Can you refuse a payrise?

POSSETTE

id go for the pension route,if firm cant exchange it as someone said...

Astaroth

I have to say that from my point of view it is ethically wrong to manipulate your situation to ensure maximum benefit from the state. The benefits system should, in my opinion, be such that it is never more financially benefitial not to be working than it is to be (with the exception of the disabled who cannot ever work) - whilst I know this is often not the case for the unemployed my understanding was that this is fairly consistantly so in the case of those already in employment but this example shows that I am wrong - have you double checked your calculations?

msmicawber

I sympathise. My company gives 2 bonuses per year which are n performance related. I have asked not to receive them because they mess my housing benefit claim up and by the time it's been sorted out, the next bonus comes along and the nightmare starts again. I've asked not to receive it and have successfully persuaded them to give me time in lieu this time, but HR have said it's a one-off.

How about asking if he can reduce his annual hours to keep his income the same, or having time off in lieu of taking the salary rise?

Best of luck - it's a minefield.

starlite_2

He doesn't have set hours, in the industry he is in it's bsically work from early morning until whenever they finish and he has offers of paid overtime at weekends but turns it down often as he'd otherwise never get to spend time with our baby.

Astaroth, I would love to be working, hell I am working, 24 hours a day with no pay, and crave the stimulation a 'proper' job would provide, not to mention the financial benefits, but it's not possible.

Basically after this measly payrise we will have the credits cut so that our money after mortgage every month is £120 per week. This is not enough and we won't get by and I can see us ending up back in the black hole of debt we have only just managed to get out of.

zoezoe_3

starlite wrote:

Thanks for all your advice. We would lose around £3000 from the tax credits with the new wage.

He does pay into an employee share scheme, so do you think it would be viable to up his contribution to that (which means it's excluded from our 'income' for tax credit purposes?)

you loose 3k in taxcredits but gain 7k in salary right ??

starlite_2

no £1000 payrise

astonsmummy

are you sure those figures are correct? your saying you will loose £3kper year becase you get an extra £1k per year which is roughly £19 a week, thats madness!!

edit - i wasnt implying your lying or anything, just think it's out fo order if this is the case, when i changed jobs my income went up by about £30pw but the tax credits stayed roughly the same

Astaroth

starlite wrote:

Astaroth, I would love to be working, hell I am working, 24 hours a day with no pay, and crave the stimulation a 'proper' job would provide, not to mention the financial benefits, but it's not possible.

Basically after this measly payrise we will have the credits cut so that our money after mortgage every month is £120 per week. This is not enough and we won't get by and I can see us ending up back in the black hole of debt we have only just managed to get out of.

I was not judging you but simply saying that the system should be such that you arent ever better off on benefits and that from a purely ethical perspective that in my opinion manipulating salaries etc is wrong however we dont have the luxury of always being able to do the most ethical things in life as we have families to feed or CD collections to complete

starlite_2

Oh of course, I mean I've had my eye on a few dvd boxsets and we could do with some new designer clothes.

jasonrat

i think he should get the payrise he deserves and you should get a job