The top 10% of taxpayers contribute 60% of income tax...

[MsPinkMarshmallow]

I'm fed up of hearing that "high earners" will be targeted by the next budget.

The top 10% of taxpayers pay 60% of income tax.

Don't piss them off. They'll just leave the UK or work less so they're taxed less.

Some more stats: in 2024-25, the top 1% of income tax payers earned 13.3 per cent of total income and paid 28.2 per cent of income tax

35% of adults in the UK pay no tax at all

More from the Taxpayers Alliance here:

https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/briefing_share_of_income_tax_paid_by_percentile

<stands back and awaits kicking>

Sure, I can definitely accept that 10 as a number is arbitrary. I would have a proper economist evaluate this. I think it's unreasonable to expect me to have done this to just have a conversation on mumsnet.

The principle isn't arbitrary though. The boss's pay should be linked to their workers - why shouldn't it be? They're not a high flier if they only make £1000k/year because they're paying people less than they need to live off of. A good proportion of that £1000k/year in this case actually belongs to UK tax payers for subsidising UC for the people who need to top up their wage to live.

Could you link me to these post tax profit margins for supermarkets? I can find various numbers but specifically post tax profit margins is evading me.

Sure; but currently your tax payer money is keeping them afloat, which isn't doing the rest of us any good.

@MariaMyBeckno corporate lawyer is getting clients unless the office is clean.

We all rely on each other. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Paying the barista better would potentially generate business though, from the barista, from the owner of the small business the barista can now shop at, from those who are happier to give their business to a more ethical employer......

‘As much opportunity for recognition’ you said earlier not the same wage but this sounds like you would like that.

Obviously there are many people who would like high wages, whether if would work in reality would need to be mapped out with actual implications.

I hate to say it again but RTFT, especially recent posts.
I'll also be honest and say that I've never quite understood why lawyers cost so much, why they're so well paid.

Lawyer here.

It takes at least 6 years to qualify, and you will need similar grades to medicine. Legal salaries are skewed by those at the very top earning £1 million plus - they are a tiny number of equity partners in city law firms whose job is more akin to an IB than a high street solicitor. In that sector, NQ's earn about £150k (or they did last time I checked). These will all be Oxbridge/RG types with top grades who could do pretty much anything.

High street solicitors are not well paid at all - typically between about £25k for a NQ to about £80k for an equity partner outside London. That's pretty poor for a job with a comparable training period and entry requirements to medicine.

When I was a NQ at a large (but not city) firm, I worked 80 hours most weeks, all nighters as a matter of course (for no extra pay), and paid my cleaner a higher hourly rate than my gross hourly pay.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, I am a 1% tax payer.

I've used the NHS, I was state educated, when I have kids they will also go to state school. Nobody likes tax but I completely do not mind paying £5k more to fund these things.

However, I don't drink coffee at all. I haven't been inside a coffee shop in over a year. Of the 491 companies listed here Full list of 491 companies fined for failing to pay National Minimum Wage - The Mirror how many do you truly use?

We as a society should not be subsidising companies which rely on UC to top up their workers. Why should I have to pay tax to subsidise companies I've never even heard of?

Why should it be "fair"? Why is anything fair?

The most fair thing is having wages set by the market. Also as we all know employer-employee contracts are all voluntarily agreed. You both agree as to what your wage will be.

If the "ground staff" can't do what the high flyers do that's on them.

You have a different idea of what's fair than me, that doesn't make my suggestion 'not fair'. I personally feel that a fairer society is one where wealth is distributed more evenly, and where everyone is rewarded for effort.

I just used chatgpt and told it to use the internet to search. I think Sainsbury's is under 1%

Sorry I work in AI research and so I'm not going to accept these numbers as reliable. No disrespect to you whatsoever.

And if the cleaner was all "boo hoo I quit" they'd get replaced quite quickly. Someone else would step in.

Why? I can understand that it may be necessary, but is it actually fair?

Thanks for that. I wouldn't say that 25K is well paid, clearly, but 85K actually is a good salary, especially if you're part of a couple. I'm glad you pay your cleaner well, you obviously recognise that they're also very important and should be paid appropriately.
I've worked long hours in several jobs, and happily did it for periods of time, but a lifetime of that isn't healthy for anyone.

There are no support staff in my team. In fact, there have been no support staff in the last three teams that I have worked in at three different companies in three different sectors.

Yes, distribution of wealth makes for a fairer society, even if it doesn't feel fair at the individual level.

I'm obviously not clear on your of your individual set up, but lots of supposed high flyers also rely on support below them, and alongside.

But you'd still need someone else to step in. Treating the one(s) you have well is surely better than treating them like a dispensable tool? For most decent folk it would be.

Wealth and income are different. To my mind access to free education and health and financial support when you can’t work are what makes for a fairer society, as well as investment in breakdown barriers to social mobility. It may or may not be necessary or pragmatic to fun that through taxing higher earners but is the goal really to equalise income as much as possible? Is that really fair or helpful?

Less and less and much less than when I entered the workplace. We don’t need people to answer the phone for us because we don’t have phones, we don’t need people to open our mail, because we don’t have physical post, we don’t need people to submit our expenses because we do it ourselves through an electronic expense system, we don’t need people to type up our dictation because we create all our own documents or use digital dictation straight to our computers….if you brought in your proposal there would be even less support staff, probably none.

Let's say we have society A where the average income is £35k but the highest 0.1% are on £350k (10 times the average)
or
Society B where the average income is £20k but the highest 0.1% are on £100k (5 times the average)

Assuming all other costs of living are the same, if you were on the average income which would you prefer £35k pa or £20k?

Assuming that organisations do not pay higher earners more for the sake of it but rather because they need to to attract the best, most qualified people for those roles, is higher taxation likely to lead to more inequality of gross income?

But evidence tells us that lots of businesses haven't attracted the best leaders by offering higher salaries. Corrupt business leaders are 10 a penny these days. Those motivated by money are not always the best leaders.

Is this for full time workers or based on an hourly rate? If someone chooses to work part time at minimum wage should their salary set the benchmark for the rest of the company?