‘I took a 25pc pay cut to dodge the £100k tax trap’
Airline pilot was giving away more than he got because of the ‘bonkers’ tax quirk
Mattie Brignal Senior Money Reporter
26 January 2026 6:01am GMT
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Have you gone part-time at a job on a modest salary to avoid being dragged into a higher tax band? We want to hear about your experience. Email money@telegraph.co.uk*
Mark Brown never thought that after spending £70,000 to qualify as an airline pilot, he would be strategizing about how to cut down his hours – and pay.
Brown, 41, spent 15 years building a successful career at one of Britain’s biggest commercial airlines and his salary was rising each year – but after his pay packet edged into six figures, he found that he was losing more than half of any pay rise he received to tax.
Five years ago, he decided that the extra slice of income just wasn’t worth it. He now works three weeks out of every four, meaning he has taken a 25pc pay cut.
“There’s a tipping point in my mind,” says Brown, who lives in Surrey. “Anything above 50pc [tax] and you’re giving more away than you’re getting. It feels like a gut punch.”
Brown has been snared by a tax trap that kicks in once a worker earns £100,000, which takes 60p of every pound they earn above that threshold up to £125,140. This is higher than the 45p top rate of income tax paid by the country’s highest earners.
This long-standing quirk of the tax system is “bonkers”, Brown says: “I’m choosing to limit my earning potential, pay less tax into the system and be less productive.
“Everybody loses: the individual, society and the consumer. It’s just a flawed policy.”
Keeping track of how much he needs to work – or not work – is a job in itself. Brown’s earnings fluctuate each month depending on how much he flies, requiring him to meticulously keep track of his hours to ensure he does not breach the threshold.
Some of his colleagues are also taking advantage of the post-Covid flexibility in the airline industry to go part-time.
Brown, however, is in the unusual position of being able to funnel the hours he has freed up by working part-time into something productive. He uses the time to support his partner Denisa in running a London tour guide business the couple set up a decade ago.
“I’m one of the lucky ones who could turn this perverse incentive into something constructive,” he says. “[But] most professionals hitting £100,000 can’t redirect their productivity – it simply vanishes.
“They work less, cap their ambitions or max out pensions. The economy loses both their output and any incremental tax revenue.”
‘Why do £1,000 worth of work if you only get £380?’
Brown is one of the estimated 1.8 million taxpayers currently earning more than £100,000. This is expected to rise to 2.3 million by 2029.
For every £2 earned above £100,000, a worker loses £1 of their tax-free personal allowance. By the time they earn £125,140, this has fallen to zero. It means anyone caught in the trap pays an effective 60p in income tax on every pound in that chunk of their earnings, plus 2p of additional National Insurance contributions (NICs).
A deep freeze to income tax thresholds is pulling more workers into higher tax brackets as inflation pushes up wages.
This anti-aspirational tax squeeze has helped convince many high earners to reduce their hours. Others are declining promotions or negotiating pay cuts.
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Tony Evans** shares this view. Evans, 52, is a scientist who builds mathematical models for a pharmaceutical firm. He earns nearly £170,000 a year and has maxed out the £60,000 of annual pension contributions he can make to reduce his taxable salary.
He has decided to buy an extra 10 days’ holiday this year to keep his income below the £100,000 threshold – but he anticipates his income will continue to rise and is therefore planning to go part-time once he turns 55.
“You start to think: what are you working for?” he says. “I’ll be taxed to buggery whatever I’ll do, so why would I bother?
“Why do £1,000 worth of work if you’re only going to get £380? That’s not a good return when there are other things you can do with that time. I’ll go down to three or four days a week. I’ll put my feet up and take the dog for walks in the woods.”
‘It’s just not worth it’
The tax system is also encouraging workers on more modest salaries to go part-time.
Steve Pugsley, 65, teaches sixth-formers at a secondary school in Buckinghamshire. Last year, his salary breached the £50,270 higher-rate tax threshold, meaning any income above this level is taxed at 40pc.
With retirement approaching, he decided to drop down to a 70pc work schedule, working a three-day week and four-day week in every fortnight.
Pugsley used to earn extra money by marking exam papers and writing educational articles, but he has given this up after reaching the higher-rate threshold.
“The effort for that extra money is just not worth it,” he says. “I cannot stand the thought of working those additional hours and losing half the additional pay for them in tax and [National Insurance].”
He adds that it is a shame the “economically illiterate” Government does not understand the Laffer Curve: the idea that if tax rates rise above a certain level, the tax take will start to reduce.
Brown doesn’t see the situation improving any time soon.
“Nothing is changing under Labour,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s lazy politics or they don’t want to change anything that affects high earners, but to freeze thresholds for another three years feels like a missed opportunity.”
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**Name has been changed.
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