Child Maintenance & salary increases

SardonicWrath77

Hi everyone, 

I've just been paid for my new job which is a £4000 salary increase on the old one. I was a little shocked to discover that this £4000 'pay rise' equates to a weekly take-home increase of just £8.25. I've had the new employer check and performed checks myself, amazingly it seems that is correct. 

In November I will have my annual review for my child maintenance payments. Using the online calculator my new salary means I will need to pay an extra £25 a month, which means that my £4000 salary increase will finally leave me with an extra £1.25 a week 😆

This seems completely bizarre and unfair, does anyone else have experience of this situation? I suspect CM will be completely uninterested in my circumstances. My ex, likewise, will only want to maximise what she gets and will probably threaten the collection service if we disagree, as she has before. 

Cheers! 

Sardo

Exodi

What is your salary?

If you were a higher rate (40%) tax payer and earning £60k (for example), you would lose 40% of your £4k in Income Tax (£1,600), 2% in NI (£80), if you're enrolled in a workplace pension with minimum contribution of net 4% (£160)... maybe 9% in Student Loan if you have one (£360) = £2200, leaving you £1800/12 = ~£150 net increase (or ~£35 per week).

For you to get £8.25 p/w suggests you've lost nearly 90% in taxation or otherwise, which would be insane, even if you were in the tax trap brackets (repaying child benefit between £60-£80k or loss of personal allowance between £100k and £125k).

Unfortunately we can't advise without more details.