How much of a pay rise you actually keep.
Extra take-home a year
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Gross rise
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Per week
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Real rise vs inflation
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| On $70,000 | On $78,000 |
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The gap between the offer letter and your bank account
An employer announces a raise as a gross figure, but you never see the gross. Two things stand between the headline and your pay: PAYE, charged at your marginal rate, and the ACC earner levy at 1.67 percent. Because New Zealand income tax is progressive, the extra dollars of a raise are taxed at the rate that sits on top of your existing income, which is often higher than your average rate. This tool runs your full take-home before and after the rise and reports the difference that actually reaches you, plus whether the increase beats inflation.
It is the right tool when you are weighing a job offer, negotiating a salary review, or simply curious why a generous-sounding raise felt modest in practice.
Why a $8,000 raise feels like $5,466
Take a move from $70,000 to $78,000, a gross rise of $8,000. At $70,000 your income sits in the 30 percent band, and almost all of the $8,000 stays in that band on the way to $78,000, which is just below the $78,100 threshold where the 33 percent rate begins. After 30 percent PAYE and the 1.67 percent ACC levy, the raise adds $5,466 to your annual take-home. You keep about 68 percent of the gross.
That extra $5,466 works out to about $105 a week. The chart shows how the $8,000 gross divides between what reaches you and what goes to PAYE and ACC.
Beating inflation is the test that matters
A raise that does not outpace inflation is a pay cut in disguise. On these numbers the gross rise is 11.4 percent of your old salary, and with inflation at 3 percent that leaves a real increase of 8.4 percent, so this raise comfortably builds purchasing power. The lesson is to judge any offer against the inflation rate, not in isolation. A 3 percent rise in a 3 percent inflation year stands still in real terms, however it reads on paper. Watch the threshold effect too: if a raise pushes part of your income past $78,100 into the 33 percent band, or past $180,000 into the 39 percent band, the dollars above the line are taxed harder, so you keep a smaller slice of that portion.
A negotiation tip worth its weight: when a cash rise would mostly be taxed at 30 or 33 percent, ask whether part of the package can come in forms that are taxed differently or not at all, such as a higher employer KiwiSaver contribution, extra annual leave, or a professional development budget. A dollar of employer KiwiSaver going to your retirement can be worth more to you than a dollar of salary you keep two-thirds of. Note that New Zealand has no general capital gains tax, so equity or share-based components are taxed under their own specific rules rather than as a simple capital gain, which is worth understanding before you accept them in place of cash.
Does a raise ever leave me worse off overall?
No. Because only the income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate, crossing a bracket never reduces your total take-home. You always keep more after a raise than before it. The myth that a raise can push you into a higher bracket and cost you money confuses marginal rates with average rates. The higher rate only ever touches the dollars above the line, never your whole income.
Why does ACC come off my raise as well as PAYE?
The ACC earner levy is a flat 1.67 percent charged on your earnings up to an annual cap, separate from income tax, and it funds cover for injuries. Since your raise increases your earnings, the levy applies to it too, until your total income reaches the cap of $152,790, above which no further levy is charged. For most salaries the full 1.67 percent applies to the whole raise.