On the 6th April 2014 the personal allowance will increase to £10,000 (up £560) which means you can earn £10,000 before you pay income tax.
But you might want to keep your earnings below the NI Threshold, in previous years the employers and employee’s NI thresholds have been out of alignment but from 6th April 2014 they will be aligned, which means that earnings over £153 per week (£7,956 per year) will attract both 12% employees’ NI and 13.8% employers’ NI. For earnings above £805 per week (£41,865 per year), the employees’ NI rate drops to 2% but the employers’ NI rate remains unchanged.
So to avoid Income Tax and NI you would need to earn below £7,956.
But, there is some good news, from April 2014 there is a new ’employment allowance’ of £2,000 which you can offset against your employers NI.
steve@bicknells.net
This sounds like good news but does this mean my monthly salary from April should be 1/12 of £7956 or 1/12 of £9956 in order to avoid NI costs?
The lower figure if you want to avoid tax and NI
Hello Steve,
Thank you for your regular post.
Your most recent post relating to the April thresholds.
You mentioned that ” > > earnings over £153 per week (£7,956 per year) will attract both 12% employees’ NI and 13.8% employers’ NI. >
I am not sure if I am mistaken and have misunderstood the guideline, because I thought that the NI is calculated as follows: National Insurance earnings threshold
National Insurance is calculated on gross earnings (before tax or pension deductions) above the earnings threshold.
For 2013/14 the National Insurance threshold is £149 a week or £7,750 a year.
Hence, if one earns above the threshold will pay 12% of your earnings between £7,750 and £41,450
Anything above £41,450 a year, is subject to National Insurance at 2%
If earnings are below the earnings threshold then one does not pay any National Insurance contributions
Class 4 National Insurance Contributions
For self-employed, they must additionally pay Class 4 contributions once profits reach a certain limit.
In 2013/14 Class 4 contributions are 9% of taxable profits between £7,755 and £41,450,
On profits over £41,450, Class 4 contributions are 2% of profits.
Dak Patel FCCA
dak@thinkacca.com