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

I've decided to emigrate. The conversation is always about how to tax more when really the state is far too big.

I'm happy to pay tax in the country I'm going to but not here, it's economic chaos here.

Contributors are those earning over £55,000

No as housing etc reflect what people can afford. I have lived in Scandinavia and it’s an excellent tax system. Benefits are harder to get so people all work. Childcare is cheaper and deemed better for the child than staying at home (and who’s to argue with their happiness ratings?) and the society is totally invested in everyone working and paying tax. Everyone pulls together for the benefit of the community.

It’s interesting though in recent years to see how immigrants who have a different attitude to society, work and tax are leading to a lot of social unrest. Denmark’s socialist government has massively clamped down on immigration as a result. It’s not playing along with the immigration rules accepted by countries such as the UK, and the government is very popular as a result.

Multinational companies aren’t evading any taxes. There are international tax laws in place that they are following that allow them to do what they are doing. It’s perfectly legal. Start clamping down on Google and Trump will double our tariffs overnight. It’s such a stupid move to think that these companies are the answer to our woes. There not. SMEs don’t seem to be either as 40% of them evaded tax last year. Not a great advertisement…

You go first. Is life here made better by public services? I think so. The top 1% of income earners pay about 29% of income tax or about 10-15% of all tax take.

How would you choose to make up the gap? You need a 10-15% budget cut (austerity), or a 50% income tax hike on the rest of the taxpayers. Or some equivalent move. What are you choosing?

Capital gains are taxed less to compensate for the risk taken in making that investment. Growth won’t happen if we stifle investment. Look at the massive drop off in CGT tax since the government reduced the nil rate CGT allowance.

Until we start doing this - making EVERYONE pay more tax - our public services will continue to lag behind other EU countries. They have better services as the lower earners pay considerably more tax there than they do here.

Agree with some of this. You can’t scrappy VAT though. It’s a HUGE wedge of the tax take - 30%~ish.

I had a child diagnosed with a serious illness and someone said to me ‘you’ll be able to claim pip for that’. That is the attitude that is sinking this country. Thinking the government should pay you money for any sort of misfortune.

i grew up in a poor household. The dream of financial security is what strove me to study hard and earn more. I earn a v high salary because I worked hard. I studied. Of course my hard earmed financial security should be shared around. What would incentivise others to work hard?

You seem to have no concept of economics and taxes OP. Any uber wealthy person either has or can get a passport of multiple countries. They live in a range of countries throughout the year. They currently choose to pay tax in the UK by living here most. They could change to pay taxes in another country merely by choosing to live a few less weeks in the UK and a few more weeks elsewhere. Trying to base a nations tax take on a few wealthy individuals is a disaster.

also the courage to distinguish between struggling professionals, the comfortably off, and the truly wealthy

What makes one move to the other? It is assets and ‘unearned’ wealth as you say. Saving, risk taking whether investing/ starting a business, asset accumulation etc. Why are we discouraging that.

That is just Gary economics. And he’s race to the bottom in disguised form. He’s not here to save you. He’s literally pulling the ladder up behind him.

IMO; The main problem with the economics in this country atm is low wages, stifled growth and entitlement by everyone that they should get free stuff. And I really mean everyone.

I honestly think it’s getting so bad that we need something so radical it just changes mindset entirely. Give everyone Universal income. Everyone. £500 a week or so.

After that. EVERYONE is taxed at x amount. No caps, no ledges, no brackets. No student loan tax. It’s going to be high. It’s going to be universal. And that is that. It’s going to be the same for capital gains disposals and for income.

Scrap VAT. Scrap stamp duty. Get businesses moving, get the housing market moving.

No one’s in poverty. Everyone is better off in work. Red tape is removed and growth is encouraged.

For public companies, higher corporation tax and the closing of loopholes and avoidance methods could perfectly well be borne by shareholders, not employees. I'm sure there are levers that govt could pull to encourage that.

Random other points:

There will be a taper of 1%ers leaving. They won't all suddenly go overnight. It's moot how much 1%ers spend in the UK other than on property speculation. Trickle down is not a fact.

Do we really think Amazon are going to leave the UK if we raise corporation tax and - more crucially - close their loopholes. Of course they won't, we are a huge market for them. This will be the price of doing business for them - like a tariff, haha. And if they are forced by tax hikes to raise their prices below the artificially low ones they have now, then some of that spending will go to smaller UK businesses instead and create growth at that level.

Multinationals in particular should not be subsidised by the UK taxpayer via Universal Credit to top up the unsustainably low wages they pay the UK taxpayer.

The shadow economy - cash in hand etc - is 10 (TEN!) percent of the UK economy. We need a change in culture (no more middle classes paying cash for their extension) driven by effective communication to voters about who's benefitting and what it costs the rest of us, combined with a couple of years of very targeted HMRC prosecutions to get the message across to the self-employed business owners that we're all subsidising.

If you are taxing business more, how do you think that is going to make them pay higher wages?

I am curious how this affects their economy more generally? Does it mean people have less to invest in things like business, or homes, for example?

We should be doing the opposite to attract wealth and money into this country not scare wealthy people off.

We need to offer cheaper corporation tax to attract more businesses into the uk and these businesses will therefore employ British people.

Reducing NI to lessen the financial burden on businesses would help too.

Ultimately, taxing people does not and will not fix the deficit in this country and never will.

The only way to generate money and bring prosperity and wealth into any country is by supporting its businesses and making this country attractive for wealthy people.

This and RR has already driven so many non doms put of the UK. They were already higher rate tax payers, now they pay lower taxes in other countries.

I don’t disagree. There are also plenty of builders. (Some earning millions) gardeners and cleaners working cash in hand. A tax system is only fair when everyone pays it. (Rich and poor)

I'm a SAHM but my DH earns in the top 0.1% in the UK. We left for another country a couple of years ago. In the aftermath of brexit and covid it was easy to see the UK's economy would struggle, and I predicted high inflation, higher taxes and a reduced standard of living for everyone. We made the decision to move abroad, basically anywhere else would have worked. His income was less at the time (still in the top 1%) but we have a bigger house, more disposable income, better access to healthcare (yes it's private, but what we spend on private healthcare is vastly less than our tax contributions to the NHS, and we can see our GP in person the next day, another GP same day, specialists 2 weeks out and surgeries are booked at our convenience).

The money we spend on a cleaner, gardener, private school is now spent on those things in another country, not the UK. Why shouldn't we prioritize our family's well-being? Had we stayed, the salary my husband is on would be substantially less - UK salaries are low, cost of living is high, taxes are high. It's a global world and the UK is not looking attractive to those with options.

Amazon, Facebook, Google and their ilk do not pay their fair share of tax in this country. They use loopholes. What would be far better is to negotiate a tax with these countries. If they don’t comply then ban them.

rather than go after families that do earn 6 figures but pay a lot in income taxes, why not talk about these companies instead?

I agree with you. The rich employ a lot of people to work in or on their big houses.

They spend a lot on eating out, invest a lot, give money to charities and good causes and their staff and the businesses they use, then go on to do the same.

Plus a lot of rich people own very profitable businesses, and those businesses buy goods and services from
other businesses, they also employ people from senior executives and managers to office staff and cleaners - can people not see a pattern?

Not only will these rich individuals
and their families up-sticks and leave the UK, their personal staff and trades people lose jobs, we also run the risk that they will take their businesses with them to another country and so the above lose jobs, lose trade, lose contracts, and they then have to make people redundant.

How can people not see this? We need wealthy people in this country as people on low income and benefits pay hardly any tax, certainly not enough to make a difference.

I’m not really getting the first part. The growth we need is incentivising a stronger private sector to pay for the public sector. This Labour are quite new in not doing that as even the last Labour gov realised you needed a private sector growing to do much spending.

Otherwise it’s tax and borrowing loops, which we’re starting to see.

On who to tax corporation tax is high enough, look to lower CT countries and how they benefited, or did you mean something else? CGT was just increased and it reduced tax take as behaviour changed. Not sure about inheritance.

If you’d like system change Corbyn’s party is pretty much saying the same, but remember you can’t close off people leaving for more attractive tax countries do you and he will need to think about that.

im no expert but I think statistically the only way to raise tax revenue is to lower taxes. Walk down the streets of London. Dubai is chuffing hot in summer!! People want somewhere to go.

THIS !!

just checked and was shocked to learn that the top 1% earn 160K or above.

And this is the issue. How can 160k make you the top 1%? because that's based on income tax. A MC law firm partner earning 2.5m a year is not on PAYE.