A sneaky quirk to the tax system means that some people pay a 60% tax rate on a portion of their income, but there is a way to beat it.

Most people think income tax is charged at 20% for basic-rate payers, 40% for those earning over £50,270 and 45% for those on more than £150,000 (except those living in Scotland where different rates apply). However, there is a little-known tax quirk that kicks in when you earn £100,000 that means you end up paying an effective tax rate of 60%.

WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?

At £100,000 you start to lose your tax-free personal allowance. You lose it at a rate of £1 of your tax-free allowance for every £2 you earn over the threshold, which means that by the time you earn £125,140 your personal allowance is zero.

What this means is income in the £100,000 to £125,140 bracket is not only subject to 40% tax, but effectively half of it again is moved from being tax-free to being taxed at 40% as the personal allowance is removed on a £1: £2 basis. It means a 60% effective tax rate on that portion of your earnings.

Once your personal allowance is wiped out (when you earn £125,140 or more) your tax level drops back down to the usual 40% before rising to 45% once you hit earnings of £150,000 or more.

It’s a complicated and confusing tax quirk that catches many people out and means that tax rates in most of the UK are really 20%, rising to 40% before jumping up to 60%, then falling to 40% and ultimately rising to 45% again.

The principal is the same in Scotland, where the personal allowance is lost in the same way, but the impact is even higher due to the different bands and higher tax rates – 61.5%.

HOW DOES IT WORK IN PRACTICE?

Let’s look at an example: someone who earns £100,000 a year will get their full entitlement to the personal allowance, so will get the first £12,570 of their earnings tax-free.

On the next £37,700 of their earnings, they will be charged 20% tax, and then the rest of their earnings above £50,270 will be taxed at 40%. On top of that they will be charged National Insurance.

However, a pay rise of £20,000 (admittedly a very decent pay rise, but a good one for this example) means they lose £10,000 of their personal allowance, reducing their tax-free allowance to £2,570.

This means they get £2,570 tax-free, then the next £37,700 of their earnings will be charged 20% tax, as before. But the amount above £40,270 will be taxed at 40% – which is now much higher, resulting in a bigger tax bill. In total it means of their £20,000 pay rise, £12,000 is taken in extra tax – amounting to 60%. On top of this, their National Insurance bill is also higher, as their income has grown.

HOW TO BEAT THE SYSTEM

But there is a way to beat it – pension contributions. The earnings figure that HMRC counts for personal allowance taper purposes is called your ‘adjusted net income’. It’s confusing Government terminology but it means all your income, including earnings, pensions, savings interest and investment dividends, minus any pension contributions or Gift Aid donations.

What this means in practice is that if a pay rise tips you over the £100,000 limit, you could make pension contributions to bring you under it.

For example, if you earn £105,000 but make £5,000 of pension contributions, your ‘adjusted net income’ will be £100,000 and you won’t be subject to the personal allowance taper – meaning no 60% tax rate.

It relies on you being able to spare the money to pay into your pension, but the cost of that pension contribution is lower when you compare it to just taking the income and paying higher tax.

HOW DOES THIS WORK IN PRACTICE?

The example in the table shows that making a £5,000 pension contribution costs you far less once accounted for the higher tax you would be paying on that money if you took it as income.

Your take-home pay is only £1,838 lower by making that £5,000 contribution, and you’ve got an extra £5,000 in your pension. This also doesn’t account for any boost that money might be given if your employer matches pension contributions and you haven’t already exhausted that benefit.

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