The Salary Calculator

Updated for April 2021

by Admin

The Salary Calculator has been updated with the tax rates which take effect from 6th April 2021. Some of these rates are still subject to confirmation by the relevant governments, but the calculator will be updated if any of them change.

The biggest change is the introduction of “Plan 4” student loan repayments, for Scottish students. If your undergraduate loan is administered in Scotland and due for repayment you will start repaying under Plan 4 from April 2021, even if you have been previously repaying under Plan 1. Those already repaying their loans will switch from Plan 1 to Plan 4 repayments in April. This change does not affect students in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, and nor does it affect repayment of postgraduate loans.

If you would like to see the effects of this change, and any others from April 2021, try out The 2021 Salary Calculator by choosing the “2021/22” tax year from the drop-down box.

Tags: April 2021, budget, income tax, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, student loan company, student loans, tax rates, The Salary Calculator

New! Postgraduate Loan Repayment

by Admin

Starting from April 2019, repayment of new Postgraduate Student Loans will be done through Pay As You Earn (PAYE). As The Salary Calculator has just been updated with the April 2019 figures, repayment of postgraduate loans has been added so, if this applies to you, you can see what effect this will have on your take home pay.

These loan repayments are in addition to Plan 1 and Plan 2 student loan repayments, which you may have from undergraduate courses you have studied. Postgraduate loan repayments are calculated as 6% of gross annual earnings over £21,000. More information is available from the Student Loans Company.

Also, so you can see how your loans are being repaid, if you select more than one loan type on The Salary Calculator you will be able to click for a breakdown of how the repayments are distributed to your different student loans.

Because this only comes in to effect from April 2019, in order to see the effect of postgraduate loan repayments you will need to select “2019/20” from the Tax Year drop-down. Head over to The Salary Calculator to check it out!

Tags: 2019, April 2019, Loans, Pay As You Earn, student loan company, student loans, The Salary Calculator

Understanding student loans

by Admin

I discovered an excellent article today by Martin Lewis, laying out the facts behind student loans – how they work and how they are repaid. There are a number of common misconceptions about student loans, and this article sets out all the information you would need to understand if you were considering going to university (or sending one of your children). Topics covered include:

• If you take a low paying job after graduation, you’ll only repay a small amount of the loan (or none of it!)
• Monthly repayments under the new loan system are lower than under the previous system
• Your monthly repayments are the same, no matter how high your tuition fees are
• You only start repaying once you leave university and start earning
• You will still be able to get a mortgage

To learn more about all of these and more, check out Student Loans Mythbusting.

You can see how much your student loan will cost each month, and how long it will take to repay, by using the tool on our sister site Loan Tutor.

Tags: Loan Tutor, Loans, repayment, student loan company, student loans

Loan Tutor website launched!

by Admin

A new sister site to The Salary Calculator has been launched to provide information about loans and loan repayment.

Loan Tutor contains details about different loan types, such as mortgages, unsecured loans, debt consolidation loans and student loans. As well as a suite of tools for calculating loan repayment costs, there are also hints and tips and links to further information about borrowing money.

There will also be articles with suggestions of how you can save money with loans, including the first of these which explains how to avoid overpaying your student loan. Other articles and tools are planned for the future, including car loans, offset mortgages and credit cards.

Tags: debt, Loan Tutor, Loans, Mortgages, student loan company, student loans

Student Loan repayment threshold

by Admin

Those of you who are repaying your Student Loan through PAYE might have noticed that this month your student loan deduction is a little lower than usual (£5-£6 lower). This is because the annual threshold for student loan repayments increased in April from £15,000 to £15,795.

Income-contingent Student Loans are repaid from the April after you complete your course, at a rate of 9% on any gross income above this threshold. This is similar to the way income tax is calculated – i.e. a percentage of any income above a certain “free” allowance. However, while the tax-free allowance usually increases by a small amount each year, the student loan repayment threshold has been steady at £15,000 since April 2005 – before that, it was £10,000. If you’ve been paying off your student loan for a few years now, you may be surprised to see this change. More information is available from the Student Loan Repayment site. The Salary Calculator is up-to-date with this change to the repayment threshold.

If you are repaying your student loan and you think you might be close to paying it off, this earlier blog post about Student Loan over-repayment may be of interest to you.

Tags: April 2012, debt, Loans, Pay As You Earn, repayment, student loan company, student loans, The Salary Calculator