Tax MOT
Enter your salary and see which UK tax thresholds apply to you, most people will only hit one or two. This tells you where you stand, not what to do about it, see the disclaimer. Want your full take-home pay breakdown instead? Try the Salary Calculator.
Your household
You
Relief at source.
Your Tax MOT
Enter your salary to see your Tax MOT.
Inputs
| Field | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Where you pay tax | Optional | Toggle: Rest of UK / Scotland. Defaults to Rest of UK. Only the Income Tax band check depends on this, the Personal Allowance taper and Child Benefit charge are UK-wide thresholds. |
| Household | Optional | Toggle: Single income / Two incomes. Defaults to single. |
| Salary / Other Income | Required (per person) | The only input you need for a result. |
| Pension contribution % | Optional | Defaults to 0%. |
| Pension method | Optional | Defaults to relief at source, changeable. See Your Pension Contributions Explained for how the three methods differ, it genuinely changes what a contribution can and can't fix here. |
| Non-ISA Savings interest / Taxable Dividend Income | Optional | Both default to £0, tucked behind "add other income." Both count toward the Personal Allowance taper/Child Benefit charge thresholds alongside salary, but not the Income Tax band check, which looks at salary alone. Each gets its own dedicated check below instead: the Personal Savings Allowance for savings interest, the Dividend Allowance for dividend income. |
| Do you or your partner claim Child Benefit? | Optional | Defaults to No. |
What this checks
- Income Tax band: which band your salary falls in (savings interest and dividends are checked separately, below), and, for net pay arrangement or salary sacrifice only, what it would take to drop into the band below. Relief-at-source contributions don't change this on your payslip. If you pay higher-rate tax, claiming the extra relief from HMRC extends your basic-rate band instead; see Your Pension Contributions Explained.
- Personal Allowance taper: whether you're inside the £100,000–£125,140 band where the effective marginal rate reaches 60%, and what a pension contribution would take to escape it.
- Personal Savings Allowance: only shown once you've entered some savings interest. £1,000 tax-free if you're a basic-rate taxpayer, £500 at higher rate, £0 at additional rate, sized by the same UK-wide bands everywhere in the UK, not your own Scottish band if you're there. See Tax on Savings Interest for the full mechanism, including the separate starting rate for savings this figure already accounts for.
- Dividend Allowance: only shown once you've entered some dividend income. A flat £500 tax-free regardless of which band it falls in, on top of whatever your salary and savings interest have already used of your Personal Allowance. See Dividend Tax Explained for the full mechanism and the actual dividend rates that apply beyond the allowance.
- Child Benefit charge: tested against the higher earner's own income specifically, not a combined household figure, a two-earner household each comfortably under the threshold owes nothing, however high their combined income. See The Child Benefit Charge Explained.
- Marriage Allowance: only checked with two incomes entered. Not modelled for Scotland in this tool, Scotland's basic-rate band differs from the rest of the UK, see Marriage Allowance Explained directly instead.
A note on accuracy
This tool reports facts about your numbers against published thresholds, it doesn't recommend anything. Whether acting on any of it makes sense for you depends on things this tool has no way to know, your other savings, your other debts, how soon you might need the money. Pension contributions also lock the money away until retirement, a genuine trade-off, not just a tax calculation, see Reducing Your Tax Through Pensions.
This tool provides an estimate for illustration only, not a substitute for your actual tax position or personalised financial advice. See the disclaimer for more detail.
Calculations shown are based on 2026/27 Income Tax, Personal Allowance, Personal Savings Allowance, Dividend Allowance, and Child Benefit charge thresholds, see last review date below.