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?

Yabvvvvu, she pays enough already, so you expect her to work, so most if her income goes to the government . She has presumably worked hard, to get where she is, mabey sacrificed a lot, what so she can subsidise people who did not or are not high earners.

I'm amazed how people manage these long discussions by text.

I think that high earners should pay higher rates of tax but I can't see this thread ending well given the way the OP is phrased.

Grabs the bait Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to be doing a job I haven't enjoyed in a while which I don't need to do because I have earned enough to retire but continue to do because I want to be a productive member of society and continue to pay 45% tax and donate to charity.
Really sorry that when I forget how lucky I am it offends you.
leaves thread forever

Anybody who thinks 'I work hard so I deserve my 6 figure salary' is a total idiot.

Ridiculous comment. You think everyone who earns lots is sitting around fretting about how they don't feel they deserve their salary?

Sam Seaborne said it well: "every time your boss got on the stump and said, "It's time for the rich to pay their fair share," I hid under a couch and changed my name. I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year, which means I paid twenty-seven times the national average in income tax. I paid my fair share, and the fair share of twenty-six other people. And I'm happy to because that's the only way it's gonna work, and it's in my best interest that everybody be able to go to schools and drive on roads, but I don't get twenty-seven votes on Election Day. The fire department doesn't come to my house twenty-seven times faster and the water doesn't come out of my faucet twenty-seven times hotter. The top one percent of wage earners in this country pay for twenty-two percent of this country. Let's not call them names while they're doing it, is all I'm saying.

Luck may play a part in some cases, but for the vast majority of people our lives are shaped by the choices we make everyday. There are implications for every decision.
Whether to have two or five children, whether to resist those exams, whether to go for promotion, whether to buy things on credit etc etc.
YABU. Life isn't fair and neither should it be, otherwise, where is the incentive?

Your attitude stinks, OP. The fact that you say "she will still have plenty" just shows how ungrateful you are. Who are you to decide what "plenty" is for your friend? Your financial situation is not her problem. Instead of spending your energy begrudging her success, why can't you be a real friend and think about it from her point of view?

I agree that luck and background play a role. But I think it's lazy thinking to assume that people can't break out of the mould and achieve success.

My father was born in 1933 in a slum in London. His mother died giving birth to the fifth child during WW2. His father walked out and left the children to be brought up by friends/relatives. My father joined the Navy (lied about his age so he could join up more quickly) and took every opportunity going to better himself, get the education he was deprived of and get himself out of grinding poverty. When I was born, he worked hard to ensure I had the opportunities he didn't have.

When I had DD at 19, I made sure that my choices wouldn't hinder her opportunities in life and made sure I went to university and got a bloody good job to pay for her.

Freckled

What you've just said is an anecdote and is not statistically significant.

All that matters is statistics, not individuals

I'm a daughter of poor parents, alky plus a jail bird. My rise to the middle class job I hold is not remotely down to hard work, it was just accident.

I am no more special than your dad and countless others who live and die in poverty

I was going to post the Sam seaborne speech but constance has beaten me to it. I agree with Sam.

I don't mind paying tax. I do mind people implying I'm not willing to do my bit by because I'm not absolutely overjoyed about giving more money to the government.

I have never had a problem paying tax or felt taken advantage of. If you earn a good wage and therefore pay a lot of tax you have it better than most so why would I complain. Also, I am not a fan of leaving the weak and vulnerable to fend for themselves. How a society treats its poor tells is very telling.

I'm really lucky, one day I just woke up and had a successful business, nice house and car. Didn't have to work bloody hard or anything, nope just pure luck.
In fact my life has been one long run of luck, pure luck that got me a scholarship to private school, luck that sent me to uni ( which I worked 2 jobs to pay for - luckily I managed to get 2 jobs). My entire career has just been ever so lucky really.
I'm more than happy to pay my taxes and glad I live somewhere that people who need help can get it but it's great that I am in a position to pay 40% tax just down to being born lucky!!!

The problem with these sorts of discussions is that
a) no one has a definition of 'hard work'. As someone said upthread, she thinks her cleaner works harder than her. I presume that is because her cleaner is doing manual work which is considered 'harder' than a desk job. I would argue that my work is 'hard' because there are massive consequences if I cock up. Not 'the floor is dirty', but big things that would cost the company a six-figure sum to correct. But I don't get out of breath doing my work and it doesn't give me back ache.
There is no correct definition of hard work, and it is all subjective to the person doing the work.

b) There is always going to be a huge range of opinions on the cause and effect of working hard and making good choices, and then getting a good job. You think she is 'lucky' to be earning well, which presumably means you think you are 'unlucky' that you aren't. She sees it differently, because her perception is she worked hard at school while others mucked about, and are now reaping the consequences of that decision because they can't get a 'good' job. See also: A

c) There is no consensus on how much people 'need' to live on. At either end of the scale. I would say I can't afford to pay much more tax because I need it to maintain my lifestyle. Someone else might say I can easily afford to because I have holidays I can sacrifice and Waitrose shops I can substitute for Lidl ones to create the spare cash. Equally, at the other end of the scale, the same arguments for Sky TV/big tellies/lots of children will get used.

Fundamentally, she has made it pretty clear that she thinks where you end up in adulthood is down to how much work you put in, and you've made it pretty clear you think it is more down to luck. The only sensible way to discuss it with her is to say that, and you'll have to agree to disagree...

If person A works hard for 60 hours a week and gets paid 15k and person B works hard for 60 hours a week and gets paid 300k (paying 150K in tax and keeping 150K) then yes I think person B should still think themselves bloody lucky they have 10 times the take home money of person A after working the same number of hours.

The fact they have paid 150K in taxes is neither here nor there. They are extraordinarily luck to have so much more money than others doing the same amount of work.

Most of us who earn good salaries do so at least partly because we have been lucky - lucky to be born where we were born, lucky in our choice of partner, in our choice of career, in the financial decisions we have made.

Of course hard work comes into it, but I doubt very much that any of us work as hard as a carer for a profoundly disabled child, or an immigrant on minimum wage cleaning hotel bedrooms in central London for about £1.50 a room. I hope I will never discover how hard that is.

This idea that wealthy successful people are harder working than people on low wages is one of the most toxic ideas in capitalism. I'm not paid for my "hard work" any more than a CEO is - I'm paid well because my skills are in relatively short supply and they happen to be skills that are valued by my employer.

IMO no-one that works hard for a living should be begrudged what they get, whether it's a six figure sum or working tax credit to supplement a very low income.

YANBU to feel hurt by your friend's insensitivity towards your feelings though...which I think is what your original post was really about.

I think your argument should be more with your friend's tact than her politics.

Sounds very much like she thinks your mutual friend is a whinger / freeloader, and is reacting to that.

I doubt if she'd have had the same response if you'd asked how willing she would be to contribute to people subject to genuine misfortune or very limited opportunities.

Ice,
Putting to one side that Person A is earning under the minimum wage, if their working week is sat behind a reception desk at a gym, handing out towels, or collecting and washing glasses in a pub and chopping up fruit, it might be a long week, but it hasn't hard work. It just isn't.
It is nonsensible to compare that with someone is earning £300k because they are performing complex surgery, or drafting legal documents where one small mistake could result in huge business deals unraveling.

Long hours don't automatically make a job 'hard', nor does a degree of physicality.
When I'm sat in the office at 9pm working on something horribly complex, I don't think to myself how lucky and privileged I am to be sat here. I think about how bloody easy my life was when I worked in a gym or in a bar.

She isn't lucky she has worked hard. Everyone has access to a free education, it's up to you what you make of it.

Oh and why should she help you or your friend, you haven't helped her?

"everyone has access to a free education"

It's not all the same quality you know. Etons not the same as dodgy comp failing Ofted, in special measures with broken down buildings, serving a community with no jobs, no factories, only minimum wage jobs available.

So high earners are just 'lucky'?

Feel like saying 'fuck right off' to that OP.

I pay every penny of tax I should do. And I try very hard to feel happy about that because I want to live in a civilised society with free education, the NHS, a welfare safety net.

But do I FUCK want to pay any more. And I do resent tax going to 'underserving' people.