To be confused by 'high earners' complaining about taxes?

From Wikipedia: A flat tax (short for flat-rate tax) is a tax with a single rate on the taxable amount, after accounting for any deductions or exemptions from the tax base.

Why are you being such an absolute gobshite to everyone?

How do hk, Singapore and the gulf states manage with low or even no income taxes?

Yes, what constitutes 'rich' is subjective.

I don't know what you mean by flat taxes though. Do you mean the same rate across income tax, CGT and all other forms of tax?

Then dont conflate the issue buy complaining about taxation. Complain about potholes and GP waiting times.

Since you're so good at solving complex problems, with many years of experience, maybe you could apply your experience, intelligence and solutions to fix these issues.

It’s not that the UK doesn’t want to tax Amazon ‘better’, they cannot. It’s not legislatively possible for the UK government. And attempts to tax the hyper mobile hyper wealthy has seen REAL evidence of rich people leaving. Not just threats to leave. Actual people leaving. There is a reason why the non dom tax changes were watered down.

Labour are a left wing party. They want to rinse the rich for as much as they possibly can while maximising the UK tax take, and they are doing so. It’s an extremely thin tightrope for them to walk, and they are trying to do so as best as possible.

If you know better than Rachel Reeves, I’m sure she’ll appreciate your input!

"I don't think that those on £100,000 are 'the rich' though and the tax rate at that level, espcially for those with student loans to pay, are ridicuous."

That's a fundamental issue. To some that is indeed rich. Or 80K is. Or 150K. Who get's to decide? It's subjective. That's why flat taxes are much fairer. Removes questions like that. If you earn more, you pay more. Everyone pays based on their income. No one is taxed twice on the same money.

How do hk, Singapore and the gulf states manage with low or even no income taxes?

It’s not that the UK doesn’t want to tax Amazon ‘better’, they cannot. It’s not legislatively possible for the UK government. And attempts to tax the hyper mobile hyper wealthy has seen REAL evidence of rich people leaving. Not just threats to leave. Actual people leaving. There is a reason why the non dom tax changes were watered down.

Labour are a left wing party. They want to rinse the rich for as much as they possibly can while maximising the UK tax take, and they are doing so. It’s an extremely thin tightrope for them to walk, and they are trying to do so as best as possible.

If you know better than Rachel Reeves, I’m sure she’ll appreciate your input!

The Gulf states (UAE, SA) do. It is completely Cradle to grave. However, they do it wil oil money. Its basically like getting an infinite money cheat code in SIM city.

None of these countries have welfare state.

How do hk, Singapore and the gulf states manage with low or even no income taxes?

The new issue of The Economist has an in-depth analysis of why wealth taxes and increasing tax rates on very high-income people don't work and are counterproductive.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/02/19/dont-go-after-the-rich-to-fix-broken-budgets?giftId=NTYxOWY5N2MtOWY0NS00MGM4LTg3YmItM2ZhZjk2MmYyNzI4&utm_campaign=gifted_article

The Directors of a company have a DUTY to maximise profits for shareholders. It is their job. They make decisions with the aim of maximising shareholder duty. If they made decisions to maximise UK tax they would be failing to do their job.

I think they already pay billions in the UK anyway.

I don't see any evil in shareholders profiting. My pension is invested in shares. Amazon doesn't even pay dividends. The only way shareholders benefit is if the money is reinvested and fuels growth.

We get that. The PP was making the point that they shouldn’t be able to shop around for ‘the most favourable tax rate’. They should be paying tax in the region in which they supply the goods/services. They benefit from the structural facilities of that country and the market available in terms of customers so they should have to pay tax to support that infrastructure and their contribution towards that country’s economy in return for their access to the markets.

They may massively invest in growth but they also maximise their profits to benefit their shareholders.

It’s like the mirage of the trickle down effect. It doesn’t happen. People continue to work harder for less and billionaires keep paying themselves more and more.

I agree!!!
Amazon and the big businesses definitely need to be taxed more/taxed better. That is why I was careful to specify a "well run" system. The system we have is deeply imperfect and scared to tax the very rich (Amazon etc) because they can up sticks and move or afford the money to spend on expensive tax lawyers and avoiding practices! Also, to be frank, the very rich can afford to lobby government to reduce their taxes and can afford newspapers that argue that any attempt to tax the rich will destroy the country. It is true that the richer people are the more mobile their liquid assets are and done badly taxing the rich could be counterproductive. But I still think that it's worth trying to tax wealth (which is harder to move around as it's normally in the form of houses) or to tax very large international businesses at the points they are making profit.

The problem with that is, anyone who tries to effectively tax the very wealthy and mega businesses will then get a barrage of headlines from the media (owned by multimillionaires and billionaires) that they are destroying the country/attacking regular people. Which will affect how those regular people vote. So it's actually more politically sound for the government to tax the middle and normal people or to put the blame on people on benefits for costing to much. Because people in the middle (PAYE tax payers or normal business owners) and people on benefits will both be consuming traditional media or new media like X/TikTok/Facebook.

We get that. The PP was making the point that they shouldn’t be able to shop around for ‘the most favourable tax rate’. They should be paying tax in the region in which they supply the goods/services. They benefit from the structural facilities of that country and the market available in terms of customers so they should have to pay tax to support that infrastructure and their contribution towards that country’s economy in return for their access to the markets.

They may massively invest in growth but they also maximise their profits to benefit their shareholders.

It’s like the mirage of the trickle down effect. It doesn’t happen. People continue to work harder for less and billionaires keep paying themselves more and more.

"Amazon and the big businesses definitely need to be taxed more/taxed better."

I'm not sure you get why Amazon and their ilk are taxed so low. Some part of it is because they operate in multiple tax domains and can pay in the most favourable by structuring their business. That, overall, benefits the UK. Our financial system is built on servicing people moving money around.

But a large part of it is that they massively invest in growth to have minimal taxable profits. That's what creates huge numbers of jobs both at Amazon (warehouses) and in their service chain (delivery companies). Never mind all the small businesses that use them as a sales platform.

"Amazon and the big businesses definitely need to be taxed more/taxed better."

I'm not sure you get why Amazon and their ilk are taxed so low. Some part of it is because they operate in multiple tax domains and can pay in the most favourable by structuring their business. That, overall, benefits the UK. Our financial system is built on servicing people moving money around.

But a large part of it is that they massively invest in growth to have minimal taxable profits. That's what creates huge numbers of jobs both at Amazon (warehouses) and in their service chain (delivery companies). Never mind all the small businesses that use them as a sales platform.