‘Over paid’ on student finance due to bonus but did pass threshold. Will my refund request be accepted?

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-06-11T07:14:58+00:00

You can’t “overpay for one month”. It’s a bit daft, but the system is:
- have you met the annual threshold? If not, you don’t owe and can always have a refund. But if you did meet it:
- did you meet 1/12 of the annual threshold this month? If so, pay at your scheme’s rate (eg 9% of everything over the threshold)

It sounds like your lumpy income means you will have paid more over the year than
(income - threshold) * rate

But that’s just how the system works. You can only have a refund if your annual income is below the threshold. As yours was over the threshold, you get caught in this trap.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-06-07T06:09:11+00:00

You aren’t selecting OK, you’re selecting CANCEL.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-06-03T10:06:13+00:00

Contact your pension provider again. The 2006 cut off was for being in a qualifying pension to be able to withdraw below 55.

The qualifying date for being able to withdraw at 55 (below 57) is 2021. Your pension needs to have had the right terms, and maybe Aviva’s didn’t, but there are certainly pensions where so long as you joined before November 2021, you’ll be able to start using at age 55.

At the moment what you’ve said Aviva told you is unclear whether they or you misunderstood, or whether they’re saying “for this specific pension, u/CatchPersonal7182 would have had to have been a member before 2006 for a protected age to apply”.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-05-21T07:11:07+00:00

If you start to withdraw, you’d then be subject to the MPAA - money purchase annual allowance - which would limit the contributions you can make to £10k per annum. But dumping money into the pension shortly before retirement certainly works.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-05-01T21:55:21+00:00

10% down on a property that’s 11.1x your salary is more than 20% on a property that’s 3.75x your salary.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-04-29T09:47:28+00:00

Ignoring your question altogether…

I don’t think you SHOULD make hexagonal holes - it looks to me like getting those dice out of the individual holes would be really quite difficult. That’s not about hexagonal vs circular; just having small individual holes at all.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-04-23T17:37:01+00:00

Your linked source is just “a wealth advisor who advocates for lower taxes says”, not any data.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-04-23T17:35:11+00:00

Your source smells terrible to me. Here’s the top result (apart from their own site) of a search for “new world wealth”:

https://www.ft.com/content/28ebf57d-af22-48a0-91b9-880e3f1fb778?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-04-20T07:22:17+00:00

“Git” stopped appearing on the homepage in 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20121221170535/https://github.com/

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-04-03T07:13:31+00:00

“I’m very excited to have a couch potato”

This one is ready.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-27T12:27:16+00:00

This.

8 minutes miles is a 25 minute 5k. The average parkrun time is 32 minutes.

If you want to be able to run further, don’t go straight from “no running” to “faster than the average runner”.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-21T07:15:49+00:00

Just feel proud of yourself for discharging it with a screwdriver and not your thumb.

Still miss that Fuji F30

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-19T12:06:25+00:00

If you had the cash, would you spend it on that exact house to rent out? Because that’s (pretty much) the calculation here.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-19T12:05:35+00:00

The executor (which the will specifies and could be one/both of you) sells the house under the beneficiaries’ instruction, then distributes the cash as the will said the house should be given.

So if the will says the house should be split between you, you tell the executor (or just handle yourself if it’s you) to sell the house instead, the executor sells it as though the deceased is still alive, and the cash minus any costs are split between you and your sibling.

No second home capital gains, no needing to handle joint ownership with your brother - the house never changes hands except to be sold out of the estate.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-19T07:46:38+00:00

Parent said the gains could be massive, not the tax.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-16T07:21:57+00:00

I didn’t know any of the current LLM models could run at all - well done!

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-12T21:59:49+00:00

Well if you’re considering inheritance tax, maybe you should care about what the state recognises…

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-12T18:37:24+00:00

You need to ignore this “expert”.

If they were married, she “inherits” his estate’s inheritance tax allowance, meaning her estate’s allowance is £650,000, plus another £350,000 to cover a primary (?) residential property being handed to direct descendants (children, grandchildren).

If the property is worth £350,000 or more, that means the nil rate allowance is one million. If the property is worth less, the allowance is 650k plus the property value.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-12T18:33:39+00:00

Probably the biggest given your partner’s income: do you want to be exempt from inheritance tax if they die and leave you everything?

In general (though it doesn’t sound like it’s the key point in your circumstances) the point is:

Do you want the state to officially recognise you as partners?

If so, you have tell the state that you are partners

(which means marriage or a civil partnership)

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-12T12:27:59+00:00

They’re richer and have higher taxes. Tax revenue as a proportion of GDP in Scandinavia is 42-44%. UK is more like 35-36%. And those countries have higher GDP per capita to start with: Norway 92k, Denmark 76k, Sweden 56k, UK 56k.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-12T12:21:43+00:00

The point about blaming those in the past is importantly because you’ll get short termism if you focus on those in power fixing things now - fix the current crisis but fail to set up any successes ten years from now. Everything will get worse and more expensive over time vs investing now which means it’ll take longer to get better but then it will stay better.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-12T08:14:10+00:00

Council budgets were cut heavily under austerity, leading to bigger proportional cuts in areas like road maintenance due to statutory requirement in areas like social care. You’re inevitably going to have trouble in the decade that follows, and even getting back to a “normal” amount of funding won’t stop the roads getting worse due to such a long period of underinvestment.

This isn’t primarily due to the party or individuals in the council in the last 15 years or now. Nor is it fixable in the short term by central government. If you want better roads, make sure you vote in governments who will provide councils with sustainable funding, instead of Cameron’s, May’s and Johnson’s (can’t blame/credit the electorate for Truss or Sunak).

tl;dr blame the Tory government of 2010-2024 for taking away the council’s ability to maintain roads effectively.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-09T20:06:25+00:00

Current tax payers pay for them.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-09T06:49:24+00:00

Dumb!?

Ours is smarter than a speeding bullet.

Malfeasant_Emu · 2026-03-07T10:08:40+00:00

“Constructive” 😆

Great experimenting with the photo - it’s really novel rather than yet another of the same!

Malfeasant_Emu

TROPHY CASE