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Category Archives: High Earners
How Much do I Need to Earn to Pay 40% Tax?
Currently the higher rate of tax for those who earn a certain amount stands at 40%. So you may wonder how much do I need to earn to pay 40% tax?
Tax Code
The way to work out this is to firstly take a note of your tax code which will dictate how much personal allowance you have for that tax year. For the year 2018/19 the standard personal allowance is £11,850 which will give you a tax code of 1185L.
If you don’t have that tax code then you need to take the tax code you have and multiply it by 10 to give you your personal allowance.
20% Tax Band
Next add on to that figure the amount that you can earn on which you pay 20% tax. You can see the current rates for the relevant tax years here, but for 2018/19 the 20% tax band amounts to £34,500.
So you add your personal allowance (let’s say you get the full rate of £11,850) to the 20% tax band (£34,500) and you get a total figure of £46,350.
This means that once your earnings are over £46,350 for the tax year (in this example 2018/19) then you will start paying tax on those earnings at the rate of 40%.
Note that you only pay tax at 40% on earning over that figure, not on the whole amount.
Additional Tax Rate
In addition to that there is a 45% tax rate on earnings over £150,000 (at which point you don’t get a personal allowance) so that would be the point at which you would start paying tax at what is know as the additional rate.
Obviously everyone’s circumstances are different and you should also take account of other benefits in kind and additional earnings.
This is just to give you a guide number of when to think about your entry into a higher tax bracket and what that could mean to you.
It may be worth speaking to a financial adviser to get any advice you need to take account of this additional tax rate.
Do High Earners Get a Personal Allowance?
If you are a high earner then you may be questioning do high earners get a personal allowance? Well the answer really depends on what you class as a high earner as there are different answers depending on how much you earn.
You may be entitled to some or all of the personal allowance, which is the amount of earnings that is not subject to any tax.
A lot of people define high earners as those people who earn enough to pay higher rate tax so we wills tart with them. Anyone who earns enough to pay higher rate tax but who does not earn over £100,000 a year is entitled to the full personal allowance for that tax year.
However, once your earnings go above £100,000 for the tax year, the personal allowance starts to get taken away. It is reduced by £1 for every £2 of earnings above £100,000. So for example, if the personal allowance is £11,000 then anyone earning over £122,000 would not be entitled to any personal allowance and all of their earnings would be taxable.
If your earnings are £105,000 then you will only be entitled to £8,500 of personal allowance. This is calculated by dividing the excess earnings over £100,000 by 2 (5000/2 = 2500) and deducting that from the full personal allowance.
Earnings include any kind of benefits in kind as well as your salary but if you are in any doubt you should contact your accountant or HM Revenue for clarification.