If you are so rich, you don't work, how do you pay taxes to support the economy?

[Palmtreesandsand]

If you are unemployed and have DLA, I get that it's right you don't pay taxes.
If you work, you automatically pay tax.

However, if you don't work because you don't need to because of inheritance or you can retire at 50. How do you pay to support the economy? You still get to use public services? How do you contribute to these?

Exactly this.

Do you really it's only "business" owners who are "rich"?

What about premier league footballers, pop stars, TV presenters, athletes, authors, etc?

Or is it OK for celebrities to engage in tax avoidance, but not business owners?

I think there's a lot of selective thinking about the rich. It seems to be OK for a pop star to "emigrate" to Switzerland for "creative reasons" i.e. to avoid tax, or for a pop group to arrange the dates of a Worldwide tour to avoid being resident in any country that year, thus not pay tax on their tour profits! Or a TV presenter to fly into the UK on a Sunday morning, do his show and then fly out again on Sunday afternoon to remain "non resident" for UK taxes.

It's a myth that if you increase tax people will down tools and leave the country neither do they down tools and work less. The super rich maybe but not those living and working jobs/careers in the uk.

The top 1% of income tax payers (gross income of over 164k) contribute 27% and the top 10% contribute 59%.

If you've worked most of your life you've contributed a lot and continue to do so through all the other taxes mentioned on here.

I think we're at a big danger point because there are many working paying tax and not getting too ups or 'handouts'. The payment if tax credits and top up if UC has been a big mistake imo, there needs to be a much clearer line between those working and not.

It's not a myth at all. Lots of people are "moveable" these days, not just the super rich.

Because of IR35, around 20 of my IT consultant clients have moved abroad, some to Canada, some to Australia, where they're carrying on doing the same job, for the same UK company, but are now doing the work abroad instead of in the UK. Yes, they may be higher than average earners, but not super-rich by any means.

What about all the doctors who've moved abroad. Tax is part of their decision to leave the UK. Again, not "super" rich, but typically earning 3x/4x the UK average income.

Back in the 70s, virtually all successful authors left the UK because their income was deemed to be "unearned", i.e. passive, which was subject to over 90% income tax!

With many jobs having proved that "working from home" works, then lots of people are clearly able to do their jobs wherever they are located, so moving abroad is no longer a matter of getting a new job abroad if they can simply continue doing their old job.

Lots of major employers are also international these days, so even if you can't do "your job" abroad, many people can simply apply for a transfer to an overseas branch of their international employer.

Companies are taxed separately from the people who own them. Anyway while I appreciate your student Union communist society viewpoint it doesn’t really work like that. Abolishing private profit or returns from capital just makes society much poorer as we’ve seen over and over again.

Not necessarily. I retired at 52 and never earned more than 30k a year, and substantially less sometimes as I worked for charities.

I did say 'probably'. Also there are people who leave work a lot earlier, to be SAHPs or carers, who also aren't necessarily big earners. But i don't think these and your situations are the ones the OP is referring to

You mean because I owned a yacht until last year and spent 8 months of the year sailing the med, and own 4 properties that I'm not the type of person op was talking about? I'm confused.

Well the majority of people on less than £30k, which you said you were on in your first post, are struggling to make ends meet, let alone retire at 50 and buy a yacht. Hence my comment about the OP not talking about people like you on a pretty low salary as the OP was about very rich people.

Nothing to be confused about.

We need anyone with money to spend it. If the government taxes it, there's less through the tills of small businesses, restaurants, pubs etc.

A lot of people who don't work are propping up society by being carers, running and helping in local initiatives.

It's not quite as easy as taxing rich people
who don't work.

The
Govt needs to change the laws
So Apple and Google and Amazon are taxed better. Every time we spend with them our money has left the country and they
pay next to zero tax for the privilege.

Tax the rich is just a bit of cheap electioneering by politicians with plenty to criticize but no solutions. Who's "rich"? Does the way they spend their money make a difference to whether they're seen as rich? Blunt instrument taxes based on nothing but income are very unfair. Let's say you run a small chain of cafés. You employ people. You draw an income from the profits of 100k each year. You have five children, one of whom is disabled. You support your widowed mother. You do not own a home because you sold it to build up the business and can't easily get a mortgage on unpredictable income. The bank reckons tour cafe chain won't survive the downturn so it won't lend to you. Most people wouldn't consider that person rich.

OR you earn 100k as an analyst in the city. You are single and have just bought yourself a flash car with your bonus. You already fully own your house in zone 2 because your parents passed it on to you.

Both have the same income, but one has far more assets than the other. One would suffer hugely from an income tax hike, the other would not.

In addition to some of the previous answers, oftentimes, somebody who can afford to retire at 50 based on their own UK based earnings, not inheritance/lottery win, will have paid more far tax etc. during their working life than your average Joe

It doesn’t have to be very high, everyone gets the same personal allowance and once you go above that then income tax kicks in.

If you have earned enough to retire by 50, you will already have paid a lot of tax as you will probably have been in a higher earning bracket. If it is in a company, you pay tax when you pay yourself. If it is in financial investments you may pay tax as you cash them in. If you have invested in houses, you pay tax on the rental income. Plus all the VAT and taxes on spending. If you have had money from inheritance, it may have been taxed.

Not to mention all the other household names who you assume pay Uk corporation tax tax but have sneakily re registered in Lichtenstein and other tax havens. Yes I am looking at you Boots the chemist……….

The UK also benefitted from international firms having their head office in the UK and paying UK tax on their Worldwide profits. They were attracted to the UK because of the UK's low corporation tax rates. Same happened with firms relocating to Ireland as their CT rate is lower than the UK.

When money is taken out of a trust it is taxed as income at normal income tax rates. It’s not tax free. You also have to pay a percentage of the amount in the trust every 10 years to keep the trust going.

Dh retired at 52 and as pp have mentioned paid a lot of tax prior to that, over 80k for last year he worked. We pay tax on investment income and will pay tax on pensions too.

Boots is owned by walgreens (a us listed company). It’s not « registered in Lichtenstein » at all.

True. But read up about the purchase of Alliance Boots by the Walgreen consortium, it is seen as a classic sleight of hand / don’t buy with your own money buy out. Buy the company with borrowed money, slap the debt for the borrowing (to buy the new company) on to the old company to reduce their visible profits to reduce the tax owed then shift the HQ to a tax haven so whatever tax is due can’t be collected. Apparently the chancellor of the exchequer at the time ended up with a huge gap in their budget because so many companies thumbed their noses when asked to pay their tax. And to add insult to injury Boots were discovered to have been charging the NHS over the odds for specialised medicines for years. Poor old Jesse Boot with his socialist principles must have been spinning in his grave.

It’s usual for private equity acquisitions to be funded by debt. There are lots of very complex rules about thin capitalisation and profit shifting so what you are claiming isn’t true. It doesn’t matter if boots moved it’s hq to a tax haven - it’s still chargeable fully to tax on its uK activities. Also tax can still be collected for uK activities regardless of hq and there is no suggestion that boots has never not paid tax that is due.

I was an international tax and finance advisor and it’s simply untrue that any major retailer has simply refused to pay tax due. Nor could they to a major economy like the uK. Sorry but you’ve misunderstood.