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See another comment of mine that also shows how going from 99,999 to 100,000 also costs you 2000 for each pre-school aged child you have per year meaning you ac

See another comment of mine that also shows how going from 99,999 to 100,000 also costs you 2000 for each pre-school aged child you have per year meaning you actually earn thousands less, and to top it off, you now also have to do your own tax returns because you hit 100,000 despite being PAYE. EDIT: it's interesting that anyone genuinely asking and trying to understand is getting downvoted as opposed to anyone who just disagrees with me.

teamonkey 1y ago
For those in the US: the UK tax return (actually a partial return and declaration of income) takes 10 minutes. It’s all done online. There are no complicated calculations, you just declare your income, investment income, interest and other sources, minus any tax already paid. You don’t need an accountant and there are no costs for filing.
- triceratops 1y ago
  If it takes you only 10 minutes to declare all your "income, investment income, interest and other sources" then you're either lying or doing taxes wrong. It takes me more than 10 minutes just to download all the tax slips, let alone totalling them up.
  - gambiting 1y ago
    I'm in the pay bracket requiring annual self assessment and 10 minutes is probably too generous, purely because you log in to your SA account and the PAYE section from your employer is already pre-filled. You don't need to look at your pay slips, HMRC already has all the info from your employer and literally all you need to do is have a cursory glance whether the numbers look right then click confirm few times and submit at the end. Obviously very different if you're self employed or have income mostly from investments or properties, but the you have an accountant to do it for you.
    - triceratops 1y ago
      The person I responded to was referring to US taxes.
      - teamonkey 1y ago
        No, I was talking about the amount of time it takes to fill in an high-earner income declaration in the UK, which you only need to do if you are indeed a high earner or have multiple sources of income, and it is not anywhere near as arduous as a full tax return (either in the UK or the US).
        triceratops 1y ago
        Oops you're right.
        teamonkey 1y ago
        I edited my post to make it clearer. It was more ambiguous before.
  - Devilspawn6666 1y ago
    I've been doing UK self assessment tax returns every year for over 15 years. It really does just take 10-15 mins for people that have one job (as an employee) and typical investments - savings accounts, shares, etc. The income numbers are already there and if I want to check it's easy: my employer gives me a form with the same numbers in the same numbered boxes. I just need to specify how much income I had from bank interest. The tax witholding system usually works as well - the main exception being straight after starting work for the first time or changing jobs, when you can have a temporary code. In these cases I just called HMRC and told them what was going on. The employer gives my pay numbers to HMRC and HMRC give my employer a tax code that determines how much to withhold each month.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  You don't need an accountant because you already know they took almost all your money!
SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
Having to do your own tax returns is funny to hear as a North American, we always have to do them. I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  > I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away. Having it go away is less of a problem than having it go away all at once. If it was phased out over a range of incomes such that every marginal dollar of gross is still a marginal increase in net, that'd solve the problem mentioned in this thread. Key property of a tax system: the function from gross income to net income should always be monotonically increasing.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    To be fair, the original topic of this thread was "tax traps", one of the most famous in the UK being a gradual decrease of benefit that was still a marginal increase in net, but it was still deemed worth complaining about.
    - JoshTriplett 1y ago
      Yeah, to some extent it's also important that the marginal tax rate should always be monotonically nondecreasing. But that's not quite as critical as the marginal tax rate never being above 100% (including all accounting for loss of credits/deductions).
- 1y ago

teamonkey 1y ago

For those in the US: the UK tax return (actually a partial return and declaration of income) takes 10 minutes. It’s all done online. There are no complicated calculations, you just declare your income, investment income, interest and other sources, minus any tax already paid. You don’t need an accountant and there are no costs for filing.

triceratops 1y ago
If it takes you only 10 minutes to declare all your "income, investment income, interest and other sources" then you're either lying or doing taxes wrong. It takes me more than 10 minutes just to download all the tax slips, let alone totalling them up.
- gambiting 1y ago
  I'm in the pay bracket requiring annual self assessment and 10 minutes is probably too generous, purely because you log in to your SA account and the PAYE section from your employer is already pre-filled. You don't need to look at your pay slips, HMRC already has all the info from your employer and literally all you need to do is have a cursory glance whether the numbers look right then click confirm few times and submit at the end. Obviously very different if you're self employed or have income mostly from investments or properties, but the you have an accountant to do it for you.
  - triceratops 1y ago
    The person I responded to was referring to US taxes.
    - teamonkey 1y ago
      No, I was talking about the amount of time it takes to fill in an high-earner income declaration in the UK, which you only need to do if you are indeed a high earner or have multiple sources of income, and it is not anywhere near as arduous as a full tax return (either in the UK or the US).
      - triceratops 1y ago
        Oops you're right.
        teamonkey 1y ago
        I edited my post to make it clearer. It was more ambiguous before.
- Devilspawn6666 1y ago
  I've been doing UK self assessment tax returns every year for over 15 years. It really does just take 10-15 mins for people that have one job (as an employee) and typical investments - savings accounts, shares, etc. The income numbers are already there and if I want to check it's easy: my employer gives me a form with the same numbers in the same numbered boxes. I just need to specify how much income I had from bank interest. The tax witholding system usually works as well - the main exception being straight after starting work for the first time or changing jobs, when you can have a temporary code. In these cases I just called HMRC and told them what was going on. The employer gives my pay numbers to HMRC and HMRC give my employer a tax code that determines how much to withhold each month.
lisbbb 1y ago
You don't need an accountant because you already know they took almost all your money!

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago

Having to do your own tax returns is funny to hear as a North American, we always have to do them. I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away.

JoshTriplett 1y ago
> I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away. Having it go away is less of a problem than having it go away all at once. If it was phased out over a range of incomes such that every marginal dollar of gross is still a marginal increase in net, that'd solve the problem mentioned in this thread. Key property of a tax system: the function from gross income to net income should always be monotonically increasing.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  To be fair, the original topic of this thread was "tax traps", one of the most famous in the UK being a gradual decrease of benefit that was still a marginal increase in net, but it was still deemed worth complaining about.
  - JoshTriplett 1y ago
    Yeah, to some extent it's also important that the marginal tax rate should always be monotonically nondecreasing. But that's not quite as critical as the marginal tax rate never being above 100% (including all accounting for loss of credits/deductions).
1y ago