Work doesn't pay

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

Just that really

Got a promotion . Started new role in april. This promotion was one that I secured after a hard fought year, means taking on extra hours and much more stress . Big impact on work life balance, kids etc. Worth it I thought ....

NO IT ISN'T!!!

Seems since this I've entered a near 100% tax on my payrise, so thanks to current tax setup in uk, my take home pay is static!!!!!! yet responsibility and hours gone up

Planning to resign the promotion from my job

Ridiculous situation!

OP you are now seeing how net contribution works. Someone has to pay for the 6 million universal credit recipients.

The OP could be a UC recipient herself. There are permutations of UC entitlement where the effective marginal tax rate isn't too far off 100%.

Its a small cohort, but there was an article linked to upthread about how there are people on UC and also having CB withdrawn that are on 80 and 90% marginal tax rates. It's a batshit system.

FreyaMay74 - my dh is very unwell so can’t return to work anytime soon. Being single could be a barrier to the other parent chipping I too. The current situation is both a disincentive and less fair than what went before.

It is Bashir.

I was going by the fact that people say that if you earn over a certain amount, say $5M, you get taxed at 30% whereas if you earn $100K, you pay at a 20% rate.
Just using those rates for example as I am not sure what tax rates are for each income level. I just know it's not true when taking the Fed withholding out of your pay. At a certain amount, a lot more is taken out at a higher % when you work OT. When you remove money from an IRA/deferred comp, it's taxed at that time at 25%. You will get it adjusted at the end if you are not in that bracket, but there isn't a "level" where less is withheld.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

yes

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 ?

Like what?

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.

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

There are a loooooooot of blanks being filled in here.

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

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

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.