The Salary Calculator

New! Hours and days worked per week

by Admin

For quite some time now, people have been asking me to correct two little assumptions that the Salary Calculator makes:

1. The “Daily” results are based on a 5-day working week
2. The overtime calculations are based on a 37.5-hour working week (apart from on the hourly wage calculator)

I have now added these two things as options on the calculator. On the “Additional Options” tab you can choose the number of days worked per week, and the “Daily” results column will reflect what you choose. On the “Overtime” tab, you can change the number of hours in a normal week (i.e., not including overtime), and this will affect the overtime rates.

It’s only a small change, but hopefully some of you will find it useful! Head over to The Salary Calculator to check it out.

Tags: hourly wage, hours, Jobs, overtime, Pay As You Earn, The Salary Calculator, working week

New! Enhanced pension options

by Admin

I have been asked a number of times to add some options to the Pension calculations, and today I have done just that.

Auto-enrolment pensions have specific rules about how to calculate the amount which should be contributed – overtime and bonuses are included, for example, but the contribution is only on a percentage of the “Qualifying Earnings”. Qualifying Earnings are your employment income between a lower and upper threshold, which from 6th April 2019 will be £6,136 and £50,000 respectively.

Other pension types have more flexibility, which is why the Salary Calculator has been updated, and if you select an Employer, Salary Sacrifice or Personal pension, you can now choose whether to have contributions based on your whole salary or on your qualifying earnings, and whether or not to include overtime and bonuses in the calculations.

Why not head over to The Salary Calculator, click on the Pension tab and see whether these options might affect your take-home pay?

Tags: April 2019, auto-enrolment, Pay As You Earn, pension, Pensions, qualifying earnings, salary sacrifce, The Salary Calculator

Auto-enrolment pensions

by Admin

I’ve been dragging my feet on this one (sorry), but I have finally added an option to the Salary Calculator for auto-enrolment pensions, which employers are obliged to offer to eligible employees if there is not already an employer pension scheme. These pensions involve a percentage being deducted from your pay, but only on what you earn over a certain threshold (£6,032 for the tax year from April 2018). There is also an upper threshold, above which deductions are not taken – £46,350 for the April 2018 tax year.

To use the new option, enter your details in to The Salary Calculator. On the Pension tab, select the “Auto-enrolment” option and enter the percentage of your salary that you will be contributing. Click “Go!” to see the results.

Auto-enrolment pensions also require your employer to contribute to your pension, but I have not yet added this to The Salary Calculator – so enter only the percentage that you will be contributing (your employer’s contribution does not affect your take-home pay).

From 6th April 2018 the minimum amount employees are required to pay into their auto-enrolment pension increases from 1% of their pay to 3% (and from April 2019 it increases further to 5%). This can make quite a difference to your take-home pay – try it out on the Salary Calculator and see what a difference it makes!

Tags: income tax, Pay As You Earn, pension, pension scheme, Pensions, The Salary Calculator

New – Election Calculator 2017

by Admin

With a General Election on the way, The Salary Calculator’s Election Calculator has been updated with the latest campaign proposals from the main parties. This allows you to see an estimate of how the different parties’ policies might affect you if they come to power. Right now, only the 3 parties Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats have produced their manifestos with details of their taxation plans. When other parties such as The Green Party and UKIP reveal their plans, the calculator will be updated.

As explained on the Election Calculator itself, this is a simplified version of The Salary Calculator, and some estimates and assumptions have had to be made. Also, of course, income tax and National Insurance are only some of the ways that governments can raise revenue, and other policy proposals may affect your financial situation. With that in mind, check out the 2017 Election Calculator.

Tags: 2017, election, general election, income tax, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, personal allowance, tax rates, The Salary Calculator

General Election Salary Calculator

by Admin

As you may have noticed, there’s a General Election next month and the parties are all out campaigning. Since a major campaign point this time is personal taxation, I thought it would be interesting to compare how the main parties’ policies would affect take-home pay. You can try out the Election Salary Calculator here. This is a simplified version of the normal Salary Calculator, but if you enter your salary and a few other optional extras, it will estimate the differences in deductions for the 5 main national parties.

This is just an estimate, and not all of the details are available yet – I will update the calculator with more information as the parties provide it. I hope you find it interesting! Details of the changes are described below the results table. The BBC has a very good article explaining the parties’ positions on taxation and other policy areas.

Tags: 2015, election, income tax, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, personal allowance, tax rates, The Salary Calculator