the TUC says the public won't stomach the cuts because they are regressive, unfair and let the rich off the hook

Lady B - I was referring to my link earlier. The only way the top 10% could be 4% worse off - is due to the tax changes.

You might not agree that an income drop of 4% is enough - but the OP implied they were 'off the hook'! And I was pointing out that it was a greater drop than 80% of the population are experiencing.

And anything over 50% hurts like hell.

That's my experience Beeta - the super rich are able to sort themselves out but the bankers/lawyers etc earning under half a squid are all pretty much paying their taxes.

I don't have all the IFS figures - if you could provide a link to the report that would be helpful......but absolutely I am suggesting that there are many many tax avoidance lines of revenue that are ignored.

But how anyone can say that the top 10% are sharing the pain because they have 'suffered' a 4% drop in income is a joke.

The people in the bottom 10% don't have a 5% drop in income cushion. They will have to make very drastic survival decisions. That is what is not fair.

I quite like the idea from Glasgow Media Group for the one-off tax. If the deficit problem is so very immediate as is claimed, it calls for desperate measures, and this would be quick and painless (for all)

www.glasgowmediagroup.org/

LadyBlahBlah - you make a good point. The rich do not pay 51% tax on all or indeed anywhere near most of their earnings. There are many ways to legally reduce that effective rate.

The 51% mostly hits people hardest who are well qualified and well paid but not quite rich enough to be able to afford to take adantage of special tax avoidance schemes or just live off their investments.

Capital gains tax is still 28% and there are legitimate ways of reducing that. The dividend tax rate after allowances is around 20%.

Lady B - I am confused - are you suggesting that the majority in the top decile - aren't paying a marginal rate of 50+ %. Because I can't see how the IFS came up with their figures in that case .

Or are you talking about some 'other' group of people who are outside the normal income tax system?

I am constantly encouraged to pay myself in dividends - 20%ish tax

And I am nowhere near super rich and not unusual

I'm not including non-doms here, as they are not included in the 1% of tax contributors.

Lady you say that but many of the richest in the country are empolyees or in partnerships.
There's little scope in those circumstances not to pay your taxes.

Xenia, I think you and I both know, there are very few, if any, super rich who pay anything near 51% income tax

Xenia, the conditions in the private sector sound atrocious. If I were you I'd join a union asap :)

So, it'll just be me, LadyBlahBlah, edam and pocketmonster on the stop the cuts demos then.

Well I think it's quite clear they have reached tipping point. I know people quite a few who have said to me 51.5% or whatever top tax and NI is now (I think it's more as you also lose personal allowance and pension tax relief so for some is almost 70% in effect depending on income) is tipping point and that if more than half what you work for goes to the state then you might as well work 9 - 5 not 70 hours a week as all those extra hours are not largely for your own gain so you might as well instead be home more or you just go abroad or spend more time organising affairs to minimise tax in the same way couples do who ensure both work part time so they get 2 personal allowances for tax rather than only one full time. That is a waste of resources.

If tax rates were lower people work harder and more tax is generated and less time is wasted organising matters to be most tax efficient.

However the jealousy of the poor of the rich and resentment of the rich to pay for the poor is irrelevant now. The reality is that the cupboard is bear because of the huge debts labour took on so there is simply no money to dole out as we had been.

Also interesting that (thanks to Darlings recent tax increases - kept by Osborne) the top 10% of earners are actually 'sharing the pain' by more than any other decile group (except the bottom 10%).

IFS Report - look at the chart half way down.

The data for that last post comes from this

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8417205.stm

The top 1% of earners pay 24.1% of the total income tax take (or they did, in December 2009).

The top 10% of earners pay 53.3% of the total income tax take.

How much more should the top 1% pay? More to the point - how much more will they stomach, given they are highly mobile, and quite often, already have homes in many countries?

I don't see the contradiction in that at all. If Big companies and their owners moved out of the UK there would be fewer jobs and the poor would have much less money. The wealth creation benefits the poor. There are indeed very few of the rich but they disproportionately help the poor and create jobs and wealth. We are lucky to have them.

Xenia - IIRC the previous government planned to reduce the deficit over two parliaments or a decade, forget which. While the current lot are planning to do it in half the time. That makes a huge difference.

Funny how the richest always go on about what a huge contribution they make to the country, but when it comes to sharing the pain of cuts and tax rises, suddenly it's not worth asking them to join in because there are so few of them. Bit of a have your cake and eat it stance.

My SIL works in public sector and got breast cancer. She was on SSP after 4 weeks. Any private company I have worked for would be more generous than that - there is no way I would have put up with that - and I always had private healthcare.

I got 6 months 50% pay maternity pay in the private sector (12 weeks at full pay). THat is more generous than anywhere in the public sector ( and that was 6 and 9 years ago)

When people talk about the NHS they think they can compare it to a private company whose main criteria is to make profit and grow profit. The NHS should never ever be about that. It should always have care first - thats the point.

Many in the public sector do seem to be unaware of how things are in the private sector.

No sick pay for example so if you're off sick you dn't et paid. Many many private sector companies have that (except SSP).

Just the state 6 weeks maternity pay at 90% of pay.

Long working hours without over time.

People forecd to accept 4 day weeks with pay cuts whether they like it or not.

Working veyr hard to pay for pensins wich the private sector don't have and we cannot now afford as a nation.

Easier to sack people in the private sector if they are useless.

Massive waste which wouldn't be tolerated for one day in the private sector.

Anyway the two sides will never agree but the reality is Labour proposed massive 20% cuts and the coaltion are just about doing the same but just a bit more and doing it better.

The cuts have to affect most people. You can't target a group of people who are 0.001% of the population (the very rich) or you won't balance the books. Therefore we have to make cuts which bite on lots of people.

@ pocketmonster

Public sector workers earn more than private sector

You are right Beenbeta - we have a consultant at work who is sick more days than he is in - an SHO can do 95% of of his work. In the private sector some bright spark would have costed having the SHO and a duty Dr on call and found it costs far less than the consultant, duty Dr (to cover said consultants sickness) and SHO's wages - but no one questions it in the public sector - it is amazing.

Remember: never trust statistics

A teacher at DS2's school has just been moved to "floater" cos she is shite. She will be out very soon.......not 'sacked' though, not on any statistics

Occam's razor - KISS right?

But don't forget - don't oversimplify.

My fear is that the Govt will not be tough enough with the cuts in the upcoming PBR.

If the UK were a business I would go in and shut 20% of Govt departments straight off the bat. DTI, DfID, Welsh, Scottish,N Ireland Office, DCLG. The list goes on of departments and quangos with no real purpose.

Then I would decapitate the top 5 -10% of the civil service pay grades (other than high skill technical experts who personally deliver a frontline service) because that is where the resistance to change is being organised. Then I would impose a pay freeze, hiring freeze on every other dept.

It really is that simple. No one would notice any impact on front line services and 25% of the Govt budget would be saved.

LadyBlaBla Of course there is incompetence in the private sector too.

However, let's just take one measure of productivity - days lost to sickness. I refuse to believe that public sector employees get sick more often than private sector employees.

Applying Occam's razor, the explanation is that public sector workers just pull far more sickies because there are no consequences for bad behaviour.

Remember: only 10 state school teachers have been sacked for incompetence in 8 years. That just isn't credible.

The main problem, I think, is the union culture - which constantly puts the interests of the public sector, warts and all, ahead of the interests of the public and the taxpayer.

Ladyblahblah - most of those who are crap at their jobs in the private sector swiftly get moved on - they just fester away in the public sector being crap at their jobs whilst accruing their pension and getting a guaranteed 2% each year payrise!

Beenbeta - the only way the government are going to get a huge pay day is when the shares in the banks they bought rise and they cash in - hopefully it will be used to do good and then the poor little people who are striking and kicking up a stink will realise that it was an asset backed loan that the government so helpfully dished out and the bankers are not to blame for all of the ills of the world!