 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009"net" income
Dear people in the US, I would like to ask an important question. I am carrying out a web questionniare about retirement and I indciate some income amounts in the web questionnaire. I mention the incomes as "his net labor income will be" "his net pension income will be" etc... Do you think that i should indicate the income as the nominal income before taxes and eliminate the "net"? In the US, do most people think the income in terms of nominal salary before taxes are taken out? or, do most people think the income in terms of net salary after taxes are taken out? > Dear people in the US, > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > In the US, do most people think the income in terms of nominal salary before > taxes are taken out? or, do most people think the income in terms of net salary > after taxes are taken out? Consult other books or web sites to find out the usage familiar to the people who may answer your questionnaire. E.g. Canadians when discussing pension income usually distinguish 1. Pension income, investment income, and employment income (not labor income). 2. Income before and after taxes (not gross and net.) I do not know whether American usage is similar or different. Your questionnaire should probably define its terms unambiguously.  SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) Don wrote on Tue, 6 Jan 2009 08:43:19 -0500: >> Dear people in the US, >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > salary >> after taxes are taken out? > Consult other books or web sites to find out the usage > familiar to the people who may answer your questionnaire. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Your questionnaire should probably define its terms > unambiguously. There is a further complication in that I think of "disposable income" as that after taxes and medical insurance fees. I would also find a use for "after-tax income". SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not > Don wrote on Tue, 6 Jan 2009 08:43:19 -0500: In case you may have not noticed, I would like to call your attention to a message of mine below. I paste it here once again. I would be very pleased if you could provide some assitance. I need some American people to be of help for the following issue: Dear People (especially those in the US), I am a PhD student in economics and I am going to hold a web questionnaire that will take place in the US. The numebr of respondents will be about 1500. I have prepared the web questionnaire myself. During the preparation I checked books on questionnaire design and other questionnaires that were similar in nature. I did checks and I discussed it with my supervisor. But I am not that all confident if I could design the questionnaire well. In particular, I do not know if the questions are clearly understandable. I am not a native English speaker after all Therefore, I need some people to express their opinon on the questionnaire. Escpecially I want to know if the questionniare is understandable to you at the first glance. If not, what is not clear etc... Would there be anybody willing to have a look at the questions and express their opinion? I will not necesserily askyour view for all the questions. Checking only one question will already be a great help to build up my confidence. Especially of those of you who are good in English, I would like to ask your gudience. If you would be willing to have a look at one or two questions, please let me know and I can send the question to your email adress. I will send a file in word format or in pdf, however you wish (you should not worry about virus or anything in the files. I am an academic and I am not into such fuss that will give yo a headache, trust me on this). I would very much appreciate your concern. After all, this is a scientific study and it is for the American Society. Your help would be helping the research, not to my personal interest. Hoping to hear from you. > Don wrote on Tue, 6 Jan 2009 08:43:19 -0500: > [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] >as that after taxes and medical insurance fees. I would also find a use >for "after-tax income". There is another meaning of "disposable income": the money left over after deduction of necessary living expenses. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) Peter wrote on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:47:30 +0000: >> Don wrote on Tue, 6 Jan 2009 08:43:19 -0500: >> [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] >> "disposable income" as that after taxes and medical insurance >> fees. I would also find a use for "after-tax income". > There is another meaning of "disposable income": the money > left over after deduction of necessary living expenses. The multitude of meanings seem to indicate that precise unambiguous definitions might be better in a scientific survey as Don Phillipson suggested SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not By the way, in case you may have missed a message of mine below I would like to paste it below. I would be very pleased if you could provide some help on the issue below. Since, as I understand, you are a native English speaker and even an American: Dear People (especially those in the US), I am a PhD student in economics and I am going to hold a web questionnaire that will take place in the US. The numebr of respondents will be about 1500. I have prepared the web questionnaire myself. During the preparation I checked books on questionnaire design and other questionnaires that were similar in nature. I did checks and I discussed it with my supervisor. But I am not that all confident if I could design the questionnaire well. In particular, I do not know if the questions are clearly understandable. I am not a native English speaker after all Therefore, I need some people to express their opinon on the questionnaire. Escpecially I want to know if the questionniare is understandable to you at the first glance. If not, what is not clear etc... Would there be anybody willing to have a look at the questions and express their opinion? I will not necesserily askyour view for all the questions. Checking only one question will already be a great help to build up my confidence. Especially of those of you who are good in English, I would like to ask your gudience. If you would be willing to have a look at one or two questions, please let me know and I can send the question to your email adress. I will send a file in word format or in pdf, however you wish (you should not worry about virus or anything in the files. I am an academic and I am not into such fuss that will give yo a headache, trust me on this). I would very much appreciate your concern. After all, this is a scientific study and it is for the American Society. Your help would be helping the research, not to my personal interest. Hoping to hear from you. >Dear people in the US, > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] >do most people think the income in terms of net salary after taxes are taken >out? "Income", to this American, is the gross amount...the figure before taxes and other deductions. "Take home pay" is the figure after the deductions are made. Income figures that I have seen are for the gross amount. If you see that "Nurses earn, on average, $xx,000", that will be the gross amount before deductions. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida > >Do you think that i should indicate the income as the nominal income before > >taxes and eliminate the "net"? > > "Income", to this American, is the gross amount...the figure before > taxes and other deductions. "Take home pay" is the figure after the > deductions are made. As a UKain, I think about take-home pay (the amount after tax), as that is the amount that appears in my bank acconut each month. However, generally published figures tend to be pre-tax income; certainly pay figures are pre-tax pay, as everybody's tax bill is dependant on their own particular circumstances. UK payslips look similar to this: http://www.payslipsp60.co.uk/LoadImg.aspx?Img=images/IrisStandardPayslip.jpg And please do not use "earn" when you mean "pay". -- JGH > As a UKain, I think about take-home pay (the amount after tax), as > that is the amount that appears in my bank acconut each month. Moreover, off the top of my head I can tell you my annual salary (pretax) and my monthly take-home pay (post tax). I can't tell you my annual take-home or my monthy salary without serious mental gymnastics or a pencil and paper. -- JGH > > In the US, > > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > that "Nurses earn, on average, $xx,000", that will be the gross amount > before deductions. I would agree. In the US, there are other possible deductions from salary besides taxes, such as contributions to qualified retirement plan or various medical account plans. These would affect the take-home pay. Brian SignatureIf televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up. -- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com) >>> In the US, >>> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > plan or various medical account plans. These would affect the > take-home pay. My California pay stub had deductions for retirement, health insurance, social security, state disability insurance, federal income tax, state income tax, and charity. Yes, there was a little left for me. SignatureSkitt (AmE) >> > In the US, >> > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >plan or various medical account plans. These would affect the take-home >pay. "Take-home pay" gets a bit fuzzy there. If you actually received the money for the retirement plans and medical insurance and had to pay them yourself what would be your take-home pay? This is much the case for many contract employees who do not have any of their pay designated for retirement or medical. Signature************* DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@cox.net) ************* * Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow * * My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps * > > I would agree. In the US, there are other possible deductions from > > salary besides taxes, such as contributions to qualified retirement [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > the money for the retirement plans and medical insurance and had > to pay them yourself what would be your take-home pay? I would regard the take-home pay as what is actually on the check (or as is often the case, directly deposited into a bank account). For me, the cases you mention would not affect the take-home pay, just as my contributions to an IRA or supplemental insurance would not. Brian SignatureIf televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up. -- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com) >> > I would agree. In the US, there are other possible deductions from >> > salary besides taxes, such as contributions to qualified retirement [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >the cases you mention would not affect the take-home pay, just as my >contributions to an IRA or supplemental insurance would not. Your "take-home" pay is the amount the check is made out for. Even that is not "keep-home pay" since some of it will go to government in April. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida >>>> I would agree. In the US, there are other possible deductions from >>>> salary besides taxes, such as contributions to qualified retirement [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > that is not "keep-home pay" since some of it will go to government in > April. While the "keep-home-pay" for you and me are as you describe (government gets some of our money in April), I think that the majority of people overpay their taxes during the year and get a refund around April. Silly people! SignatureSkitt (AmE) > > I would regard the take-home pay as what is actually on the check > > (or as is often the case, directly deposited into a bank account). [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > > Your "take-home" pay is the amount the check is made out for. I believe that is what I said. > Even > that is not "keep-home pay" since some of it will go to government in > April. For some. Others will get a refund. Brian SignatureIf televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up. -- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com) > In the US, > > do most people think the income in terms of nominal salary before taxes are > taken out? or, > do most people think the income in terms of net salary after taxes are taken > out? Most people in the US can tell you what their annual income is, but few know off the top of their heads what their taxes were--which means subtracting their tax return what was deducted (if anything). My returns tend to give me the same every year so I could give you a ballpark figure, but again, most aren't aware of how much annually is taken out. Asking for gross or pre-tax income would get you much more specific results. The other issue, that people have already raised, is that of deductions--when you say "net," are you asking for what gets deposited into the checking account? Not all deductions are taxes. You might run into trouble there, as the second number most can give you is what gets cashed/deposited, which includes pension contributions. > Dear people in the US, > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > do most people think the income in terms of net salary after taxes are > taken out? In general, I think that most folks in the US can tell you right off what their gross income is, but will have to look up their net income. Paycheck stubs, in any case, always give both figures. Since size and number of deductions vary, as well as factors such as number of dependents, it's theoretically possible for two people with identical net income to have had very different gross incomes, so it's really up to you to decide which figure is useful to you. If you're not really clear about the goals of your survey at this point, you should ask for both figures. Better to have too much data rather than not enough. Thank you everybody. I have now the insights. Although gross might be more appropriate, I will say: "net income (i.e. income after taxes and other deductions)". Otherwise, since people will vary in deductions and taxes, the amounts I assign will be judged differently by different people. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.