Would you vote Labour if you earned over £80,000?

[NoMansGE]

When doing more research on labours tax policies DH and I noticed that this starts from salaries of £80,000. This would effect our household as that is DHs salary. We both agree with their campaign for 'no more billionaires'.. but we aren't billionaires. We are a normal family who live a comfortable but far from luxury lifestyle. We're both torn how to vote, as it would usually be labour.

“It’s not just a few pounds for many people. It’s hundreds a month for some. If you live in the south east and pay all net salary as it is on mortgage childcare and train fares then there isn’t any surplus.”

Well it’s £50 a year at 81k

It doesn’t get into “hundreds” till 119k

Are people on 119k really paying all their net salary just to live in the south east? Why?

Because housing is very expensive.

If you have to pay childcare to cover the hours required it is very expensive

Eighty twenty higher earners do pay a significany greater share

“Because housing is very expensive.”

So any housing and childcare in the south east costs just over 73k a year? (Current net on 119k)

This labour campaign and the internet follow up feels very hostile if you are one of the people affected. It all feels very personal. Some of us are just working flat out in jobs that are hugely stressful and compromise health and family significantly and to be honest giving the majority of income to the government already. But apparently it isn’t enough ...

As hostile as being found fit for work while terminally ill? Can you imagine how things are for others on less than you?

I won't be getting my pension until I am 67 now, so I need to save money because I cannot retire yet and have to keep on working.

Same with everyone on less than you.

Not going to go into personal details about income etc but to pick out my biggest gripe on this. When I worked full time childcare cost me £40k. Childcare is paid from net salary so this was almost all of my net salary alone.

We had a nanny as there are no nurseries here and all childminders full.

It’s a high cost because you have to pay employers national insurance on the nanny salary as well as their salary and pay pension contributions and provide all employment related rights etc

So under that arrangement the government already gets

My income tax and ni
Nanny’s income tax and ni
Employer’s ni

It’s a huge amount!

@tabulahrasa a £600k mortgage at 1.5% over 25 years and two kids in full time nursery at £1800 per month would be London prices. You aren't going to get change from £72k per year on that.

I don't live in London or have a mortgage anything like that. Me and dp earnings combined don't come close to £80k and we cut our cloth accordingly. But I can see how £80k wouldn't actually feel as much as you think if you live on London and don't have family to help with childcare.

I wouldn’t mind in the least paying more tax if I trusted them to spend it on the right things.

I don’t.

I think it’d get poured into numerous black hole that would be left unfinished and a fiscal disaster on the scale of which we haven’t seen before. Especially if the “eurosceptic” JC then failed to deliver anything other than a hard Brexit. People who think it would only be a few more pounds for the top earners/companies are at best naive.

I said on another thread, let people pay more tax for the areas of their choice, and I reckon there’d be plenty more money for the NHS; education; care etc. The things that people actually care about, not nationalising broadband at a cost of god knows what (and that’s if you’re comfortable with the government being able to interfere in what shares people can own and what limited companies with their own legal identity can do). For example, I hardly ever use the NHS, as we are lucky enough to have good health and a family private health care policy. I’d still happily pay additional tax towards it, because it’s so important to British society.

“Not going to go into personal details about income”

Didn’t ask you to...

I’m asking if you’re seriously saying that standard housing and childcare in the south east costs 73k

My original why was actually, if it costs that much to live there then why live there?

But I’m now really sceptical about the amounts tbh.

I wouldn’t mind in the least paying more tax if I trusted them to spend it on the right things.

Blair/Brown increased NIC to "save the nhs" - and trebled NHS spending. But it was spent badly and we know now the NHS is still apparently desperately short of money. How many more tax rises will be needed to save it until the waste/inefficiency/culture is dealt with? Labour just love to splash the cash but never want to mend the leaky buckets.

Have you actually calculated how much extra tax you will have to pay? I imagine it won’t make much of a dent on your household income.

Sadly yes, and it is around £250 a month. Given that I live in London and have all the associated housing/childcare costs, I don't actually have a spare £250 a month....

“But I can see how £80k wouldn't actually feel as much as you think if you live on London and don't have family to help with childcare.“

Except we were talking 119k in the entire south east...

DH earns more than £80k (about £150k) and he will be voting labour. Always has voted labour.

I don’t earn that much, but I will be voting green.

Both parties problematic, but not nearly so problematic as the Tories, in our opinion.

And - despite our household income - we are left with hardly anything each month (huge london mortgage, expensive childcare fees etc). So we’d definitely feel that extra tax! But still voting that way.

I’m asking if you’re seriously saying that standard housing and childcare in the south east costs 73k

Does your entire net salary go on housing and childcare? Or do you have to feed and clothe your family, pay other bills, pay off student loans, pay for christmases and birthdays, pay for transport, occasionally go out etc.....

People still have to live as well and frankly there is no comparison between the cost of living in London and other parts of the country.

It doesn’t get into “hundreds” till 119k

Dp earns over £80,000, definitely under £119,000. Definitely in the £1000 + not hundreds

That calculator is BS though.

It says dps take home pay is nearly £6000 per month.

His payslip says it is nearer £1700 less.

Like everything it doesn’t take account of other things that come off your payslip that allow you to do the work.

Just looked and Dp pays something like £600 per month alone in health insurance because he travels in the USA a lot and it is part and parcel of his job.

Then he pays into his pension and NI.
Parking and train fares because we can’t afford to live in a house nearer to his work.

We live in London and Dp has been the only regular worker in our household for a long time when the children were little.

I want to know how our household is considered rich yet a couple with no children and a combined earnings of £158,000 is considered to be poorer.

Though Labour saying only the “rich” will pay is not strictly true.

All married couples will pay regardless of their income.

The debate isn't really about the £80k earners but about the top 1% of earners which is where the highest impact is for the UK.

The link that was posted earlier showing what your tax bill will be under a labour government is interesting. By Labour's own calculations, at around £661,000, your take home pay is less than half of your gross/headline salary because you will pay an extra £31,000 in tax, so a bit more than a few quid.

Earning £661,000 puts you in the top 0.1% of income tax payers, so we are only talking about 30,000 people out of 31m taxpayers. However, the UK relies on those 30,000 people for 14% of all income tax receipts and a similar proportion of other taxes eg vat.

Research shows that more than half of those 30,000 live in London in a handful of constituencies, and work in the financial services industry. In the same way that Trump has ignored the impact of globalisation and technological advancements on middle America, Corbyn is doing the same ie assuming that all of those 30,000 people will hang around to be taxed more when they mostly work in a global and technology connected world is quite frankly bonkers.

And those that do stay will react to losing half their income to tax. And not in the extreme ways like hiding assets (only about 3,000 in the UK could afford to try and evade taxes) but in more ordinary ways like being less entrepreneurial, working less hard, retiring early, moving abroad and being more focused on tax planning (eg maximising ISA contributions) and doing silly things like investing in film partnerships. Also, it makes it harder for global financial services organisations in the US and Asia to persuade their people to move to the UK so the UK loses out there.

And what's even more odd is that this is all exactly what happened in the 3 years after Labour raised the additional tax rates to 50% in 2010.

“People still have to live as well and frankly there is no comparison between the cost of living in London and other parts of the country.“

I’m aware.

I’m also getting less and less sympathetic about that because of this thread tbh.

If you can have more spare money on half the salary elsewhere in the country, living in London is a choice, completely, people can’t even blame that that’s where the job is, because they don’t need that job or anything that pays anywhere near it and they’ll still be better off.

Well that's good, sod being anywhere close to family/friends/support network, let's just all move elsewhere and get a much smaller salary. But hey, at least it will save me a shit load of tax as well as lower living costs 😃

Seriously though, to me though that is an incredibly simplistic view because once again people have lives. So unless I can get my elderly parents to move too that isn't going to work or should I just leave them to sort themselves out? It's fine, I'll move away and pay for carers to pop in and help, oh wait I've just halved my salary so can't afford to....

I genuinely don't begrudge the fact that I pay over the average UK salary in tax every year, but 100k salary doesn't buy giant houses and luxury holidays in some parts of the country

“Seriously though, to me though that is an incredibly simplistic view because once again people have lives.”

Lives that the vast majority of people in this country can’t afford.

Using your income to live somewhere that costs that much is just as much a choice as spending it on mansions and holidays, it’s just a less obvious one.

My mum is 3 hours from me, at some point I’ll have to work out how she gets cared for, one of the options won’t be getting a 119k job and spending it on living costs to be near her.

But how is it the fault of Corbyn and the NHS and our tax system that someone’s DH pays 600 pounds in US health insurance?! They clearly have shitty employers. Both DH and I have worked in the US. Our health insurance was covered by our employers (one corporate and one University).

For the people who say they would struggle with extra tax do you remember the tory tax and benefit changes that saw some of the poorest have their income drop hundreds of pounds a year? Were you on the threads at that point complaining that it wasnt fair and you therefore would not vote tory again?

It's also not Corbyn's fault the london housing market is a shitshow.