FinLab's take-home tool applies the published 2026-27PAYE stack: income tax band by band, the ACC earners’ levy, your KiwiSaver contribution and any student loan. That is the part of a payslip most people mean when they ask “what do I actually take home?” It is also not the whole of a real payslip. Knowing what is missing stops you treating an estimate as a budget.
Working for Families and other IRD credits
Family tax credits, the Best Start payment and related Working for Families entitlements are paid by Inland Revenue from a separate assessment. They can dwarf a small PAYE change and they abate with income, so a pay rise can reduce a credit at the same time as it increases tax. The IETC that the calculator does model — up to $520 between $24,000 and $70,000— is a different, smaller credit with its own rules. If you receive Working for Families, you generally cannot also claim the IETC. IRD's own calculators are the place for family-credit estimates.
Child support, student-loan extras and court-ordered deductions
Child support can be deducted through PAYE when IRD has issued a notice to your employer. The compulsory student-loan rate of 12% above $24,128is in the model; extra voluntary loan payments, overseas repayment rules and special assessment arrangements are not. A deduction that exists only on your employer’s payroll file will never appear in a browser calculator.
Salary sacrifice, novated leases and employer-specific items
Some packages reduce taxable pay in exchange for a car lease, extra KiwiSaver or another benefit. Those arrangements change both the PAYE base and the cash that lands in your account. FinLab assumes ordinary PAYE income: a salary or wage with standard deductions. It does not model salary sacrifice, a novated lease, wage subsidies, union fees, social-club deductions, or a mid-year tax-code change. If your offer letter is built around sacrifice, ask payroll for a sample payslip rather than trusting a generic tool.
Self-employment, GST and provisional tax
Contractors and people with a side business are not paid through PAYE in the same way. They may charge GST, pay provisional tax, claim expenses, and have ACC billed separately as a work-levy invoice rather than a payslip line. None of that is in this calculator. Using a PAYE model on a gross contractor rate will overstate take-home and understate the tax you need to set aside.
What the estimate is still good for
It is good for the question the brackets actually answer: if this is PAYE income, at this KiwiSaver rate, with or without a student loan, roughly how much cash remains after the published deductions? That number is the right starting point for a deposit plan or a borrowing conversation. It is the wrong finishing point for a household budget that includes family credits, child support or a non-PAYE income mix. Compare it with a recent payslip; if they disagree, the payslip wins, and the gap is usually one of the items above.