AIBU to feel disheartened by earning into the higher tax band?

This is still a LOT more than most people and he won't be using state schools. He will also be supporting the economy more because his wife buys lovely things (from photos I saw when he was PM) and he wears lovely suits that I suspect he does not wear into the ground. He will be employing cleaners, nannies, a driver. They will all be paying tax.

These are deemed gains though, not income. A low-income person would have paid 10% on gains at that time, vs 20% for a high-income person.

I take the wider point that it’s only the rich who make serious amounts of money in gains anyway.

Such nonsense. Look at what came before. It wasn't socialism that started this.

Really sorry if I’m being dim about this - but does this mean that if your take home gross salary is, for example, 99k - you will actually take home LESS than if you earn 101k?

And if you lose the 12k personal allowance, what gross salary do you need to be on to make that up? 112k?

My DS has told me several people he knows have dropped a day or two a week to reduce tax. He says he can see public services and infrastructure are under huge strain. He pays for a private dentist and has seen a GP privately. He’s fortunate to be able to do that.
Labour have few options, our debt is now trillions, we hardly make anything here anymore. We need a serious discussion about welfare spending and supporting business

Presumably you have made use of government services on your way up? University education subsidised by the taxpayer, healthcare delivered by the taxpayer, roads paid for by tax payer, electricity, gas and water supplies all subsidised by the tax payer.
Well, now you are paying towards them more than you were.

Also, they do, the really high earners tend to be very global people. And if they go, they take all their tax paying capacity with them. And a really high earner might pay as much income tax as everyone in an average town in the UK so we really need them not to leave.

Rishi Sunak paid an effective tax rate of 23% when he last declared it. Seem wealthy Tories know how to pay a lot less tax than ordinary people. And of course when Farage gets £5m its an untaxable gift (apparantly) Rishi Sunak paid effective tax rate of 23% on £2.2m income last year | Rishi Sunak | The Guardian

Can you elaborate on why she is wrong?

There is no tax free savings for income >£125k and so this will be taxed at 45%.

Yes you can use an ISA - but given the pp is trying to buy a house, they may have more cash than that.

If all the interest in your savings is taxed at 45%, that suggests you are in sore need of some financial literacy. Get yourself to a financial adviser.

The situation is not sustainable. The welfare bill is not sustainable.
But MN always tells high earners to pop off to Dubai because working hard and earning money is a cardinal sin.

I say this as a lifelong Labour voter.

The numbers of this don’t add up.

plan 1 student loans stopped in 2012-13 (unless you’re in NI?)

and I can’t think of any nhs professions that require you to have multiple unfunded degrees that pay you less than £40k once you get into them.

I was on a plan 1 and the repayment was made absolutely clear that it was 9% over threshold until you cleared it.

My husband also dropped down to 4 days a week to save having to pay so much tax.

Then he realised that this would negatively impact his pension because his pension was worked out on the 3 best paid years (NHS).

So he went back to full time for his last 3 years before retiring ... just something to think about though you sound a long way off retiring.

I feel your pain ! Same situation- public sector therefore my pension fell also into the next bracket so i’m actually worse off by about £70 a month prior to promotion 😵‍💫 amazing!

Labour used to be for the working folk, not it is for the non-contributing folk, you are right.

As a single parent, if I were to get full UC it would be £1100 a month for me and my DC plus CB.
So approx £1200 a month in total.

Thats to pay my rent and all bills like water, electricity, food, transport, school uniforms etc for both me and my DC.

If I didn’t have DC then it’s about £300 a month = £75 a week.
You get your rent paid on top but that £300 a month is to pay for everything else, including transport to job centre appointments and interviews.

If you are in a £50k job, that’s over £3k a month.

If you think living on benefits is better than a £50k job then by all means give your job up and go on benefits but you obviously won’t because you know you’d be worse off.

Yeah.... Because everyone pays it....

It's absolutely crazy - i recently entered a higher tax band and as a result all the interest in my savings are taxed at 45%.

This means that the interest I now earn on my savings is lower than the rate of inflation. Which means I'm losing money I put aside - which I'm putting aside simply to move out of what is essentially an ex council flat so I can buy a house.

This is the number one reason I despise the Labour government!

Why don’t you move somewhere where the income tax rate is very low but you are responsible for paying any medical costs and private insurance?

And for those saying they wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes if services improved: prices are rising for medical services to be offered so you’d have to pay significantly more tax to pay the increase in costs as well as invest in better services.

Can you add to pension as salary sacrifice? At least you will eventually get it.

Ive paid of ….. drum roll £189 in TOTAL.

You've paid more than this in real terms. Because the value of the loan is eroded by inflation and that's been highish recently. So a £30000 when you graduated loan would be more if you translated it to today's money. Having said that there are a lot of issues with student loans!

Also if your salary is just over the £50k threshold than your pension contributions will naturally bring you under. So are you sure you have actually moved into that band in real terms?

The thing is, people actually need the money to live on.

Housing costs are very high. Childcare costs are very high.

These frozen thresholds and the solution being to put more and more into pensions, means people’s incomes effectively have an upper limit and for some reason many think that’s fine… ignoring inflation…!

So, open up a SIPP and pay monthly contributions into it. You will get 40% tax relief on every penny you save - a nice annual refund from HMRC. When you finally draw your pension you will get 25% of it tax free and pay 20% tax on the rest (if you drawdown wisely). You will be so glad you started investing early (unlike me, who is coming up to retirement but didn't start until later). I cringe at all the tax I paid unnecessarily during my career.

It’s outrageous.

I lose £25,000 at £100k for earning >£100k.

Because income at this level is taxed at 62% (then 47%), I need to earn more than double that to recoup that £25,000 of lost benefits.

So I am £0 better off earning £155k vs earning £100k.

It is completely insane. ‘Put it in your pension’ people will say - but in HCOL areas people actually need the money to live off.

Don't feel guilty about feeling this. You are absolutely correct. Socialism is a great thing, but only if the socialist contract is adhered to by everyone is the society - i.e. nobody is sitting on their arse being lazy whilst others work. I had the most amazing experience witnessing socialism in real life, as a student, on an exchange trip to the USSR. What an eye opener. Everybody there was paid roughly the same salary - i.e. surgeon/bus driver/teacher/shop assistant. And nobody whined about the disparity - because 1. everybody worked hard and 2.accommodation/education of the highest sort/music schools and sports schools/holidays only cost a nominal amount or were free. 2.it was illegal not to work - it was a crime not to work and people who refused to work were sent to labour camps. So everybody worked and nobody took the piss. The most curious story was that of the great poet and dissident Joseph Brodsky, who was a poet and was writing poetry, but the state publishers refused to publish him - he was sent to a labour camp for 'social parasitism'. You are right to feel flat.