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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

So people earning over £80k are wealthy, unless they are JC??

321 replies

usernamealreadytaken · 15/05/2017 13:53

In an interview with Julie Etchingham, JC apparently said he's not wealthy, despite earning over £130k p/a, because of WHERE HE PUTS HIS MONEY (but he's not going in to that!). AIBU to think this is the most ridiculous statement he has managed to put out in recent weeks?

Given that Labour want the wealthiest in our society (earning over £80k) to pay more taxes, what Good Reason could he possibly have to not include himself in that bracket? Discuss :-)

OP posts:
carefreeeee · 15/05/2017 18:29

You are entirely missing the point!

Just because someone is rich doesn't necessarily mean they don't want to pay more tax. If you earn £150,000 and tax rates go up you will still be richer than someone earning £20,000 and you might be perfectly fine with sharing the wealth a bit - many rich people are. JC is probably perfectly happy to pay more tax.

JamieXeed74 · 15/05/2017 18:42

This Corbyn bashing is so fucking pathetic. At least this man wants to make the country more equal and fund public services

What utter tosh, this thread is talking about the hypocrisy of what he has said/done. Have you read 'Animal Farm', who decides what equality is, Jeremy Corbyn?

Are we more equal if a person who works all the hours god sends to earn £80,000, and half that is taken off them to give to a person who can't be arsed working. I dont think that's equality.

LapdanceShoeshine · 15/05/2017 18:47

brasty it's not a meme

It's from

www.mpsexpenses.info/#!/search

which sources from IPSA.

The difference is staffing.

BirdBandit · 15/05/2017 18:47

"Can't be arsed working"?!? jamie

kirinm · 15/05/2017 18:47

Nobody pays half of their salary in tax ffs. The suggestion is to bring the 45% tax bracket down to 80k. You presumably know full well that means 45% on anything over £80k.

notquiteruralbliss · 15/05/2017 18:51

Maybe I work with an unrepresentative sample of high earners but quite a few of my co-workers (who will be earning a lot more than £80k) don't seem to have a problem with Labour's tax proposals.

LapdanceShoeshine · 15/05/2017 19:00

Are we more equal if a person who works all the hours god sends to earn £80,000

If pay was only based on hours worked you might have a point.

Kursk · 15/05/2017 19:00

This Corbyn bashing is so fucking pathetic. At least this man wants to make the country more equal and fund public services

"we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economical weak, with it's unfair salary's and it's unseemly evaluation of a human being to wealth and property, instead of wealth and performance".

A quote from the biggest socialist of them all

Original poster
usernamealreadytaken · 15/05/2017 19:02

Helena if you're going to quote me, with quotation marks and everything, at least do me the courtesy of actually quoting me, not paraphrasing. Thanks.

OP posts:
Original poster
usernamealreadytaken · 15/05/2017 19:04

Sorry Helena, assumed you were quoting me - later post makes it clear you're not 💐

OP posts:
Original poster
usernamealreadytaken · 15/05/2017 19:05

*off ffs Blush hate this keyboard!

OP posts:
questsabelletreetop · 15/05/2017 19:06

He is not wealthy because of WHERE HE PUTS HIS MONEY- surely he is implying he donates so doesn't have a look left for himself!

questsabelletreetop · 15/05/2017 19:10

Earning 100k and giving 99k away, still makes you wealthy. People who aren't wealthy wouldn't have 99k to give away in the first place.

What a load of bullshit. If you GIVE IT AWAY you don't have 99k so you're no longer wealthy. OMFG🤦‍♂️

Headofthehive55 · 15/05/2017 19:13

kirim are you high up in the Labour Party?
His do you know he is increasing the amount to 45%?

ArsenalsPlayingAtHome · 15/05/2017 19:14

Haven't read the whole thread, or seen the interview/read the article, so probably way off the mark with this, but....

I take this to mean that he either pays it back into the labour party, or donates it to charity.

So on paper he is wealthy, but doesn't have a huge disposable income because he is sharing his wealth out, willingly.

JanetBrown2015 · 15/05/2017 19:14

I wonder what people's views are on tax avoidance by way of charitable giving. Just like other ways to avoid tax lawfully if you give to a charity you can claim back the tax paid at your very highest rate. George Osborne rightly in my view tried to abolish the tax break very wisely in my view as there is a heap of abuse of charitable giving rules going on out there but there was such a fuss created by the great and the good that he had to back down unfortuantely. I would like to see all tax relief for charitable contributions abolished entirely. Let people give money away to help others if they like but not with any tax breaks.

Original poster
usernamealreadytaken · 15/05/2017 19:16

kirinm What a joke of a thread. Couldn't even start with getting what he'd said, right. This Corbyn bashing is so fucking pathetic. At least this man wants to make the country more equal and fund public services

Can you give us the correct quote then? From what I understand from several media sources, he said he was "adequately paid, very adequately paid".* When pressed as to whether he was wealthy, despite* earning a salary of more than £138,000, Mr Corbyn insisted he is not wealthy because of "where I put the money", although he refused to elaborate on that. If I earned £80k and put it somewhere, but I won't go in to that, would you take my word for it that I wasn't wealthy either or would you lump me in with the Tory money grabbing tax avoiding scum?

OP posts:
kirinm · 15/05/2017 19:17

Because I was following a politics live blog on a newspaper today. I'm not even a member of the Labour Party but do read a lot of news.

Original poster
usernamealreadytaken · 15/05/2017 19:18

So what is the correct quote then?

OP posts:
eyespydreams · 15/05/2017 19:19

I never understand this 'are you wealthy on 80k?' argument because surely it depends so much on where you are in the U.K.? Eg if your in say north east or parts of Scotland or wales or all of Northern Ireland then it would make you really quite well off, wouldn't it? But if you were trying to rent a house, commute to work, pay for hildcare etc in London then you really wouldn't be. Childcare for one child in London at an average nursery can be £2000 for one child for five days a week. A similar facility in NI was costed at £620. A mortgage for a three bed house in NI could be a hundred grand, a payment of a few hundred a month, as opposed to a couple of grand in London for exactly the same house - and so much of that is just interest, so not making you richer. The same domestic set up in one place could cost you six grand a month one grand in the other. So it's impossible to say 80k does or doesn't make you rich full stop because it's so dependent on where you live.

Otherwise, as you were!

ArsenalsPlayingAtHome · 15/05/2017 19:19

Ahh, just read Head's post!

You're not wealthy if you give 99k away!

You're wealthy until you give the 99k away!

The second you give your 99K away, you cease to be wealthy.

It''s maths...simples!

Some people just can't get their heads around politicians not only being out for themselves and their rich mates....or understand that people would have the moral compass that makes this seem like the right thing to do. These people automatically assume there's an ulterior motive, that it's a gimmick, that he's trying to hide something, or is lying.

Smellbellina · 15/05/2017 19:23

Are we more equal if a person who works all the hours god sends to earn £80,000, and half that is taken off them to give to a person who can't be arsed working. I dont think that's equality.
No body has proposed that someone earning £80000 should pay £40000 (or anything like that) Jamie
You might want to read up on it, because you've made yourself sound a bit daft there

BossyBitch · 15/05/2017 19:23

I'm easily within the 100k+ bracket but I don't consider myself wealthy. May have something to do with the fact that the people I compare myself to are loaded by normal standards (300k+ pa; my direct supervisor is on about 200k). I also spend a hell of a lot more now than when I was a starving student - on things I actually need to keep this up: naice suits, flat that's located in a place that makes the early flight feasible, membership fees, ...

That having been said: I'm not stupid and I realise that my having all this is as much related to lucky genes, a fortunate choice of degree and the right set of parents as it is to hard work (which I do put in, to be fair, but so do people who don't earn half of what I make).

I actually think I should be taxed quite a bit more. But then I'm a card carrying champagne socialist, so there!

Original poster
usernamealreadytaken · 15/05/2017 19:29

Head and Janet I think if you are standing up in public and stating that earners should pay more tax to support public services, and then avoiding paying that tax by legal or illegal means, then that is wrong.

If you are a h/r taxpayer then by making a charitable donation, gift aiding it and then claiming back the balance, you are choosing not to pay that amount of your tax towards the NHS, education, public transport and all of the other things that our tax supports; you are effectively saying that the charity you support is (for want of a better phrase) more deserving than all of those public services.

Other tax avoidance schemes such as trusts are, if you are "employed" to encourage citizens to pay all their taxes to fund public services, at the very least hypocritical - a poor show for anybody who might be standing on the moral high ground as a person of great moral principles.

OP posts:
Headofthehive55 · 15/05/2017 19:38

Stating that minimising your tax bill by using legal rules is wrong means that thousands of workers, even some on minimum wage, are wrong as some also use Tax rules to minimise tax paid. Are they also considered morally corrupt?