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!

The pensioner groups are pretty similar to the rest of the population actually. Most having worked all their adult lives, building up pensions, paying a mortgage, putting their children through education, paying taxes, in retirement many still contribute a lot in tax on their workplace pensions and investment income, pay full council tax, help their adult children also. Quite often volunteering for the community too.

And then there's people who go through their lives - retirement? what's that? Rent paid, council tax paid, new car every few years on PIP.

There's no answer - very depressing. But for a start the triple lock should be abolished - at least that does give the message that everyone has to contribute to the mess we're in, not just working people.

We have not been well served by our politicians in all the major parties for some time but…. at least the politicians are amongst those working and paying taxes!

It’s not sustainable to have almost a quarter of our working age population not working and supported by the rest of us.

So it was all rosy before Cameron? I don’t think so. I’m 56 and people have been complaining about tax vs spending on public services for as long as I can remember!

I didn’t mention those 3 categories or indeed anything specifically.
I meant generally across the board.
I agree with your second paragraph.

Labour said the last Budget tax rises were in order to fill a 20 Billion black hole they had discovered, said black hole is now apparently at 40 Billion so that worked well didn't it.

By the next Budget is the black hole going to have doubled again to 80 Billion? At the rate Labour are going I would place a bet on it and where/who will they raise tax from to fund that?

Economic illiteracy on steriods.

"Or reason to"? Half the country could name the reasons, and half the country will be voting Reform for that reason, but the challenge has been out there for a while, there will be others waiting in the wings as well, but if "King Of The North" gets it we will be on an accelerated glide path to Farage as PM in my opinion.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/andy-burnham-challenge-keir-starmer-35962025?int_source=nba

That's the big issue isn't it. We want more doctors, hospitals better roads, better schools, more police on the streets etc etc etc but no we don't want to pay.

In less than 20 years of my working life, I’ve paid 7 figures in income tax. So, yeah, I’ve fucking PAID my tax, thanks. The point is: I haven’t sat on my arse for 20 years, but the incentive to work hard is rapidly decreasing. So there’s your larger societal problem. If the rich leave, who the fuck are you going to fleece then?

And with some of my take home, I’ve bought stocks and shares. But if I sell those, I’m getting taxed again.

I never asked to pay less tax; I asked for the rich to stop being disenfranchised from trying any more in this country.

I’m fine with being unpatriotic. This country hasn’t looked out for me. I don’t use public services.

But you go off that chip on your shoulder

Bond market showdown is the only way out, going to be really painful for those on big mortgages.

The thing is we pay the highest levels of tax we ever have already. The state is the largest it’s ever been. And it’s still neither working nor affordable…where does this end?

It is the proportion of 20 to 60 year olds who have never contributed that is the issue. Please leave pensioners out if they contributed during their working life and don't claim pension credit. Of course if they never contributed, yes they are culpable .

When are people going to wake up to the vast quantities of money that successive governments have been squandering? For example HS2 has cost £40.5 billion so far, parts of it have been scrapped and there is no completion date for it.
We are being bled dry on failed projects and money being spent overseas, with no apparent accountability (£1.5 billion to refurbish the High Commission in Kenya, for example). No wonder there is no money left for our infrastructure and services.

I dont mean to be rude OP but how much tax do you think you pay exactly? Based on your earnings that max you can pay (at £39950) is £5,474.20 if you make no pension contributions. You also presumably receive child benefit for two children at £2212.60 per year so that leaves a contribution of £3261.60 per year in tax for the lives of 4 people.
Instead of pointing the fingers at each other why dont we pressure the government to tax corporations properly? Amazon paid £0 corporation tax in the UK between 2020 and 2023 yet makes billions in profit here. They also do not pay their workers a living wage so the government tops that up for them through in work benefits. This effectively means Amazon (and companies like it) cost the UK taxpayer to exist. Meanwhile the billionaires get richer by extracting money from our economy and we fight with each other over the crumbs and lap up "man of the people" Nigel Farages populist shite.
Respectfully you need to wake up and be angry about the right thing and the right people or nothing will ever change.

Stamp duty should be paid by the seller.

Which tax rise? Nothing has been announced about which tax or how much. She may raise the higher rate or the top rate, which won't affect you at all.

In fact, given that the 20% rate is now picking up so many pensioners who only get state pension due to the low thresholds, I don't think she'll touch that at all - my money is it being either 1 or 2% on NI, the top rate or the additional rate.

Worse case scenario - if she does increase the lower rate by 1%, it will affect a salary of £40,000 (assuming no salary sacrifice, student loans or pension payment) by around £20 a month.

If your employer offers a salary sacrifice pension, you can negate the increase by paying £71 a month into the pension which will leave you with the same net pay you have now.

If your employer doesn't offer salary sacrifice, you could claw the extra tax back by paying around £90 per month into your pension - you would still be around £20 worse off a month in your take home, but there would be an additional £1300 a year in your pension 💁

I am very much in favour of the person bringing in £X pounds a year paying the same £Y pounds of tax and NI whether it comes from wages, capital gains, rents, carried interest, dividends, partnership profits or a pension.

The only people not in favour, are those getting an easy ride thanks to a tax system deliberately designed to favour the rich. They will tell you it's not fair. But it is.

These people are quite vociferous and some of them own newspapers, TV stations and think tanks propaganda outlets.

Stamp duty is part of the cost falling on the buyer.

The price of a house is what a buyer will pay

Whether it's £100 plus £10 tax, totalling £110 they pay

Or £110 plus zero tax totalling £110 they pay.

Stamp duty cuts just enrich the seller.

This is interesting.

https://obr.uk/docs/Brief_guide_March_2025.pdf

Yes you do. Everyone on MN wants to pay more tax, until they work out it’s them paying it, not some other poor poster. If everyone wants better services (course we do), that’s how that works. Fixing the foundations was always going to be expensive, if you voted for Labour, you must have expected/hoped this would happen? I’m very curious if other high earners/tax contributors will be bringing themselves under the threshold, as they simply cannot be fucked to work so hard for so little return? There comes a tipping point where your time becomes more valuable.

I'm not sure I would agree that "most" pensioners have put their children through education (public school pop is 7% of the total), nor that "most" have been building up pensions (workplace pensions only became automatic ~12 years ago and increased the number of people saving for a private pension by 10 million), nor that "most" have investment income.

There is an odd tendency in this country to assume that those who are over 65 have all been hard workers who struggled and grafted and who paid their way all their lives since they were 16, whereas the current working age population has a high proportion of loafers who sit around all day on benefits. Common sense would suggest there's a significant level of pensioners who haven't worked all their lives, who didn't pay a mortgage, and who don't have workplace pensions.

Given that the proportion of net-contributors vs net-recipients in the UK is 50-50, we could extrapolate and guess that half of the UKs pensioners will, by the end of their lives, have taken more out than they put in. Just like the rest of the population.

There is no answer really. The major issue is that successive governments, over decades, have failed to plan for the ageing population which has been coming down the line.

Looking at the triple lock like you say would be helpful, but it will be supremely unpopular politically.

55% of our welfare bill goes on the state pension and associated benefits for that age group. It eclipses anything spend on asylum seekers. Even if tomorrow we closed every single hotel and sent them all home (impossible), it would do fuck all.

They were trying to overturn it the week after the vote, they were lying to the public in the weeks before the vote - "Your house price will drop 30% if you vote to leave!" etc. etc. It is so painfully obvious that FOM is (was) designed to benefit Big Corp/ Big Bank by suppressing wages and encouraging debt consumption.

Well at least we can say without doubt the current black hole is entirely of Reeves' making. She'll be gone before Christmas.

That some, most or all of the country might not like him isn’t an electoral reason to change. They have a massive majority. In our democratic system that means they get 5 years. Most of the country felt the same way about the Tories too.
Half t( country won’t be vot8ng refom though. It’s at under a third, and that’s before tactical voting kicks in as it did in Caerphilly.

Yanbu they’ve fucked up and want people to pay for the mistake.

If some on here are keen they should do a targeted campaign called I hear you want to pay more tax.

And that money has to be paid back. At much higher interest rates than we had before Truss. The Tories wasted so much money, time and opportunities that the UK became an economic basket case. We will be living with the consequences of their incompetence and arrogance for years.

Anyone who thought this could be fixed in a year needs to give their head a wobble.