To not want a Tax cut with the expense of the poor

[Keepcalmandpostathread]

The Tories want to cut £12 bn of welfare. Aibu to not want a tax cut at the expense of the poor.

Those earning over £100K get no personal tax allowance.

My heart bleeds for them.

I wasn't expecting it to, Fairy. I was simply correcting a comment above .It's a commonly held myth that everyone gets a personal tax allowance. They don't.

pausing that inheritance was likely earned by someone ...who had paid tax on their income ... it is the result of someone you most likely cared about working and saving to put something aside for their 'old age' and to look after you when they can no longer do so in person ..

She should give it to the poor and needy. Rich bastard.

Not earned by me: for me it's all a freebie.

And actually, it wasn't all earned by the person who left it, or fully taxed. Some of it they got via a windfall and managed in tax-efficient ways.

It's been an eye-opener seeing how this all happens. Like I say, the numbers don't push me over the tax threshold, but I've had to learn about the structures. Been very interesting.

Well I you didn't earn interest on your savings the value of capital would fall over time - so it could be argued a proportion or all of the interest earnt (depending on your rate) is merely maintaining your capital

Oh yes, I absolutely intend to be a rich bastard.

I'm disabled and unable to work, and have been badly affected by the disability cuts. This will keep me alive for I reckon five years as long as I don't put the heating over 13 degrees.

I'll stay warm by rubbing my hands with glee at my unearned riches.

Cariadlet, if you want to give more of your money to the people you think need it most, then you are free to give it to them.

Super suggestion, Ptolemy.
I expect she is away doing just that right now

Gosh, what sensible grown ups we are.

[Another disclaimer: actually there's no glee involved, I'd far rather the person had spent it on themselves. But they wouldn't.]

Gosh, what sensible grown ups we are.

Oh come now Dawn, you've dished out far worse

The interest does have the effect of maintaining capital (or not, depending on inflation), but I still haven't done anything to earn it.

If interest rates go up to 5%, I'm doing exactly the same amount of work as if they're 0.1%.

I don't want the tax cut. I'm a HRT payer and will add the change in personal allowance to the money I already give to charity.

I'd rather ensure working public services, an NHS which isn't crumbling and local government able to fund social care properly.

It does seem to be beyond stupid that most of the benefits bill is spent paying rent to private landlords who've taken out barely affordable mortgages on tiny houses. The conservative govt won't build more though- our MP is actively campaigning against in my area.

Interest rates on a basic bank account will invariably keep your capital in a steady state (in theory). So depending on the economy that may necessitate an interest rate of 5% or maybe 0.5%. That is keeping your capital at the level you received.

If invested wisely you may get a higher return - that is the money you have earnt by investing

The conservative govt won't build more though- our MP is actively campaigning against in my area.

Not true.

Almost 200 000 affordable homes have been built since the coalition took power.Overall, half a million including social housing. Between 1997 and 2010 the number of social housing homes dropped by 420,000. Under LABOUR.

Given that you don't know where I live, and the fact that the conservative mp is clinging on with a tiny majority which appears to depend on signing up to any nimby campaign going, I don't see how you're in a position to say it's wrong?! Perhaps you're psychic or the MP has gone off message.

If the Govt were serious about increasing house building, they would be preventing developers from land banking until the price can be the maximum possible by rolling over planning permissions for decades.

Peke our Conservative run council are currently building on every bit of spare land they can find

Our conservative county are going to court to challenge the housing assessment which says they need to build more housing.

Peeks all your additional money that you kindly give to the NHs will do is pay a little off the 400billion pounds of PFI investment that labour forced onto the NHS. I imagine that will take more than a few months to pay off, I guess labour wanted to bankrupt my kids as well as me by saddling them with this this debt.

Ours are too lem73.

It's crazy the amount of housing that is going up in this area, I am genuinely worried about what it's going to be like when it's all full. We already had a shortage of school places and the traffic is already horrendous. I'm all for building more houses, but not in towns that are already bulging. If we're going to build more houses, we should also be building more towns.

To go back to a different thing, if the personal tax allowance is going to be raised, wouldn't that help the people who claim taxable state benefits as well?

I'm asking, because I don't know, but I know they take tax out of my widows allowance.

I am all for new housing too - but I campaigned against building in our village ...
First it was developer led - they were supposed to build some affordable housing - but it seems they could just pay the council to build some elsewhere. And the housing they were planning was not what we need. We need houses for young families/first time buyers and/or bungalows for people to down size (currently we have lots of big family houses with just one elderly occupant -out of the 20 nearest, 7 are single occupied - if they want to downsize they have to move to another village - we have very few suitable properties). They were planning 5 bedroom all ensuite executive houses...and lots of them. Increase the population of the village by over 1/3 in 10 yrs.
Secondly we don't have the infrastructure - mainly the roads, few employment opportunities so most people commute - we have two narrow bendy roads out - one along a house lined road that was built for horse and carriages (buses struggle), the other along a barely more than single track (no white line in the middle) road that is so small it doesn't have a name or number...(and neither could easily be widened)

When they built lots of new houses about 30yrs ago the council said they would build a new road across to the main road ...hasn't happened . (Even if it does because of the area of the new builds they would have to drive along one of two narrow 'estate type' roads (the houses they built all those years ago) - one past the primary school....)
If they built the road I would be happy with gradual expansion, building the type of houses we need...but the developers won't make enough money from that and even with the expensive houses they won't pay for the road ...
But apparently roads aren't a problem - cos everyone will be encouraged to use public transport ...or cycle. I said buses struggle...once you get out the village most of the roads anywhere are two lane 60 mph A roads...I wouldn't feel safe cycling on them...
If they came up with a sensible plan with the houses we need - I would back it 100% - just not what they have proposed...

Back to the original theme of the thread. I'm a little sick of the attitudes I hear on mumsnet towards 'higher earners'. Sometimes I feel people want to punish people for earning high salaries. It reminds me of a comment made by Neil Kinnock in the early 90s that 'everyone who makes over £40 000 should have it confiscated'. The country needs people to have aspirations. It drives economic growth. Higher earners should pay more tax because they can afford it but not so much that it takes away the incentive to do better.
Personally I have always accepted the higher taxes we pay here for two reasons. Firstly I've lived in countries which have virtually no welfare state and I couldn't bear how hard the lives of poor people were. Secondly because we have good public services. However I am concerned that the quality of these services is declining. My dh was diagnosed with colon cancer last year but only when he went for a private consultation after being dismissed by the NHS GP several times. My ds's school has a large budget deficit because it's underfunded by the council. The same council is selling off land everywhere to private developers because it faces budget problems. I worry at this rate we will face declining public services but we as a household will still be paying a shit load in taxes.

I agree Lem. I wouldn't mind paying higher taxes if we had good public services. If my DH, like yours, hadn't been forced to pay private because the NHS utterly failed him, if the schools my children attended weren't vastly under resourced, if disabled people got the services they need.

But that's not happening, and it didn't happen under a labour government either.

Agreed Lem and Ptolemy.

Under Labour taxes were taken and given to those already earning well under the guise of tax credits. Money was spanked on quangos and bloated public sector jobs and a welfare state that disincentivised work. Not to mention an illegal war and a raft of NHS managers with snouts in the trough.
The money wasted under Labour was obscene.