New Income Tax Checker

ozzypod

chrisbur said:

ozzypod said:

There are some problems with this MSE income tax checker:

• £9 not added to the personal allowance calculations resulting in the income tax being a few £ off.
• Salary sacrifice on the pension is enabled by default and can't be disabled - some companies unfortunately don't offer salary sacrifice on your pension.
• The salary sacrifice creates an 'adjusted net income' which is being correctly applied to the income tax bands but it's not being applied to the N.I. tax bands.

If you click on the little question mark by the pension section a box appears that explains that the calculator uses the net pay arrangement and it will not be accurate for salary sacrifice or relief at source.  It would be more helpful if this box was always on show and you did not have to click to see it.
I do not think that the £9 is making a lot of difference as for most £9 a year is is only making  15p a month difference to tax, other roundings used are probably making at least this difference.
I do agree that this is probably the worst calculator ( apart from the HMRC one of course ) on the internet.

I've browsed google search results and tested every tool - and believe it or not there are worse ones than the Gov one . The gov income tax calculator tool is really basic but at least it works. It's interesting that they didn't bother building out the pension options.

MSE tool - ok but configurations are limited, and the NI calc is way off due to not being accounting for salary sacrifice
Gov tool - you need to go through 6 pages to get one result, configurations limited, but it is snappy
listentotaxman (which MSE is built on) is ok, has the most history rates options, but hasn't changed in 10 years in terms of features so no graphs or salary comparisons
thesalarycalculator was good but you now have to go through 17 ads to view one salary, but there are a lot of configurations available
income-tax co uk is pretty nifty - has a few nice graphs but the calculations are not the most accurate and there are limited student loan options
income-tax-calculator com is probably the best all-rounder in terms of tax configurations, graphs and being able to compare salaries without seeing 17 ads, and the only tool offering Plan 5 SL configs + multiple SLs in one salary

Dazed_and_C0nfused

The gov income tax calculator tool is really basic but at least it works. It's interesting that they didn't bother building out the pension options.

Net pay and salary sacrifice simply reduce the amount of income that is taxable.  And a tax calculator will usually only be interested in taxable income, how you got to that taxable income figure isn't usually incorporated into them.  

For example you could work 40 hours on £20/hour or 10 hours on £80/hour but what counts is the £800.  

You could have a salary of £40k and sacrifice 10% into a pension.  HMRC are not interested in the £40k, it's the £36k taxable income that is important.

And relief at source contributions don't change your taxable income, extra relief due above what the pension company adds would either be given after the tax year ends or (provisionally) by having a different tax code.

JoeyandChandler1994

Hi everyone, I have a tax code question and have had issues with my tax for many years and not got to the bottom of it with HMRC. I'm hoping someone on here might be able to help me with my PAYE, my tax code is 880L. I have a gross salary of 74k and pension contributions of £246.67. I have private healthcare through work which I have my wife on too.

The calculator states my take home pay should be £4308 but my most recent payslip states £4084.71. I have just finished paying the HMRC back £68.70 per month for the past year and a bit due to under paid tax in the 21/22 financial year. 

Can anyone help me understand why i am £223.29 short each month, and why i always get a letter saying i have underpaid most years and have to have a tax code change to pay back. 

I have struggled for this for so long and would really appreciate some help, and more to the point i really feel i could be owed some serious amounts of money too, if there is a mistake somewhere.

chrisbur

JoeyandChandler1994 said:

Hi everyone, I have a tax code question and have had issues with my tax for many years and not got to the bottom of it with HMRC. I'm hoping someone on here might be able to help me with my PAYE, my tax code is 880L. I have a gross salary of 74k and pension contributions of £246.67. I have private healthcare through work which I have my wife on too.

The calculator states my take home pay should be £4308 but my most recent payslip states £4084.71. I have just finished paying the HMRC back £68.70 per month for the past year and a bit due to under paid tax in the 21/22 financial year. 

Can anyone help me understand why i am £223.29 short each month, and why i always get a letter saying i have underpaid most years and have to have a tax code change to pay back. 

I have struggled for this for so long and would really appreciate some help, and more to the point i really feel i could be owed some serious amounts of money too, if there is a mistake somewhere.

JoeyandChandler1994 said:

Hi everyone, I have a tax code question and have had issues with my tax for many years and not got to the bottom of it with HMRC. I'm hoping someone on here might be able to help me with my PAYE, my tax code is 880L. I have a gross salary of 74k and pension contributions of £246.67. I have private healthcare through work which I have my wife on too.

The calculator states my take home pay should be £4308 but my most recent payslip states £4084.71. I have just finished paying the HMRC back £68.70 per month for the past year and a bit due to under paid tax in the 21/22 financial year. 

Can anyone help me understand why i am £223.29 short each month, and why i always get a letter saying i have underpaid most years and have to have a tax code change to pay back. 

I have struggled for this for so long and would really appreciate some help, and more to the point i really feel i could be owed some serious amounts of money too, if there is a mistake somewhere.

You are not putting in your tax code so the calculator is assuming the standard code which you are not on due to adjustment for the tax due on your private healthcare, and adjustments for past year  This adjustment is often happening late so you end up with adjustments for previous year..  
If you are putting your pension into the MSE calculator have you clicked on the "?"  This explains that it only works correctly for one of the three ways you may be paying your pension; do you know what sort of scheme yours is?

assistancefit8494

The tool is calculating incorrectly with wages over 100k. It does not account in the basic band for the reduction of personal allowance. The formula like other is based upon a basic band fixed at 37700. Over 100k this basic band is widening with the reduction of personal allowance up to 125k when it is 0. At this point the basic band is 50270. 

Can the formula be updated to reflect this.