Pay Rise and no better off

andrean

Hello MSEers, I wonder if anyone can offer any advice or finds themselves in the same position.

I've been promoted and offered a payrise of £3,000pa. This is less than I hoped for. I suggested to my employer that I would probably not be any better off. In fact probably worse off. Yes I am disgruntled because I agreed to the promotion (in September last year) with a view that I would be suitably rewarded (naively as it turns out).

I am a single parent, run a household, raise my children and work full-time and I have roughly 10k of debt to service each month. I thought the boss would come through for me today but I feel like I've just been punched several times.

My employer has asked me to find an advisor that they will pay for - someone I can go and see with all the facts and figures to see how we can avoid the problem. Though as I see it however they pay me (as salary, expenses, consultancy - call it what you will) income is income is income and its taxable. I would rather have income as salary than benefits - although I would have to pay for things like prescriptions for example, I would have a better bargaining position when looking for a new job!

I'm not really sure what to do. I have more going out than I have coming in as it is - it's a slow trickle. I don't have anything to fall back on and no family to help with funds or advice.

Thanks for reading and sorry to moan - I know a lot of people are in the same boat or worse.:(

ohdamnit

Think we would need to know what all the figures are? Why are you worse off?

Oldernotwiser

Sorry, I have no idea what you're asking.

andrean

Thanks for the quick reply.

I have 23k gross salary (net monthly is £1483.00) and I am currently getting a monthly payment of £269.21 in tax credits (it just went up from £258.57).

Will this be based on what I got paid in the tax year 09/10? If so, in that tax year I got a bonus of £3990 on top of the £23,000. (I'm currently paying back £900+ in housing benefit for that tax year). Does HB figure anywhere in Tax Credit calculations?

[for housing benefit I was told I could reapply in November 2010 - I've not done so because I was expecting my pay rise any day! The HB that I was getting before my bonus was £51.20 per fortnight).

Anyway, my thinking was that with a revised salary of £26,000 i would lose or reduce my TC and lose all entitlement to HB. Then pay tax and NI on the increase. And I would be worse off.

Thank you. is there anything else I should add? sorry if the HB issue muddies the waters.

karenx

On 26k you wont get any housing benefit. Housing benefit doesnt make a difference to tax credits but tax credits make a difference to housing benefit

andrean

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Sorry, I have no idea what you're asking.

I am sorry, I'm not altogether sure what I need either! I would be interested to know if my calculations are completely off or not.

Other than that, who can I pay for advice - a financial advisor of some sort who can advise me about the dilemma I'm faced with (or rather my employer is faced with). They don't want to give me a rise in salary if I will then lose all my tax credits. Their line is "what's the point".

My underlying issue is that they have not offered enough and this is relevant to my question (but I guess there are no answers - at least for now.

Indie_Kid

I'm sure the CAB, job centre, etc. can you advice for free.

Quackers

andrean wrote: »

.....the dilemma I'm faced with (or rather my employer is faced with). They don't want to give me a rise in salary if I will then lose all my tax credits. Their line is "what's the point".
.....

It should be irrelevant to your employer surely?

If it's going to help you in the future when looking for a new job then I don't understand why you are not taking it?

I'm hopefully getting a new position within the next week at work if my interview went as well as I hoped it did...I will be working more hours and due to losing working tax and child tax credits I won't actually be any better off...I'll be worse off...but I need to start planning for the future and working my way back up within the company.

It should all be worth it ~ eventually

ohdamnit

Quackers wrote: »

It should be irrelevant to your employer surely?

If it's going to help you in the future when looking for a new job then I don't understand why you are not taking it?

Maybe the upgrade means working longer hours/extra responsibility depends if OP wants added stress for no benefit?

Quackers

ohdamnit wrote: »

Maybe the upgrade means working longer hours/extra responsibility depends if OP wants added stress for no benefit?

well, that's exactly what I am doing...for less money.

But I'm thinking of my future and how it will benefit me long term

OP has said that it will help with future job prospects so for me it's a no brainer!

Jowo_2

You can model the impact of your payrise on your benefits for free by putting the figures in the Turn2us online benefit calculator - use it to model different scenarios.

In my opinion, your benefits are none of your employers business. Benefits are probably only likely to stagnate or decrease over time (for example, the move from calculating LHA rates on average local rents to the bottom third).

Out of nosiness, why is a 3k payrise, around 13%, so dismal?