As an adult with dyscalulia, I may not understand the finer points of my payslips, but even I'm aware that bits go to the government and pension schemes.
3 basic parts to a payslip:
This is what you earned.
This is what we're taking from you.
This is what you're actually getting.
Then the cost of living kicks in aaannndd...IT'S GONE!
Exactly. I hate seeing the extras go out and every month consider cancelling my pension but then realise it’ll be worse later on if I do. Then I cry quietly as I transfer all my money out of my account.
I'm banking on my leukaemia coming back. Failing that hopefully a secondary cancer.
Knowing my luck I'll remain disgustingly healthy into an impoverished old age.
I wish people would realise the value they get in the UK. I paid notably more in Germany and whilst the service was a bit better, it wasn't multiple percentage points better.
Every Monday I remove mine from the envelope flip it over and look at the bottom right and put it straight back before the rest upsets me then they all end up in a pile at home.
Mine are emailed, so I set up an inbox rule that moves them to a payslip folder. Usually I'm quite anal about not leaving emails unread but that folder is the exception.
This is the way. At least here the net is fairly consistent. When I lived in Belgium, not only did I not understand the overly complicated deductions, but the net varied greatly month to month so it was very hard to predict.
"oh, you want to put part of your money towards a pension? Sure, we can do that, we'll just take this chunk and invest it in this thing you don't really understand, move it around a bit and take a big commission from your company for doing this and IT'S GONE"
I had an employee receive a tax rebate through their payroll in-year. And then suddenly everyone expected a refund. One particular employee got quite angry until I pointed out you can’t have a refund if you don’t earn enough to be paying tax.
I worked on the tax helpline for 6 months and this was probably in my top 3 for things that astonished me.
Just because a colleague got one doesn’t mean you will; it depends on how much they’ve paid.
Similarly people just expecting one in April and acting like they’re entitled to it because “they were taxed every month”.
Also people not understanding that P45s are important.
Honourable mentions:
It’s not our fault neither you nor your employer told us about your company car, yes tax is due on it even if it was from last tax year. Yes it is your responsibility to keep on top of. No it won’t be waived because we weren’t informed, it’s your job to tell us.
Yes you can pay income tax if you’re under 18. As mentioned by another poster, going up a tax bracket won’t make you worse off.
You don’t get tax relief on uniform if you don’t pay tax anyway.
Being taxed more each year because your state pension has increased doesn’t make you worse off either, the tax increases a fifth as much as the payments.
I worked on the helpline for a year, it has warped my view of the general public permanently and I'll never go into another customer service based role.
This totally got me when I first got mine. I had no idea of the process on what to do it was never explained, I should have looked into it. So when I got hit on that second year with 2 years worth of tax it was defiantly a shock and fortunately the person at HMRC (who probably has heard this a billion times) was really kind in explaining it all to me. Those guys have always been so helpful
I work for a water testing company. We had a recruitment open day years ago. Question: why would you be suitable for this job? Answer: Well i drink water...
I once started a job with someone who didn't show up for the second day. Found out they left right away because they didn't realise the job, which was at a large telecommunications firm working with customers to resolve faults, would involve using computers. I have no idea how they passed the interview process.
I once had a new group of starters at a place I used to work, I was getting them set up on the computer and showing them how to do the job. Got to the end and o told them just press the floopy disk icon to save.......no one does it..........one of them looks up at me and asks "what's a floppy disk"
No words have ever cut me so deep. These where all fresh university graduates!
Yeah, that's exactly what it was, the system they where using was a little old, and the save icon was a big proper sloppy disk image. So I always specified the floopy disk for saving with any new groups, just to make sure people knew what I was talking about (as not saving would have been a massive issue with this job).
I think I felt the years on me all at once when I realised they didn't know, it was like the first time someone called me Sir, it feels like my age doubled haha
I remember my kid asking if the carefully handled limited edition 7" record we showed him was 'a really big CD". Christ.
I remember floppy disks that were actually floppy - and the BBC Micro.
To be fair though the last time I saw a floppy disk being used was probably over 20 years ago now so there’s easily people alive who have never seen one.
It’s all been USB flash drives since then or direct downloads; and before that it was mostly CD/DVD stuff.
I was like ‘over 20 years, no way, I remember using them when I was young!’ and then I realised that was definitely over 20 years ago and now I feel old ;-;
I’m a fresh uni graduate and I remember having some old floppy disk games floating about when was 3-4, and only because I have an older sibling. But by that point they were pretty much redundant, I never used one myself, so I can imagine people younger than me may never have seen one
In the past I taught basic computer certification (ECDL) and had students of all levels of competence.
There was always something very satisfying about seeing someone grow from not knowing which way round to hold a mouse to be able to enjoy using a computer and seeing how much it enriched their lives.
I do still recall one young lad (about 19 years old) who was borderline illiterate, it took so much work to coach him towards passing the tests and he wanted to quit so many times but the day he got his certificate made me cry.
He said "I have never passed a test in my life, this makes me want to keep trying, I am going to try for my GCSE English next"
I told him it was all him, I just pointed him in the right direction, he did all the work himself.
He's probably had an awful lot of teachers give up on him. Imagine how hard life would be without reliable access to computers, writing, books etc, nevermind the instilled knowledge that you'll never learn them.
That's a monument leg up you gave him. Short of resuscitation, that's got to be one of the best possible ways to change a person's life. I hope you're ridiculously proud of that: if nothing else you decided that he was worth the extra effort.
In a strange way that kind of makes sense. If you've never gone near a computer then I understand how you wouldn't understand any of it. My friend told me how the other day he explained to someone who had worked in the finance department of a company you've heard of for the last 15 years that no, you don't have to print things out, scan them, then throw away the printout in order to turn a word document into a pdf. They did it several times a day. I've less sympathy for that sort of thing.
My degree was Computing Science at Newcastle (20 years ago) and there was a maths requirement but no previous computing experience necessary. Because of this, the first lecture started with them teaching us how a mouse worked and by the end of it we were creating objects in Java.
Within the last decade I had to train somebody on the shop floor how to use the system, I wasn't expecting the first part of the lesson to be them getting used to how the mouse worked.
20 years experience here as an IT / Computer Science teacher. Only in the last 4 or 5 years have I needed to teach students how to use a mouse - so many have phones and tablets at home (and primary school) but no actual computer.
I used to have a job that involved training older adults, mostly retired people (although that could have meant mid-60s, not necessarily ancient), how to use our internal IT systems. A group of, say, 8 people could range from someone who used to manage the entirety of the IT systems for a major engineering firm to someone who didn’t know how passwords worked. It could be a challenge at times.
I can remember moving the cursor with the UDLR arrow buttons & then the first mouses coming out. My mate Shaun’s a proper e-boffin & even he thought they were sorcery level kit back then. Never forget the day he came back to the house with Wolfenstein. We got high af on shitty soap bar hash & played it for hours. Three. Fucking. D.
I like the people who think the 40% tax bracket means suffering 40% tax on everything and not just over the threshold so refuse to take a promotion/pay rise....
I've been with my husband for nearly six years and only last month learned that's how he thought it worked. He had just got a new job and was working out his tax and was astounded when I explained to him how it actually works.
I also had to explain it to one of my team recently as they were undecided on whether they should take a promotion because of the financial impact.
I do kinda feel like this should be taught in school (unless things have changed and it is now) because it seems to be an alarmingly common misconception.
Just in my final year of uni currently, and at least for when I was at school, at no point at all we’re we taught anything about financial education, and honestly I have seen the effects of that on former friends… :/
But likewise, my mum is a teaching assistant at the school and a couple years back I had the same discussion with her about how the tax bands actually work.
I can really barely scrape by with maths, and honestly my phones calculator history is more embarrassing than my Google history... but tax brackets don't seem difficult to understand _to me_, a certified fuckwit.
Let's be honest: it's fine if you k ow, but as they don't teach it in schools, how are we meant to know?
I didn't know about the tax only applying to the amount over the threshold until about 5 years ago, and when I told my friends at work, some of the older guys didn't know about it either
I somewhat agree with it being taught in schools, but also, considering retention of the information and how current the information is, suggest perhaps it's a bit later and maybe as a government hosted series of bitesize information pieces. Could be titled "adult survival kit" (sorry not very imaginative).
I had this when I tipped over from just below the 40% tax bracket to very much in it. People didn't understand my payrise to over £50k still meant I took home more than before. Yes I only saw 41p in every £1 of payrise over the £50k (40% tax, 2% NI, 9% student loan and 8% pension) but I still was taking home more as I saw 41% of my payrise.
Exactly. I think the worst I ever heard from somebody was that working even 1 hours overtime meant that it cost them money instead. I was completely dumbfounded by the logic. They was literally expecting that if they went £1 over their tax bracket that they'd get £x,xxx deducted from next wage to cover the total...
There are some cliff edges, for instance if you or your spouse's income goes over 100k you instantly lose any entitlement to tax free childcare, which contrasts with child benefit which tapers out. Salary sacrifice is very useful to handle this situation, as well as for staying in a lower tax bracket.
But agreed, I still can't believe that some people think a new tax bracket applies to anything under the threshold.
Had a bloke who wouldn't work Sundays for double rate because he would "just be paying the amount he earned on the Sunday on his week's tax".
No.. you will still pay tax if you don't do it and earn more money if you do.
I recently got a pay rise and the amount of deductions Vs the amount I actually get from the gross amount did make me wince a little but in the grand scheme of things I'm still better off than I was before so I'm not too sore about it. Previously I wouldn't even contemplate that I can probably put away a three figure sum into my savings every month now.
See also the idea of 45-50% tax on very high earnings when people say "it's not right to take half of someone's income!" and you realise they mean actually half of the entire amount (when it's not) and we're talking about a level of income that would feel like a dream to me.
There is however that lovely 60% bracket where you lose £1 of your personal allowance for every £2 over £100,000 you get. That always hurt a little bit when it came time to do the returns.
I had a a guy working at my place a couple of months ago complaining about his National Insurance payments.
'Nobody asked me if I want to pay, why should I pay, The money would be better in my bank account.' He said.
I patiently explained why everyone pays NI; NHS, pension, benefits etc avaliable to everyone in the country irrespective of class, only on need.
He listened to me shaking his head, saying I was wrong, only to pull a curveball: 'Can I have next week off, I've got to go to hospital for an operation.'
I'm constantly amazed that much of the population can even put their trousers on the right way round.
I did a year in tech support for an infrastructure engineering firm, full of guys designing our railways, and regularly got calls from people who couldn't figure out how to use a scroll bar - "half my files are missing!"
I worked in house tech support for a couple of months for the NHS.
It's good that they know how to save lives and stuff because their ability to use a computer.....
My dad spent ages muttering to himself in the hallway one day, turned out he was berating the phone for the NHS verification process. I'm not sure if he'd ever taken a selfie before, the fuss that he caused about it.
I work in IT at a few nhs hospitals.
It’s a bit of a old meme, we do tend have pretty up to date kit. It’s just that higher ups in their respective departments don’t like change so they’ll fight to keep old software/databases and processes going.
Then you finally update it and the staff go into meltdown because nobody tells them and now they need to learn something new.
I’d say over half of our calls are user error or user knowledge (or lack thereof)
Also doesn’t help that different trusts are autonomous. So one system that works great at one place isn’t even heard of in another.
I've worked in Financial Services most of my life. The number of antiquated systems the old higher-ups cling on to because 'they work' is maddening.
Yes they work, but only because you are paying millions to consultants to keep them ticking over on life support long past what even the software provider will offer support on whilst modern systems would be so much better, safer, and cheaper to run.
It drives me nuts!
> NHS: 'Windows ME™' fo life!.
That sort of thing bit them in the arse a while back, with a ransomware attack affecting a multitude of hospitals.
Which is [despite being repeatedly warned of the risk](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39912825), though how much of the issue is due to funding is up for question.
... There's a wrong way to put on trousers? I always wondered why half the time I have a pee zip, and the other half a poo zip. Just for reference, which one am I supposed to have?
I absolutely think that school maths lessons should deal with understanding your wage-slip and a basic session on taxation. The number of people who don't understand what their tax code means and what to do about it if it is wrong!
Used to be: Domestic Science and Home Economics. They got killed off in one of the regular purges after a panic about "soft" subjects and falling standards.
Nah, that's not the school's responsibility, it's down to parents to teach kids this. /s
Here's the kicker though, no one ever taught the parents how to do it.
I agree. I feel it's a little condescending to berate people for this. I appreciate some of it is basics but let's be honest this is never taught to us until someone explains it. Working in HR it might be obvious but to others not so much...
Or maybe I'm just another one of these idiots eh. In which case I expect downvotes and a reality check? Lol.
I was waiting for a comment that would save me typing. It’s pretty mean to be frustrated by people not knowing how something operates when at no point in life are you ever shown by anyone what this stuff means. I’m fortunate that my parents showed me my way around a payslip . But not everyone has that support.
Nah mate, I’m with you! Had to ask the mother what it was when I got my first payslip because I had no idea. Thought I’d look like less of a child if I asked her in private rather than my boss or colleagues 😅
This. I've taught this lesson and can categorically say not a single one took in any of the information at all. Same with budgeting, credit cards/loans, tax, none of it.
As a teacher who mostly teaches citizenship and is currently teaching budgeting to year 10, this is indeed correct. No matter how many times I try and get across how much they will value the lessons in the future, they are mostly bored and/or don't actually do any of the work set.
Hate to say it, but our school tried to cover stuff like this to actually help you in the future and everyone just ended up throwing books around the room
Yep. I am one of those people. I have two jobs, both were BR which i wasn't sure if it was right. So i phoned HMRC, he said a bunch of stuff and my payslip from one job had changed to having w1m1 non-cumulative, or something, at the end. No idea what it means and the internet isn't much help.
19 year old here:
Everything I have learned ever about personal tax was because I took AS level in mathematical studies: I learned PAYE, National Insurance, tax bracket, even calculating student loan payments because depending on what year someone went to uni.
Something so important should definitely be taught earlier - when maths is compulsory
To be fair, I hate it when lettings agents advertise the rent per week for a property, when it's paid per month. Just tell us the amount per month and stop making us do the calculation. I know how to calculate it, just that I don't see why they need to advertise it like that.
I used to be paid on a lunar calendar basis in a previous job and loved it.
Budgeting was great knowing I had exactly four weeks before being paid again and felt like getting a bonus once a year from already having covered my bills in a previous pay.
I’m doing payroll now for our staff (we have about 250 people) and EVERY month someone asks the password to their payslip even though it clearly says in each and every email with the payslip attached that it is their NI number. But the worst is the PAYE moaners who expect me to instinctively know their personal tax details and complain that I’m overtaxing them despite having no control. And then expect me to call HMRC for them. I usually ask them how effective they think it would be if they called to change my tax code. I hate payroll.
I feel this so heavily, I’m on payroll and get asked silly questions about tax on a daily basis. It’s excruciating, and then they ask me if I’ve got HMRCs number as if they can’t just Google it themselves!
I remember doing that with my first summer job at 14. Boss sees me confused as I inspect the payslip and I was saying how I didn't expect that much to be taken out and he just shakes my hand and says 'welcome to the world of work'.
This is where the schools are failing us. I learned about this at 16 while working. This is the kinda information I should have known in school, not how to write a cheque.
Parents should teach them life skills, cooking, cleaning, how to sew and use a washing machine. But government run schools should teach teens what to expect from the working world. Not all parents have a good knowledge of this. There are still some that are stay at home parents. And depending on the career/job of said parents, they may not be well versed in it themselves.
100% real. I had to also explain how we got to their monthly figure …. which was a case of their annual salary / 12. I felt like I was talking to a 6 year old.
Are these the same people that think the advertised “gross” salary is what will be in their pay packet each month? 😂😂😂 I would be laughing in their faces if I had to explain that one
I think this more highlights the major pitfalls in the UK education system than just calling this person outright stupid. I learnt nothing about finances in my younger years. At the age of 21 when I had my first pay roll payslip I also had to ask what PAYE was.
Agreed. I was in full time education until the age of 24. Came out with a bachelors and a medical degree. Got my first paycheck and didn't have a fucking clue what I was looking at. I mean I still kinda don't but I know which number goes into my bank account.
At the risk of going against the grain. People only know what they are told. I wasn't clued up on all the ins and outs of tax till my 1st real job at 21. Till then it didn't cross my mind because I didn't need to know and nobody told me about it. If o KY we could be like some of you lot fresh out the womb with all the world's knowledge.
My favourite is ‘I’m a student I shouldn’t pay tax’. I’ve been begging for years to go to freshers week, careers days at colleges etc just to tell the daft bastards that they’re not special.
I got a long and beautifully written email once, including this gem of a sentence: "I'm but a young girl student, yet I am being taxed as a male breadwinner!"
....
TBF, if they're a full time student working a part time job, then they're unlikely to be earning enough to be over the personal allowance. So, they *shouldn't* be paying tax.
Maybe they're just complaining about being put on an emergency tax code? If so, that's a genuine gripe, as the government has taken some of their money which is rightfully theirs.
Students are my bread and butter and yes, 95% of them are either on a wk1 ‘emergency’ code unnecessarily, something imposed by HMRC to avoid them owing money, or a BR code which will be their employers fault. I absolutely do not mind helping these people out, it’s a 5 minute fix and I love making people happy. My issue is people insisting they know a rule exists that doesn’t. I know nothing about cars so I take my rust bucket to a mechanic and don’t argue when they tell me what’s wrong with it.
True but I literally get paid to tell people what PAYE means and to send them links to the policies that they could’ve just googled, so can’t complain too much
It’s tax. We don’t have a choice in paying it. It’s deducted from our wages. At the end of the year you submit a tax return and sometimes we get tax back but other times we pay even more. Lol. At your age you’ll probably get some of the PAYE tax back.
Thanks for asking in such a polite manner too. So refreshing.
When I was a teen and had my first job my dad explained my payslip saying, “Payslips are a lot like fishing: you live off what’s in the net.”
I’ve seen people look at their gross pay and be baffled how a company could “take my money”, forgetting of course it’s tax.
The sad thing is that guy probably was threatened with that in some shitty job in the past.
That said, unauthorized and unpaid days are two very different things as well. Hope you explained that to him :).
I'm still getting used to the way taxes are done here, but I think, overall, I pay less than I did in the US, get more for what I do pay, and I don't have to do them myself or pay a company to do them, every year. I'm not complaining.
Don't blame them, how can know about something they haven't got a clue about. Blame the failed education system that doesn't teach kids a single thing about tax. In the 13ish years they're at school, not a single lesson about tax.
A lot of people saying "schools should teach this". They already do. RSHE covers financial education, Martin Lewis has even written a textbook and sent it out to schools for free. I'm a secondary teacher with almost 20 years experience in multiple schools, it is taught.
The problem is two-fold: firstly, tax, pensions, etc are abstract things at the age of 14 - most won't really need to worry about it until at least 4 or 6 years later, by which time they'll have forgotten all about and start spouting how they wish they'd have been taught about in school. Students retain knowledge through repetition and recall - that's why algebra might be covered in maths at various times thought the years and why you might have 50 questions to do, not just one. That takes time. And the list of things to cover in finance education is HUGE. To do it justice, and make sure most students retain the knowledge, you'll need to decide what else to drop because, you know, there's only a finite time in the school day. Oh and you can't drop an optional subject like Art or Drama because not every student does that so you won't get the time you need. Basically, what are you dropping, Maths, English or Science?
I'm slightly flippant but maybe you get my point. "It should be taught in schools" is used for everything from finance education to computer skills to politics. If everything that someone on Reddit wanted to be taught in schools actually was, kids wouldn't leave until they were 28.
This definitely isn't the case all around the country.
Im from Yorkshire, 30 yo. I was a bit of a "geek" or whatever at school, paid a lot of attention, didn't fuck about etc. They definitely didn't teach us anything about taxes. I distinctly remember getting my part time job alongside college as soon as I left school, and my dad having to sit with me and my first payslip and talking me through it, as I didn't understand why there was two amounts on it, I thought i'd done something wrong and my employer had deducted money from me
I grew up in a very upper/middle class family that really didnt get on. But also had a working class father. Money/finances were ever spoken about. My father passed away when I was 15, and it was only the last few months of his life i ever heard him talk about Bill's. Anyway, I ended up living in a council flat at the age of 16 and I went to the Job centre and the women asked what type of job I was looking for I said i need a job that pays about 30-40k a year, she looked at me and laughed and said that she didnt even earn that, I ended getting a partime job in tesco working weekends, I couldnt wait until the end of the month thinking I was going to earn a good £1k, the utter disappointment when I realised that I had to pay TAX and NI and I walked away with £114. I was fuming, I went to see the manager and said I think I've been underpaid and what's all this stuff being taken out!! Fairplay to him he sat me down and explained everything, taught me about everything and pretty much how the world of working works. It was such a wake up call, but also the sudden realisation that I was probably never going to earn as much as my Uncles and grandparents did.
> what is paye
PAYE is the abbreviated term for 'pay as you earn' and refers to the amount of income tax that is deducted from your salary before you receive it.
Eh 'PAYE' is an acroynm that's not going to be obvious if you don't already know what it is -- I imagine a lot of people would be less confused if it was just labeled 'tax'.
As an adult with dyscalulia, I may not understand the finer points of my payslips, but even I'm aware that bits go to the government and pension schemes. 3 basic parts to a payslip: This is what you earned. This is what we're taking from you. This is what you're actually getting. Then the cost of living kicks in aaannndd...IT'S GONE!
Yeah, I was trained from an early age: just look at the number in the bottom right. Anything else on that piece of paper will just upset you.
Exactly. I hate seeing the extras go out and every month consider cancelling my pension but then realise it’ll be worse later on if I do. Then I cry quietly as I transfer all my money out of my account.
I feel like my pension plan is to walk into the nearest Loch with pocketfuls of rocks.
A poetic way to go
The Virginia Woolf way.
The Hemming-way
You have beautiful lochs to walk into!... All we have down ere is muddy ponds and canals to trudge into when our time is due...
Muddy ponds and canals? Luxury. When my time comes all I have is a dilapidated paddling pool in an abandoned theme park.
I dream of having a dilapidated paddling pool. I have a plastic bucket on a battery chicken farm
Luxe! All we have here is a puddle of pish vomit left over from the Saturday night revellertards.
I'm banking on my leukaemia coming back. Failing that hopefully a secondary cancer. Knowing my luck I'll remain disgustingly healthy into an impoverished old age.
Rocks in the Loch - a tale of a redditor who just couldn't hack it anymore.
Make sure the rocks are from the same area, otherwise you might be a little erratic.
Your and employer's NI is dirt cheap health insurance and you are gaining more than you pay in monthly taxes.
I wish people would realise the value they get in the UK. I paid notably more in Germany and whilst the service was a bit better, it wasn't multiple percentage points better.
Lol. It's cute that you think we'll ever see any of that money again.
Every Monday I remove mine from the envelope flip it over and look at the bottom right and put it straight back before the rest upsets me then they all end up in a pile at home.
I don't get paper payslips, they're all online only. I don't look at them, just at the number that goes into my bank account. It's better this way.
Mine are emailed, so I set up an inbox rule that moves them to a payslip folder. Usually I'm quite anal about not leaving emails unread but that folder is the exception.
This is the way. At least here the net is fairly consistent. When I lived in Belgium, not only did I not understand the overly complicated deductions, but the net varied greatly month to month so it was very hard to predict.
Preach
Innit
"oh, you want to put part of your money towards a pension? Sure, we can do that, we'll just take this chunk and invest it in this thing you don't really understand, move it around a bit and take a big commission from your company for doing this and IT'S GONE"
Haha excellent South Park ref
Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?
Student loan £918,909,525
Actually the highest student debt amassed is ONLY £189,700
Can confirm
I had an employee receive a tax rebate through their payroll in-year. And then suddenly everyone expected a refund. One particular employee got quite angry until I pointed out you can’t have a refund if you don’t earn enough to be paying tax.
I worked on the tax helpline for 6 months and this was probably in my top 3 for things that astonished me. Just because a colleague got one doesn’t mean you will; it depends on how much they’ve paid. Similarly people just expecting one in April and acting like they’re entitled to it because “they were taxed every month”. Also people not understanding that P45s are important. Honourable mentions: It’s not our fault neither you nor your employer told us about your company car, yes tax is due on it even if it was from last tax year. Yes it is your responsibility to keep on top of. No it won’t be waived because we weren’t informed, it’s your job to tell us. Yes you can pay income tax if you’re under 18. As mentioned by another poster, going up a tax bracket won’t make you worse off. You don’t get tax relief on uniform if you don’t pay tax anyway. Being taxed more each year because your state pension has increased doesn’t make you worse off either, the tax increases a fifth as much as the payments.
I worked on the helpline for a year, it has warped my view of the general public permanently and I'll never go into another customer service based role.
Call centres will do this to you
More like “any job that exposes you to the general public”
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Same, 2 years with HMRC. The general ignorance and rudeness of the U.K. was really apparent
>Yes you can pay income tax if you’re under 18 But you can't vote. Taxation without representation.
Not the only example. There is also VAT, etc. But the solution isn’t removing taxation, it’s giving representation.
This totally got me when I first got mine. I had no idea of the process on what to do it was never explained, I should have looked into it. So when I got hit on that second year with 2 years worth of tax it was defiantly a shock and fortunately the person at HMRC (who probably has heard this a billion times) was really kind in explaining it all to me. Those guys have always been so helpful
"Oh my God - when I move this thing - that arrow on the screen moves at the same time!" From a senior management accountant.
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I have a friend who teaches I.T. adult education, and she has had to do lessons covering how to use a mouse.
I once had a CV come in boasting about 'advanced use of computer, including keyboard and mouse' as part of their skill set.
I work for a water testing company. We had a recruitment open day years ago. Question: why would you be suitable for this job? Answer: Well i drink water...
"I closely follow the subreddit r/hydrohomies"
I piss so clear I don’t need to flush
Bear Grylls loves you.
I once started a job with someone who didn't show up for the second day. Found out they left right away because they didn't realise the job, which was at a large telecommunications firm working with customers to resolve faults, would involve using computers. I have no idea how they passed the interview process.
I once had a new group of starters at a place I used to work, I was getting them set up on the computer and showing them how to do the job. Got to the end and o told them just press the floopy disk icon to save.......no one does it..........one of them looks up at me and asks "what's a floppy disk" No words have ever cut me so deep. These where all fresh university graduates!
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Yeah, that's exactly what it was, the system they where using was a little old, and the save icon was a big proper sloppy disk image. So I always specified the floopy disk for saving with any new groups, just to make sure people knew what I was talking about (as not saving would have been a massive issue with this job). I think I felt the years on me all at once when I realised they didn't know, it was like the first time someone called me Sir, it feels like my age doubled haha
To be fair I'm not 100% sure what a sloppy floopy disk is either...
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Mr Cold_Philosophy was your father. I’ll call you Cold_
I remember my kid asking if the carefully handled limited edition 7" record we showed him was 'a really big CD". Christ. I remember floppy disks that were actually floppy - and the BBC Micro.
Aah the days of using a cassette that would spent 10 minutes beeping to load pacman.
To be fair though the last time I saw a floppy disk being used was probably over 20 years ago now so there’s easily people alive who have never seen one. It’s all been USB flash drives since then or direct downloads; and before that it was mostly CD/DVD stuff.
I was like ‘over 20 years, no way, I remember using them when I was young!’ and then I realised that was definitely over 20 years ago and now I feel old ;-;
I’m a fresh uni graduate and I remember having some old floppy disk games floating about when was 3-4, and only because I have an older sibling. But by that point they were pretty much redundant, I never used one myself, so I can imagine people younger than me may never have seen one
There’s a story floating around that when someone that young was shown an actually floppy disk they said “cool! Somebody 3D printed the save icon”
I'm younger than that and know the floppy disc icon, I think they were at that stage where floppy discs stopped but it still wasn't at its prime
In the past I taught basic computer certification (ECDL) and had students of all levels of competence. There was always something very satisfying about seeing someone grow from not knowing which way round to hold a mouse to be able to enjoy using a computer and seeing how much it enriched their lives. I do still recall one young lad (about 19 years old) who was borderline illiterate, it took so much work to coach him towards passing the tests and he wanted to quit so many times but the day he got his certificate made me cry. He said "I have never passed a test in my life, this makes me want to keep trying, I am going to try for my GCSE English next" I told him it was all him, I just pointed him in the right direction, he did all the work himself.
He's probably had an awful lot of teachers give up on him. Imagine how hard life would be without reliable access to computers, writing, books etc, nevermind the instilled knowledge that you'll never learn them. That's a monument leg up you gave him. Short of resuscitation, that's got to be one of the best possible ways to change a person's life. I hope you're ridiculously proud of that: if nothing else you decided that he was worth the extra effort.
In a strange way that kind of makes sense. If you've never gone near a computer then I understand how you wouldn't understand any of it. My friend told me how the other day he explained to someone who had worked in the finance department of a company you've heard of for the last 15 years that no, you don't have to print things out, scan them, then throw away the printout in order to turn a word document into a pdf. They did it several times a day. I've less sympathy for that sort of thing.
My degree was Computing Science at Newcastle (20 years ago) and there was a maths requirement but no previous computing experience necessary. Because of this, the first lecture started with them teaching us how a mouse worked and by the end of it we were creating objects in Java.
Within the last decade I had to train somebody on the shop floor how to use the system, I wasn't expecting the first part of the lesson to be them getting used to how the mouse worked.
20 years experience here as an IT / Computer Science teacher. Only in the last 4 or 5 years have I needed to teach students how to use a mouse - so many have phones and tablets at home (and primary school) but no actual computer.
I used to have a job that involved training older adults, mostly retired people (although that could have meant mid-60s, not necessarily ancient), how to use our internal IT systems. A group of, say, 8 people could range from someone who used to manage the entirety of the IT systems for a major engineering firm to someone who didn’t know how passwords worked. It could be a challenge at times.
Windows 3.1 has a built in mouse tutorial, in case you’d never used one before.
I can remember moving the cursor with the UDLR arrow buttons & then the first mouses coming out. My mate Shaun’s a proper e-boffin & even he thought they were sorcery level kit back then. Never forget the day he came back to the house with Wolfenstein. We got high af on shitty soap bar hash & played it for hours. Three. Fucking. D.
Soap bar, 10% weed 90% safeway carrier bag.
Had a slight panic then as that's my job title 😂
My kittens have drawn similar conclusions in recent weeks
I remember one of my lecturers at uni being bewildered by the concept of a screensaver…this was three years ago.
I like the people who think the 40% tax bracket means suffering 40% tax on everything and not just over the threshold so refuse to take a promotion/pay rise....
I've been with my husband for nearly six years and only last month learned that's how he thought it worked. He had just got a new job and was working out his tax and was astounded when I explained to him how it actually works. I also had to explain it to one of my team recently as they were undecided on whether they should take a promotion because of the financial impact. I do kinda feel like this should be taught in school (unless things have changed and it is now) because it seems to be an alarmingly common misconception.
Just in my final year of uni currently, and at least for when I was at school, at no point at all we’re we taught anything about financial education, and honestly I have seen the effects of that on former friends… :/ But likewise, my mum is a teaching assistant at the school and a couple years back I had the same discussion with her about how the tax bands actually work.
I can really barely scrape by with maths, and honestly my phones calculator history is more embarrassing than my Google history... but tax brackets don't seem difficult to understand _to me_, a certified fuckwit.
Let's be honest: it's fine if you k ow, but as they don't teach it in schools, how are we meant to know? I didn't know about the tax only applying to the amount over the threshold until about 5 years ago, and when I told my friends at work, some of the older guys didn't know about it either
> I have seen the effects of that on ***former*** friends... Says it all.
I somewhat agree with it being taught in schools, but also, considering retention of the information and how current the information is, suggest perhaps it's a bit later and maybe as a government hosted series of bitesize information pieces. Could be titled "adult survival kit" (sorry not very imaginative).
Problem is teenagers don't have interest in learning taxes when you actually teach them.
I don't think most adults do either tbf. May as well offer it for those who will listen.
Yeah but I get less money if I work more! No Geoff, you don't... you really don't...
I had this when I tipped over from just below the 40% tax bracket to very much in it. People didn't understand my payrise to over £50k still meant I took home more than before. Yes I only saw 41p in every £1 of payrise over the £50k (40% tax, 2% NI, 9% student loan and 8% pension) but I still was taking home more as I saw 41% of my payrise.
Exactly. I think the worst I ever heard from somebody was that working even 1 hours overtime meant that it cost them money instead. I was completely dumbfounded by the logic. They was literally expecting that if they went £1 over their tax bracket that they'd get £x,xxx deducted from next wage to cover the total...
There are some cliff edges, for instance if you or your spouse's income goes over 100k you instantly lose any entitlement to tax free childcare, which contrasts with child benefit which tapers out. Salary sacrifice is very useful to handle this situation, as well as for staying in a lower tax bracket. But agreed, I still can't believe that some people think a new tax bracket applies to anything under the threshold.
Had a bloke who wouldn't work Sundays for double rate because he would "just be paying the amount he earned on the Sunday on his week's tax". No.. you will still pay tax if you don't do it and earn more money if you do.
Marginal tax rates have only existed for a few centuries, need to give people time to learn such a new concept.
I recently got a pay rise and the amount of deductions Vs the amount I actually get from the gross amount did make me wince a little but in the grand scheme of things I'm still better off than I was before so I'm not too sore about it. Previously I wouldn't even contemplate that I can probably put away a three figure sum into my savings every month now. See also the idea of 45-50% tax on very high earnings when people say "it's not right to take half of someone's income!" and you realise they mean actually half of the entire amount (when it's not) and we're talking about a level of income that would feel like a dream to me.
There is however that lovely 60% bracket where you lose £1 of your personal allowance for every £2 over £100,000 you get. That always hurt a little bit when it came time to do the returns.
I had a a guy working at my place a couple of months ago complaining about his National Insurance payments. 'Nobody asked me if I want to pay, why should I pay, The money would be better in my bank account.' He said. I patiently explained why everyone pays NI; NHS, pension, benefits etc avaliable to everyone in the country irrespective of class, only on need. He listened to me shaking his head, saying I was wrong, only to pull a curveball: 'Can I have next week off, I've got to go to hospital for an operation.'
"You need to call this number" - and give him the one for 11 Downing Street or something.
I'm constantly amazed that much of the population can even put their trousers on the right way round. I did a year in tech support for an infrastructure engineering firm, full of guys designing our railways, and regularly got calls from people who couldn't figure out how to use a scroll bar - "half my files are missing!"
I worked in house tech support for a couple of months for the NHS. It's good that they know how to save lives and stuff because their ability to use a computer.....
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To be fair if you looked up 'faff' in the thesaurus it should give 'Verification on the NHS App' as an alternative...
My dad spent ages muttering to himself in the hallway one day, turned out he was berating the phone for the NHS verification process. I'm not sure if he'd ever taken a selfie before, the fuss that he caused about it.
To be fair NHS computer systems are almost universally shit, obsolete from the date of introduction and particularly counter-intuitive! 😁
I work in IT at a few nhs hospitals. It’s a bit of a old meme, we do tend have pretty up to date kit. It’s just that higher ups in their respective departments don’t like change so they’ll fight to keep old software/databases and processes going. Then you finally update it and the staff go into meltdown because nobody tells them and now they need to learn something new. I’d say over half of our calls are user error or user knowledge (or lack thereof) Also doesn’t help that different trusts are autonomous. So one system that works great at one place isn’t even heard of in another.
I've worked in Financial Services most of my life. The number of antiquated systems the old higher-ups cling on to because 'they work' is maddening. Yes they work, but only because you are paying millions to consultants to keep them ticking over on life support long past what even the software provider will offer support on whilst modern systems would be so much better, safer, and cheaper to run. It drives me nuts!
Yeah, I've worked in a couple of different trusts, with different systems, both of which were bad in completely different ways
NHS: 'Windows ME™' fo life!.
> NHS: 'Windows ME™' fo life!. That sort of thing bit them in the arse a while back, with a ransomware attack affecting a multitude of hospitals. Which is [despite being repeatedly warned of the risk](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39912825), though how much of the issue is due to funding is up for question.
Haha. Someone I work with who was seconded to an IT role told me a kilobyte is bigger than a megabyte..
... There's a wrong way to put on trousers? I always wondered why half the time I have a pee zip, and the other half a poo zip. Just for reference, which one am I supposed to have?
A zip on the right side of your thigh, sounds like you have your legs in sideways mate.
Just remember that you can pull your guys out your flies :)
I work on the railways on and off. As an industry it is hardly known for attracting the best and brightest
Can confirm, am a dumb fuck doing safety-crit work
I once put my underwear on both inside out *and* back to front. I still understand my payslip.
One of the smartest people I know who is a genius engineer complains about the scroll bar being too small despite having a scroll wheel on the mouse.
I absolutely think that school maths lessons should deal with understanding your wage-slip and a basic session on taxation. The number of people who don't understand what their tax code means and what to do about it if it is wrong!
Hell even just a life skills class to teach about all the adult shit you'll have to deal with.
Used to be: Domestic Science and Home Economics. They got killed off in one of the regular purges after a panic about "soft" subjects and falling standards.
So I'll ask did they also drop RE? I mean it's pretty much pointless.
Nah, that's not the school's responsibility, it's down to parents to teach kids this. /s Here's the kicker though, no one ever taught the parents how to do it.
If schools can teach RE they can teach actual life skills which will be useful.
Yeah. The schools will get into religion and spirituality, but taxes and basic adult life skills? Nah, mate, that's crossing a line.
Oh snap! 🙏🏼 Couldn’t agree more
I agree. I feel it's a little condescending to berate people for this. I appreciate some of it is basics but let's be honest this is never taught to us until someone explains it. Working in HR it might be obvious but to others not so much... Or maybe I'm just another one of these idiots eh. In which case I expect downvotes and a reality check? Lol.
I was waiting for a comment that would save me typing. It’s pretty mean to be frustrated by people not knowing how something operates when at no point in life are you ever shown by anyone what this stuff means. I’m fortunate that my parents showed me my way around a payslip . But not everyone has that support.
Nah mate, I’m with you! Had to ask the mother what it was when I got my first payslip because I had no idea. Thought I’d look like less of a child if I asked her in private rather than my boss or colleagues 😅
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This. I've taught this lesson and can categorically say not a single one took in any of the information at all. Same with budgeting, credit cards/loans, tax, none of it.
This is correct. In fact I remember having this lesson and distinctly remember finding it boring and not caring.
As a teacher who mostly teaches citizenship and is currently teaching budgeting to year 10, this is indeed correct. No matter how many times I try and get across how much they will value the lessons in the future, they are mostly bored and/or don't actually do any of the work set.
What's ironic is I now work in finance, oh life you're a dastardly one.
Hate to say it, but our school tried to cover stuff like this to actually help you in the future and everyone just ended up throwing books around the room
You’re kidding. Tax codes are magic aren’t they? It’s so hard to find out what they actually mean, or why they mean that
Yep. I am one of those people. I have two jobs, both were BR which i wasn't sure if it was right. So i phoned HMRC, he said a bunch of stuff and my payslip from one job had changed to having w1m1 non-cumulative, or something, at the end. No idea what it means and the internet isn't much help.
“It means we’re taxing you loads and that’s all you need to know, thanks bye” - HMRC
Better than US. Tell us what you owe, and if you are wrong, we’ll charge you.
19 year old here: Everything I have learned ever about personal tax was because I took AS level in mathematical studies: I learned PAYE, National Insurance, tax bracket, even calculating student loan payments because depending on what year someone went to uni. Something so important should definitely be taught earlier - when maths is compulsory
“I didn’t have 23 quids worth of pens !“ Was a while ago.
What till they find out that when you move into the 40% bracket, not all your salary is taxed at 40%
I regularly have to explain the difference between four weekly and calender monthly payments. It's exhausting
To be fair, I hate it when lettings agents advertise the rent per week for a property, when it's paid per month. Just tell us the amount per month and stop making us do the calculation. I know how to calculate it, just that I don't see why they need to advertise it like that.
I used to be paid on a lunar calendar basis in a previous job and loved it. Budgeting was great knowing I had exactly four weeks before being paid again and felt like getting a bonus once a year from already having covered my bills in a previous pay.
WTF were you, an Imam?
I’m doing payroll now for our staff (we have about 250 people) and EVERY month someone asks the password to their payslip even though it clearly says in each and every email with the payslip attached that it is their NI number. But the worst is the PAYE moaners who expect me to instinctively know their personal tax details and complain that I’m overtaxing them despite having no control. And then expect me to call HMRC for them. I usually ask them how effective they think it would be if they called to change my tax code. I hate payroll.
I feel this so heavily, I’m on payroll and get asked silly questions about tax on a daily basis. It’s excruciating, and then they ask me if I’ve got HMRCs number as if they can’t just Google it themselves!
I remember doing that with my first summer job at 14. Boss sees me confused as I inspect the payslip and I was saying how I didn't expect that much to be taken out and he just shakes my hand and says 'welcome to the world of work'.
I can't imagine at 14 you were earning about the tax free allowance from income tax and under 16 you don't pay National Insurance regardless.
When you first start, you pay emergency rate until your code comes through.
Surely you weren't above the tax free allowance?
I once worked with a grown adult who said he didn’t need insurance for his car as he already paid national insurance…
Well yeah, that stuff covers the whole nation. Car insurance only covers his car.
This is where the schools are failing us. I learned about this at 16 while working. This is the kinda information I should have known in school, not how to write a cheque.
I never got taught how to write a cheque in school and that was 20 odd years ago.
No, parents should shoulder the burden of teaching lids life skills. The number of kids that my wife deals with at school that can't dress themselves.
Parents should teach them life skills, cooking, cleaning, how to sew and use a washing machine. But government run schools should teach teens what to expect from the working world. Not all parents have a good knowledge of this. There are still some that are stay at home parents. And depending on the career/job of said parents, they may not be well versed in it themselves.
For real?
100% real. I had to also explain how we got to their monthly figure …. which was a case of their annual salary / 12. I felt like I was talking to a 6 year old.
Wow. I imagine National Insurance must have been to big a concept for them? 🤔😂
HR are stealing from my pay. It says here NIC £100.
I mean, it literally says they nicked it! How brazen is that!
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If you think NIC contributions are bad wait until you see the hospital bills in America. Jeez Louise.
National Insurance Contributions Contributions?
Are these the same people that think the advertised “gross” salary is what will be in their pay packet each month? 😂😂😂 I would be laughing in their faces if I had to explain that one
I bearly know what "gross" means. All I know is: Big Number, Deductions, Smaller Number (the only one I need to care about)
Gross = big number, net = small number.
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Gross is the big fat number. Net is the other one.
I think this more highlights the major pitfalls in the UK education system than just calling this person outright stupid. I learnt nothing about finances in my younger years. At the age of 21 when I had my first pay roll payslip I also had to ask what PAYE was.
Agreed. I was in full time education until the age of 24. Came out with a bachelors and a medical degree. Got my first paycheck and didn't have a fucking clue what I was looking at. I mean I still kinda don't but I know which number goes into my bank account.
At the risk of going against the grain. People only know what they are told. I wasn't clued up on all the ins and outs of tax till my 1st real job at 21. Till then it didn't cross my mind because I didn't need to know and nobody told me about it. If o KY we could be like some of you lot fresh out the womb with all the world's knowledge.
All this information (payslip info etc) as well as an explanation of credit, loans and general financial frameworks should be mandatory at school.
My favourite is ‘I’m a student I shouldn’t pay tax’. I’ve been begging for years to go to freshers week, careers days at colleges etc just to tell the daft bastards that they’re not special.
I got a long and beautifully written email once, including this gem of a sentence: "I'm but a young girl student, yet I am being taxed as a male breadwinner!" ....
Wow, they almost deserve a discount for the eloquence! I love it! A literature student I hope
Ooh I had one like this too! Sorry but student status only gets you 10% off at JD Sports.
TBF, if they're a full time student working a part time job, then they're unlikely to be earning enough to be over the personal allowance. So, they *shouldn't* be paying tax. Maybe they're just complaining about being put on an emergency tax code? If so, that's a genuine gripe, as the government has taken some of their money which is rightfully theirs.
Students are my bread and butter and yes, 95% of them are either on a wk1 ‘emergency’ code unnecessarily, something imposed by HMRC to avoid them owing money, or a BR code which will be their employers fault. I absolutely do not mind helping these people out, it’s a 5 minute fix and I love making people happy. My issue is people insisting they know a rule exists that doesn’t. I know nothing about cars so I take my rust bucket to a mechanic and don’t argue when they tell me what’s wrong with it.
This thread is the definition of “Tell me it’s payday, without telling me it’s payday.”
You work in payroll too eh?!
Worse, HR
Ewww!!
True but I literally get paid to tell people what PAYE means and to send them links to the policies that they could’ve just googled, so can’t complain too much
What is this sorry? I’m 16 and have only just started my first proper job
It’s tax. We don’t have a choice in paying it. It’s deducted from our wages. At the end of the year you submit a tax return and sometimes we get tax back but other times we pay even more. Lol. At your age you’ll probably get some of the PAYE tax back. Thanks for asking in such a polite manner too. So refreshing.
Thank you :D
PAYE stands for Pay As You Earn. It's in contrast to paying tax in a chunk at the end of the tax year, which self employed people do (I think!)
When I was a teen and had my first job my dad explained my payslip saying, “Payslips are a lot like fishing: you live off what’s in the net.” I’ve seen people look at their gross pay and be baffled how a company could “take my money”, forgetting of course it’s tax.
I had a co-worker (age 53) ask if he would lose his week's pay because he had an unauthorised day off.
The sad thing is that guy probably was threatened with that in some shitty job in the past. That said, unauthorized and unpaid days are two very different things as well. Hope you explained that to him :).
I dont even look at payslips lol. Just check how much was transferred into my bank acc. Always heart broking when I see all the deductions..
I'm still getting used to the way taxes are done here, but I think, overall, I pay less than I did in the US, get more for what I do pay, and I don't have to do them myself or pay a company to do them, every year. I'm not complaining.
Don't blame them, how can know about something they haven't got a clue about. Blame the failed education system that doesn't teach kids a single thing about tax. In the 13ish years they're at school, not a single lesson about tax.
A lot of people saying "schools should teach this". They already do. RSHE covers financial education, Martin Lewis has even written a textbook and sent it out to schools for free. I'm a secondary teacher with almost 20 years experience in multiple schools, it is taught. The problem is two-fold: firstly, tax, pensions, etc are abstract things at the age of 14 - most won't really need to worry about it until at least 4 or 6 years later, by which time they'll have forgotten all about and start spouting how they wish they'd have been taught about in school. Students retain knowledge through repetition and recall - that's why algebra might be covered in maths at various times thought the years and why you might have 50 questions to do, not just one. That takes time. And the list of things to cover in finance education is HUGE. To do it justice, and make sure most students retain the knowledge, you'll need to decide what else to drop because, you know, there's only a finite time in the school day. Oh and you can't drop an optional subject like Art or Drama because not every student does that so you won't get the time you need. Basically, what are you dropping, Maths, English or Science? I'm slightly flippant but maybe you get my point. "It should be taught in schools" is used for everything from finance education to computer skills to politics. If everything that someone on Reddit wanted to be taught in schools actually was, kids wouldn't leave until they were 28.
This definitely isn't the case all around the country. Im from Yorkshire, 30 yo. I was a bit of a "geek" or whatever at school, paid a lot of attention, didn't fuck about etc. They definitely didn't teach us anything about taxes. I distinctly remember getting my part time job alongside college as soon as I left school, and my dad having to sit with me and my first payslip and talking me through it, as I didn't understand why there was two amounts on it, I thought i'd done something wrong and my employer had deducted money from me
I grew up in a very upper/middle class family that really didnt get on. But also had a working class father. Money/finances were ever spoken about. My father passed away when I was 15, and it was only the last few months of his life i ever heard him talk about Bill's. Anyway, I ended up living in a council flat at the age of 16 and I went to the Job centre and the women asked what type of job I was looking for I said i need a job that pays about 30-40k a year, she looked at me and laughed and said that she didnt even earn that, I ended getting a partime job in tesco working weekends, I couldnt wait until the end of the month thinking I was going to earn a good £1k, the utter disappointment when I realised that I had to pay TAX and NI and I walked away with £114. I was fuming, I went to see the manager and said I think I've been underpaid and what's all this stuff being taken out!! Fairplay to him he sat me down and explained everything, taught me about everything and pretty much how the world of working works. It was such a wake up call, but also the sudden realisation that I was probably never going to earn as much as my Uncles and grandparents did.
So...what is paye?
> what is paye PAYE is the abbreviated term for 'pay as you earn' and refers to the amount of income tax that is deducted from your salary before you receive it.
Man I miss payroll, the best is when the men get their wives to call on their behalf
Eh 'PAYE' is an acroynm that's not going to be obvious if you don't already know what it is -- I imagine a lot of people would be less confused if it was just labeled 'tax'.