Weren't we all at one time or another?
How are you finding the lack of holidays? Here, of course, it's at least 23 days.
US vs UK taxes etc
- Thread starter Scougar
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Weren't we all at one time or another?
How are you finding the lack of holidays? Here, of course, it's at least 23 days.
Caporegime
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Company directors, earning their full personal allowance as salary + extras as dividends don't pay much tax up to a certain amount.
7.5% ish.
7.5% ish.
I work in software development and emigrated to the USA (from the UK) close to 10 years ago. Suffice to say, I'm making significantly more money in the USA than I ever could in the UK (perhaps outside of working in London for a US tech firm like Google or Facebook), even if I went into software contracting in the UK, which I was contemplating had I not emigrated. Market value for my skillset is simply much greater in the USA than pretty-much anywhere else in the world, including the UK. It may not be like this forever, so I'm making hay while the sun is (still) shining. 
Soldato
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You need to calculate in the employer NI and pension contributions.
If you say " my salary is £50,000", then your net wage would appear to be 75%, excluding pension. However the actual figure is 66%
Basically whatever your gross salary is, to do it roughly, just add 10% on top
I dont know how this works in the US.
Edit: Looks the tax in the US is far closer than i would have expected.
GG USA
If you say " my salary is £50,000", then your net wage would appear to be 75%, excluding pension. However the actual figure is 66%
Basically whatever your gross salary is, to do it roughly, just add 10% on top
I dont know how this works in the US.
Edit: Looks the tax in the US is far closer than i would have expected.
GG USA
Last edited:
$100k = £72k
-22.5% Tax
-7.4% National Insurance
So you would be paying a total of 29.9% in taxes on that, that includes a state pension, but doesn't include any deductions for a private pension.
So pretty much the same.
Source: https://listentotaxman.com/72000
Although £72k seems high (correct me if I'm wrong), so you might well be making more than you would in the UK.
Soldato
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I thought the UK was bad generally with a 40 hour standard work week and lots of families pumping in overtime doing lots more to pay the bills. 80 hours can do one!
Warming to the four day work week idea myself. Quality > quantity.
Weirdly not too bad. I got 3 weeks from the get go, so it was not too much of a shock from 6 weeks government job.
Taxes seem to be broadly similar between the US and UK, I guess US employees tend to have less holiday time and work longer hours though have better pay (or at least skilled and professional workers do).
If you've got a state with no state income taxes and/or you have plenty of deductions to make then I guess maybe the US can be better. Cost of living can be much lower (aside from medical stuff) and you can get more bang for your buck in terms of housing/land in rural areas.
Nah, it's effectively (up to a) 33% pay cut in any given week. (assuming he doesn't get a bonus at the end of the year). He said he works up to 60 hours when contracted for 40.
It's certainly something to mention at the end of the year when asking for a raise!
If you've got a state with no state income taxes and/or you have plenty of deductions to make then I guess maybe the US can be better. Cost of living can be much lower (aside from medical stuff) and you can get more bang for your buck in terms of housing/land in rural areas.
Nah, it's effectively (up to a) 33% pay cut in any given week. (assuming he doesn't get a bonus at the end of the year). He said he works up to 60 hours when contracted for 40.
It's certainly something to mention at the end of the year when asking for a raise!
Absolutely spot on about housing. Rural areas (outside of covid times) are bang for buck, but you'll need to travel for work. I live in an area that is probably a third to twice as expensive per property. I have a townhouse for the same price as I could by a gorgeous farmhouse in the sticks. Moving soon to take advantage of the market boom.
Bonus: Yes, I do, and didn't include it in the figures. Overtime is pretty much expected. My code/services front the entire company, so if there is an issue, even if it isn't our stuff... I often get called. It's been getting less and less thankfully due to work we have done, but it's always the archaic systems keeping us back, or somebody doing something silly like updating certificates without informing us.
I will certainly be pushing for a bigger position soon, since I'm the sole dev in my team now. Don't get too worked up about the overtime, it's the same everywhere. I choose a corporate job with health stuff mainly because it's stable and my wife has some medical needs.
Soldato
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Whats the holiday/materinity like entitlement there? Don't some States have rules that basically allow a company to sack you without to much of a second though? (At will)
I think when you consider the total cost of ownership to life then the US looks rather week unless your in the higher salary brackets.
And property tax/housing association (though admittedly the UK is not adverse to similar) comes to mind?
The less said about health insurance and copays the better I suspect when your American!
I think when you consider the total cost of ownership to life then the US looks rather week unless your in the higher salary brackets.
And property tax/housing association (though admittedly the UK is not adverse to similar) comes to mind?
The less said about health insurance and copays the better I suspect when your American!
One minor thing to keep in mind is that with regards to medical insurance in the US how much it costs and how much it covers varies massively, you can be paying a small fortune for it and have it not cover the first however many thousands of dollars a year in appointments and medications/treatments.
So if you have a "healthy" year your "tax" via the health insurance might be low, another year it can be massively higher just because you've had the "deductibles" from having to visit the doctor a few times or had an accident. I've seen people who very deliberately try and get as much done if they've had a bad year as possible because as they put it, they've already paid their full deductibles so might as well get anything else sorted including things that weren't urgent but they'd put off because of the out of pocket costs.
It also means that if you're say a diabetic you might be paying hundreds of dollars more per month in medical expenses for your insulin (almost of it pure profit*) than the guy with the same package and wage on the desk next to you.
*IIRC insulin's patent was licenced royalty free and only cost a few dollars a bottle to produce (and has been that way for decades) but the US system usually charges hundreds of dollars a bottle.
So if you have a "healthy" year your "tax" via the health insurance might be low, another year it can be massively higher just because you've had the "deductibles" from having to visit the doctor a few times or had an accident. I've seen people who very deliberately try and get as much done if they've had a bad year as possible because as they put it, they've already paid their full deductibles so might as well get anything else sorted including things that weren't urgent but they'd put off because of the out of pocket costs.
It also means that if you're say a diabetic you might be paying hundreds of dollars more per month in medical expenses for your insulin (almost of it pure profit*) than the guy with the same package and wage on the desk next to you.
*IIRC insulin's patent was licenced royalty free and only cost a few dollars a bottle to produce (and has been that way for decades) but the US system usually charges hundreds of dollars a bottle.
Permabanned
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or pay £300 a year or more and you weren't even that sick?
Yeah if you've got a variable component and potential to ask for more each year then I'd not worry about it, there seem to be some on there who get a bit funny about this stuff but that mentality is more for clock on/clock off pay by thehour jobs - if you're salaried as an engineer/dev and liable to be called when stuff breaks that's kinda swings and roundabouts, it's not really the same as being actually "on-call" with tech support etc..
It's always worth logging/documenting the extra work you've done though, and/or even sending a weekly or monthly summary to your manager or higher-ups, have tangible stuff to cite when it comes to asking for more $$$.
I'd be tempted by the US myself though I'd want decent medical cover, a mate of mine got a job over there for an international org, he's got a ridiculously good deal - all his US salary is tax-free! And thanks to the pandemic, no commute to DC, he's just sat in a nice house in rural Virginia. I'm not sure what the deal is re: capital gains etc.. on non-US stuff, would be insanely good if you could dodge GCT on say UK stock portfolio - turn the whole thing into being like an ISA for the entire time you're in the US.
Yeah this is a good point, they have a thing called copay or copayment on the insurance, it doesn't work like medical insurance in the UK whereby you might have a small excess for the year (in my case it was only like £100) and then the insurance covers everything else. The copay means you have a minor contribution to make for everything... even if it's only a few hundred on a bill running into thousands US hospital charges are super expensive and these add up for people with chronic conditions.
One thing that I did find utterly bizarre, I read something a couple of years ago about a US tech firm that actually did try to offer much more comprehensive insurance for it's employees - like removing the copay element and actually treating it like the sort of insurance policy we'd be used to in the UK... obvs such a thing is super expensive and they weren't allowed to do it, was deemed to be some sort of tax dodge (I guess there are tax benefits to medical coverage and these standard copays come out of an individual's net pay)
Medical cover is a PITA. My wife had a replacement disk in her neck, and the procedure was in excess of 80k. There was a bill for a third party service not put in by the surgeon which left us on the hook for 10K rather than only 1.5k (deductible). Stuff like this shouldn't happen, but that's insurance.
I'm actually having a surgery myself next month that I've put off for 9ish years. Co-pay's to specialist are $50 each time, although the surgery will hopefully be fully covered.
I'm actually having a surgery myself next month that I've put off for 9ish years. Co-pay's to specialist are $50 each time, although the surgery will hopefully be fully covered.
I am foolish for not doing this. Other 'smart' people keep log books of such things, and any redeeming work to bring up in reviews as evidence.
I work in software development and emigrated to the USA (from the UK) close to 10 years ago. Suffice to say, I'm making significantly more money in the USA than I ever could in the UK (perhaps outside of working in London for a US tech firm like Google or Facebook), even if I went into software contracting in the UK, which I was contemplating had I not emigrated. Market value for my skillset is simply much greater in the USA than pretty-much anywhere else in the world, including the UK. It may not be like this forever, so I'm making hay while the sun is (still) shining.
I work for a legal services firm now, but used to work for a multi-billion dollar etailer (not as big as amazon LOL). The skillsets are 100% more in demand here. It is hard to NOT find work here tbh in this field. My accent definitely helps lol.
I'm a little tied to this area I'm in so can't go to NYC or Silicon Valley to get the big bucks. I need to set my goals a bit higher and become team lead. Then my wife won't need to work so she can focus on schooling herself and doing things she loves
I reckon most people don't tbh.. I only started doing it after getting into the habit because of previous work where lots of stuff I did was billable and had to be logged to different clients.
That's not 100% necessary these days. Most (but not all) companies that I've interviewed with in the last six months were/are happy to pay decent compensation no matter where I live in the USA. Some do reduce compensation if you live in a cheaper area, but not all. My two last employers didn't/don't; I would have earned the same if I was living in a rural area/state (with a much lower cost of living) as I would have while living in a populous California city. Covid-19 WFH has made many companies a lot more open to full WFH now.
As for compensation opportunities here in the USA, some of my friends who I recently worked with are working for tech companies from their home offices and earning $400K (£290K) to $600K (£435K) per year (in cash and liquid stock). I personally work for a tech startup where I hope to eventually be part of a successful exit event (IPO or acquisition) in some number of years. In the meantime, I'm being paid a great cash compensation and have really good benefits (particularly healthcare). On the matter of paid days off, I'll be shocked if my teammates and I don't each take at least 4 weeks off this year, in addition to the standard 10 company holiday days off (like UK public holidays). I don't personally typically work more than 40 - 45 hours per week, and on the matter of maternity/paternity leave, my company gives everyone the option to take 12 weeks of continuous paid leave whether you're the mother or the father. My compensation and benefits are better than I ever had while I was working in the UK, even when I was working for a mega American tech company.