To feel that having nearly half of your salary taken away is just not right?

[WinnieTheWho]

I don't earn enough to pay tax & NI but my DH has a pretty good job & salary for which he works BLOODY hard. I was horrified to work out after last pay day that for EVERY £1 he earned, he only kept 60 pence. This is due to a combination of paying very high income tax and NI, as well losing all of his personal allowance because he might get a bonus at the end of the year! It just seems that if you work hard to get paid well and you are a PAYE taxpayer, the Government & HMRC will just shaft you from all angles. It just makes me wonder why we bother? So... AM I BEING UNREASONABLE?

It does make a better Britain. Better than it would be if you didn't pay it.

Just noticed people mentioning Adele. can anyone like to where she has supposedly said this? I know her from my school days and would be shocked if it true.

Maybe we should get more of a shared identity.

i agreee but have zero idea as to how

Ah well, its always good to have a moan! Im afraid I come from a socialist stand where the more you earn, the more you should pay towards society. Im glad I live in a country where we take care of our poor with the benefit system, our children with free schooling and our sick with free hospitals. The well off should help out those less fortunate.

How much tax would you want to pay realistically? You should probably feel grateful that you have managed to find a good man who earns enough to pay high taxes and is able to keep you from working.

Someone earlier mentioned that the benefit system is sometimes abused. But rich people also abuse the tax system by avoiding taxes. If you are upset at paying taxes you should hire an accountant to see if there are any loopholes, or move to Monaco!

I dont think you should be slated though. As humans we always want more than what we have, wether its the benefits cheat on the wrong side of town, or the stinking rich who want to get richer. We seem to have lost our humanity along the way.

Why is this turning in to a competition about who is more disheartened?

Disheartened has bugger all to do with it.

Most HRT payers would be able to acknowlegde that life can be a struggle for someone who works 50 hours a week on NMW, so why can't those NMW earners acknowledge that it might not be a bed of roses on the other side of the fence either?

Whats so hard to understand about someone being pissed of that 40% of money that they earn is taken away to pay for services, yet when they themselves need those services they find they are of such a low standard that they end up paying twice?

It's all very well to believe that the NHS is fantastic resource that we should be grateful for and want to support through tax. But then when you see how good healthcare can be when you pay privately for it, you realise how much you have been taken for a ride.

Immigration levels in Norway are at 13% against Swedens 15% so slightly less.

If people go private they choose to pay twice. The state provision will always be there such as when the private patient needs to be blue-lighted over to high dependancy NHS care - not an uncommon occurrence.

Shared identity?

I think royal jubilees, street parties, etc is a good start. Make it annual, and celebrate Britain rather than the royal family?

There is a lot of good in and about the UK that is worth celebrating.

Paying 50%+ tax at 150k salary levels is a mugs game.

Go visit a good accountant and then laugh in the faces of heckling ungrateful MW posters demanding you pay more to subsidise their services.

The threshold where a person takes out of the system to where they start to pay more in is about 20k or something, so bear that in mind all you 'I pay tax too' posters.

I spent a lot of time in scandinavia - the services are no better then we get here but the headline tax rates are a lot higher. I say headline rates, becasue we pay so many additional taxes here in the UK that the overall take is about the same I suspect.

40% is a lot of tax. 50% is one of the highest rates in the world and made us uncompetitive. It was brought in by Labour when they knew they were going to lose out to the Tories, and its been hugely successful if the class warfare faux-wailing is any measure.

"heckling ungrateful MW posters demanding you pay more to subsidise their services."

Why should anyone be "grateful"? It's not like people pay taxes out of the goodness of their heart :o

It's all very well to believe that the NHS is fantastic resource that we should be grateful for and want to support through tax. But then when you see how good healthcare can be when you pay privately for it, you realise how much you have been taken for a ride.

Agree 100%. And I would add, when you see how vastly superior it is in other countries where it is also free at the point of delivery but privately run.

TheUnMember

According to the last census the UK has a 90% caucasian population. The last Swedish census says Sweden has a 92% caucasian population.

That was the 2005 census, before the Unlimited Immigration policy rolled out by the last government.

He might get a bonus waaa waa waa

Omg I thought the NHs system was really a bit ehhh until I moved to the u.s. I would LOVE to have that here with all it's faults

Yes, Hop - but the world does not only consist of the UK and US health systems does it? Despite what the left likes to pretend when anyone mentions NHS reform!

Sauvignon, it's not always much of a choice though when you either stick with the NHS and wait for months in pain, or unable to work or drive, when you could just pay the money and receive the treatment you already thought you woud get because you have paid tax.

That's the position my family is in at the moment. My dh has had eye problems and the care on the NHS was literally risking his eyesight for good. There was no continuity of care so he would see different people at each appointment, those people were so stretched they had only briefly looked at his notes and history so couldn't possibly give the best advice or work out the best treatments. Then when it was decided he should see a consultant because the junior doctors recommended an operation we waited 5 months just to be told that yes he did need the operation and it woudo be another six month wait. And in all that time things could deteriorate to the point where they were beyond repair, which would not only leave our lives destroyed, but would cost the system a fortune in terms of care and lost taxes on top.

So when it looked like we were going to face all of that for a second time, was it really a choice to go private? Because I would say it was a need far more than it was a choice.

The u.s. privately system is complete and utter balls. It sucks so much.

Beagle precisely! we are fed this line about how great teh NHS is - teh enyvy of the world etc, and then you go to France and see that the state provision is as good if not better than private care here.
And we have also been conned by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair into belieing it is out taxes that have have pad for the obscenely infated public secotr in this country - they bought votes by borrowing, not by taxation - so will have somehow to be paid back, and is which is why we are in the mess we are now.

Beagle they are only my experiences though and I thoroughly hate our system here.

(sorry about autocorrect's addition to my post. Must learn to proofread.)

I can see the problems with the us system,but there is something to be said for making private companies have a responsibility towards the health of their employees. At least that way some people get good care rather than none of us, which is what happens here.

Outraged. If I paid taxes in the uk and for bupa it would still be cheaper than here.