Confused - Child Benefit and Earnings

penrodyn

Hi,

There is a lot in press right now about child benefit eligibility and I am trying to work out "what's what"

Due to a new role I have recently taken on I now earn £59,857

I am completely unclear as to whether the £50,000 high earner tax is for income after Tax / after Tax and NI / after Tax, NI & Pension.

My basic pay is 4988.09
In terms of deductions they are listed in this order which I guess means NI and Pension are taken after tax;
PAYE (Tax) 656.07
NI 330.08
Pension (12.5%) 623.51

I've taken a look at the .gov.uk calculator and it says "your salary before tax (with pension contributions under net pay arrangements deducted)".

I enter 59857 as my pre-tax income and then add my pension contributions of 7482 as an allowable deduction (not sure if I should be doing it this way around or taking the pension from the declared earnings in the first step).

The output I get from calculator says I am eligible but with an adjusted net income of £50,504.50 but need to pay a Tax Charge.  Any idea whether I have to do a self assessment for this or whether I can just call up and pay it over the phone?

The second part of my query is I understand anyone earning over 60,000 loses the child benefit - I am wary of accidentally being overpaid if my salary creeps over this - I'm assuming it works on the same basis and is "net pay" taking into account my pension and tax contributions?

Thanks
Penrodyn

HolidayHelp

It raises to 60k in April and need over 80k after pension contribution to lose it in full 

penrodyn

Thanks, but the "60K" is salary, minus pension contributions?

NedS

penrodyn said:

Thanks, but the "60K" is salary, minus pension contributions?

Yes, it's £60k of taxable pay after pension contributions

pounell73

I thought you could only deduct pension contributions as long as your work pension contribution is not salary sacrifice

Dazed_and_C0nfused

pounell73 said:

I thought you could only deduct pension contributions as long as your work pension contribution is not salary sacrifice

In virtually all cases you can only ever deduct relief at source contributions.

Net pay and salary sacrifice (which are actually employer contributions so could never be deducted) are already factored in so the taxable pay amount is less.

Deducting them would be double counting.