Every £1138 that comes out of my department budget on my overtime, I keep £400 of (£138 employer NI, £20 employee NI, £400 income tax, £180 child tax). That's 65% tax. At £100k to £120k you keep 33%. With 4 kids between £50k and £60k you keep about 25% of the money.

At the "higher tax" threshold, you can earn an extra £118, but end up paying an extra £268 in tax as you lose married couple tax allowance -- i.e. do some overtime and end up with less money.

Meanwhile those who are wealthy and powerful enough to structure their earnings as capital gains pay a mere 28%

Ah "child tax" which is not a tax but a means tested benefit.

Sounds like your one of those people who earn enough several times the UK median wage to have some child benefit removed.

Ranting about people who put equity at risk and receive capital gains seems strange for such a high earner such as you why haven't you done salary a sacrifice into a pension.

1.85 times UK median wage (1.6 times the median for my age bracket). About the same as a train driver [0] [1]

If you look at households with two adults and two children, this kicks in just below the median [2]

The upshot is that I do £1k overtime, which costs my employer £1138, and I keep £400 My collegue who earns 50% as much as me keeps £600 My contractor collegue who is paid twice as much gets paid that £1138 and he keeps £682 My part time collegue who does 5 days a fortnight and gets paid more per day than I do keeps £670 (as does her husband who does the same shift pattern - so they have the same pre-tax household income but far more post-tax)

Not exactly progressive.

[0] https://www.virgintrainscareers.co.uk/VacancyInformation.asp... [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/15/how-well-off-are... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/25/uk-incomes-how...

BTW the median household income in the uk was £27,300 compared to a lot of people in the media/add industries in London you would have to get to director level to earn 60k+

I few years ago I was the lead technical resource for an in house consultancy at RELEX and solved major problems for house hold names and I got paid < 1/2 what a train driver does for a 4 day week.

You both need to realize you are lucky and also learn some maths you colleague who earn 50% less than you is not coming out ahead.

Household of £27k? That's Post Tax, and includes retirees, small householeds, and isn't adjusted for cost of living. 2 years ago household disposable income was £29,200 [0]. GDHI per head in 2015 was £19,106 each, or for a 2 adult family £38,212. And that of course is before you factor in housing costs.

A household with one earner on £50k has a post-tax income of £37k, 26% above average as a household, and lightly under average for the size of household.

My collegue who earns 50% less for 50% of the work does come out ahead. My household works 40 hours a week and gets £50k, her household works 40 hours a week and gets £50k. Our marginal tax rate is over 60%, theirs is 33%.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/08/17/britons-bett...