How much do you put away for tax every month?

[MushroomTree]

Hi All,

I'm just wondering how much you put away for your tax bill every month?

I've been putting away 30%, my reasoning being better to have too much when the tax bill comes than too little, but I'm not even sure I'm going to earn over the threshold this year.

The joys of being self employed!

We put away about the same, sometimes a bit more if it's a flush month and we have spare!

DH put away 25%

25% of every payment. Even on good, higher rate, years, I've always had a surplus once expenses have been taken into account.

My husband and I are both self employed and notoriously bad at putting money aside. he has loads of expenses with his work and i have very few - so it is incredibly difficult to work out.

We tend to work on a "catch up "system. this is not recommended, but how we do it. We work out our self assessments and when the payments need to be made. (January and July) and how much each one is. Then we count up how many weeks until the payment is due and how much we need to save each week to reach that amount.

The January payment is estimated until our self assessment is completed, and is based on previous years and saved between August and December. This way we hardly ever have a surplus - but we do often have too little...not ideal and means raiding other savings.

Some weeks we don't save anything and have to bump up the rest of the weeks to compensate. Not great at all....don't follow our example. just put aside 25% :)

25% of every invoice paid. Covers the bill and allows a pension payment.

Ah, that's a clever way of doing pension payments Margo. Any advice on choosing one/setting one up?

25% plus a monthly pension payment.

Twelve No! I pay a lump sum once a year into my existing stakeholder pension from a previous employed job. It is a real pain though, as I have to email them when I have transfered the money, they aren't really set up for ad hoc payments.

I do want to set up a new pension I think which I can pay into monthly. It is all the FCA (formerly FSA) legislation which means they aren't keen to just accept monies.

I think I am just going to start with a local IFA. I just don't want to be bullied into merging my 2 previou pensions. I like the idea of spreading the risk.

20% of every payment. Have done this for 11 years and have always had slightly more than needed to pay tax bill!

Also put aside 25% of my monthly turn over, makes it easy to keep records - just work out 25% at the end of the month and transfer to separate account.

I keep a third back - so if I have an abnormally quiet month I still have a little excess available to transfer into the main household joint account. And for my as yet unsetup pension...

40% as into higher tax as employed as well

25% of all turnover goes into a separate bank account every month. Usually a bit left over each year and makes me psychologically good about things! I can't think of anything worse than working in a panic to make a tax payment - I'd really resent that. Better to save as you go.

30% to cover tax and NI. This is a bit too much, so that every now and then can help out with household bill.

33%

Not sure how I worked that out!