Income threshold

[Terpe]

Right, to prove you have the earning requirement, you need to do one of a number of things

a. One year showing all your earnings came to over £18,600. This is really the one where the P60 is most useful.

b. Six months salary slips in a job (or jobs) which over the course of a year is on target to earn over £18,600. All those salary slips must be consecutive in earning, ie you can't have one month where you earned less.

c. Have earned over £18,600 in the last 12 months. This one is useful if say your earnings suddenly increase drastically, or you were very near the threshold but then had an increase, loads of overtime etc.

So, if you took on the new job paying around 20k in May 2011, you should definitely have 6 months worth of salary slips which will show you are on target to earn over £18,600. Go for it now if you want.

OR, get all your salary slips for the last 12 months, starting with this months and work backwards, get out a calculator and add up the salary shown on those slips (before tax remember). I would be extremely surprised if this didn't come to over £18,600, so you can again submit it now if you want.

You just don't have to wait until you have earned over £18,600 THIS financial year, because it doesn't go by financial years, it goes by calendar years - if you earned £18,600 or above in the last 12 months, you have met the requirement, simple as that.

So really, it's up to you when you apply. You might not want to apply until January to get more evidence of chats together perhaps.

Nice effort in trying to put forward the options.
Just that some key parts may be misleading.

For me, I don't understand the new financial requirements to be quite like that.

The UKBA are clear about how to meet the financial requirements.

There are a number of specific categories and the one that is applicable needs to be declared.

For applications that will be based on salaried employment there are two different categories

Category A is for salaried employment for the last 6 months

Category B is for salaried employment for less than the last 6 months

Under the rules for Category A, the applicant’s partner should be in salaried employment at the point of application and have been with the same employer for at least the last 6 months.
The applicant can count the gross annual salary (at its lowest level in those 6 months) towards the financial requirement.

If necessary to meet the level of the financial requirement applicable to the application, the applicant can add to this:-

- the gross amount of any specified non-employment income received by the applicant in the 12 months prior to the application, provided they continue to own the relevant asset (e.g. property, shares) at the date of application.

- Any savings above £16000 (subject to the 2.5 modifying factor)

- The gross annual income received by the applicant’s partner from any pension.


Under the rules for Category B the financial requirement must be evidenced in two parts.

First Part
Where the applicant’s partner is in salaried employment at the date of application and has been with the same employer for less than the last 6 months, the applicant can count the gross annual salary at the date of application towards the financial requirement.

If necessary to meet the level of the financial requirement applicable to the application, the applicant can add to this:-

- the gross amount of any specified non-employment income received by the applicant in the 12 months prior to the application, provided they continue to own the relevant asset (e.g. property, shares) at the date of application.

- Any savings above £16000 (subject to the 2.5 modifying factor)

- The gross annual income received by the applicant’s partner from any pension.


Second Part
The applicants partner must in addition have received in the 12 months prior to the application the level of income required to meet the financial requirement applicable to it, based on:-

- The gross salaried employment income of the applicant’s partner

- The gross amount of any specified non-employment income received by the applicant’s partner

- The gross amount of any pension received by the applicant’s partner

- The gross amount of any UK Maternity Allowance, Bereavement Allowance, Bereavement Payment and Widowed Parent’s Allowance received by the applicant’s partner.


There does not seem (to me) to be any flexibility in basing the compliance of income on 12 months evidence in the case where you have been working for the same employer for more than 6 months.

UKBA goes on to state that

Moving to another position with the same employer does not restart the 6-month period over which employment at the required salary level can be demonstrated, provided the employment is paid at at least the level of salary on which the application relies throughout that period. That period will restart where the applicant’s partner or the applicant changes employer

.

Just felt it was needed to provide that important clarification.