Tax: what's a fair contribution (follow on from squeezed upper middle)

[EdmondDantes]

How much do you think someone who earns the following take home after tax. This then impacts lifestyle.

A) £25k
B) 50k
C) 100k

What is your AIBU?

I don't even understand your question... Is what should they take home! or what do they take home?

I know how much they do take home as I can type the figures into a tax calculator.

It's in the Aibu as there is a thread about squeezed upper middle and it got me thinking.

How much do you think the different bands think should take home after tax?

"How much do you think the different bands should take home after tax? "

Is what I think you're trying to say?

Your first post had a 'should' missing and the second an extra 'think'.

It made it slightly confusing!

It all depends. Most voters are absolute hypocrites. Want better public services (mostly spent on them) and lower taxes. Well you can't have both. Meanwhile government panders to the older generations, giving them what they promised themselves they would have by denying the young what they once enjoyed.

Everyone wants something for nothing:

How much should someone earn pay? Another way would be how many days should they work for the government rather than their families? 40% tax = 2 days a week. 60% tax = 3 days a week. You would be working more for the government then your family.

The marginal value become relevant. If someone who earned £50k was taxed at 50% they would be left with 25k before all bills and not see their family all week. If they didn't work they would see their families. How much does the difference have to be before they choose not to work.

Current tax levels are fine. Well, I don't like paying so much tax but I don't really want service levels to drop either. So I'm happy with where the tax bands are. Kind of.

I would be hugely opposed to tax bands increasing without some sort of fundamental structural change to our society.

Tax rates not bands.

Personally I think I'd like to see VAT reduced and the balance moved to income tax, probably targeted towards higher earners. VAT disproportionately impacts on the poorest

I agree with Statistically. I also think that corporation tax enforcement needs tightening up. The government and big business have got us exactly where they want us - squabbling about whether someone on. £15k should pay X or someone on £25k should pay Y. When the real issue is the billions of corporate profit that goes untaxed.

£25k takes £20k home (works every Monday for gov)
£50k takes 36k home (28% tax works to tues lunch time for gov)
£100k takes £65 ( 35% and works to Tuesday afternoon for gov)

On some question time shows, they ask those earning to pay more but never say him much more.

The NHS has a deficit, needs funds but at the cutting edge it costs more and more to fund for diseases which we had no survival rate 10 years ago but costs £££ for the treatment. If a treatment cost £100k pm should we really be funding that through tax rises. It's emotive as if it's your family yes they should if not than is don't want to pay more tax.

Age old question. To kill 1 child to save all? East choice. To kill your child.... A tougher choice.

But you're not really working for the government are you? You're working for everyone else in the country.

So for the £25k earner - they work Monday to ensure that there are schools for their children and hospitals and doctors and vital support services for those who need them. They also pay NI to ensure that pensioners have (enough?) money to live on when they can't work and that job seekers don't fall into utter poverty whilst between jobs (haha).

It doesn't go in some big nameless pot that gets stuck in the bank - it goes back out into the country to keep it running and the vast majority of people profit from this in some way. Even if the only way is by living in a country which is predominantly literate and healthy and cared for.

A standard corporation tax across the world would prevent geographical tax arbitrage as company tend to locate in lower (not necessarily lowest).
However pension funds invest in them less tax means more dividends and growth. Only relevant if you have a non state pension.

I think we have a problem with expectations as well.

I personally would like a flat rate across all income starting from £15k.

The likelihood is that the multiplier effect of spending would encourage growth but we need to reward saving as that is then used for investment.

I think a huge tax rate after £80k

BTW for the last 10+ yrs I have, for the majority of that period, earned considerably more than £80k
I would have worked regardless of whether or not I was paying 80% tax on money above this rate.
No one needs more money than that and it causes huge divisions in the country.

I think bonuses and pay should be PAYE unless there are very peculiar circs
I think contractors should ACTUALLY be contractors or paid PAYE

I'm not sure I get your point?

Far too simplistic, OP. Just what is your point here?

Perhaps the way to look at it would be to say that the person taking home £20k would spend almost all of that on basic living costs, food, a roof over their head etc which would give them practically no 'disposable' income.

The person on £100k and taking home £65k could theoretically live on the same basic £20k if they had to, so has a disposable income of £45k to spend on whatever they choose - a bigger house, nice car and so on.

Something else to consider is whether there is only one wage-earner in the household. Two people earning a combined total of £100k would pay far less tax than a single person earning that much.

The NHS has a deficit

The NHS is not a profit making organisation and shouldn't be treated as one. So saying it has a deficit is foolish - actually the talk of deficits are about individual trusts. The government expects them to be at a surplus

Which is stupid when you break down where their income comes from. It is from charging for their treatments. The payments to cover the treatments come from the taxpayer. The whole thing is one big ponzi scheme. It is a stupid way to waste money.

I was going to say what calling said too. It's silly to frame it as 'working for the government'. You're working to pay into society and your family both directly and indirectly benefits from what people pay in through their taxes.

A flat rate across all income starting from £15k would be really unfair on the people earning £20k because the rate would be higher than they currently pay to compensate for all those higher earners paying in much less.

The fact is that £36k is a lot more than £20k to live off, and there's a really big difference between £36k and £65k. So what if it isn't double? It's still £29k more to live off.

I also agree that VAT is a horrible tax. And it's is the quintessential being taxed twice tax. People get all arsey about inheritance tax and whatever on that basis, but we still have to cough up 20% tax on a big proportion of everything we spend out of our already taxed income.

Spot on, Collaborate; the majority of people are self-interested hypocrites. All too often, polls suggest that people would like to see benefits cut and taxes raised... but only ever for other people! It's exactly the same when you read the threads about the Child Benefit cap on here - the threshold should always kick-in just above the posters' tax-band!

I'm all for tackling corporate tax avoiders, but the reality is that, if this happens, their prices will go up and/or they'll relocate (and we'll have to make up the difference some other way). Adjusting the overall tax-take is increasingly a losing game; all governments can hope to do is make the contribution profile 'fairer'.

I don't think anyone should pay tax if they are on a low wage - eg. £20k. Scrap tax credits too. Fucking stupid system of taking money off people then giving it back.

ll too often, polls suggest that people would like to see benefits cut and taxes raised... but only ever for other people!

So true - and often if you ask them how much the others should be paying/receiving they have no grasp on reality either. Several times someone has said to me "the rich should pay more tax" and once you work out what they mean by "rich" then ask them how much tax someone earning, say, £
50k should pay, the amount they think they should pay is often less than the current tax rates

But how much more is the money worth when spent in the economy rather than taken as straight income tax.

We pay for lots of things, employ one person part time, gardener, tradesmen etc. would it be better that we are taxed to a greater degree and can't employ these people and pay for their trades therefore they are then not paying so much income tax and spending the money in the economy, VAT etc.

You may pay into society but the government decides how to spend it. For example the amount raised by cars and petrol is not the amount spent on roads and assocaited services. However the government have decided that is how they want to one revenue stream to be generated (ie tax the people who use cars). That is why I used the phrase working for the government as we have little control over that. The government (HMRC) accumulate the personal tax funds for a central pot and then a funding is distributed accordingly to smaller bodies. (This is a side point)

The point of the tread was just to see how much people thought others should contribute. Should tax be regional? £100k in London is worth less than £100k outside of London due to cost of living. Should they pay more as they have more free cash? Maybe we have specific taxes ( NHS, fire etc)?

Where ever you pick the tax starting point it would be unfair to some one. If we lifted the tax start point to £50k. How much would the higher earners now have to pay? What would the impact be on tax revenue and thus total Society funds. Would that be be enough encourage more people to work.

The idea was to get people to engage as I am generally interested, its not meant to inflame or offend.