We have developed a new income tax calculator to visually display the way the myriad of personal allowances, tax bands, national insurance, pension deductions, student loans and all varying rates interact to take a cut of your gross income.
The UK tax system is getting more and more complicated with devolution further aiding difficulty in educating taxpayers exactly how income is deducted and how the final pay packet figure is achieved.
Head on over to our Income Tax Interactive to try it for yourself. The calculator updates instantaneously as you slide the gross income handle, adjust your pension contributions or change any of the following:
- The tax year (at the moment only the current tax year 2018/2019 is supported but this will be updated to include other years very soon).
- Student loan plan type - either plan one or two.
- The amount of balance remaining on your student loan - we cap the total deduction to this amount if it is exceeded.
- Whether you are employed or self employed. Self employed pay a different amount for National Insurance contributions.
- ... and finally the tax region you come under. Through devolution of tax we currently have two distinct tax deduction systems, England and Scotland. Wales is set to join soon and Northern Ireland likely after. Scotland has five tax bands and you can see the effect of the banding immediately when you switch regions.
You can switch between annual, monthly and weekly modes at any point and the salary will follow off where you left. The income ranges are 0 to 200k for annual, 0 to 20k for monthly and 0 to 4k for weekly. The ranges are a bit unrealistic based on the average income for the majority of taxpayers but in order to illustrate all tax bands this is how I have set them. They may however be adjusted in the future for better clarity.
Give the calculator a try! It's new and there may be bugs but let me know and I'll hopefully be able to stamp them out!