To be annoyed/hurt by my good friend and think high earners should be willing to pay more ?

[whatislife]

i have been lurking on MN for a long time and never posted. Decided to join today and thought I'd mark the occasion with a rant.
I got in an argument with my friend (2 days ago) and the anger re-appeared when she sent me a text this morning. This doesn't really matter though.

The argument started when she made a snarky comment about an old friend of ours (not very close to be honest). The woman had been complaining about money and started ranting about high earners, tax and all sorts. My friend , a very high earner (think 6 figures), kept quiet the whole while and then started talking about it to me. This is where she said something along the lines of 'No one forced her to messed around at school and screw her life up. Im not going to feel bad because I worked hard' and 'why should I pay more tax when I already pay a ridiculous amount and she doesn't pay any'. These comments really angered me because I am also a low earner and rely on benefits - she knows this ! So we got into an argument about tax and benefits (silly i know but personal comments were also made).

My question is ; AIBU to think my close friend (and high earners in general) should realise how lucky she is and be willing to pay more tax so people like me can also have a normal life?

This argument annoys me as I hate the way people assume if you are not on a huge salary you are not working hard enough or are not ambitious enough etc. There are plenty of worthwhile jobs (carer, pre school teacher, teaching assistant) that pay very little and do a lot for society.

There are just as many who assume that as there are people who assume that high earners are just lucky privileged bastards rolling around in their own shit.

It is almost 20 years since I was a salaried worker in the UK. Both DH and I were higher rate taxpayers and had more money than we knew what to do with.

I looked at my pay in terms of how much I took home and what I could use it for and it never even occurred to me to class the tax collected from my PAYE as my individual contribution.

At that time the PA was £3,200, basic rate was 25%, and the 40% rate kicked in at £24,300. Even allowing for inflation employees are paying a lot lower taxes today than 20 years ago.

I accept that for many middle income earners work barely pays but I think the cause is overinflated house prices and the erosion of state services rather than high taxes.

There are plenty of worthwhile jobs (carer, pre school teacher, teaching assistant) that pay very little and do a lot for society

Nobody's doubting that for an instant, KitZacJak - they're simply recognising that some skills will pay more, and that there's no reason to unduly penalize those who possess them

Since you have enough time to spend on mumsnet, why doesn't the poster bother to look up such data for herself

You did ask me to look up data for myself. You said this in reference to me dismissing anecdotes. Which I didn't by the way. What point of yours have I made up?

Of course you can find data to back up a number of points. I was referring to a fairly wide ranging review of the most recent evidence I had heard, which had been critically analysed. Or what - we never look at ever data or evidence in the round because you can find data that is conflicting?

These threads never end well. Laughing as I type.
I supose the more British people who think hard work at school and in a job will not get them anywhere the better for the rest of us as we can leave them not working very hard and ourselves work hard and do better as so very many women on this thread have managed. Yes if you have a bad start in life or a low IQ or no work ethic you probably will not do too well but I am surrounded by immigrants where I live on a private estate of huge houses (and other smaller houses around) and those Indian, Pakistani, Ugandan Asian and other families have worked their fingers to the bone (as I have I) most of us having moved hundreds of miles if not continents away from family to make a good life in London for our families and it is possible.

As for full time workers subsidising part time workers - one reason the Tories got in is we wanted that changed - hence the tax credit reductions which will come in shortly and yes they might mean some women have to work full time 6 days a week like I do but why should I be subsidising those women anyway? It hasn't killed me to work hard to let them do it too.

Don't get me wrong Grazia - I absolutely agree that working hard and having a go-getting attitude and the right temprement is very important. Unless you are crazy intelligent, or extremely lucky you won't get that far without it.

binky but why do you think having a go -getting temperament is any more or less the result of the genetic lottery than having high academic intelligence?

I have got where I am because I am academically clever. I am not particularly hard working - I am a put in the effort if it needs it but otherwise coast type of person.

I don't claim my academic intelligence as a virtue I have strived to achieve and something I am proud of...or a reason I deserve my salary...

I was lucky to be born with it.

Why would someone born with a natural inclination to work hard and strive and achieve, be any more virtuous or deserving than me? Why would they feel they are anything other than lucky to be born with it?

Grazia, were lawyers not needed where you come from? Are they not paid very much in that country?

binky but why do you think having a go -getting temperament is any more or less the result of the genetic lottery than having high academic intelligence?

I don't necessarily. I think it might be a more malleable trait but that's just my suspicion.

Jeffs that is an absolutely excellent point about people with a vested commercial interest setting societies definitions of 'success'.

I have been pushed to apply for promotion and declined in the past. I don't need more money (40K is more than enough for me and family) and I don't want any extra stress, responsibility or expectations to do more work on me.

People look at me like I am mad when I say I don't want promoting and assume it is some sort of confidence issue...but it isn't. It is a failure to buy into the idea that perpetually striving to excel is the best way to run your life.

Sitting back and enjoying life is also an option and I don't believe it is less virtuous than perpetual striving.

Why do you think having a go -getting temperament is any more or less the result of the genetic lottery than having high academic intelligence?

I'm willing to allow for genetics to justify inherent talent at particular things, disability (obviously), IQ, physical attributes, and lots more, but not "go-getting temperament".

I'd love to work less hard / fewer hours, but as I don't expect the State to wipe my bum, I work the way I do. That's not my temperament. It's an understanding that I want to have a particular standard of living and need to work to have it. Aspiration isn't genetic, it's to do with what you see others around you striving for and attaining / what your family expect of you. As many immigrants to this country demonstrate, these expectations aren't linked to wealth.

To answer the OP, as a former higher-rate (£100,000+) taxpayer, now on a quarter of that while I run my own business, I am happy to pay my share for schools, hospitals, roads, police services and, yes, those that are vulnerable and need state support. "Needing" state support doesn't, in my mind, apply to people quitting their jobs to work p/t in bookshops "topped up with benefits" (see earlier in the thread) or those that choose to work a lower number of hours than they're able so they can claim benefits.

What would actually be wrong with a model of salaries in which anything earned above 150k when directly to the government?

So essentially all salaries are capped at 150k?

(I am setting the bar at that particular height because of the idea of nobody earning more than 10x the rate of the lowest paid in a company)

If nobody can afford stupid huge houses...then their price drops till they can...same for private jets...or private schools...and I guess if you can't make something for the money people have to buy it then you just don't. Can you imagine a world without private jets?

Companies would have loads more money to invest in jobs if they weren't paying silly money to a few individuals...

Nobody would work their ass off 24/7 in a high risk/responsibility to job for 150k a year...so...you would split those jobs over multiple individuals and increase net employment...which wouldn't be so terrible....

honestly..what is the downside? If it is all the 'top' bankers disappearing abroad...then I will help them pack!

I haven't bother reading all of this, but I think YANBU.

There is plenty of evidence that many high earners are down to luck, mainly the luck of having been born to middle or upper class parents.

I think everyone should contribute and contribute more as they earn more. If they did then we wouldn't have to be cutting benefits and services for everyone. Taxes pay for social security (and exactly why do we call if welfare now?), public services, the NHS, education etc.

I would happily pay more tax to get more out for me, my children, my neighbours etc. For example, I would willingly pay more tax to bring back free higher education for all and grants for those from poorer backgrounds.

Some people are happy to have a basic living provided for them. Most people are happy to work reasonably and have a slightly better standard. Some people are driven to keep earning more and more so they can give their family things others will never have.

It is not clear to me that the strivers don't do more damage to society than the other groups.

If everyone wanted more more more all the time then the world would be a pretty horrible place.

As technology increases and the natural resources of this planet we are all stuck on inevitably run out....society is going to be more and more comprised of people who cannot do useful work, and the endless strivers are going to be a serious menace...

A society/economy/lifestyle dependent on perpetual growth and increase is a fantasy we can't really afford.

I would personally prefer if companies paid low earners a proper living wage and their top earners slightly less to fund this or took a dent to their profits. I don't think a merry-go round of high earners being paid more, having it taken off them then being given back to low earners is effective or efficient when it would make more sense just to pay high earners a little bit less and low earners a bit more in the first place.

I also don't like the fact that government has paid benefits which have basically subsidised poor wages paid by large companies with massive profits which have in turn justified the high wages that the high earners receive.

I think achieving this may well chime in with Teresa May's thoughts on reducing immigration.

urgh - bad grammar day

Society is unequal not because of inherited wealth or the property boom but because of the strivers? O-Kay.

And their wages should be capped- because it's not right that those people should want the chance of living/buying their own house too? Is that what you mean?

why would people not be able to buy houses if wages were capped?

The house prices would simply fall until they could.

Then house prices would be more accessible to hard workers earning only 15K a year than they are now.

Win win win in my book.

So people who are rich and whose property is now worth half million are fine (skills!) but anyone who wants to work to buy a nice property is ...very lucky and very wrong? Is that the point here?

a factor of 10 is enough, isn't it, to motivate those motivated by such things?

I mean surely you don't need to be earning 100 times as much as someone else on the same hours to validate your need for personal triumph?

*IceBeing What would actually be wrong with a model of salaries in which anything earned above 150k when directly to the government? So essentially all salaries are capped at 150k?

If nobody can afford stupid huge houses...then their price drops till they can...same for private jets...or private schools...and I guess if you can't make something for the money people have to buy it then you just don't. Can you imagine a world without private jets?

Not really, because the nature of jets mean that they fly between different countries. So the jet setters would simply work and pay their tax in a different country. Bit of a poor example!

House prices are so divorced from salary and far more dependent on boosts from parents/inheritance. I think you would do far better to level up the housing market if you taxed IHT far far higher and also taxed monetary gifts (quite easy to trace when buying a house). Its so incredibly unfair to advocate taxing someone higher on their paying job and not on chance of birth.

Companies would have loads more money to invest in jobs if they weren't paying silly money to a few individuals...

There is some sense in this. I have no issue with those genuinely worth it being paid more however. And its not just companies - the public sector has numerous examples of under-performing, under-qualified managers on inflated salaries who are sacked for incompetence but receive massive golden handshakes - only to walk into yet another high paid job in the public sector.

Nobody would work their ass off 24/7 in a high risk/responsibility to job for 150k a year...so...you would split those jobs over multiple individuals and increase net employment...which wouldn't be so terrible....

I think that would absolutely horrific. If I get an operation, I want a full time top surgeon doing it, not a part timer who will be on the golf course when I develop complications. Dealing with a part-time workforce can be a nightmare in many ways - waiting a 5 days for a response to a fax until someone is due back in the office is an example of bad management of a part time workforce but hardly unusual. And not everyone wants to work part time. Many people, having trained and qualified, want to work full time. Stifling ambition and motivation is hardly the way to go. This is the race to the bottom mentioned earlier.

honestly..what is the downside? If it is all the 'top' bankers disappearing abroad...then I will help them pack!

The UK banking industry is huge and is one of the reasons the UK is one of the richest countries in the world and why it can support relatively generous benefits despite relatively high numbers not working/being under-employed/unable to work. It keeps the taxes everyone pays down. If the bankers depart, then expect many others to follow them, because theres not much point in being in a high tax low wage economy when you can be somewhere else.

a house is only worth what people can pay to buy it.

If noone has 500K then a house can't be worth that much. Are you really not understanding that point?

If people are still motivated to work full time, then they certainly can! They just wouldn't get paid more for it.

I would like a surgeon who is in it for the caring not the money. IF they were in 5 days a week for 4 hours a day then that would also be perfect. They wouldn't be tired from working 60 hours the previous week.

Sounds good to me.

Wealth is not just salary- do you not understand that?