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Do you know how much tax you pay?

by John Fitzsimons 28 May 2012 |

4 comments | Love

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The Treasury has launched a new app which allows users to work out exactly how much tax they pay, and find out where that money is spent.

You can download it for your mobile through the Apple Store of Google Play, or just use the online version here www.hmrc.gov.uk/calcs-tools/index.shtml

The Treasury's own research found that more than half of us don't know how much income tax and NI we pay each year.

So I want to know, do you know how much tax you pay each year? Do you think a calculator like this is useful? Do you plan to use it? And, perhaps most importantly, is it accurate in your case?

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265

oldhenry posted
Far too much! Look at the payslip you receive and then check teh coding notice. Annually you need to list your other income sources - interest usually and if received gross tell the tax man so he can have his bite.
For most tax is simple , it is only when you have trusts , capital gains and lots of shares that the paperwork gets messy.
Posted on 28 May 2012 | Love 0 loves Report
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MikeGG1 posted
Please note that the tax checker is only valid for under 65's!!!! A waste of my time looking!!

The first thing that most people should do each year is to check their Notice of Coding. They should check that the correct Personal Allowance has been used for their age group and that the adjustments are correct. The actual code for most people would be the result without the last digit.

They should then check that their payslip displays the correct code. If not then give your employer a copy of your Notice and get him/her to correct it. They may have to refer it to HMRC first if they have received something different.

Only after that is it worth trying the URL supplied by John.

By the way, John, the URL did not convert into a link as it should.

Mike
Posted on 28 May 2012 | Love 0 loves Report
72

PDB11 posted
Not enough! Well, not enough on PAYE, so every year I have to send them a cheque for about £2k. (Actually I use bank transfer now). And what is their invariable reaction to my cheque? A new notice of coding for the following year, reducing my PAYE by about £2k, thus guaranteeing that the same thing will happen again.

I must admit I've not tried the tax checker. I have a spreadsheet that replicates the tax calculation (as it was all those years ago when they would still send out paper tax calculations for you to fill in). I update that with the appropriate allowances and thresholds every year, and it's a very useful tool.

The spreadsheet is getting old, though - I wish I had a more up-to-date calculation to put in it. There seems to be loads of commercial software araound, which means I would pay out a few tens of pounds before I could get any idea of how it compared; but I can find nothing about how the calculation is actually done. Presumably there is a document that HMRC publish that the software developers read?
Posted on 30 May 2012 | Love 0 loves Report
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killick_becki posted
Contrary to PDB11 I think I pay far too much!

If the survey by the tresury is correct then obviously we have far too many people who just don't look at their pay documents (for those on PAYE). Just demonstrates why the country is in such a financial mess.
Posted on 07 June 2012 | Love 0 loves Report

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