To think this epitomises the squeezed middle - HMRC shitiness

We also tax lower & middle earners less compared to other Euro countries but that would likely only result in more top ups.

Police pay 11% pension contributions. Student loan is 9% I think?

A friend who is a bog standard Police officer is now in the higher rate tax band and has deductions of 60 % for tax, NI, student loan and pension. Outrageous

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

The threshold for the start of withdrawal of child benefit was increased to £60,000 this year (April 2024) so this should not affect you.
To the OP I would recommend getting a login to self assessment and having a look at what HMRC think your salary is. I took a new job this year and the tax they took was eye watering (PAYE). I logged on and saw that they had set my salary at £22k higher than it actually was and they were taxing me on this completely made up salary. I wonder if between your marking and payrise they've decided you're on a much higher salary. Definitely worth logging on to check.

And a major issue is housing, think of how much tax is paid to landlords because people don’t earn enough to afford rents.

@Perfect28 I am kind of curious how you think you get the same wage as support staff. I seriously doubt it.

The number of people that are next contributors is now a minority of the population so means the majority receive more benefits than anything paid in tax.

It’s about half & it’s largely now due to an ageing population.

“Working-age people are typically net contributors to the state – meaning they pay more in direct and indirect taxes than they receive in benefits and public services.”
“However, even among this group, 45.3pc received more from the state than they paid in taxes, although this partially reflects benefits relating to education and childcare.”
“Meanwhile, pensioners are overwhelmingly classed as net recipients, with 85.3pc receiving more from the Government than they contribute.”
”These pressures are only set to intensify as the population ages and more people become so-called net recipients in retirement, with the number of over-85s set to double by 2045 to 3.1m.”

Some respondents here should just think….new tax allowances, compensation for Waspi, compensation for blood scandals from 40 years ago…..how may people realise that this country is financially utterly BROKEN. The number of people that are net tax contributors is now a minority of the population so means the majority receive more benefits than anything paid in tax. What it says is our welfare model is a disgrace and allows far too many people to be reliant on benefits instead of working full time, as well as public spending far too high.

The evidence is also in the number of people routinely trying to do extreme tax planning with either pensions, salary sacrifice and working hours reduction to avoid the punitive deductions. A friend who is a bog standard Police officer is now in the higher rate tax band and has deductions of 60 % for tax, NI, student loan and pension. Outrageous. Guess what….he now refuses to work any additional hours as the deductions are so high

Think of the starving in Africa. Or was it China? India? Something like that.

This is not what the thread is about.

Same here - I’m reducing hours slightly to take me back under the threshold I have just crept over, but they also calculated my pension payments wrong so are taking more money off me for a few months to correct the arrears. If they hadn’t taken so long to agree the rise and then pay the money I would’ve been able to adjust my hours sooner and not ended up with arrears.

I sympathise. Pay rises in this house have left us much worse off.

How is it possible you earn more but take home less - not being bossy but even with the marginal rate at £100k and associated tax allowance etc there would be a small uplift. Maybe not taking home as much as you thought but it’s not a pay cut? Is it childcare related?

I struggle to find sympathy OP as yes you may have to pay 40% tax above a certain amount but you also get to keep the other 60%. Plus you’ve had pay rises and are due another. I think there are many, many more worse off.

@niclw could you pay more into your pension?

@lurchersforever could it be a mistake?
Lots of colleagues and I received a similar email a few days ago. Also working in a school. HR have investigated and it was an error that will be corrected.
Our pay came through as normal, full amount, no change in tax.
I'd contact your HR department before panicking.

I'm in a very similar position to you. The teacher pay rise pushed me over into the £50k tax bracket last year but only by about £1000. However it impacts child benefit as a solo parent. I chosen to pull out of exam marking this summer as it wasn't worth the effort to have to pay 40% tax on it. I certainly wasn't spending every minute of my spare time marking over three weeks to earn £500 max. I know that many heads of my subject did the same and now the exam boards can't get enough exam markers.

I sympathise. Pay rises in this house have left us much worse off.

Let’s just agree to disagree cause it’s boring now.

@BIossomtoes I feel you do that a lot but it doesn’t make a difference. Maybe Santa will bring you some joy on Christmas Day!

🙄

I didn’t get it wrong. There was no child benefit paid for the first child before 1975.

Except that’s not what you replied to my post. You said It wasn’t, it used not to be payable for the first child.

But it was post 1975 as I later added. I don’t think most people on this thread would be referencing back to 60s….I mean I’m sure child benefit didn’t exist in the 1800s but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist in the past.

Hang on. You took on a new job (exam marking) without first working out the effect on your tax bill?

And 50k in 2013 is approx 70k today so the cut off for paying it back should have been raised before next yr.

I didn’t get it wrong. There was no child benefit paid for the first child before 1975.

It’s ok to get something wrong, don’t be embarrassed 😜

Lol, another fabulous contribution! 😆