Coffee and chocolate

miggy

Had a look at tax and last year's income - if I earned the same this year as last, I would be paying tax because of about £750 of income. However, my income has a regular basic amount which is topped up by extra hours and if I hadn't done them it would have been a lot lower.

In fact, it's looking as though, all else being equal (which it isn't), I might escape taxes in the coming year if I don't do any overtime.

I need to go back through my payslips and work out how much I paid in tax - it sounds daft in one way to push myself into the extra hours (though it's not so difficult any more) when it means I pay more to the Government but on the other hand if I get the opportunity to earn more, would it counterbalance that? Ethically, I think I prefer to be earning now I'm not needed at home so much, and of course we will have to take into account whether DH gets this job or not. A few more days and we'll know that.

There's a colleague of mine who dropped down in hours so he could study and he hasn't been taking any overtime because it would push him into paying taxes - maybe I should have a chat to him? On the other hand, will I understand what he says? I really don't handle verbal explanations well at the best of times and it's worse when it's about numbers.

MuffinTops

Hello Miggy,

Although I work in IT, I work in an accountancy firm and am always asking questions so if you want some help with anything feel free to pm me. I have website addresses where you tap in what you earn, what your tax code is and if you do overtime and it tells you what you'll earn before tax and what your take home pay will be. I'm toying with the idea of going part time and based on that wanted to know the effect to my pocket so have done a lot of research.

Anyway, feel free to ask and if I can help I definitely will. If I can't I'll probably know someone I can ask here.

miggy

Thank you Muffy, I'll certainly bear that in mind.

I've worked out what I earned last year and as there's no pay rise, by the law of averages I'm thinking it will be similar this year. It may be slightly less as I did have a couple of months with an unusual amount of extra hours. On the other hand it should go up slightly if I ever get round to finishing this qualification.

I think my first questions has to be: if as a basic rate tax payer I can earn £8,105 in this financial year without paying tax, if I earn any more, does the first £8,105 remain tax free?

That sounds like such a basic question! LOL. I think it does, but if that's so, why is my colleague trying so hard not to earn any more so he doesn't start paying taxes?

I'm quite intelligent about some things, honestly... this isn't one of them.

Hovel_lady

miggy wrote: »

I think my first questions has to be: if as a basic rate tax payer I can earn £8,105 in this financial year without paying tax, if I earn any more, does the first £8,105 remain tax free?

That sounds like such a basic question! LOL. I think it does, but if that's so, why is my colleague trying so hard not to earn any more so he doesn't start paying taxes?

I'm quite intelligent about some things, honestly... this isn't one of them.

Yep, the £8,105 remains tax free

MuffinTops

I'll second that.

Maybe your friend doesn't understand what happens, or maybe he just doesn't want to earn any money that he then has to share.

miggy

Thank you, both.

I wonder whether it affects his student rights or something.... he's very bright and I wouldn't have expected him to get something like that wrong... or maybe I got the wrong end of the stick!

I will now regroup the brain and may come back later with another question. (that came out as 'brian'... wonder who he is then?)

Hovel_lady

Brian is the man who has the answer to everything.
One day I hope to meet him:rotfl:

miggy

He's not here, HL... let me know if you find him!

miggy

One of those statistics that we hope we don't have to face up to: if we had to pay our electric bill out of my wages alone, it would account for about a quarter of our income!

On the plus side, it's down from last year, probably because the winter wasn't nearly as severe.

My work is offering a couple of posts and we discussed over tea whether I should apply for either. Of course, without knowing about DH's job, we can't make an informed decision about income, but we decided that for me to work full time would be too much, in terms of juggling other responsibilities (home and Mum), in terms of the toll on my health (night work does strange things to health) and because it puts a lot of constraints on the rest of the family. DS2 and DH have to skulk about quietly till the middle of the afternoon and they would have to do this on the majority of their days off if I almost doubled my work.

The upshot of the discussion was that I won't go for anything full time but if, as is possible, DH's job goes and the work posts aren't filled, I could offer to increase my hours. In some ways it costs more if I return to work because I can't make the savings from cooking from scratch etc., but I think work brings in more than I save.

miggy

I feel like a real mover and shaker today - not only have I cancelled my Dad's Union magazine (he's been gone nearly six years... nobody told them!) but I have contacted my employer of about 22 years ago to see what's happened to the pension I had there!

The woman I spoke to found my details at once (!) and says they have some money waiting for me which they couldn't send because muggins here (she didn't say that bit) hadn't given them a forwarding address. Money waiting? But I'm not old enough to claim my pension! However, she can't give me more details over the phone so I have written. I wonder if they've somehow dissolved their fund and refunded the money? Well, hopefully I'll find out. I don't expect much as I only paid in for about a year but it's something.

I wonder if I can add it to one of the other pensions I've paid into?

I got onto this by scaring myself with looking at Martin's article on how important it is to have the right pension annuity. Annuity? What's that?! :eek: Apparently it's very, very important and I don't think I have one. Anyway I have now done something which is better than nothing.

Slowly, very slowly, I am going to get the hang of this money lark!