Are other full-time working families finding there is nothing left?

Even if they can't work due to a disability or because they are a carer?

So then people earning less than £12k should be taxed too. That will go down well 🙄

Just because you don't understand the argument doesn't mean it's not there

We have a decent joint income (just under 6 figures), but was just thinking last night that I feel a lot poorer than we did a few years ago. Increased costs (food, mortgage) and then paying for tuition for DD means that lately we’re having to really budget our money more carefully. We are not on the breadline, or anything: just having to manage a lot more carefully than in the past.

Council tax over £300 a month gives me the rage: so many people don’t pay it at all, or pay a lot less, yet we still get a really shitty service.

a friend is unemployed and not looking for work as the effort involved in working, childcare etc isn’t worth the extra money she’d get by working. But this means tht she’s taking circa £24k from the tax payer every year instead of working and paying tax.

Yep, I think if we continue to see such huge rises in benefits claims they should probably create a new band to capture those receiving who do not contribute.

I’m not finding it difficult to distinguish between an income tax and a wealth tax, it is very clear. Nobody said wealth didn’t come from income, you are again obfuscating to cover that you have no argument. Dividend tax is an income tax.

I don’t know if it’s ‘fair’ and working people are not excluded from dividends, I just know it will increase unemployment if it is increased and any encouragement for investment should be welcomed ..especially at the moment.

You said "absolutely everyone" should be taxed.

There are plenty who get more than the income threshold- where that applies it should be taxed like income. This is how Scandinavian countries already tax benefits.

That I agree on - just to give people an example corp tax in Eire and Netherlands are lower and many other country’s similar - at the moment we have no advantages over these - quite the opposite - so if anything I think corp tax should be lower across the board ( which country can’t afford) Div tax though at point of payment tends to be more about smaller companies and individuals - and yes I think it should be higher to encourage more people in that position to pay personal tax and NI - That’s the biggie you don’t see if you don’t run a ltd company - you can opt to pay mainly in dividends and little NI - and if like me you have a full card of NI for pension it’s the most sensible tax efficient way - but is crap for economy

There is a lot of misinformation in this chat
We don't spend 44% of taxes on benefits at all, the 44% is from the total amount spent on welfare, 55 % of that is pensions, see below for figures, a very small percentage is out of work benefits

see chatgpt.com/share/69ccfaa3-e34c-8332-8e04-250d336a123b

I agree that all benefits should be taxed, at least that way people who are on benefits that equate to way above the tax threshold are clobbered like the rest of us.

Why would a business choose to locate in Britain if we had a high corporation tax?

Honestly, the amount of people who simply think RR is missing a trick and is only she listened to them all of our problems would be sold! Do you not think she’s weighed out the pros and cons of increasing both dividend taxes and corporation taxes? Do you not think they’re doing all they can to balance the books (within the ludicrous limitations they’ve hamstrung themselves with by saying they won’t increase the three main taxes)?

The thing is i don’t want to spend that amount of money on activities. I don’t have that amount of money spare for every school holiday. You’re talking maybe needing over £1000 extra per year to take you child out 1 or 2 times in the holidays. I also want my kids to enjoy things, I want to be able to take them to a theme park, or to the cinema - we have booked to go the cinema today. It’s cost me £32.

so over the 2 weeks they are off school we have been to event with my mum that was £82
we are going the cinema £32 plus sweets
we have a membership for the zoo £25 a month so we will go there - take a picnic
and we are meeting up with some friends even if you do something like go the park; they still need drinks snacks etc.

I just don’t think that wages should be so low that we can’t enjoy are time off without it being a strain

How many millionaires are going to the trouble of applying for PIP/DLA

Loads of property millionaires will get AA

I don't understand what you're finding difficult. Wealth comes from somewhere, including income.

You're avoiding my question- Do you think it's fair for working people to pay more tax on their wages than shareholders pay on their dividends?

I agree

I don't think all business owners are 'lavishing it up'. I own a business. I think taxation on business needs to completely change too, so huge corporations pay more but small local business should be treated differently

Sorry meant to quote @glitterpaperchain

Sorry that’s not exactly true - when people talk about benefits the vast amount is UC, housing allowance/benefit, PIP - totally not taxable-

from the DWP website

benefits such as Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Housing Benefit, Child Benefit, or income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), these are completely tax-exempt.

a few are taxable but only if total income levels reach over and above personal allowance, JSA , carers allowance, and state pension( not exactly a benefit but classified as such)

I think your forgetting business owner have taken ALL the risk of running and owning a business, if it was easy everyone would do it and yes they should be compensated.
I think its also forgotten that companies have to pay huge amounts of tax including corporation tax on all profits...and im not talking about multi million pound corporations.

Im talking small family limited companies like ours for example, that started from NOTHING, that pay vat, business rates, staff pensions and then after all of that your hit with corporation tax.

Now this isnt me saying its unfair, its not. But whats unfair is that people think business owners are just sitting lavishing it up.

I’ve got a business and use dividends and yep I personally don’t think it’s fair either- which is one reason why this year I upped my salary to a far more realistic level and pay far more tax and NI than I could legally get away with and then pay a smaller amount in dividends . Call me nuts but I decided it made more sense - the other reason was I was finding it hard if needing to borrow to base income all on very big dividends - so a bit of self preservation there too - the other thing is if it’s a company salaries are a deduction against corporation tax - dividends are not - so I just ended up paying whopping amounts of corporation tax, which along with dividend tax actually almost balanced out at paying personal tax and NI

What on earth you do mean it's either an income tax or a wealth tax

It’s very simple and the clue is in the name, one is a tax on wealth and one is a tax on income. Wealth is not a concept when it comes to taxation, you can’t tax a concept (although I’m sure Labour would give it a go).

Yes dividends are paid out of profits (which is not wealth), but you again are conflating two different things in a failing attempt to not admit you are wrong. Businesses pay corporation tax on profits, the recipients of the dividends pay the dividend tax. It is an income tax.

I get less than the threshold for tax. If you would tax me, then you would have to tax the people earning less than the threshold too.

Other than pip, benefits ARE taxed.

What on earth you do mean it's either an income tax or a wealth tax?

'Wealth tax' is a concept, it's not a fixed thing. It's about finding sources of wealth and taxing them. For example dividends that come out of business profits. So taxing this form of income is a form of wealth tax.

Basic rate tax is 20%. Basic rate taxpayers pay less than 10% tax on dividends. Do you think it's fair for working people to pay more tax on their wages than shareholders pay on their dividends? I don't!