UKC

Assuming no other income source, if you pay a fixed percentage of pension contributions from salary, is your taxable income:

Income - pension contributions - personal tax allowance

or

income - personal tax allowance? 

Thanks!

The first one.

Your pension gets deducted from your income without paying tax on it. It's whatever that is left after pension deductions that will be taxed (once you're over the personal allowance). 

There's various online calculators out there - remember to find one for Scotland as our tax bands and percentages are different from England and Wales. 

Thank you

I'm not convinced that is correct, all PAYE income is taxable but when calculating the tax due your personal allowance is taken account of. Also, the most common arrangement is for your pension to come out after tax but 20% is then claimed by your pension scheme and added to your pot. It is different if you have are in a salary sacrifice scheme but it doesn't sound like you are. You may need to check somewhere more authoritative than UKC

This, perhaps?

https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-your-private-pension

Depends  on the scheme as there are 2 options.

That link doesn't disagree with what I posted and it doesn't include a definition of taxable income. Pension contributions are tax free but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the original earnings aren’t classed as taxable income. Lottery winnings for example are not classed as taxable income but earning typically are.

The OP is likely filling out a tax return or other assessment where getting the figures correct is important.

The description of taxable income on the following web pages matches my understanding:

https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/income-tax/working-out-what-taxable/taxabl...

https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/income-tax/working-out-what-taxable/tax-fr...

I am not an accountant and if one comes along they may be able to clear this up. In the meantime, I suggest that the OP does not trust a simple A or B, yes or no, answer where the author hasn’t at least stated their credentials or given a link to an authoritative source

Fiona is correct. This is the reason why many people every year make additional pension contributions in order to keep themself from moving into the next Income Tax band. You make additional contributions to your pension and keep 100% of that money as the contributions are made before tax. If you are going to move into the 40%, 45%, or even worse - going to fall into the 60% "tax trap" between £100,000-£125,140 - then this becomes extremely tax efficient.

I didn't say it did; you suggested consulting a more authoritative source; I suggested one, the government's own website.

From my basic understanding:

If you're an employee, and you pay into an employer's scheme (most people on PAYE) it's 1.

If you pay into a private pension, from your net income, it's 2. But your pension provider effectively reimburses you for the tax you paid.

Feel free to correct me.

It depends.

If the pension is removed from your gross salary, your taxable income is gross salary-pension-allowance.

If it is paid from net salary (for example you choosing to chip into your own scheme) then it's gross salary-allowance and you have to claim back the tax on the pension contributions.