I don't want to pay more fucking tax!

[marthainthemarket]

I am the sole earner in a family of four, earning just under 40k a year and getting probably fuck all or below inflation pay increase next year, if I am lucky enough to keep my job ( public sector and employer needing to make massive budget savings). I barely cope now.

I am so fucking angry that Labour fucked up the disability benefit cuts. Other countries don't have run away disability benefits crises because they have a proper assessment process that means they keep a lid on people getting disability benefits who don't really need them. But instead of dealing with that, they came up with a crap proposed cut that wouldn't have dealt with the actual issues and they couldn't defend.

And having fucked that up they are now raising everyone's tax. I hate them!

There are lots of people in this country in public sector jobs who play the system. I manage a large team and I have one such character. There are others based on discussions with managers in other teams. They don’t really work, claim various benefits and uc and basically take up one job. They don’t come to work using some excuse or the other. Illness, stress, family issues, child care, the list is endless. The guy in my team claims he has adhd and autism as of last week. He knows he would be out of a job having taken an excessive amount of sick leave for no real reason other than being lazy! He then spent time doing research before his adhd assessment and told me he had to prepare for it, so no work that day. Then after fooling that person he now claims he has adhd and needs special provisions. It is impossible to get any work out of him but he can’t be sacked either! Honestly a waste of space. He only gets away with it because it is a public sector role. If he actually had the disability I would be the first person to support him and do whatever required to ensure he is taken care of and can work comfortably. I do have other members with actual special needs but with fantastic work ethic, this guy unfortunately is not one of them.

The government really need to clamp down on benefits for people who are playing the system. People who have real needs should rightly be taken care of.

Why?! People are wealthy because they worked hard and spent their time and money on getting a degree, and creating a career not just getting a job. Higher rate tax payers pay a crazy amount of money in tax and really don’t get much for it. Notice the large number of wealthy people who are moving out of the UK? If they all go then who will the government tax to give benefits to those who won’t get off their butts and get a job?!

This! Also feel so many funds get mismanaged, and I can’t get gp appointment in a fairly large town, when my 4 years daughter’s been coughing non stop for 2 months. Feel like absolute beggar when calling the gp and trying to get them to have a look. I would gladly pay, if there would be proof and commitment of where money would go.

All that swearing doesn't help your case.

Not convinced I want more services.
I don't think I should pay more tax when the services we have seem to be so badly organised.
Throwing money at it won't fix things.

You guys have had a pretty raw deal. But I have a feeling Labour are going to make the SNP look competent. 😂

Is it fair to say though that the cost of living, food, fuel, rent/mortgage, travel is what is making a massive difference to people rather than taxes? It's been such a fast hike that wages have not kept up with it.

North sea oil money could have been a good start.

Her promise in the first place to not touch it was deeply, deeply irresponsible.

She vocally admonished Sunak when he, probably now rightly, predicted this woukd happen.

Regardless of whether or not its tge right thing to do, both her and Starmer must go if they break such a core manifesto pledge.

Think Callaghan after devaluing the pound, after years of him saying it was unthinkable he would.

Yup. Some of my former teaching colleagues are paying the higher rate at 42%.

https://www.gov.uk/scottish-income-tax

I'm a single parent, on universal credit and earn 41k a year. I would still get UC on 46k. I'm struggling a lot. It feels weird that tax might increase for those who are also on benefits.

Except they don’t have a clue do they?
They only know the ones they have investigated and caught.

I agree with you

Why do we never hear about the free nursery hours? If the government scrapped this scheme it could save at least £6 billion and rising.

I don't know how we got to be a country of expectation and handouts. Back in the day you got family allowance and that was all. You then had to work to make your life possible. Now the government pays to fund your lifestyle if you can't manage it yourself for whatever reason, disabilities excluded. Perhaps they could also change universal credit to a minimum of 30 working hours, everyone should be able to manage that.

That’s not necessarily true.

You can go to university, have a career, not necessarily a highly paid role.

Most actual ‘wealth’ is inherited.

Many wealthy people never went to university.

Many wealthy people don’t work at all.

Wealthy companies pay lawyers to exploit tax loopholes.

We don’t see much about that in the media.

You should spoken up when Tory gave millions if unnecessary £ to people in the lockdowns, that’s what any tax rises now are about

So people would be happy to pay more tax so that we can build a SWF for future generations, hmm judging by this thread, I'm not so sure.
We spent that money as we went along on services and lower taxes. I'm sure at no point did the average man in the street say "maybe we should increase taxes to set some money aside for the demographic time bomb".
Anyway if we had ever had a SWF we'd have emptied it during the banking crisis and also during COVID. It'd still be empty now

And they certainly do exercise that right - frequently, and usually accompanied by a whole bucketload of inaccuracies and prejudices.

Pesky disabled people using up people’s taxes eh? Do feel free to complain about them some more, as is your “right”.

Incidentally, I’m not disabled and I am a tax-payer. I’m just sick of the absolute shit that’s spouted about disabled people and the benefits they claim.

Totally agree with you

If you look at mn at that time no one wanted to hear it.

One of the Conservative's great deceits over the years has been to convince people in the UK that they are paying high levels of tax. Compared with the rest of Europe this is simply not the case - particularly for higher earners. The average UK worker paid comparatively less tax on their wages in 2024 than any year since the War, and less tax than their counterparts in any other large European country. What is putting UK families under pressure is the high cost of housing, utilities, childcare, education (e.g. student load repayments) and commuting compared with the cost of these in other similar countries.

Years of under-investment have now caught up with the country. The Conservatives failed to "fix the roof when the sun was shining" preferring to give tax cuts to the wealthy and to certain business sectors when times were good in the mis-guided belief that the wealth would "trickle down" and giving away vital public utilities (water, sewerage, rail, transport, electricity and gas - and to a certain extent also housing) to their private sector chums.

Since some people are playing "Waiting List Bingo" on here, I'll add my experience. Where I now live (in Europe) there are hardly any waiting lists for health treatment. I walked in to my GP surgery yesterday and got my annual flu and covid jabs after waiting about 15 minutes in an empty waiting room. I got a GP referral letter at the same time and have booked my annual check-up with a Consultant for 3 weeks time - I've never waited more than 4 weeks for a hospital appointment. The government here spends 30% more per head per annum on healthcare than the UK does and there are twice as many doctors per head than in the UK. This has been the policy since 1945 and any politician who dared to meddle with this would be promptly booted out. When I tell my European neighbours that there are people waiting 18-24 months (or even longer) in the UK they simply don't believe that things have been allowed to get so bad.

People can blame the politicians all they want, but ultimately it is the electorate who voted for the parties and politicians that promoted austerity or which gave away the North Sea oil revenues in the form of tax cuts.

How would you feel if personal allowance was increased to say £20k py then you wouldn’t need to claim pip

Trouble is now the other countries will prob charge us as much as we stand to make in order to rejoin. Brexit will remain the most enormous act of economic self harm ever to be seen - we will always be a laughing stock now. I get we need change, we really really do - but not Nigel, he claims to want to rebuild Britain but he’s the one who destroyed any chance! Can’t believe what a mess this Country is😖

Well so what if it is inherited?! If I as a parent work long hours, my kids often don’t see me much but when I die I might be able to leave them something. Their sacrifice is that they didn’t see their parent as much as others but hopefully they got to attend good schools and university and maybe even got a deposit for a house. If everyone tried to leave the next generation better off it would be better than teaching your kids to do nothing and just claim benefits!

Well if you want to go back try blaming labours’ own Ed Milliband for fcking over his own brother in the name of power. Idiotic cretin, capturing the equally greedy unions. If Dave Milliband had been Labour leader, he probably would’ve won, far more electable. Far more clever. And then we wouldn’t have had Cameron. And who knows where we’d be now. But such is life.