..to want to say to those who are whinging about the 50% tax rate

[vic77en]

..that they should fuck the fuck off?

At a time when lots of people are really struggling with high inflation, 20% VAT, high unemployment, lack of living wage etc etc.

If you're earning above the 50% threshold you are well off and can afford it.

I used to earn enough to pay 40% tax (this was before the 50% rate came in and I was nowhere near the 50% threshold) and did not begrudge paying this. If NI and VAT were factored in, over 50% of my income went in taxes. I still had high disposable income.

Rather than giving their views airtime, there should be a massive PR exercise on the benefits to all of us of living in a civil society where there is an economic safety net, NHS, free education (for under 18's at least still...)

AIBU or not?

YABU the Government taxes people far too much and to tax our most successful people so punitively is madness. The Government spends far too mucg money on welfare,defence and prisons to name a few. Taxes should be cut across the board to make our economy more competitive and attractive to business, this includes the 50% tax rate

noviceoftheday Thu 08-Sep-11 15:03:45
Posie, I tend to come over as patronising when people talk over emotional shite at me without any due account of the facts.

Did you mean emotive? Nothing emotional about my posts....

And China and Hong Kong expect more than 16% from ex pats, plus there's no health care and, unless you want to talk about renting in Hong Kong which outweighs any tax decrease, China is a very very hard country to live in.

This tax rate will raise £2.7bn to close the UK?s fiscal deficit caused by the failure of UK banks.

A cut in the 50% tax rate is probably the least likely to boost the economy. Cutting it will boost savings, of which we already have a glut, or house prices in the south-east, which are already too high. There?s little or no chance it will stimulate spending.

Nor will it boost entrepreneurship, which is about people taking risks and creating companies. Most people earning £150,000 a year do neither. They speculate for banks and pension funds using other people?s money (where, let it be noted, most have been so successful that their average rate of return in the last decade has been about zero at best) or they rise through the ranks of multinational corporations, enjoying secure employment and large pensions until appointed to positions where they can distort pay and rewards in their own favour. As a result their main contribution to society is, in fact, to increase the income and wealth gaps, which we know produces worse outcomes for all.

I have to add that the tax companies leave for is more likely to be corporation tax and not personal income for it's employees.

The 50% tax debate is splitting hairs, the country is destined for sluggish growth for the foreseeable future (as are most of the developed economies). Government complacency and irresponsibility in recent years has meant our economy is highly levereaged due to eye-watering levels of personal and public debt. Whether the top rate of tax is 40 or 50 % won't change this and will have minimal impact on future economic propspects. The emerging markets such as China and Russia who have things others want to buy combined with sound fiscal positions and little private debt are going to be the countries that prosper.

"Most people earning £150,000 a year do neither. They speculate for banks and pension funds using other people?s money "

Do you actually know this for a fact, ThePosieParker? I am honestly not trying to be provocative, I just genuinely want to know what your background is. You have made quite a few hugely sweeping statements about people who earn more than £150k (...what about those who don't 'earn' it, but who have an income at that level because they are independently wealthy? From share portfolios, savings, property etc?) I am just curious as to where you have got this information, do you work in banking/economics or something?

I think we're making UK plc extremely attractive to people who will initially contribute the least and extremely unattractive to those who could contribute the most, with immediate impact.

If I was the chancellor I would be making UK The most attractive place in the world to base a business, I'd offer the company huge tax breaks just to get here and pay their staff in Sterling. Those staff would then settle here, contribute financially and boost our poor flagging country that seems to comprise of more net takers than net givers.

I don't think that even people on £150k+ have secure employment nowadays, Posie Parker; I know that I don't.

I would dispute your point about entrepreneurship as well, in a roundabout way; of my acquaintance, several people earning good salaries are currently supporting their partner's attempts to launch their own businesses.

'1) Politics. It doesn't play well with the less well off in society who can vote and passionately believe the rich should pay for the poor. And the signal this would send would be political suicide.

I am less well off and absolutely happy with a flat rate if it doesn't mean further cuts to services.

Leare if you think too much is spent on welfare you come plan my budgets for next eyar please, becuase I am failing to make the post-cut figures work for us. Now I hope I am back in work and that Dh ahs enough contracts for his freelancing to pay off, so that we can not have to deal with the fall out, but I am not the only person stuck in this silly situation unfortunately.

posie you seem very very sure of exactly what we higher earners do. How we behave etc.

Yet I can assure you that as far as DH and I concerned, you are abslutely incorrect.

Salaried people on 150k plus are far from secure. Especially speculators and traders who have to show a return just to ensure their salary is paid. If you don't produce, your contract wont be renewed.

Posie - DH could earn £150k+ if he was prepared to take a very insecure contract. He chooses to earn less and have more security, for the moment at least.
Very, very few people have a job for life any longer.

We're a family of £150k plus too....we're not particaularly secure....just finished a bout of debt, but I assume our fucking ridiculous money management is atypical. I've read economics online articles.

I do love the fact that 'we' high earners wouldn't possibly include me or my DH!!

I can only imagine that if you, like us, aren't pretty darn well off then you are crap with money. That's not the government's fault now is it? I can't imagine Doctors moan about tax, afterall it pays their wages. My DH is in sales, nasty business, and then what's left? Law, Accountancy? All pretty astute with their money.

Posie - trust me, doctors moan about tax

Besides the point is that unless you're earning a fortune over £150k the tax increase makes little difference, and then if you're earning £500k plus I can't see that 10% income tax rise on 60% of your income, or whatever, would make you move countries.....you'd still be fabulously well off. Adn, as said time and time again, when you get to millions per annum you are far too clever with tax to pay so much!!

Not the ones I know, but they do seem to marry eachother and so have two hefty incomes!!

The Bride - "Yeah, but Europe is almost certainly going to get less tolerant, and Asia more so, purely as a result of economic failure/ success. May as well beat the rush"

You're not being serious are you? I would rather not live in a country with political posters like this: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6980766.stm

Further to the point. The current Private Eye p3, has a very good article on the new soft deal for those who use Swiss facilities to evade (that evade as is illegal btw, not avoid) UK tax.

That link again: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6980766.stm

I think the moaning is done in private - obviously not very politic to say anything in front of others.

I think you are being narrow with your choice of jobs that can attract that kind of salary. Lots of things pay very well if you are good enough at them.

Once again I am living in a parallel universe to Mumsnet, everyone I know moans about tax and the inefficiencies in it's redistribution. How many of us would pay it if it were voluntary?

About as many as the airline passengers who choose to pay the offset tax - something in the region of bugger all per cent.

I was going to cite the same article as madrush pointing out how big the contribution of the top 1% of UK earners is - 25.7% of the total tax revenue, as opposed to 11% in 1978. To me that seems like quite a reasonable contribution and can understand that they would feel a bit burdened by paying more.

I am happy to pay taxes and am proud of the fact that I contribute to the society I live in. (although I currently pay 50% of everything I earn in the country I live in which I do find a lot considering the quality of public services is not outstanding).

So do you actually have any specific knowledge about this, ThePosieParker, aside from your own anecdotal experiences? Or are you just making these sweeping statements up as you go along?

• Nobody leaves the country for tax reasons
• People who earn £150k or above mostly do X jobs
• Lawyers and accountants are astute with (their own) money

I have read most of this thread- was trying to post on my phone but got deleted.

OP YANBU. I agree with create.

However I doubt many people on the 50% tax rate choose to move all their affairs overseas. Economics assumes that humans act rationally in the most economically favourable way. This has been shown to be false.

I think it is interesting that it is assumed that people earning this must be working very hard, or particularly clever or entrepreneurial, and not just lucky, which is what they are. DH and I are comfortably off (not £150k well off but well off enough) and we could afford to pay more tax, and would do so gladly if our rate went up. We have each worked hard but I do not for one second think I have worked any harder than a lot of people on £20k, or carers on benefits, or single parents etc.

It's simply not true to say if you have more money you deserve it in some way. I'm a legal aid lawyer in crime and mental health. If I had gone into corporate/tax (and yes my degree is good enough) I could have been earning £50k as a trainee and £100k plus by now, and I am nowhere near. Yes the hours are long, but I work long hours too, and get called out in the middle of the night. It's not about who deserves more it is the weird way we value different types of work in this society.

I doubt that NHS consultants are top of the list to relocate- most are probably in the work for reasons other than earning as much as possible.

I also don't think it is right to say, 'I wouldn't mind if the government spent it properly', you can argue that about any tax rate. It's just that only the very rich can opt out of services (and the country). I hate what this government is doing, but I deal with that by voting.

Oh, and to go back to a post earlier, I am sure Singapore is a wonderful place if you are well off. If you are poor I should think that 'about a fiver' to see a doctor is quite significant, and I wonder what happens if you are out of work?

OK rant over. Didn't plan to go on that long!

haven't read the whole thread but...

It's very easy to sit and slate others when you're not one of them, isn't it? Let's take 50% out of the equasion here, let's look at 40%.

I wonder, how many people on this thread saying that certain people within the 40% bracket should pay more earn enough as a couple to fall into the 40% tax bracket?

If the government suddenly changed the law tomorrow to say that income would be taxed on households rather than individuals, would people still be in favour? Somehow I don't think so.

What I find incredible is that the high-earning sectors behave as if the difficulties they encounter aren't the same in lots of other lower-paid sectors.

Salaried people on 150k plus are far from secure. Especially speculators and traders who have to show a return just to ensure their salary is paid. If you don't produce, your contract wont be renewed.

Al0uiseG, exactly the same instability, if not worse applies in the theatre sector, which is incredibly poorly paid (or expected that you frequently work for nothing or below the minimum wage), and where you have to earn your place to stand still. On £15k a year. I'm not exaggerating. This is a sector where contracts of longer than a couple of months are the exception rather than the rule. In comparison to, say France or Germany, British theatremakers are much more poorly paid, have virtually no employment rights, no security if they are ill, no maternity benefits. Public funding has evaporated. We are expected to perform miracles of entrepreneurship to get shows up and in front of audiences. Yet the UK has one of the strongest theatre scenes in the world. Despite working conditions being better elsewhere we haven't all flounced off.

High-rate tax-payers, despite threats, stay here because, relatively speaking, we have world-class culture and entertainment, safe streets, excellent schools, excellent policing, peace, free speech and because the children of the wealthy aren't going to be kidnapped and held hostage. All of those things exist because, in large part, we have a strong state, paid for through tax, that protects people from total destitution. If the rich want to bugger off to, oh, I don't know, Brazil, and shell out for private security and hijack insurance instead of tax then good luck to them, their selfishness won't be missed.

The UK isn't a plc.

I see your point Quodlibet but comparing those two sectors is a bit far out.