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>

The big problem with income tax is the cliff edges where you lose CB and then childcare etc - they are a disincentive to productivity as many women in those bands drop to part time until the DC go to school to avoid it. You also have issues with people in shortage positions eg GPs dropping to part time - so we end up needing more.

The other problem is that tax hits people who actually aren't that well off in real terms due to high house prices and childcare costs etc.If they are squeezed they stop paying for things that impact others - eg drop the cleaner etc.

Now we are out of the EU we could consider imposing a super rate of VAT on high value luxury items, greater taxes on second properties including those that are let out on short term holiday let basis.

However the fundamental problem is that the housing market is so fucked no one can afford to buy much beyond the basics so the economy stagnates.

I am surprised you think everyone thinks like this. Most people I know, and I, think that this view is morally awful.

I hope that you and your family don’t have anything unfortunate happen to you or your next generation be born into less privileged circumstances.

I am privileged and have done well through a lot of hard work but know how incredibly fortunate this makes me. Of course I want the best for my family but also the wider society I live in.

You have clearly surrounded yourself with people with similar outlooks to you but don’t con yourself most people feel this way. They don’t, thank god…

@MsPinkMarshmallow Have the people behind the tax dodger’s alliance started paying tax themselves yet or are they still using non domiciliary arrangements?

Like the similarly self appointed “intergenerational fairness” band they carve a nice little earner from debatable stats and simplistic solutions, often riding a lazy identity politics based argument.

The reality is UK voters over the past 25+ odd years have wanted Scandinavian levels of services for US levels of tax. Not just high earners but people across the board would need to pay more taxes to increase services to the level desired. Especially when some of the most desired services are the most dysfunctional, bloated and resistant to modernisation.

Even on this thread you have people complaining about being impacted by the anomalous rate at 100k whilst saying “those people” who earn more than they do can pay more tax.

Yes. But if you are entirely reliant on benefits you don’t pay it with your own money 🤷‍♀️

35% of the population are not totally reliant on means tested benefits

Tax wealth not work.

Everyone should pay less tax on salaries and much more on capital. It's the runaway accumulation of capital that is screwing our economies, not doctors and engineers.

The point you’re missing is that higher earners already do pay significantly more - see the very first post in this thread. The main difference between the UK and other European countries (which are generally acknowledged to have better services such as healthcare) is that their nil-rate bands are lower/zero and that average earners pay a higher % of tax. If you only ever tax the top 10% more, even without the mobility issue, you are never going to reach the critical mass of the population needed to make a material difference to the Treasury’s coffers.

This hopeless government of idealogues seems to tax on the basis of “people we don’t approve of” (e.g. farmers, ex-pats, the “wealthy”) without considering whether their class-war will actually raise the funds needed. Meanwhile the proles cheer them on. 🙄

FWIW I am currently in the 62% marginal rate tax trap. I haven’t tried to avoid it so far, but I don’t need the money day to day (as long as DH keeps working) and could easily punt more into my pension. Having seen Rachel from accounts piss money at the public sector unions while doing nothing about their unfunded trillions of pension liabilities, I find myself increasingly resenting every penny that HMRC receives, not least because my disabled son’s education and NHS care has been an unrelenting clown show since his birth (and there is no private pediatric care in our area either).

Public sector workers too, including high paid NHS workers (who also get an exorbitant pension, costing trillions, that isn’t even on the UK plc balance sheet).

The disparity in wealth in this country is awful. The government are having to top up wages of minimum wage workers, many of which will work just as hard as the high earners in the same company. Maybe stopping salaries over £100,000 will encourage companies to set up a pay scale that pays those at the bottom enough to live on so we can reduce the welfare bill.
If you don't want to pay the extra tax, don't take the increased salary, or if you're a business owner, stop your greed and pay your workers fairly.

Of course they will, similarly as landlords will sell up.
Who is it going to help?

@Vinvertebrate

Forgive me for having zero sympathy for someone who refers in their comment to people as ''proles'' or uses the words ''Rachel from accounts'' (I don't like Reeves but I think this type of misogynist tripe is unacceptable)....

They have more so of course they should pay more. But those statistics are misleading firstly because they earn more so eg 20% of their income is going to be higher than 20% of a lower earners income.
And If all taxes are combined including VAT, and council tax proportionally those in the lowest income brackets pay more tax.
Besides compared to many other countries tax in the UK is not particularly high it is lower than many other European countries.

Ridiculous statement, so because someone on benefits pays tax on their booze and a new pair of shoes, they are a ‘tax payer’ like someone who is getting slammed as a higher rate tax payer, paying tens of thousands a year?? How naive are you? The government needs to stop poking the bear.

Never said they were. That said if you’re receiving benefits at all you may well be in a ‘robbing Peter, to pay Paul’ scenario.

Do you include pension wealth in this? If so do you think we should also tax final salary pensions the same amount to be fair? A modest final salary pension of say £25k pa taken at age 60 would require an equivalent private pot of around £800k. A moderate one of £50k pa would require a pot of £1.6m.

Such compassion.

Don't high rate tax payers buy booze or new shoes then?

i can’t believe that people actually think like this. It is so ridiculous I can’t even start unpicking it.

If you understand why did you say 35% of adults don't pay any tax at all. That's is just untrue.
Not paying income tax doesn't mean they don't pay any tax at all!
And if they don't pay income tax it means they have a very small income.

In the interests of avoiding misogynistic tripe, I would of course prefer that the first female Chancellor in history was not also the least competent and a clown, but here we are.

But in the interests of accuracy, I accept that it should be Rachel from Complaints.

I'm one of the 10%

The top 10% is people earning £59,250 and above, by the way.

Meanwhile the top half a percent or so are laughing their heads off about people fighting over themselves about how much tax you pay on £26,000 or £60,000.

I disagree. Most people, if not everyone, I know very much think like @Ally886 (and almost everyone in my friendship group and all my colleagues are highest rate tax payers). I don’t object to some level of wealth redistribution but the current level in the UK is ridiculous, no one I know IRL is happy with the current level of taxation, let alone happy to pay more, when the level of services is also at rock bottom. I’m sick and tired of working ridiculously long hours only to have over half my pay taken away by the government to fund those that choose to sit idle or lack the resilience to stick at a job, or have more kids than they can afford.

You're right, money doesn't protect you from unfortunate events. Someone very close to me has had a couple of rounds of cancer surgery this year and I've been fortunate enough to raise tens of thousands for a charity associated with it. I would hope that has helped a lot of people going through similar circumstances.

The more I'm taxed, the less I can give to charity and use to support those that need it most in my community

Top 10% of UK salaries ranges from £59k in Wales to £105k London apparently. Given the number of threads here about people who can't survive on 100k, targeting the top 10% will be divisive. The top 1% starts at 200k.

Average Salary UK: Full Breakdown by Age & Region | Starling share.google/yxQmisniEK3DeMXhS

@GehenSieweiteryes of course they do, plus plenty of other people’s while they’re at it.