To think we can all afford to pay a bit more tax...

[HeyDuggee24]

Obviously I dont mean low earners, but anyone who earns the national average or above.

Both me an DH earn around the national average, and tbh I feel very lucky and a bit rich. That is with a ds in full time childcare.

I was looking at getting private health care at £100 a month and I've been thinking, I'd rather pay that in tax and have an nhs that helps everyone than pay an insurance company and probably never use it myself..

So, an extra 2% in tax each would be less than £50 each a month. Yeah, I'd like it in my pocket but I could live without it and if everyone who earned the national average or above paid it, it would add up to a lot surely?

It just all seems so dismal at the moment. The tories will take away from those who need it but everyone feels there is no way Labour can fund its manifesto.

Maybe if we all pitched in a bit we could still have good lives but makes others lives a little better too.

If you want to do something different you could get a discetionary healthcare like from Benenden, which works with the NHS. It's about £9 a month. If everyone did this might help with NHS. But would prefer to pay this to NHS really and just have it up to scratch...

I would be happy to pay more tax, am not a higher rate taxpayer. I'd like to be in a Danish-style system where we all pay more tax, but more services (university, healthcare, eldercare, lifelong learning/retraining) are paid for by the state.
I'm sure I'd be better off in the long run, as we use state education for our children, and would use state healthcare (if we were ill, none of us use it really at the moment). Am looking at lots of university costs in the next decade.

A bit more tax instead would be fine.
Though I'd rather they taxed inheritance and property. I think they'll have to at some point, as there are fewer people of working age and more pensioners, and salaries haven't been rising for a long time, so raising income tax won't work as well as it might have in the past.

I would have to disagree.
My dh works fulltime hes not on a bad wage and works all hours he can to support us.
I am a sahm we have 3 children 2 with SN which is why i am a stay at home mum. Currently stuck renting a 3 bedroom house which isn't working because of our children with sn. Dh is trying is best to save up for a deposit to buy but we dont have hardly any money left after essentials. We dont have hardly any debt so out goings are minimal but becuase i cook from scratch and buy nearly all freash and have a 3 year that i have had to souce bigger nappies for and is in glasses and brakes at least 1 pair a month and need to pay to replace our incomes constantly swallowed up.

As for the nhs i think the pct killed it. It was the intergration of several hospitals into super hospitals didnt work. Which created less bed space. How many times is a theatre set and funded for a full day of operations with surgeons staff then it gets cancelled due to lack of beds. Then staff are left with not being able to run operations so cant do much all the while waiting list get even long patients potentially get worse which then requires more treatment and more money.

The Danish system works as they have a small population (well correct for the size of the country)

The U.K. Is very overpopulated and I don't think the infrastructure can support that many people no Matt how much tax is paid

Anyone that can afford new clothes , spa days , private education , waitrose , nights out etc can spare a bit more tax

Hahaha I spent the morning wondering whether I could stretch to buying one of those multipacks of knickers in Sainsbury's this month. I guess I'll be keeping my crappy old underwear that's riddled with holes because I wouldn't be able to afford both knickers and tax.

Am I allowed to buy DD some new tights or is that a no no until the nhs is flourishing?

I would be happy to pay more tax if we could run a reasonable, accountable, scandi economy. Except we can't. We have the political equivalent of squabbling divorcing parents as leaders on both sides. who don't really care what's best for the country, but would rather be seen to be doing pointless political grandstanding.

I do understand that we need more money for health care etc but honestly, we are down to pennies by the time pay day rocks up and that's with a frugal lifestyle.

We are below the average U.K. income and a one earner household. I'd happily pay £50 more tax a month if it meant the health service would be able to provide good health care for all.

I agree with many comments on both sides of the argument. I would be happy to pay a bit more than the 50k per year that I already pay in tax but it does grate a little bit when I see lots of mums enjoying time with their kids, picking them up from school, whilst I am running around like an idiot trying to work full time and parent two kids. I am in the tax bracket where you lose you personal allowance so I am already paying 50% tax so was already considering reducing my hours. If Labour get in I will definitely be going part time and I reckon a lot of others will as well. Doesn't exactly incentivise working hard and trying to get to top of your profession. 80k is not a lot in London.

Charge people for missed appointments,

How do we reduce admin roles if we increase the admin work? In my experience I'd say there is often a shortage of admin staff with staff who are leaving not being replaced and people having to do their own admin - or sometimes voluntary sector 'partners' helping out, which is fine but we have our own work to do as well and we're having to do 'more for less'.

Give pharmacists the power to actually prescribe medications (contraception and stuff like that where it's purely blood pressure and off you go) to save gp appointments.

One GP appointment for original prescription then you see a nurse for regular blood pressure checks. That's what my surgery did, I only saw my GP for the Pill again when it looked like there might be a problem.

If Labour get in I will definitely be going part time and I reckon a lot of others will as well. Doesn't exactly incentivise working hard and trying to get to top of your profession. 80k is not a lot in London.

Thomasina will you going part-time create an extra job someone else can do? If so I don't see that it's a huge problem if people reduce their hours. Same with the complaints about people on tax credits refusing extra hours, if it creates an extra job for someone else, or gives someone else over-time (which means they pay a bit extra tax and spend a bit extra helping to keep other people in jobs) is it really that bad?

I think anyone on minimum wage should be taken out of tax altogether. Increase the personal allowance to say £15k and pay for it by increasing tax rates above a certain level by 1% and by 5% over £100k.

Mirime. no, it doesn't create a problem from my perspective as I would love to have more time at home with my kids, however, I know it would cost the company I work for a lot more to employ another person as you have all the overheads with employing someone, not just salary costs. Just makes it very expensive for businesses to accommodate.

I think anyone on minimum wage should be taken out of tax altogether. Increase the personal allowance to say £15k

I disagree. Better to keep the personal allowance relatively low and return money via tax credits to those with lower household incomes. Otherwise you just let families with one high earner and one part-time 'secretary for family business'/savings account owner shelter more money from tax.