To think we are ALL assisted by the tax payer in some way

[CordeliaStarling]

Im fed up of hearing people moaning about families who they perceive to get too much aid from 'the taxpayer'

I can't believe there is a single person in the UK who doesn't receive any kind of help or use a service that is funded by the tax payer.

Dowager would you really trust this shower to spend extra tax money wisely? Or the last bloody lot?

Frankly, I wouldn't trust them with my DC's pocket money.

For those that can't be arsed to read the link, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Ireland and Sweden have a higher top rate. Austria and Belgium have had 50% top rate for some time

Well, I do agree to a certain extent that we all benefit from government spending, but some who 'benefit' actually lose out in the end because they paid well over the odds for the benefit they receive.

The government spent nearly £200 billion on the welfare state last year, by far the biggest expense. By contrast, the next biggest was the NHS at just over £100 billion. Law and order, education, transport were tiny expenditures by comparison.

Your argument seems to rest on the premise that spending in all areas is more or less equal, when it isn't, so therefore your logic doesn't quite stack up.

The figures support the view that those who put in the least, take out the most and vice versa.

No, good point, wordfactory :(

Dh was having a moan about his tax bill the other day. Whilst his personal bill is high I reminded him what we have used recently. School and NHS services being the main two. We've had more than our fair share of our NHS for various reasons this year and boy are we grateful. Although now we have private medical through his work we are going to try and use that a bit more where we can.

I think all net contributors to taxation have a cut-off point where we feel we are being ripped off (probably more by political and administrative inefficiency than by "benefit scroungers") our hard earned bucks. Which is perfectly reasonable.

agree totally with wordfactory.
would like all governments to tighten up on company/business tax. We are both paye and pay a huge amount of tax, we know very many people with similar incomes pre tax who have their own businesses and pay very little tax legally - why is this permitted

I remember reading that you have to have a personal income over £100,000 to have any chance of being a net contributor. That's something like 3% of the country or less.

Where did you read that? It's bollocks, wherever it was.

The OP is right in saying that nearly everyone is getting more than they are paying in. The reason for this which is rarely mentioned is the fact that the government is spending around £150 billion a year more than it is getting from tax revenue. This is totally unsustainable. The government has two options either massive spending cuts in welfare, schools and hospitals etc or keep borrowing the difference until which will eventually lead to collapse in the bond markets and our currency. Either way we are screwed.

So what are the correct figures shelly?

Ladies try living in Ireland (I have recently moved back home).
You pay 52% when you earn over ?40k and have to pay ?55 every time you go to the doctor or ?100 when you go to A&E. No dental treatments are free and a large percentage of families pay ?2k+ per annum for private healthcare as the public system is appalling. This tax rate is made up of the base tax rate, along with social contributions. Local taxes are being introduced which will probably add another ?1k a year.

On the plus side, non fee paying schools are generally excellent and fee paying is state subsided so considerably cheaper than the UK.

My family and I are huge contributors.

This is interesting re net contributors.
www.ifs.org.uk/publications/4813

Of course everyone gets some benefit from tax revenue - road maintenance, emergency services that are there in case they are needed. But some people are net contributors and others are net beneficiaries. It depends on health, whether you have children, etc but only generally only about the top 10% of earners are net contributors to the Treasury in the UK.

This is an interesting calculator:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13633966

According to this the split is 70% net beneficiaries/30% net contributors. But it also depends on family size, etc.

Link didn't work. I'll try again:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13633966

Paying 50p in tax... 50p.

Going out of your front door and finding people happy and smiling, trusting each other, clean fresh air, green plants and flowers.... priceless.

If I went out of my front door, and there was someone named George stabbing people, I wouldn't want to live there, no matter how low my tax was!

Do you pay the 50p rate sparrow?

I quite like paying tax. When I added it up and found it would pay for perhaps a part time nurse or teacher, that made me feel :)

Rich people and companies should be able to volunteer to pay extra tax. They can then compete in the newspapers for who is the most useful to Britain.

wordfactory - not at the moment, but I'd like to

Though not.

Well, they are the people who are making the most money out of this country so why not?

Are you implying that rich people are all selfish?

and a 0.5% tax rate on wealth is so small, its really very decent and reasonable.

According to that calculator we pay more than we receive AT THE MOMENT but we are ttc and i will probably have an nhs birth and we're 99% likely to use state schools (unless unforseen circs) and i will more than likely have an nhs death.

Not at all.

We are not all selfish, that is my point. We pay our taxes, we're not dodging them, we're not suggesting flat rates etc.

But we don't make money out of the country as you put it. What does that even mean? We make money from our labour. From our goods. From our services.

And if we earn a pound, then I feel we should be able to keep more than half of it. If someone wants to give us that pound, then that is entirely a different matter.