To think we can’t revive the country on the backs of the poor, the struggling, or the middle class?

This broadest shoulders stuff was Labour’s line. They’ve already done the ‘one off’ tax and borrowing hike at last GE. Although they forgot tax changes behaviour and receipts are down.

So that means welfare cuts - where were they in the manifesto? And more taxes. So taxes lead to increasing the tax burden, how does that help?

People leave. I agree with the op in that the lower income can’t shoulder more, the problem is that’s what’ll they get with anti growth policies.

It looks like Reeves is looking at finance deregulation, not sure if definitely happening, but that isn’t the SMEs who have been hit, and everyone else.

Labour are scrabbling because the higher taxes haven’t yielded what they expected, so we need more taxes?

In a way Corbyn’s party is a useful addition, he pledges pretty much what the op does and it’ll give a place for those votes to go.

Btw I agree with you, quoting your post as it shows the outcome of policy.

I actually ran the numbers. Your right. I couldn’t get it to work with VAT removal. But I think that’s because I can’t show or predict the growth that could result in for SME. And sadly that’s the only way gov get any slice from the multinational shadow corps.

But it did actually work for income tax. To balance the budget the tax rate would need to be flat 61%.

If you put it up to 70% we can clear the deficit in 11 years.. After the deficit is gone I would want to keep tax as is and invest in a national wealth fund.

This sums it up perfectly. It is concerning that people on 200k+ hold opinions like the pp; we don't need to "appease" the rich. It needs to be a fair society that means people can keep a roof over their heads; this trumps a rich person losing some extra pocket change.

AZ is not American. In this case it’s a combination of punitive U.K. taxes and the London Stock exchange shrinking to the point where being listed there is disadvantageous. If we want successful companies like AZ to stay we need competitive tax rates.

There are huge issues in the UK that impact productivity and tax revenues. You cannot keep heaping tax burden on middle/high earner through PAYE, not just because it’s inequitable but more because it drives down productivity. I would;

• reform the tax system to smooth out cliff edges. We need a system where you pay in (even at higher levels to now) then you can take out.
• clamp down hard on companies transferring income off shore through dodgey shareholder structures.
• Clamp down on dubious R&D claims where the technology serves nobody but the ‘inventor’.
• reform the benefits system. It must be needs based and cannot include young people with low level mental health conditions - we must intervene.
• invest far more in education- it is crumbling and is in dire need of money.

We need innovative ideas and quick.

The basic principle of property rights extends to only taking the tax necessary to run the country. Take more and opportunities in your country will leave, causing a brain drain. It’s crackers.

DH and I are both high earners, him more than me. He's going to be taking early retirement. It's no longer worth it to be working those hours with that stress. So yes, many high earners will adjust their behaviour and simply work less or leave.

DS is entering a high earning profession and is doing everything he can to apply for inter company transfers to Hong Kong, Singapore or Tokyo.

Our government has been living beyond its means, borrowing on the backs of future taxpayers to pay for profligate and inefficient spending now. You can’t tax your way out of that. Increasing taxes will likely reduce economic activity and tax receipts. The only answer is a serious reckoning with spending. They need to cut inessential spending. This means being honest about what government and tax revenue is for. Ultimately it is there to provide public service for the British electorate. We aren’t a rich country with international influence any more. Our focus needs to reflect reality, not fantasy.

Lower earners are taxed less, proportionately, than lower earners in other European countries. If we want better public services everyone needs to pay more tax but lower/middle earners are more reliant on the services (and want those services to do more and more) while being unwilling to pay more tax to fund them.

But they don't have the same housing & childcare costs in other countries so can pay more tax.

It's important that everyone try to shoulder some of the burden of supporting public services BECAUSE it makes everyone invested in public services working well. When everyone has a stake, people are more engaged in voting wisely & holding leaders accountable.

People will always quibble and want to revise the distribution of the burden and most will insist their share of the burden is "unfair". Nevertheless, you ideally want most adults to feel they have contributed & have some entitlement to ask for the best possible services.

But we don’t keep hitting the same group again and again. Lower earners are taxed less, proportionately, than lower earners in other European countries. If we want better public services everyone needs to pay more tax but lower/middle earners are more reliant on the services (and want those services to do more and more) while being unwilling to pay more tax to fund them.

As others have said, it’s all very well thinking those earning 100k plus should pay 60% tax, but in reality no-one wants to do that so higher earners adjust their behaviour by reducing hours or increasing pension contributions to bring themselves under the threshold. Reversing the removal of the personal allowance over 100k would mean a lot more people paying tax on earnings in the 100-125k bracket because the disincentive to earn more is no longer there.

I did not mean bury our heads on the sand. I mean, UK population is hard working and we can rely on them to build the future. What we need is real leadership who can tackle the real leeches. I do not see UK as a country plagued by beggars, meaning their population. But I do see UK plagued by inaction, U-turns and going with the flow. Instead of a proper plan and the balls to get our money back from the greedy guys.

They already contribute proportionally more!!

Don’t worry, he’ll be forced to do that when he has to go IMF and the IMF tells this economically illiterate country that the freebies are finished.

Hard disagree - positive thinking won’t help us. It’s emotion and ‘vibes’ that led to Brexit -plucky Britain won world wars and can go it alone economically in the 21st century! This did tremendous economic damage and is a large part of the reason why we are in this mess now.

Britain needs to hear reality. There is a huge amount of economic illiteracy in this country. We have doctors and nurses going on strike asking for more money. From where?

Starmer needs to hold a press conference with some Covid style slides and tell this nation the truth in an easy to understand way. Just yelling ‘£22bn black hole!’ is meaningless if you can’t explain what the impact of that loss is and what needs to be done to get us back to growth.

Saying ‘hard choices’ is not a proper explanation. Be honest and say ‘WFA and free bus passes etc need to go. Health conditions such as ‘anxiety’ not entitled to PIP, there are jobs you can still do, able bodied and not a carer, not entitled to work under 20 hrs to claim UC etc. Money saved goes into regional small business loans funds to encourage start -ups, your town lacks jobs, move to the next town.

I’m generally pretty left wing, but I think it might be sensible to point out that high earners wouldn’t have to “leave the country” if they felt they were over-taxed.

OP countered the beer-drinking analogy with a chat about how the poorest men were also pulling the pints and wiping the tables. I would assume - although I could of course be wrong and they could have a second job - that in this hypothetical world, they pulled pints for an 8 hour shift, and then went home and didn’t think about work again until they turned up for their shift the next morning. They might have seen friends, gone to the gym, watched TV or played football, and still had a full 8 hours of sleep. They weren’t laying awake at 3am worrying about whether they were pulling pints correctly. When they’re off, they’re off.

There are, I would say, a vanishingly small number of jobs earning £200k where you can do that. DH does this sort of high earning job and I used to. He usually works until 11pm as a minimum - if we are doing something in the evening, I need to book him several weeks in advance (so that he can work until 1am the night before…) He is often laying awake at night turning over a difficult work problem. I can’t remember the last time we watched TV. We have just come back from our summer holiday, where he worked for several hours every day - there was nobody else at his start up who could do the thing he was being asked to do. Our life has been like this for probably 25 years. DH grew up in modest circumstances (as did I) and he feels strongly that he wants our kids to have different opportunities. Many people would be horrified by the thought of living like this, and I’m sure that I’ll get a raft of reactions saying that he is a workaholic/ only cares about money etc. But that’s sort of the point - not everyone is willing to do this. I don’t think it’s true to say that high earners are earning “more than their fair share”, if they’re doing things that other people aren’t willing to do / living in a way that other people aren’t willing to live. They’re not somehow “cheating” or behaving badly. In some cases (not all, of course, but enough that we shouldn’t be making blanket statements), they just have a different picture of what happiness looks like from other people.

Would he carry on working like this for half the money? Probably not. What would be the point of missing that time with the kids if he didn’t have something else to improve their lives in exchange for the time (whatever your view on the rights and wrongs of that trade off)? If I were taking home the same amount as someone on £70k, I wouldn’t be willing to take on board either the hours or the stress of a £200k job - would you? He’d just do the £70k job and be calmer. Nobody needs to move abroad.

I should say that of course there are careers with that level of stress that command lower salaries - medicine is the obvious one. But even then, there’s a choice to be made for consultants between working for the NHS for a (relatively!) “normal” number of hours per week for perhaps £90k and then also doing private work during evenings and weekends and earning potentially tens of thousands more. We could tax them more but they might make different choices. Faced with two ways of taking home £X salary, where one involves twice as many hours and twice as much stress as the other, many people would choose the simpler route (and pay less tax).

You need to compare the NHS and Care system bill to other European countries. Then you will really see whether it is high or not.
And it will be a nope. Surprise, surprise!

Also, you need some positivity in your views of UK.

Well yes they are studying but graduate level jobs are down and after they finish perhaps they’ll leave to find work elsewhere, it’s a time of life when it’s easier and I don’t really see this I have to stay for my country mindset. That seems to be an older person’s interpretation.

Listen to some more of Dan Niedle podcasts and read some of his ideas on his Tax Policy Associates website and you’ll see that corporations and the wealthy are any going to fund our public services more. WE - the people - have to pay.

That’s the advantages of being super wealthy though. You are able to off-shore your wealth and avoid tax in all sorts of legal ways. The sweet spot is supposed to be creating a fab country where rich people want to live and enjoy the lifestyle and we get as much tax out of them as possible. We managed that a few decades back when we had the influx of Russian oligarchs pouring money into London but nowadays they’d get their phones and Rolexs nicked on day one so they’d rather live somewhere cleaner and safer.

Our unis are propped up by international students paying double the fees, and demonised by this government as benefit scroungers. Without them most unis would collapse.

It is about millionaires and tax avoidance of corporations that people talk about. High hard working earners are not a problem.

I can tell you that they are staying and doing ok. People are still coming to Uni. And they are working hard at it. Post grads are still here, taking the Masters and PhDs available. And working hard at it.

If we continue to make similar decisions on taxes where they keep disincentivising growth that’ll get worse still.

When I look around, the retired are the wealthiest people. The WFA debacle was ridiculous and I’m disappointed in labour. They could have driven education about where the wealth is but they just buckled.

Given my luck, they will start to harvest the retirees round about when I get there, so we might regret the scrimping and saving that built our nest egg. We have landed just on the wrong side of most of the bonuses/savings/taxes over the last 35 years.

Are we spending wrong? The old avocado and coffee stereotype. Are the not totally skint people (who are working every penny hard) pissing money up the wall instead of saving? I see massive levels of spending on eating out, holidays, drinking, coffee and cake in comparison with previous decades.

Could we choose to invest in social goods, rather than taxing more? What would that look like?