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>

@BaalSatanas
At what point do you expect to have to implement state appropriation of personal property on exit to try to stem the capital flight and brain drain?

I'd give it 1-2 years.

Actually, Reeves is having to do it now after 15 months, so I think with your package you'd be lucky to make it to 6 months. Just long enough for people to organise new jobs and visas once they see what way the wind is blowing.

My DH earns 135k, I earn ~55. Last month he paid so much in income tax and NI contributions I actually took home more than him. In what world does that make sense?!

If this budget fucks us even more, We will leave. He can work remote so it's better to move abroad and have a better quality of life for us/kids rather than pay more into a system that just doesn't reward hard work or expertise.

Can you put numbers on that? I can't see how that could be right. When I run the numbers through a tax calculator it comes out at 3.5k for you and nearly 7k for him.

Nope I meant to ask doctors, consultants, charity board members……people with actual qualified views to comment… do your research.

I’m in Finance… shudder …. but still don’t agree with you…

Obviously DPD should not be persecuting anyone or cutting pay rates if their business is viable. But it’s meaningless to talk about profit in absolute numbers like “200m”.

Google tells me that DPD’s turnover last year was £1.48 billion, so 200 million in pre-tax profit would give them a gross margin of 13.5%. Google also tells me that typical GM’s in logistics are 20 to 40% - which is the only benchmark that shareholders will care about.

25% of that is paid in tax.

Apparently DPD has 9,500 on its payroll, so a 5% increase (assuming £30k average salary) would take their profit down by £14,250,000 or 7%, leaving a margin of 12.5%. Plus, the increase is baked in for future salary reviews which will need to be calculated from a higher base.

That’s obviously very back-of-a-fag-packet, but it’s impossible to understand the full picture with only headline profit figures. The shareholders - whose capital is at risk - will view the position entirely differently from workers.

Some of the top 10% earn an absolute fortune compared with the rest. Within that 10% will be the top 1% who earn hundreds of billions between them.

Dear me, why should the poor lambs have to pay tax? Let me fetch the world's tiniest violin. I've got it here somewhere but it's so small I need to find my magnifying glass first.

Is it an issue though. I would love to see those stats. A certain type of person does that and others would never dream of moving abroad just for a monetary reason

He took home £4k and I got £4200. I did some unsocial hours as overtime last month so it was a bit more than I'd usually get but his is way, way less than usual.

Like others, he puts a lot into separate pensions for us to reduce his taxable pay but if he didn't then his income would be almost 150k.

We both grew up in families living hand to mouth so it does sting a bit that we feel so squeezed when we earn so much more than our parents did in professional jobs.

Hmmm I must be “that type” then because, as a lawyer, I’ve moved abroad for tax reasons twice. I would absolutely encourage anyone in the position I was in - single, overtaxed, mobile, time poor - to do the same. I very rapidly paid off my mortgage and bought a new car outright. I have still managed to be a HR and AR taxpayer in the UK for two decades, but conversely I have very little to show for that (other than a DS who needs medical and social support that he is not receiving).

Is it because he had underpaid tax so he paid a big tax bill to cover the difference? PAYE do sometimes underestimate it.

Also, if you paid into a sipp that won't be refunded automatically above basic rate. If he doesn't fill in a tax return, you'll need to write to them with evidence of the sipp payment.

Basic Life costs about the same for everyone. We all need a set of clothes, shoes and about 2000 kcal of food per day. A room to sleep in. It does not hurt high income earners to pay more tax because they already easily cover these essentials. It's important for wealth redistribution.

For the people who want bankrolling by the state…careful what you wish for. Recently, the higher rate was reduced to 45% from 50%. Tax take increased. Win, win. You keep taxing the same, small minority over and over, there will be less for you. People won’t work to bankroll you for nothing.

How will a worked example help without a comparison? And it would still just be anecdotal.

The data shows it across the board: equalitytrust.org.uk/news/press-release/uk-still-taxes-the-poorest-more-than-the-richest/

Not disputing that there will be some (certainly not many!) earning millions or billions but the top 1% have average income of ~£175-£190k according to Google and ChatGPT. Dont get me wrong, that’s a very good salary, but it still isn’t mega wealth , living in mansions and driving Ferraris money! They’d be paying £67k+ of it in income tax/NI alone too. Likely student loan payments too. Pension contributions on top of that.

So when people talk of the super rich, do they really mean the 0.05% who are earning a million or so? Or the 0.1% that might be earning £600k a year??

What do people mean by “rich”?

Yes, public services are run down, can't possibly be to do with people avoiding taxes though.

Why does my money have to be redistributed? My long hours, stress and responsibilities aren’t being redistributed. There’s another thread where people are saying 9-6 is a long day - I’ll bet they’re not on 6 figures. Typical day for me is 7.30-6.30 and that’s a good day.

this is why I’m opting out as soon as I can. I’m not bankrolling everyone else any more.

It’s actually to do with the fact the tax system is so distorted towards higher earners. Lower and middle earners do not pay enough in comparison to other countries. We have a hugely generous personal allowance and lower basic rate. We overly penalise higher earners with withdrawals in comparison. All a bit awkward. Not enough paying their fair share.

Or, not enough people of working age actually working and paying into society? Just an alternative POV...

My job in healthcare involves me working very closely with people in all kinds of financial situations. There is a huge, huge disparity between a mother fleeing domestic abuse and not being able to work because of her circumstances to someone who plainly states to me that they "can't be bothered to work". When people know they can talk openly to you in complete confidence they tell you all sorts of things, including how they "play the system" (not my words). I'm all for people who need help having as much help as they need. It does really make my blood boil though, when I go from one family with disabled children living on an absolute string because the child needs 24/7 care so one parent basically can't work, to someone who just frankly cba working and spends their money on fags and trainers. I'd be all for paying as much tax as we do, or more, if it went to the right people.

You know we don't all share those hundreds of billions though, right?

Money that belongs to 1 person... belongs to them. Whatever you socialists wish was true.

As we said, the threshold for the top 10% is £67k

@Araminta1003

We have been a high consumer society thus far. Labour and tax policies are going to push us all into DIY and non consumption. Which will lower tax take and the amount of jobs available. People who earn well and it is worth working long hours, will then pay others to do basic stuff for them. If it is no longer worth doing that, they work less and DIY. Less jobs, less money etc for the whole economy.

I agree with all that. PLUS by the same reasoning, HMRC will also get less tax because it all drives the black economy and tax evasion/benefit fraud by people working "cash in hand", "under the counter", etc which is a growing problem costing tens of billions per year.

My household has paid 6 figures in IT and NIC’s for at least the last 2 years. Not being able to access decent state funded medical care when you’re on NMW or UC or both is shit. Not being able to access it whilst contributing 4 times the UK average gross salary to HMRC annually adds a whole other layer of galling unfairness, believe me.

In the same period, I’ve paid £30k of net income to private providers to support my son’s disabilities. (Most parents - specifically mothers - looking after DC with my son’s severe difficulties do not work at all, but more fool me, I thought it was important to work and contribute, and set a good example).

My DS works in one of the UK's biggest insurance firms. Most of the trainees, closely after qualifying as actuaries, move abroad. He says most "leaving do's" are for people emigrating, very few are for people moving to other firms. He's also been looking into it for himself and is probably 50:50 at the moment whether he will stay or go when he qualifies.

Because it's nonsense..

Consider a family of 4 with 2 young kids, living in rental with one parent earning NMW then on top of the working partner's £22k(on which they pay £3500 tax and NI), the family also recieve £24k in Universal Credit!!! (That's £628 basic rate + £1.5k housing + £585kids - £600 subtracted for the NMW salary per month).

They can't possibly be paying more tax as a proportion of their earned income than any higher rate tax payer - even if they handed over every penny of the NMW as tax - because they get more than that in benefits.

But even if you take the through-the-looking-glass position of treating the benefits as if they were actually earned income. That family hands over £3.5k in income tax and NI out of £46k they get, then however much VAT etc they pay on what they spend the remaining £42.5k on.

Compare that to a £67k ( top 10% earner) in a similar family with a SAHM. They hand over £17.5k in income tax and NI, leaving £49.4k net salary, then however much VAT etc they pay on what they spend that remaining £49.4k on.

The 2 families have very similar disposable income: £42.5k versus £49.4k. They are going to buy the same stuff, paying the same tax.

How can you possibly suggest that the NMW family is hard done by in terms of tax compared to the top 10% earner, who paid £14k more income tax and got £24k less benefits and ended up just £7k better off?!?

This country's tax is completely nuts. And proof that no matter how much you placate the socialists, they will always, always demand yet more.

Interesting - I would still like to see the actual stats across all high rate tax payers though as that is what people are arguing. Actuaries have often moved abroad,even 25 year ago when I qualified in a big multinational insurance firm, but it’s a very niche type of role that commonly feeds into working in tax havens. 25 years ago it had a brain drain to Bermuda etc anyway. I didn’t go into it as it was a bit too dry a specialism for my liking and I didn’t want to live abroad in those tax haven type places (no judgement when young though) but the people that did prioritised high earnings in their careers particularly in my experience. I’m interested in how many come ‘home’ after the 3 clear years of residence to cover the zero taxes. Was very common in my day

Opting out is a possibility of course. But if this means going somewhere like the US where taxes are lower, it usually means you stand by and watch as people born in a less fortunate position go without things like cancer treatment.

Most people prefer redistribution when they are actually face to face with watching others suffer. I think the system is a natural extension of that.