To really resent the amount of tax we pay.

[KettleBelles]

I hate it, we pay a vast amount of tax to live in a country where we can't see a GP for a fortnight, feel criminalised every time we go to an airport, pay even more tax again to drive a car on inadequate and over crowded roads. Get squashed on crowded transport which is filthy and unreliable, where criminals seem to always be on the beneficial side of human rights.

I can't be the only one who feels like this?

I think my tax bill is too high. wouldn't like to live in the US though.

If you have been surprised by a sudden tax bill then you are probably taking minimum wage out of a business you own as wages and paying yourself the balance in dividends thereby avoiding paying National insurance on anything about minimum wage. So you're probably already paying a fair bit less than someone on a normal salary.

I'm an accountant - you would be amazed at how many supposedly intelligent people spend all the money they "earn" in a year and are caught out by their tax bill. I have one very sensible client who asked me each month or so how mush she needs to keep aside for tax.

If you are on a normal salary and you have an unexpected tax bill then your employer has probably cocked up your PAYE.

Yes it DOES take 2 weeks to get an appointment unless it's urgent and for a child. not here I can ring tonight or first thing in the morning and get a same day appt. It's harder to book a routine appt in fact because about 85% of them are same day bookings.

If you pay 'a lot' or 'an obscene' amount of tax, it's because you earn 'a lot' or 'an obscene' amount of money

I have been rich and I have been poor, I have had a state education and so does my child, my life has been saved by the NHS as has my mothers. I feel very thankful that I didn't whine like a baby when I was on higher rate and not using many public services or I sure would have had to eat my words a few years later.

The discussion about best use of public resources is a different one and sadly we have a very old very creaky system thanks to having a very old very creaky country and sometimes it's hard to start from scratch with the perfect system.

But the poster who used the Cayman islands as an example of how to get it right did make me giggle. There's about 60,000 on the whole of the Cayman islands with a multi-million pound tax haven industry protecting the likes of Facebook from paying UK taxes! It's not my idea of a blueprint for the perfect country!

Queen really??? so because the wages are higher down South, then it's OK not to have access to as much of the NHS? or to have roads that are not as well maintained?

Really? I mean you really think that you should only get access to what the State is providing to the whole community depending on how much tax you pay. So if you are a high earner, you can have access to more of the NHS service maybe or it's OK to have the police spending more time on the home being burglar than if you are poor?

Because that's what you are implying.

Because the amount of money spend per person on education and the NHS is lower in the North than in the South despite the fact the needs of the population in the North are higher (poorer health, more issues with education etc)

Friar that is complete nonsense. More deprived areas receive proportionately more money for health and education. As they should.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/commissioning/commissioning-topics/ccgs/new-ccg-funding-formula-will-exacerbate-north-south-divide/20004769.article#.VM0pSMseLqA

north-south divide on nhs funding

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/health/north-east-loses-out-extra-8445767

biggest increases in budgets go to conservative and liberal voting areas

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10250723/New-website-exposes-postcode-lottery-of-cancer-care.html

cancer care
significant differences
guess what
its london and home counties that come out best again

moving on to the london-centric education funding policy

Missed chances to introduce a fairer school funding formula

gu.com/p/3zex9

Its not just direct tax such as income and national insurance and that's it you don't get taxed anymore....

1. If you dare to buy a house or move house you have to pay Stamp Duty Land tax

2. Almost all goods and services (except books, children's clothes and food) you purchase include 20% VAT but fuel and power are taxed at 5%

3. If you have dared to make something of yourself and leave behind your house (which you already paid tax on) and any savings over xx amount when you die then that is taxed.

4. If you dare to save money and take a risk buying shares and make over a certain amount you pay capital gains tax despite you taking 100% of the risk

5. If go travel by air or pay for petrol, fags or alcohol then you pay excise duty

6. Council tax

I wouldn't want to pay more taxes right now because I there is an incredible amount being wasted.

Quite a few people have posted that the rich should pay more but I don't see where people are also then saying those on benefits who can work and choose not to work should get a job and pay their taxes instead of taking out of the system when they may not have not even contributed one bit.

3) If you have dared to make something of yourself and leave behind your house (which you already paid tax on) and any savings over xx amount when you die then that is taxed.

4) If you dare to save money and take a risk buying shares and make over a certain amount you pay capital gains tax despite you taking 100% of the risk

This is how it should be!

YABU. I could pay more tax, relatively easily, and would be more than happy to do so (provided it was going into public services rather than military 'investment'). I'm on around a median income for my age group, so anyone above that could also pay more unless they are really shite at managing their money and/or insist on living in the south east for whatever bizarre reason. Really do not see why people don't ask why they are not given the option of being taxed more rather than having inhumane cuts forced upon the worst off- I for one would be extremely happy to pay up to maybe a couple of hundred a month more if it meant that GPs would be less shit, and benefits would be increased to a living level. I would have to cut back on some things to do so but it would be worth it.

Why RandomNPC? You go to work earn money which is taxed so what you have left over shouldn't then be taxed again when you die. If you saved your money to buy a house you have 1) paid tax on they money you earned then 2) pay another tax in form of stamp duty to buy a house and then 3) if you pass that on after you die it is taxed a third time. It's bloody disgraceful really.

If you take your money and invest in shares and take 100% of the risk of possibly losing all your money why should you pay tax on that?

YANBU

I can't get a doctor's appointment for several weeks if routine, an urgent appointment takes a week, the ambulances are queuing outside the local A+E for hours and the library is being shut down.. I don't use the state school system as it let us down, but appreciate we are lucky to have options.

This would be easier to accept if the poorest children of society were being looked after but they are not.. Not by a long shot.

Hard to see what we get for our top rate of tax at all..

Sorry but I'm another that partly resents how much tax I have to pay. Some of it now in the 40% level. Yes, on paper I earn a decent income. I have no assets so no home and due to my age it's doubtful I'll be able to afford one. I believe in fairly high taxes for the good of society (would hate the US system) but due to outgoings I'm in the squeezed middle. I wear my DS's old socks to save money (boo hoo).

I think the 40% rate of tax threshold needs to be raised another £10,000 or £20,000 then I'd be happier. Only on MN would you hear someone say "I'm proud to pay my tax" or "I'm happy to pay my tax". What a lot of goody goodies. Happy to look after others as people's circumstances change and of course in the future I may take out of the system but I also need to look after myself. If my tax amount was lowered even slightly I could afford a mortgage which would only help me being less of a burden to the state in the future. I'm still pissed off as a single working parent I don't get child benefit while friends with two working people in the family on almost twice my income do get it. Excuse me for being a bit pissed off when I did a bank transfer yesterday for £15k for the half year, knowing I'm going to have to top that up for the excess in July.

Oh and I don't believe that by the time I am of retirement age in say 30yrs time there will be a state pension yet here I am paying my NI in the hope there will be one and if there isn't will I get all my money back that I paid in? Like heck I would.

My mum paid her taxes for over 30yrs and a few yrs back she had an accident at work (not her fault) and could not work as she recovered and when she has and now wants to go back to work she cannot find a job so where is her JSA benefit? She gets nothing, no help despite paying her NI all those years. NI is there to provide assistance to those who are sick,unemployed,retired etc. you pay it to qualify for those benefits. Well what was the point in her paying because its certainly not providing the help she should be getting.

My GP is also one where you can't get an appointment. Ring at 8am they say. I ring and ring 30 times and at 8.05 get through to be told all appointments gone. I self medicate now with antibiotics I buy OTC abroad and keep my fingers crossed nothing more serious happens to me.

The NHS is in trouble because of ideological attacks by government. The ridiculous Health and Social Care Act cost billions to implement, money that could have been ploughed into health care. This is after the Tories promised 'no top down reorganisation of the NHS.' That was a blatant lie, as about two weeks after the election they started their farcical reorganisation plans. Ever been had? Hospitals are being funded by PFI, started under the last Labour government and enthusiastically pursued by the Tories. This costs a fucking fortune in the long run, and is really causing problems for NHS trusts.
The NHS is being run down in order to make private involvement palatable. The aim is to get the public to think 'how could it be any worse if Virgin or Circle Health ran it all?'. That's why Ambulances are waiting outside A&Es for hours. That's why Trusts have having to pare things to the bone to make efficiency savings. MPs that are trying to push privatisation through have their noses in the trough. The register of interests of politicians in private health care businesses make very interesting reading! Are the trains/utilities any better for being privatised? Are they fuck. The need for profit is passed on to the consumer, which is why everything is so expensive.
Gp surgeries are in reality small businesses; they decide their own policies on home visits, appointment times etc. If you have to wait two weeks for an appointment, this will be because of a combination of factors. The surgery might be oversubscribed, not enough GPs for the amount of patients, and unfortunately the Great British Public not turning up for booked appointments, or turning up with nonsense such as colds/coughs or other self resolving stuff.
If you find your own surgery ineffective, register with another surgery. Some are better than others.
As for the poster asking why gambling on stocks and shares is taxed, all gambling used to be taxed in this country. Stupidly, Gordon Brown stopped a lot of gambling tax. That's not an argument for getting rid of it all; personally I think ALL gambling should be taxed again. Playing the stock market is no different from going down the bookies. As for inheritance tax, if you inherit money that you have not earned yourself, of course it should be taxed.
Finally, of course the unemployed should work. It's good for personal dignity to work and contribute to society. Might be a good idea to provide some jobs though. Can we make sure that employers pay proper wages, stop this zero hours bullshit, and actually pay all the tax that they should too? We can stop this ridiculous economic neo-liberal race to the bottom then. We are never going to compete with India or China, they will always undercut us. Their factories tend to collapse or burn down regularly, killing a lot of workers. Do we want this as our future, poor employee protection, practically slave labour? A huge proportion of benefits in the UK are paid to the working poor. This is how the government wants us, a nation of insecure, 'flexible', pliable workers. It suits then just fine.

This is lighthearted. Dh is from Canada living in US, I've lived in the States all my life. I know we are talking UK and not Canada but I'm just generalizing National health care. As dh explains it 'it's not that taxes are so high, it's that the U.S. taxes are really low'.

I agree with this and also with the pp who said in the US it really depends on your individual situation. We have excellent medical care. Dh has a good job with health insurance, but we have High deductibles: 5K per year deductible! Dh's company gives us a $2500K debit card per year so they pay the first 2,500, if you have deductible expenses after that you foot it. When Dh was hired he asked for and received 5K debit card to start off and I'm very thankful, because although my medical bills are usually very low (all routine visits and screenings are paid for free) I did incur several bills for an eye problem costing us about 3K already!

I think the major difference is that if you are in the UK you pay regardless you need the health care or not. You are paying so others can receive services - which I think is a Good thing! If you make good money in the US and don't need to pay many medical bills you can do very well, which is a good thing as well but only for 'you' and not your fellow wo(man).

If you don't have health care and aren't working, you are Not screwed. You are covered (welfare). It's the working poor that get screwed. But I want to point out that even if you do get screwed (working but bad or non existent health care) most if not all children are covered through their State health care. So while the parents might get screwed the children get free health and dental care.

I don't mind paying taxes, and if I were convinced it would be spent wisely, I wouldn't object too much to paying more. However, I wouldn't trust recent governments to do that. I also think they should make more effort to get corporations and the like to pay the tax they should.

To date, I've had medical services since I was a child, I use roads almost daily, I've had education paid for till I was 21 (I'm old enough to have had a grant - and then got some funding for my masters, too.) I don't really want to be in the position to be an active user of the emergency services, be it police, fire or ambulance, and also the courts, but I'm glad they're there in case I ever do. I use libraries, swimming pools, evening classes, my bins get collected. I visit art galleries fairly frequently, and while I am often paying, nearly all of them receive some state funding. Likewise with some of the ballet and theatre and so on I've been to. We've got some of the best mapping services in the world (Though the OS is about to come a trading company, I think?) My parents probably used far more than they ever paid in taxes in their last few months, with all the care they got for the illnesses which eventually killed them, and the only cost to them or me was car parking tickets at the hospital.

I've also had public sector jobs in the past, so I've benefited in that way, too. And I have been unemployed in the past, albeit only for a few weeks.

We could be better off, in terms of what we get, though a lot of that is down to management, but we could also be far, far worse off.

I do get annoyed with how some of my taxes are spent I.e. Funding people that have never worked, have loads of kids & no intention of ever working. However Im happy to contribute to the welfare state to help those genuinely in need. I also think the NHS is brilliant. Prior to having DS i had never really had to use it, but the times I have been in hospital with him I think I've really had my monies worth & am truly grateful to live in a country that provides healthcare free at the point of use.
& as others have said the airport comment is beyond ridiculous!!!!!

I'm much more angry at the amount if tax that's NOT paid www.mirror.co.uk/news/business/six-firms-including-google-facebook-5081824#ICID=sharebar_twitter

Well, DH did his tax return last night (nothing like leaving it til the last minute!) and he apparently owes £2k. He is not self-employed, he has a minimal return to complete (higher rate payer but no massive investments or any other income beyond his employment) so his work must have fucked things up, as that equates to an extra £166 a month that should have been taken at source.

We're praying it's wrong and he'll (eventually) get it part or all refunded, but we've had to put it on a long-unused credit card to pay for it, and that's just scary (to us) to have that amount of debt to repay - and presumably if it's right, his take home wages will be going down by c.£166 each month from now on as well. Although he earns well I'm currently a sahm and things are a bit hand to mouth - if it hadn't been for the credit card this would have crippled us (although I'm looking for work around school hours, after applying for at least 30 jobs a month since September (there just aren't that many out there that fit in with school!) I've got nowhere. DD has just moved schools and currently needs me there for her, for reasons I'm sure I've pounded on about on other threads, so for the moment it has to be school hours work).

While I don't think we pay too much tax on earned income (if you don't earn it, you don't pay it, after all), I do think that a system that allows this sort of fuck up to happen and then demands full payment immediately is not on.