Child benefit and personal allowance

[handslikebirds]

Hi, I've searched some previous threads but can't find this answer-
For child benefit I know that if you pay into pension this isn't included, so if you pay 12% into a pension that will bring your earnings under the £50,000 threshold if you are just over it...
But where does the £12,570 personal allowance everyone has come in? Is this also deducted? So if I earned £65,000 my taxable income would be £65k minus the £12k personal allowance minus the 12% pension contribution?
Surely then if it's based on £50k taxable income then anyone earning under £62,570 would be eligible or is that not how the personal allowance works?

I'm in such a muddle!

Ignore the 12500. That is part of your taxable pay - even tho it is taxed at 0%.
If your 0% tax plus your 20% tax takes you over 50K, you start loosing child benifit.

Ah thank you @ChristmasCakeAndStilton that makes perfect sense! I wondered why it never gets mentioned but thinking of it as being taxed at 0% makes sense to my very non numbers brain!

So pension contribution not counted? I didn't realise that. So if you earned 54k and paid 5k to pension you would not lose any child benefit?

@SummerHouse not in my case where the pension comes straight out of my payslip before I see any money. Not sure if there are any scenarios where pension payment wouldn't count but I believe generally it brings those close to £50k back under the threshold

@SummerHouse yes. It's your taxable pay. Pension, childcare vouchers and some other bits come off. Car allowances and some other bits are also involved - think they get added on but not sure.

Yes, your earn 54k, pay 5k into a pension and keep all your child benifit is correct.

Thank you hands that's really helpful!! It's not very clear on the government website. Sorry to go off on a tangent there but this has been bothering me.

Really appreciate this thank you Christmas my knowledge of what taxable pay is is clearly lacking.

www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge

This helped me to understand it. It is your adjusted net income which is taxed. Pensions come off before tax so if you are not significantly over the threshold pension contributions can take you under it