Hundred Summers60% tax trap calculator: the contribution that gets you back to £100,000
Between £100,000 and £125,140 of adjusted net income the personal allowance is withdrawn, so each pound you earn there costs about 60p in income tax. Find the pension contribution that brings you back to £100,000, what it costs you after tax relief, and what it keeps. Your figures never leave your browser.
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Worked example
Computed when this page was built by the same engine that runs the calculator above, so the figures below and the live tool can never disagree. Change any input above to see your own.
| Inputs | |
|---|---|
| Taxable income | £112,000 |
| Pension contributions now | £0 |
| Paid by | Salary sacrifice |
| Where | England, Wales or Northern Ireland |
| Results | |
|---|---|
| Adjusted net income over £100,000 | £12,000 |
| Contribution back to £100,000 | £12,000 |
| Income tax saved | £7,200 |
| National Insurance saved | £240 (£40 from April 2029) |
| Cost in take-home pay | £4,560 (62% relief) |
The next question
Is salary sacrifice the cheaper way to pay it in? →Salary sacrifice calculator
Or answer it with everything else: the full Hundred Summers plan connects your pay, pensions, savings, property, tax and spending year by year, and stress-tests them across 500 simulated market histories.
Read the guides
- The 60% tax trap: earning between £100,000 and £125,140 →Why every pound between £100,000 and £125,140 is effectively taxed at 60% (62% with NI), how the personal allowance taper creates it, and why pension contributions in this zone get the best relief in the UK tax system.
- The £100k childcare cliff: the worst-designed threshold in UK finance →Cross £100,000 of adjusted net income by £1 and you lose all free childcare hours and Tax-Free Childcare: on top of the 60% tax zone. How the cliff works, which parent counts, and the pension escape route.
Why the band costs 60%
The personal allowance of £12,570 falls by £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income over £100,000, so it has gone by £125,140. A pound earned in that band is taxed at 40% and also uncovers 50p of income that was tax-free, taxed at 40% again: 60% in all, plus 2% National Insurance on pay. In Scotland the advanced rate of 45% applies across the band, making it 67.5%. The £100,000 threshold has not moved since 2010, so more people cross it every year.
What a pension contribution does
Adjusted net income is your taxable income less gross pension contributions made by relief at source (and Gift Aid donations); contributions through net pay or salary sacrifice come off before it is measured. So a contribution equal to the amount over £100,000 restores the whole allowance, and in the band each £1 in the pension costs about 40p of take-home pay. Above £100,000 parents also lose Tax-Free Childcare and the funded hours entirely: the childcare cliff calculator prices that case in detail, and the salary sacrifice calculator shows the National Insurance side.