The Salary Calculator

Election come down

by Admin

So after all the hype and canvassing and the debates, the results are in – and it’s a hung Parliament, the first since 1974. What does that mean for your money? Well, first of all, the pound has fallen against other currencies – 4 cents against the dollar and 3 cents against the Euro – bad news if you were about to go on holiday!

Why is this? In short because the value of a currency is related to how confident investors are in a country’s economy. Historically, hung parliaments in Britain are unable to act as swiftly as majority governments, because consensus must be found by the members of coalition parties – who often disagree on certain principles. These delays in acting may hinder our recovery from the recession – so investors would rather not be holding on to the pound. Of course, if it does lead to a slow recovery (or even the “double dip” recession some analysts have been predicting), then this could continue to hit us in the wallet for months to come – with the effects of the recession continuing rather than abating.

Another area that was to be decided by this election was income tax and National Insurance. As I wrote previously, all the parties had set out in their manifestos their intended changes to the PAYE system. I put these all in the Election Comparison Calculator – which shows you want impact these differences would have on you. With no party yet in charge, it’s not clear what will happen about this – whose policies will be enacted? The Conservatives, who have the largest number of seats, said they would hold an emergency budget to implement some of their changes before next year. We’ll have to wait and see to find out what really happens.

Tags: Economy, election, euro, Foreign Currency, foreign exchange rates, holiday, holiday money, income tax, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, pension, Pensions, personal allowance, pound, recession, recovery, tax rates, The Salary Calculator, unemployment

General Election nears

by Admin

With a General Election later this week, it’s time to find out about each of the parties and consider who would best represent you in Westminster. It’s the closest election in many years so it’s very important that we make the effort to have our say in the decision of who will govern us. The economy has been a key election topic for most of us this time around, and each of the parties have a different way of tackling the problems we face. Yes, we have come out of recession but the recovery is not yet complete – the actions of the next government will determine how we go forward from here.

In the Election Comparison Calculator I’ve tried to help show what would happen to your take home pay should we have a change of government. All the details of the calculations performed are underneath the results, explaining what the key differences between the parties are. Of course, your take home pay is not the only thing at stake – all the major parties have put details in their manifestos of how they will make other changes affecting not only your money but other aspects of your life as well.

Over at the BBC they have created a useful election tool called Where they stand. This allows you choose a topic and three parties to compare, and a summary of each party’s manifesto is displayed. You can see at a glance what the major differences are between the parties on the issues you believe are important – be it the Economy, Civil Liberties, Health or Education (amongst others).

Your vote can make a difference, this year more than ever before, so I encourage you to read up about the parties standing in your constituency and vote for who you think would best represent you. See you at the polling station!

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

Election Comparison Calculator launched!

by Admin

With a general election now called for 6th May, the major parties have started campaigning and promoting their policies. All have policies related to taxation, and The Salary Calculator has tried to show you what their different policies may mean to you.

The Election Comparison Calculator aims to help you see the differences between the major parties’ policies on personal income. Using the information available, the calculator estimates how their policies would affect your take home pay. As described on the Election Comparison Calculator page itself, not all the details are available at the moment, and probably won’t be until the next government holds its first budget. However, the details they have provided allow the calculator to estimate what those changes would mean to you.

All the details used to create the calculator are available underneath the results. As explained in that description, the calculator considers PAYE changes – each party also has other economic policies which may affect you in other ways, such as stamp duty or inheritance tax. Some assumptions have had to be made – if you can help provide more detailed information then please contact us. So why not try the Election Comparison Calculator and see what you learn?

Tags: 50% tax, April 2010, Economy, election, income tax, National Insurance, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, pension, Pensions, personal allowance, recovery, tax rates, The Salary Calculator

2010 Budget announced

by Admin

Today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced his Budget for the tax year starting 6th April 2010. There were no real surprises and a summary of the changes is on the BBC website here.

The Salary Calculator has already been updated, as described in a previous post, so the April 2010 values are used for both National Insurance and tax calculation. Details of the values used are on this page about the Salary Calculator, check it out and see whether the new tax rates will affect you!

Tags: 50% tax, April 2010, Economy, HMRC, income tax, national insurance, National Insurance, Pay As You Earn, personal allowance, tax rates

Mortgage availability continues to rise

by Admin

Since the collapse of the housing market and plummetting property values filled the mortgage companies with fear of taking on the risks of buyers defaulting on the their home loan, the number of mortgages available to buyers also fell. But over the last year the trend in both house prices and mortgage availability has been promising.

More mortgages are now available with lower deposits (higher loan-to-value) than a few months ago, and some lenders are prepared to risk more with first time buyers. All of this is good news if you are looking to buy a house, and although prices have recently fallen slightly, the overall trend is still for prices to increase. Increased mortgage availability should help more buyers into the market, increasing demand and pushing prices up.

But a note of caution – with house prices returning to the value current occupants bought at, more and more owners will feel ready to sell up – more houses on the market increases supply and therefore lowers the price. Some analysts think that this effect will start to work harder against the increasing demand, slowing growth in house prices, but not actually pushing prices back down.

Tags: Economy, house prices, houses, Loans, Mortgages, recovery