Green Party Manifesto: 8% NI over £50,000 earnings

[MidnightPatrol]

I know the Green Party’s manifesto is somewhat meaningless as they will never be in power…

But today they have launched their manifesto, part of which is an 8% NI rate on earnings over £50,000.

This means at £50,000 you might pay 40% tax, 8% NI and 9% student loan = a 57% tax on any additional income. Or 48% with no loan.

I’d be interested to understand people’s thoughts on increasing taxes at this level of income - this is higher than Scotlands new advanced rate on earnings £75-125,000.

Thank God the chances of them having any power are tiny.

At least they are prepared to be honest about the fact that you can't repair the damage to our public services (thanks Tory bastards), without rasing money from somewhere. Dh is a higher earner and we have both said we would pay higher national insurance and tax if it went into public services. Yes it's bloody painful to pay more to the state, but we firmly believe in the public sector and the need for investment in services. Yes, unpopular opnion I know but at least it's honest.

@MissyB1 Problem is, in many areas of the country £50k isn’t going to go far, particularly if trying to raise a family.

About 25% of tax payers will be paid more than this next tax year too - so it’s not really just capturing ‘high earners’.

I’d like to see National Insurance completely removed as it just adds pointless complexity to the tax system.

Instead of having employer NI they should increase the minimum wage by 50%

They should also reduce the Higher Rate tax threshold to £40k and abolish the additional rate.

They should be putting up income taxes rather than NI, otherwise it will only impact people who are below 60 who will also be hit with student loans, higher house prices etc.

At least an increase in tax wouldn't just impact employees.

Do they want to do this in addition to the increase from 20% to 40% at 50k? If so, that's not a very sensible idea. Big jumps in tax rates never are. We have a skills and labour shortage, and poor productivity, so we don't want to give any more people an incentive to reduce their hours or not bother going for the promotion. These things are generally better done as gradual slopes rather than leaps.

Yes, NI is a particularly poor way of doing things. It's ageist and applies to even fewer forms of income than income tax does.

I wonder if they looked at whether such punitive tax measures would mean the none men would be forced out of the workplace?