..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?

YANBU

Al0uiseG I don't think Posie's position is unusual- see my post above. I am currently SAHM and my husband's position on tax is the same as mine. And if it wasn'tI don't think the fact that I personally am not paying income tax right now means I can't have an opinion on it.

Al)uiseG. My husband doesn't really have his own POV, he's been with me too long!! And he really doesn't mind, all of our children were caesarean section and so we're pretty thankful for the tax contributions of all. And even though we've been quite rubbish with money we got to keep our nice house and live in an area where our children are safe.

I'm not sure anyone opens a pay packet and jumps for joy at never seeing half of it, but as that half is more income than most households you'd have to be pretty dreadful to complain.

Actually Meditrina, we raise much more in income tax than corporation tax.

In 2010-2011 we raised £153billion via income tax against £42 billion in corporation tax.

The rest I agree with.

My DH pays the top rate of tax, which he is happy to do as he also believes in contributing to a civil society with a safety net as the OP says. He is now over 50 and has always worked long hours (now leaves the house at 6am and is home at 7pm so he can see the children).

The higher rate of tax has had an impact in that we now have less disposable income (huge mortgage and school costs) and he is keen to save for his pension so there is actually much LESS money going back into the economy eg into local shops, paying for services etc so I'm not actually sure it is good for the economy. I know for sure that if the 50% rate was scrapped we would do a building project that is currently on hold so the money would go straight into the local economy.

I don't know any higher rate taxpayers in the UK who are complaining.

I do know plenty of expats who were previously based in the UK being moved out of London.

Happened with us, DH works for a multi-national, they scaled down their London office massively in 2010 and moved all of the big earners out of the UK and made most of the people who kept the office running redundant.

He does the same job now as he was doing then and actually has a higher net income, but it costs the company less for him to do that job here rather than in London.

Scary for the UK, it is all very funny saying 'piss off then', but the problem is that they mostly own the bat and ball and will take it home with them.

One of the reasons it suits DH's company to have him here rather than London now is that while Europe is sliding, Asia is still booming. Brazil is another place where lots of expats are now being sent. Sao Paulo is really starting to make its mark. London shouldn't assume that because it has been important for so long and is well placed for Europe that it will always be so important to the world economy.

Empires rise and fall.

Peachy you may have hit on something with the landlord point. Not so much big landlords, but I think a lot of people buy-to-let on very tight margins and actually can't afford to maintain the property correctly or fulfil their obligations to the tenant. Tenant perception is that the landlord is rich when they are in fact only just collecting enough rent to scrape the mortgage, and landlord perception is that the tenant is asking for too much. Especially prevalent where people let out existing home and buy a new one, because the landlord is then thinking 'well we lived with X problem/issue, why can't they'.

Just to add a few more facts into the mix
Independent research commissioned by the Corporation of London has shown that
Financial services account for 10% of UK GDP and contribute £53bn in tax revenue (more than any other sector of the economy).

So much as you may dislike the 50% tax rate paying bankers, its not really in anyone's interest to see them move elsewhere.

Actually, "because they can afford it", is quite good logic. If you want to maximise short term tax revenues, you go where the money is. People on 150-500k are rich enough to fleece, but probably not quite rich enough to be able to bugger off to Monaco and hide their incomes. So they make great cash cows for the taxman. And there are few enough of them that they aren't a big worry at elections.

Another wee trick they had was getting rid of the personal allowance for anyone on over £100k. In fact, the personal allowance goes down by £2 for every extra £1 you earn - so if you earn between £100k and £113k you pay a marginal 200% tax rate !!!!

That one came as a nice little surprise in my tax coding last year :)

better I think you have put your finger on the problem.

Is it better for the country as a whole for you to pay £x in tax, or for you to spend it?
It is a fine balance.
Politically, it makes sense to make you pay it in tax, thus keeping plenty of voters happy by the supposed fairness of it.
But practically it may make a lot more sense to let you spend it, thus employing people, buying their goods (who in turn employ people) etc etc. The net benefit may be much greater.

Even the politicians admit that the benefit of the later might be greater and accept the higher rate is purely symbolic. But it would be a brave politician who tears down a symbol.

mal yes, neither DH nor I have an allowance.

mal - dh is in that situation. However I run my own business and only work 2 days a week and come up with enough solutions to be tax efficient to balance him out.

wf didn;t Ed Balls say exactly that on the Beed yesterday? Sure he did; was advocating for a cut in VAT rates to encourage spending.

Whatever they do they need to implement it quickly, growth is under 1% and that double dip is looking more and more likely.

I wonder if a big cut in the fuel escalator plus a decent vat cut might help things along. After all fuel costs drive prices.

Someone working FT for £11,500 pa still has to pay 20% tax on their earnings that are over the tax threshold. Which leaves them with no disposable income to pay for cleaners etc. Which means as well as working bloody hard FT, they STILL have to go home and do all of those jobs too, and get less sleep. They are left with such a small amount of earnings after tax - much MUCH less than someone earning enough to have to pay 50% tax. Who can afford the nicer things in life rather than worrying about whether they have enough food for the week to feed their dc.

YABU.

Ooops - OP! Meant YANBU

Perhaps Custard; was just saying that people in pilitics are aware of teh point about encoraging spending: a point he amde whether or not his solution would work or not.

' If VAT was cut, they would keep the prices the same or do a tiny decrease so instead of only making a £5 profit per item for example, they would be able to make a £7.50 profit per item.

Actually where I am that didn;t ahppen with the last cut, prices did go down (by about 1% less than cut and it snuck back on when it went back up ) at enough of a level that you could notice it on a shopping bill.

Cn't speak for everywhere else of course, just my own town and city.

loudlass I see that of course. But the low earner won't have any more to spend just because the higher earner is taxed more.

Indeed the low earner will have nothing to spend if the company he works for goes under because the higher earners aint spending.

One of the people who work for me was telling me yesterday that her DH is going to close his business. It's a small business paying him a reasonable wage and employing about ten other men. It makes moulds. One of things it makes moulds for is a particular bit of a luxury car, but unfortunately no one is buying those luxury cars at the moment and the contract has been cancelled.

It might not seem much but it means eleven men out of work. Eleven men not spending their wages and paying their taxes. Eleven men now in need of benefits.

And of course the buiness will no longer pay an accountant to do its books. It won't take an advertisement in the yellow pages or whatever. Thos emen won't get their bacon butties form the nearest sandwich bar.

So yes, the extra tax paid by the higher earner will help pay for some services that all those other people can access (indeed they'll need to access a hell of a lot more now they're unemployed) but it might have had more far reaching benefit if the higher earner had spent it instead.

That depends WF

Dh will have more if other s spend more as he is a sole trader with an internet shop.

So cuts in VAt etc do directly help the smallest of businesses, and we are equally low earners.

But helping us to grow by freeing up money has to be balnced with providing teh services that help us survive now and certainly locally that are being cut- business support etc.

It's a balancing act.

If we can afford to keep DH trading for this last year until he is able to go FT (when he graduates) then we should be away and hopefully hiriong ourselves first; but in that time we will need to be able to not lose the house and end up in a B&B, have to restrict our energy consumption due to cash flow.

Indeed peachy it is getting the balance right that is tricky and deciding what will be more efficient in terms of bringing in the most revenue for the treasury.

Absolutely

Because having a system that costs as much to adminster as it brings in hurts everyone

But governments of all flavours are prone to that, it's the departmentalisation that does it I think; councils are buggers for it- you get (in my world) chidlren's services fighting to save 50 quid when it would save adult services 50 grand.

Lack of joiced up thinking but equally a lack of access to proper costings and stats that let us as voters work out what's really happening.

peachy you alwys come across as calm, cool and reasonable.

I know you have your difficulties with your boys and their DXs, but your quiet intelligence is telling.