The Salary Calculator

New tool for those thinking of retiring

by Admin

If you are thinking of retiring soon, you might be wondering what kind of effect taking your pension would have on your take-home pay. This is not quite as simple as it might sound at first – the deductions from your pension income will not be the same as those on your salary. For example, you might be paying into a pension with some of your salary, which of course you would not do with income from a pension. And National Insurance is not deducted from pension income, whereas it is deducted from your salary if you are below state pension age.

With this in mind, I have combined a few options from the Two Jobs calculator (which shows you the take-home pay if you have two income at once) and put them in the Two Salaries Comparison Calculator (which compares two incomes side-by-side). Now, you can enter different options for the two different incomes you are comparing (e.g. different bonuses or overtime) – and you can also tick a box on the “Additional Options” tab to indicate that one or other of the incomes is a pension. This income will then not have National Insurance deducted from it – so you can enter the details of your employment for the first income and the details of your pension in the second income, tick the box to say the second job is actually a pension, and the calculator will deduct NI only from the first income.

If you are thinking of retiring, or just investigating a new job which would have a different salary and different deductions, try out the Two Salaries Comparison Calculator.

Tags: income tax, national insurance, pension, Pensions, retire, retirement, The Salary Calculator

Receiving a pension AND employment income

by Admin

The Salary Calculator has had the Two Jobs calculator for a little over a year now. I have had a couple of people contact me and say that they haven’t been able to use it for their situation, which is that they are receiving one income as a pension but they have a second income from a job. The pension doesn’t have National Insurance deducted from it but the job does, and it wasn’t possible to reflect this in the calculator. However, this oversight has now been fixed!

On the Two Jobs calculator, the Additional Options tab now has two extra tick-boxes which you can use to indicate that either the first or second job is a pension (or indeed that they are both pensions). The calculator will then not deduct NI from the job that you say is actually a pension. On all other calculators, where you are only dealing with one income, you can just tick the “I do not pay National Insurance” box if this actually a pension.

Tags: Jobs, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, pension, Pensions, The Salary Calculator

Self-Employed Sole Traders in the new tax year – where do you start?

by Admin

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The new tax year started on the 6^th April – that we do know for sure.

At times it felt like everything else changed and at a very quick pace. Our world slowed down – working from home where possible, home schooling our children the #StayHomeSaveLives were on windows with rainbows.

People settled into ways of working from home with daily routines including video calls to keep connected with fellow employees, following pop quizzes on the radio or simply taking time to reflect. Kids following PE lessons, craft tutorials and Disney princesses via online platforms while parents worked.

As this way of life continues for the foreseeable how can you be more productive?

One main cause for concern is money, knowing your financial stance helps you plan for the future. By getting ready to calculate your 2019-20 tax return – you will have your income and tax liability ready.

Digital copies of receipts and paperwork can be saved allowing for a clear out of the home office.

Whilst you do not have to submit right now, being safe in the knowledge of your outgoings for tax means you can then focus on sales and plan for the future.

The government stepped up and offered financial support

As the pandemic picked up pace and businesses were restricted by the Government the self-employed sat waiting and hoping they would be thrown a life-line. Chancellor Rishi Sunak gave them the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.

The scheme is open to self-employed individuals or a member of a partnership who:

• Have submitted their Income Tax Self-Assessment tax return for the tax year 2018-19.
• Traded in the year 2019-20
• Are trading when they apply, or would be except for COVID-19
• They intend to continue to trade in the tax year 2020-21
• They have lost trading/partnership trading profits due to COVID-19

For a further in-depth review of the scheme please follow the link above or visit www.gov.uk

Please note you had until 23^rd April 2020 to file your 2018-19 self-assessment tax return to be eligible for this scheme.

A further helping hand was offered for anyone who uses Payments on Account, they will have their normal payment due on 31^st July deferred –  this payment won’t be due until 31^st January 2021.

Another deferral was that of the VAT payments due before 30^th June 2020, these will now not need to be made until 31^st March 2021. However you will be required to file your VAT return.

There were earlier announcements made by the Chancellor in March 2020 with an emergency £330bn financial package to bolster the UK economy. These included a business rates holiday and for struggling firms, loans.

There were postponements too for the controversial tax reforms to off-payroll working rules, more commonly known as IR35 – these have been postponed until April 2021 to help ease some strain from the pandemic and the effect it is having on businesses and individuals.

In 2019, it was announced that the Personal Allowance would be increasing from £11,850 to £12,500. Thanks to the increase, the tax brackets in the UK were also to be pushed back. Specifically, the basic rate limit was increased to £37,500 and the higher rate threshold was set at £50,000.

In April 2020 the Capital Gains Tax allowance increased to £12,300. Anything above the allowance, though, will be taxed at 18% for basic-rate taxpayers and 28% for additional-rate taxpayers. The Capital Gains Tax Allowance is the amount you can make from the increased value of your possessions tax-free.

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Tags: April 2020, Employed and Self Employed, HMRC, income tax, Loans, national insurance, personal allowance, self employed, self employment, tax rates, VAT

New option – reduced pay

by Admin

With the coronavirus outbreak affecting businesses around the country, a number of employers have had to make the decision to ask staff not to come in to work. The government announced last week that, to encourage employers not to lay staff off, they will pay up to 80% (to a maximum £2,500 per month) of staff members’ salaries if they keep them on the payroll. As well as trying to ensure that employees still receive some pay, the plan is to keep the workers available so the economy is well placed to start up again once the virus threat is reduced.

I have added an option to the existing Pro-Rata Calculator which allows you to enter a percentage of salary instead of reduced hours. Some employers will continue to pay their employees the full amount during the pandemic, others may only be able to pay what they are receiving from the government. And of course, for other reasons you might be receiving a percentage reduction in salary. If this applies to you, enter your full-time salary and full-time hours, then enter the percentage of your salary that you will be receiving. With tax and pension deductions etc taken into account, you might find that the reduction is not quite as bad as you thought. For example, someone on the UK median full-time salary (which is about £30,000) normally takes home £1,915 per month after tax and 5% auto-enrolment pension contributions. On 80% salary, they would take home £1,595, which is a significant drop but still just over 83% of normal. Other deductions like Student Loan repayment could make the overall reduction to a slightly more manageable 85%.

Also of interest might be the new Sick Pay Calculator, which I launched last week to help people who have had to take a short period of time off on reduced pay.

Tags: coronavirus, covid-19, Economy, furlough, HMRC, income tax, layoff, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, pension, pro-rata, reduced pay, student loans, The Salary Calculator, unemployment

New! Taxable cash allowances

by Admin

For some time now, The Salary Calculator has allowed you to enter the value of any taxable benefits that you receive (such as private health insurance, or a company car). These are things that your employer pays for and you get the benefit of, and therefore you pay tax on the value of these benefits even though you don’t receive any extra cash. I have had a lot of people contact me asking about a similar option, but this time for when your employer pays you extra cash so that you can pay for something yourself – a common one was a car allowance (as opposed to a company car) or a mobile phone allowance.

This option has finally been added to the calculator, on the Taxable Benefits tab. If you receive such an allowance, enter the value of it into the “cash allowances” option, and choose whether you receive this amount annually, monthly or weekly. Cash allowances are treated differently from benefits in kind in two main ways – firstly, they are extra cash so your take-home pay will increase despite the extra tax, and secondly, National Insurance is deducted as well as income tax.

You can also choose, on the Pension tab, whether your employer includes the value of your cash allowances when working out your pension contributions.

If you receive a cash allowance (or have been offered one) and would like to see what difference it would make, try it out on The Salary Calculator!

Tags: benefits in kind, cash allowances, income tax, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, pension, Pensions, taxable benefits, The Salary Calculator