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?

I don' earn six figures, not even halfway there. But I know I am very well off compared to the large majority of people. I would love us to elect someone who would make me and others like me pay more tax. I am so angry about this whole "austerity" bullshit.

When did poverty come to mean poor educational outcomes as has been suggested a few times on this thread? This didn't used to be the case - my mum grew up in a rough scheme in Glasgow. Poverty was rife and yet she, and many of her friends, got themselves out by dint of hard work at school then moving on to colleague, uni or apprenticeships. They managed to rise above far worse poverty than we have now. So what changed?

I'm another who thinks that being a high earner is mostly down to luck.

Lucky that you are well enough to work.

Lucky that your family are well enough for you to work.

Lucky that you were in the right place at the right time when the job was available.

I certainly worked "harder" when on a lower salary than now. And while, yes I "worked hard" to get to grammar school, and hard enough to get into a good university, for a good course, and get a good degree and then PG quals, very little of that was particularly hard. In the main I was lucky I was born with a good brain, to parents who didn't hinder my education, who didn't need me to drop out of school at 16 to help pay bills, who enabled me to go away to university, etc etc.

I'm lucky illnesses they had didn't completely change the path I went on, it easily could have.

That is all luck.

I think some of the hardest working people in society are the lowest paid. Carers, call centre workers, dairy farmers, warehouse workers all work much harder than anyone else I know that I went to university with.

I too am surprised that some high earners think otherwise.

And my OH and I are happy to pay tax so those less fortunate can survive.

Are you for real? You see no correlation between poverty and low educational attainment? Grow up and read something.

YANBU. Obviously there are exceptions at either end but the vast majority of high and low earners are where they are through a combination of fortunate factors and hard work for good earners and unfortunate factors and hard work for low earners.

I was 19 and single when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I am incredibly lucky that:

• I was already at one of the best universities in the country when I found out.
• the university, my family and my friends made it possible for me to stay there.
• I was born with a high IQ that enabled me to get good results and access good jobs.
• I come from a supportive and stable family and went to a reasonably ok school.
• I was so sheltered that I didn't even know it was possible to stay at home as a single parent and get benefits (I knew you could get JSA obviously but I thought you had to try and get a job, I didn't know you could stay at home with the child and get IS)

All those things meant that I was able to become a pretty high earning single mum in a profession (teacher - 40K), live in a nice area in a decent house (rented but fine) and provide my children with everything they need plus some.

If I'd been 19 and single when got pregnant and had not been in full time education, had not had a good support network, had not had good schooling and had been told that I could go on IS then my life would look very, very different to what it does now. None of that is about hard work, it's about luck.

people in RL saying or implying that they are wealthy "because of hard work" and/or others are not because of the opposite is a good way to spot dickheads IME

Agree duckdeamon

mrs Devere you need to include benefit for private rental, council tax & child support.

The Head Teacher doesn't get 60k, they get 60k less Tax and NI.

YABU

My DH has worked his arse off for his (6 figure) salary. His salary has nothing to do with luck (or being lucky).

He already pays an eye-watering amount of tax, which we accept is fair, but there does come a point where those who get paid more, perhaps because their job has more responsibity, would no longer want to do that job because they're being taxed so much that it just isn't worth it for the years it's taken to train or the stress or long hours involved.

My DH and I don't let on to our friends how much we both earn, money is a horrible subject that is going to split people and I'd rather not even enter in to a conversation like that with people I know in RL, it's just asking for trouble.

There is no answer to this one. There is no clear answer to whether something is down to "luck" or "hard work", either: what if you're lucky enough to be born/brought up with a good work ethic which allows you to be a hard worker? Unlucky enough to have psychological characteristics that make you a lazy bugger? We can't compare people with each other. It's basically impossible.

The only solution is a large G&T.

My DH has worked his arse off for his (6 figure) salary.

Of course he has.

But has he worked harder than I have for my 40K salary? I doubt it.

And have I worked harder than the lady who cleans my classroom before going on to her 2-3 other cleaning jobs for the day for her NMW salary? Again, I doubt it.

And have any of us worked harder than the carer earing £60 a week and caring 24/7 for 2 profoundly disabled dependents? No way!

That's where the luck starts to come in. Luck doesn't replace the hard work factor. But it changes the results of the hard work.

Oh, and to try to be kind. We all suffer in some way or other. Even those really rich bastards on telly.

Seriously, how can people really believe that someone who doesn't earn 6-figure salary therefore just doesn't work hard enough?? Unbelievable.

God, I was feeling all zen till I RTFT. Now I'm really cross.

Would the "I'm stinking rich because I'm brilliant" brigade please FTFO?

YABU I don't do a 4 hour commute and 12 hour working day to subsidise the decisions you have made in life. Many people could earn my salary if they would compromise their family life like I do, commute like I do, work the hours I do and have the stress I do. They choose not to, thats their choice, but don't see why I have to subsidise that choice

I did not work very hard at all to get my first in mathematics from a red brick. I now work incredibly hard teaching mathematics in a state comprehensive. Clearly, if I had been less feckless as a youth, I would now be earning six figures.
Or, perhaps, I should have been born into a social group that expected to work in careers earning those figures, instead of into a family of nurses, social workers, police men, etc. We are shaped by our upbringing, we do not come into being in a vacuum.
Yes, some people manage to improve on their starting conditions, but as a nation, we have very low social mobility. This cannot possibly be purely the fault of individuals.

Okay op do you mean that your friend should be willing to pay more tax than you as she is a high earner (to which the answer is well, duh) or a higher percentage of income in tax than you (ditto).

Or do you mean that tax rates should be substantially increased do you get more, even though this would really mean tax increases for everyone on paye because there aren't enough top rate taxpayers to cover everything.

That is all luck

Not quite, AyeAmarok - I agree about the good health (though even that can be wilfully thrown away) but your "good brain" could have been wasted if that's what you'd chosen to do; point is, you didn't

It's great that your parents were supportive, but as others have said, a poor background can actually be an incentive to do better if the will is there

Another PP wondered what had changed since the days when poverty wasn't assumed to mean a poor outcome ... perhaps personal responsibility has something to do with it?

And I still don't think it's about the better paid working harder; as I said, surely it's more about them having different skills, which isn't the same thing at all

Nicely put micksy

Income tax isn't the whole of the story - something that always conveniently gets forgotten in this type of discussion. Poor people may pay little or no income tax, but in proportion to their disposable income, they may pay a lot of indirect and other taxes (VAT, duties on fuel, council tax etc).

I bet I work just as hard as most people do on a high wage.

12 hour shifts on my feet constantly, manual work, lifting people all day long, dealing with awful bodily fluids, people in distress and abuse and if I miss something someone could die as a result. Yes, I am a lowly carer, who gets paid £7.20 an hour but I doubt very many people want to really do it going by how short of staff we always are. We have a lot of responsibility just like those do in higher paid jobs and without us people would be fucked. And frankly, we deserve more.

Lots of people in low paid jobs work very hard. Most of us in any kind of job work hard.. from the shopkeeper to the top brain surgeon. Some of us deserve a higher wage for what we do.

The fact is, most things in life are down to an element of luck. I made life choices that meant I didn't get a decent education which I am trying to do now but there were many factors in my life that lead me to make the choices I did, no one starts off with an equal start in life. If I didn't have so much shit going on at home I may have done better at school and made different choices. That was out of my control; I could not control my home life or the wreck that I was as a child.

So yes, like others have said, I am sure high earners work extremely hard for their wage, but you are not alone there and if you don't think there is an element of luck involved you are deluded. Life is all about luck, opportunities and hard work.

I have always thought that every choice, every decision, every path in life comes with a price, you just have to decide whether its a price you're willing to pay.

If you looked at all of my life I'd probably be classed as extremely unlucky, even though I am very successful financially, and with my DH and DS. I thoroughly enjoy my life, but when I was starting out in my career I made the choice to do some things which most people wouldn't do (on moral grounds).
Taking that path shot my career into the stratosphere and was the cornerstone of my finacial success. I had to live with the fall out from those actions, and given a time machine I wouldn't change a thing, but I would resent what would feel like paying doubly for my sacrifices.

mrsdevere I have no disdain whatsoever for people who work on tills.. I believe we're equal... So why should I pay more tax as a % of my salary when I am already paying much more as my salary is higher?!! And when I am (obviously) more stressed and give more to my role..

So you can fuck off

My husband earns 6 figures

Luck has nothing to do with it

He started off on fishing trawlers in the North Sea, one of the most dangerous jobs you can get.. Busting his ass for up to 10 days at a time with no sleep for days and sometimes would return home with nothing

He then moved to offshore oil rigs and now works in Africa in 40 degrees heat for 16 hours a day 30 days in a row with hardly any food to eat as its so terrible, constant diarrhoea as local cook food and hygiene isn't their priority

Stressed to max drilling for oil also a very dangerous job, missing out on half our sons life , hardly able to call home as comms are so poor

He deserves every penny of his 6 figure salary but each and every month basically works for the first 2 weeks of his trip for nothing so the tax man can take £6000 off him to make your life better

I don't see him as being lucky do you..??

I can't believe some of the comments on here! Some people are not intellectual and will always struggle with education. For many, this will mean working in a 'low paid' job.

I've got a degree and I am about to do an MA. I consider myself lucky enough to have been born into a family who valued education and to have been sent to a pretty decent high school in a naice village. Some people are given a tougher start in life and that's not their fault. It isn't all down to 'hard work'.

I think tax should be same rate for everyone , no one is more deserving to keep there wages

What's good for one should be good for another

Be it 20% or 45% it should be the same for all.