Looking for a tax advisor 16 February at 11:35PM in Cutting tax 15 replies 251 views

Jo1923

I am looking for someone to help me with my tax code / underpayment, what to do about child benefit, obv willing to pay for independent advice - any help?

Jeremy535897

Have you asked friends and colleagues who they would recommend?

Jo1923

My situation is a little unique in comparison to colleagues 

Jeremy535897

That makes it a bit difficult for anyone here to make suggestions, as the matters you have referred to are normally quite straightforward to get advice about.

MattMattMattUK

Jo1923 said:

I am looking for someone to help me with my tax code / underpayment, what to do about child benefit, obv willing to pay for independent advice - any help?

Jo1923 said:

My situation is a little unique in comparison to colleagues 

It is unlikely that it is as complicated as you initially believe and you almost certainly do not need to pay for advice. If you say what the actual situation is then I am sure the many wise souls that inhabit this forum will be able to clarify things for you.

Jo1923

Well I say unique, maybe they are not ? I put my predicted income into tax on line at 49k now it looks as though gonna be hitting around 59k for 22/23, next year is likely to be the same - I don’t know whether to just opt out of the child benefit? I earn 49k from my full time employer- I’m a nurse practitioner and do some agency work that I earn around 5-10k but thinking of going limited company for the locom work . I’m not really worried that next year when my tax gets looked at I will owe a lot of money for this financial year in unpaid tax and also child benefit charge ? And wanted to see if going limited would be more beneficial?

MattMattMattUK

Jo1923 said:

Well I say unique, maybe they are not ? I put my predicted income into tax on line at 49k now it looks as though gonna be hitting around 59k for 22/23, next year is likely to be the same - I don’t know whether to just opt out of the child benefit? I earn 49k from my full time employer- I’m a nurse practitioner and do some agency work that I earn around 5-10k but thinking of going limited company for the locom work . I’m not really worried that next year when my tax gets looked at I will owe a lot of money for this financial year in unpaid tax and also child benefit charge ? And wanted to see if going limited would be more beneficial?

Others can give more information but you might as well claim as the worst case is you will have pay some of it back. However you should also look at paying more into your pension to bring your taxable earnings down.

As a really rough example on £49k pa, after tax but including child benefit your net income would be £38,963, on £59k accounting for the loss of child benefit it would be £42,997 so you would only be £4,034 better off in net terms, but would have paid a lot more in tax and the loss of child benefit. Alternatively you could put £10k into a pension, retail the child benefit and not pay the higher rate tax, so your pension would grow by £10k a year for only a drop of £336 pcm over where you would be without pension contributions. As you already have to pay some into a pension anyway you are likely already halfway there, so maybe only £150 less per month for a much larger pension.

As you are in nursing your union will usually have someone who can advise as well, but also there are many on here who know far more about this than me so can go into detail.

Jo1923

I didn’t even realise I could increase my nhs pension contributions, I don’t pay pension on my agency work - do you think maybe I should ? Would this help? 

Jeremy535897

I am not confident that using a limited company in respect of your locum work would help, because it is very likely to be caught by IR35 rules. If you search "are locum nurses in ir35" you will find a lot of information on the subject.

As your effective marginal tax rate appears to be around 60%, the suggestion about making additional contribution scheme contributions makes a lot of sense. If you pay £8,000 net in, your pension goes up by £10,000, and your basic rate band is extended by £10,000. Your adjusted net income (what matters for child benefit) is reduced by the £10,000 gross contribution.

Jo1923

I currently pay 10 per cent pension - as example in jan my pay was 4853.76, paid 485.38 in pension, so taxable pay was £4375, I presume I would have to increase contributions by a certain percentage??

Jo1923

Also this year I have claimed child benefit - it’s too late now to do anything I presume ? So I will have to do a self assessment next Jan and then have a big tax bill for 22/23