Final pay query

Baled

Hi. I currently work 33 hours per week Monday to Friday, I'm paid monthly. My annual gross salary from July 2025 is £27,343 but before that it was £25,929. My tax code is 1257L. My 5% pension contributions are via salary sacrifice. My last day with the company is 6th March.

HR have told me I have 4 days annual leave owed so I'm trying to decide whether to have them paid or take them and finish earlier.

Below is a snip from my January payslip. The February payslip will be the same pay. If I use the annual leave or have it paid what, if any, tax and NI will be deducted in each scenario please?

Thanks for any help!

Brie

Where I've worked I've been paid monthly based on the calculation of annual salary/12 so essentially each pay would be the same. So on that basis Feb would be the same as Jan.

Final payslip will be for March with or without extra for the holidays depending on whether you have them before or after you leave. Final day being 6th March means one full week. If you take the holidays before you leave you'll work one of those days and have holiday the other 4.

March has 22 days. You'll be paid for the first week no matter what. So all the amounts will be 5/22.

Pay 517.86

pension contributions 20.30

NIC 55.05

Tax 25.89

Pay after deductions 416.62

If you don't take your holidays or only take some then for each holiday you get paid for, not taken (so after 6 Mar) will be 1/22 to add to the above. Which are 103.57-4.06-11-518=83.32. Give or take some pennies for rounding.

Savvy_Sue

I'm not sure it's that simple, because won't HMRC go "oh, Baled's pay has gone down"? and therefore it won't be a straight % on tax - there might even be a tax refund.

Also, although Brie's company works out what's due based on the number of actual working days (or paid as holiday pay) in the first or last month of employment, others base it on the total number of days in the month - in this case 31.

In those heady days when I was still working, if someone at work had asked this question I'd have done a rough calculation for them in our software - it's the only way I'd have been confident of the answer! I'd have done both options and seen what the difference was.

My 'back of the envelope' calculation would be that there are four options:

1. You'll be paid for 6/31 days, you will work 1 of them and have holiday pay for the remaining 4
2. You'll be paid for 9/31 days, you will work 5 of them and have holiday pay for the remaining 4
3. You'll be paid for 5/22 days, you will work 1 of them and have holiday pay for the remaining 4
4. You'll be paid for 9/22 days, you will work 5 of them and have holiday pay for the remaining 4

And that's your gross pay, if it matters that much you could use one of the tax calculators to enter what you've been paid and what tax you've paid so far (you can calculate it up to the end of Feb, from what you say) and then add at least rough amounts as above.

JCS1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81885870#Comment_81885870

@Brie - Tax and NIC doesn't work that way, instead you have values you can earn each month before paying tax. There are also threasholds for NIC.

Brie

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81886724#Comment_81886724

Fair enough. When I was calculating things out for myself throughout my working career I would just clock 70% of my salary to be my take home pay and that was generally near enough.