To actually not mind paying tax?

£240k taxable income will get you to around £100k in tax + NI contributions.
Of course people will salary sacrifice / pension stuff to minimise taxable income.
I pay quite a lot of tax, which I really don’t mind - I just wish it was progressive and simple. None of the faffing with personal allowance, adjusted income, removal of pension allowance etc etc.

I’m a top rate tax payer and I won’t be happy to pay more tax. We don’t use the NHS, dentists or state schools and haven’t taken a penny in benefits while paying in about £250,000 in tax each year.

We’ve worked our way up from nothing, and are very happy to pass over more than 50% of our earnings in tax as long as the system is working and the right people are benefitting. But it isn’t and they’re not. And somehow we are branded selfish for daring to be high earners who question how that money is being spent, rather than just agreeing we should hand more over.

If our taxes are increased to more than 50% we will take it as a sign of where things are headed and probably take early retirement and shut our business down or possibly move abroad, because it just wouldn’t be worth the stress.

If Labour manage to turn things around, I will feel differently, but I have very little hope.

@nearlylovemyusername I am a higher rate tax payer (40%) and would be happy to pay 50% if services were improved and some breaks were allowed for childcare so I felt better supported in those early years when finances are tighter. At the moment I pay for private medical for myself and my children because of my lack of confidence in the NHS. This amounts to about 10%-15% of my post tax salary anyway.

I would not want to give away my savings to HMRC. My estate will already pay IHT, if it’s not eroded by care home fees.

After paying tax since I was 16, and now being a pensioner, I’d sooner not pay any more.

I'm in a similar position to you, OP, and I agree. I would gladly pay more tax in exchange for a fairer society and properly functioning public services.

Even if you take that interpretation, which isn’t how most would interpret it, you still don’t need to be a billionaire to pay £1m in tax every year, even through PAYÉ.

The number that pay more than that in tax because they have their own company, which pays Corporation tax, PAYE, VAT etc etc is also huge. You’d only need to turn over £3m in VATable stuff while employing half a dozen people and making a few hundred k profit, some of which is extracted by dividends, to be sending HMRC more than a million every year. 200,000 odd companies in the UK turnover between £1m and £5m, and total turnover for SMEs, most of which are privately owned, is £2.4 trillion.

Which is the point everyone is making :)

Could everyone saying they are happy to pay more taxes express precise amount how much more?

Ideally in ££ or as a % of total income?

Also those of you with savings and/or assets which you were planning to give your kids (either as gifts or inheritance), what share of it you're happy to give to HMRC instead?

I am a standard rate tax payer. I receive child benefit and no further benefits. I would happily pay more tax for better public services and better pay for those working in front line nhs and education. Not better pay for endless managers, but those who do the cleaning, patching up and educating. Teaching assistant and carer pay is a national disgrace.

I don't believe that anyone should pay more than half of their salary in tax amd national insurance combined.

I don't mind paying tax in theory, but I DO mind seeing where all the wealth is concentrated (massive companies, the two Duchys and a few very wealthy individuals) and seeing that wealth compound because almost all those same entities do everything they can to avoid paying as much tax as possible while individual tax payers are squeezed for more and more money, while receiving worse public services (and being subject to the unfair ever-increasing costs of non-negotiables like gas and electricity), and basically aren't able to do anything about it.

You’ve gone in a bit strong given your error

For those who can't do maths, 6 figures = 100,000 to 999,999.

Was obvious what the poster who referred to paying more than six figures mean though, so I don't know why the poster above insists on being facetious...

I see a numeracy fail right there 😂
Which is both worrying and unsurprising at the same time…

Why would you say that? Many of us pay more than 6 figures in tax just through PAYE. That’s before you add VAT, council tax, CGT, fuel duty, alcohol duty etc etc. You’d probably get there in terms of total tax paid by earning under £200k so you definitely don’t need to be a billionaire - I would have noticed if I was 😂

The fact that people in the U.K. think only a billionaire pays 100k in tax is laughable.

Then when the same people complain about paying more via VAT on private school fees, people tell them they're being greedy and are unwilling to contribute...

Ridiculous

If I’m a single parent earning £51k (very recent promotion), with barely any savings and almost no equity in my home - how much more do you think I should pay?? I’m already having nearly half taken away, there have been posters on other threads today gleefully clamouring that people like me should give more. It’s so hard to be a single earner, I’d love to take my children on holiday and pay for music lessons, it’s probably not going to happen. But according to some on mumsnet today I am elite and privileged. I am working class, went to a sink school comp, have clawed my way up to this point at the age of 42. I have no one to inherit wealth from. If Labour takes more taxes off me than I currently pay then I may as well just switch to a career in claiming benefits.

Paying more tax, my head isn’t even above the water as it is!! If I have to pay more, me and family will be the poor and needy! Which is unjust being as I work full time!

I’m happy to pay taxes, but expect better public services.

Both DP and I are higher rate tax payers (DP also pays the additional rate).

Our newborn had to have an operation, which he wouldn’t have survived without, and we had to go private as it appeared it would take months longer than recommended if we waited on the NHS.

It probably wouldn't have killed him to wait, but there was a possibility it might, and poorer long term outcomes the longer we waited.

I really don’t think we should have been put in that position but I am eternally grateful that we had an alternative option.

How much tax do you pay per year?

I'm happy to pay tax. I'm a higher rate tax payer and wish I wasn't taxed so much, but I still happily pay it. I just wish it was administered better, and that some people in society didn't feel so entitled to take without trying.
My view on tax is the same principle as going for a meal with friends and splitting the bill. We might all have different amounts in our purse but we split the bill equally because we all consume similar amounts and it's fair to split it. But if any friends have fallen on hard times we treat them.

The UK tax burden is quite high by international standards. We (quite cleverly from a political perspective) divide up taxes on employment into income tax and national insurance and split the national insurance burden between employee and employees. It’s all tax on employment and it’s split in that way so that the government can continue to talk about 20% / 40% tax rates when the real tax rate on employment income is significantly higher.

Student loan is also effectively now a tax which basically all high earners of a certain age will pay for almost their whole career.

There is also a marginal rate of 60% from £100k - £125k.

The UK also allows very few deductions from employment income. Many countries allow deductions for things like childcare, commuting etc. So you pay tax on a lower amount.

Even labour have pledged not to increase employment taxes, which presumably means they recognise that an increase in tax rates won’t raise revenue.

When we lived in the UK we were both higher rate tax payers, we both felt our taxes were reasonable and wouldn’t have minded an increase in taxes be it income, NI, council tax or a combination of.

People claim the UK has high rates of tax, then compare the UK to countries that have few public services that are poorly funded, or countries that have an actual state pension pot, rather than pay on demand for state pensions.

Don't be daft you wouldn't need to be anywhere near a billionaire to pay 6 figures in tax.

I see taxes as the price for living in a society that values public services. I'm a HR tax payer who is happy to pay what is due but it makes my blood boil when I see how much of our tax was handed out around the Tory old boys club during Covid. It makes me wonder how many other government contracts gave been granted this way.

I'm hopeful that Labour will funnel our taxes to the right places, rather than hand them out to their rich mates to make them richer.

BruFord

"ohthejoys21 What's galling is that the IHT threshold hasn’t changed since 2009 and a quick Google tells me that £325K in 2009 is worth over £550K now. So the estates of people who’ve been careful all their lives, but are far from millionaires, end up owing some IHT.

That wasn’t Gordon Brown’s intention when the current threshold was set, he was planning to slowly increase it-but Labour lost power. I hope the new government adjusts it to reflect today’s COL.

Funny how the Tories always accuse Labour of raising taxes but they quietly “raised” IHT receipts by not adjusting the threshold!"

Agree but even if they've worked hard, done well and are millionaires why should they be penalised for that?

I feel that, under Labour, our taxes won’t be wasted as much. I’d gladly pay more if I thought it was being spent wisely.