it is to commit fraud by exaggerating symptoms. Its a lot harder to say you have got cancer or other conditions that can be objectively verified by means of scans or blood tests. I don't think that there is an easy solution to this but something needs to be done.

At 72, I get a (slightly) enhanced state pension and some income from savings. Until the end of the last financial year, I wasn't liable to pay any tax but the increase in my pension pushed me over the limit. In August, I had a letter from HMRC demanding over £6k in tax and when I logged into my account, lo and behold, they still had me working at my old job (which I retired from 8 years ago) with earnings of over £30k! Not sure why they weren't chasing me for back payments for the previous 8 yrs tbh! Anyway, after many frustrating phone calls (with babies crying in the background and sounds of TV), they reduced it to £250. No apology and no explanation as to how they reached that exact figure but I've just paid it as I'm not up to fighting any more 😒. Good luck to any of you with an HMRC issue x

This was my whole thought process when all the public services were asking for payrises (I'm nhs), that whatever we get has to be paid for by the taxpayer (which includes us) so that, combined with the raised bill contributing to keeping inflation and therefore living costs higher, actually we were never going to see much of it.

This. You were bloody stupid not to think about the tax implications before you signed up for the second job, and your question / title of your thread is tone deaf.

It's early - misread as 45% bracket, not 40%

I think there's a general misunderstanding by the public about moving between tax bands. Higher rates, SLDs etc only apply to the excess earned over each band. They still have more cash in hand than they did before, moving from the basic rate to 40% tax.

I get it
Support staff are even worse off - 2.5% increase, due 1 April, paid Nov & wiped out by tax & NIC

I sometimes wonder if they drag out all the pay negotiations on purpose to get a chunk of the money back via deductions & benefits adjustments

Does the teachers' pension scheme allow you to pay AVCs? It won't help your income now but if the additional pay takes you into the higher rate tax bracket you would at least get full tax relief on the additional contributions

And wage stagnation as I already said is also a big part of the issue.

Employer NI is also higher I think for lower & middle earners.

A bog standard police officer? Really? I'm in the wrong career if PC Bilbo Baggins is earning over £100k.

I don’t think the poster meant he was earning 6 figures, it’s the deductions of pension & student loan.