Are taxes too high?!?

[RedneckStumpy]

As a Brit living in the US I often get asked about life in the UK. Last night I Went through the usual discussion, then was asked what the taxes were like. So I outlined income tax and sales tax and was challenged with a question that stumped me.

Why would you bother trying to better yourself?

""why would you bother trying to better yourself?""

That's a bit like the question of "why would you not be a criminal if you're Black, because you've got an even chance of being killed by the Police, in the US", even White people, who haven't committed a crime, have a chance of being killed, disabled or sexually abused, by Police.

You still have much more to gain by earning more, even if you pay more tax. It's a very selfish POV.

I don't understand the US mentality of saluting a Flag and "loving their Country", but not giving a shit about each other. They seem to consider one another dispensable, or collateral damage.

There are US citizens who do want a version of our Socialism and Welfare, of course.

I think it is an utter disgrace someone like the Duke of Westminster - worth a hideously obscene amount of money - apparently more than it would cost to make the NHS workable properly again - is able to doge some taxes. It may be legal but it is utterly immoral.

LePetit
THe DoW is a director of a company that owns all of the properties
he did nothing all all to dodge tax
if companies were taxed on the value of their assets each time a director dies, there would be no business in the world.

The offensive bits of tax law are

• Non Dom status - unique to the UK , utterly wrong
• LLP's - unique to the UK, primarily used for money laundering by rich crooks
• CFC rules on subsidiaries that allow 'offshoring' of profits
• 'carried interest rules' that allow gross tax avoidance
• the lack of a land tax on high value properties

dealing with those would not affect 99% of the population but would put a lot more money into government coffers worldwide

Police, fire, education, are primarily paid for out of The US equivalent of council tax

And all these services are. chronically underfunded, particularly public schools. Many local councils are running deficits and a few are bankrupt. Americans pa

Re marginal tax rates:

For post 2012 student loans there is the following set up:

Undergrad loans: 9% over 21k

Post grad: 6% over 21k.

At the same time you pay NI at 12% and income tax at 20%. So the marginal tax rate is 32% with no loan, 41% with an undergrad loan, and 47% with an undergrad and post grad loan.

Over £46,350, you are then in the higher tax bracket. This cuts your NI to only 2%, so then you pay 42% on everything over that with no degree, 51% with a degree and 57% with undergrad and postgrad.

I have personally made decisions to go part time as the additional time worked didn’t give a large enough return on that time because I was only going to see 60% of it. That was a decision I was lucky to be able to make, and I am very pro taxation, but I do think it has to be carefully optimised to avoid people working less.

It's not that we pay too much tax, Americans don't pay enough.

Interestingly @BMW6 I have a bit of a problem with raising the personal allowance ever higher.
In the uk 47% of adults do not pay income tax. They therefore do not have "skin in the game" on government economic policy.

If the allowance was altered so that a 10% tax band applied to everybody in work - created by merging NI and PAYE and a limit of half of median income
and then a 20% band kicked in at median income (half the population)
and then a 40% band at double median (the top quarter)
and then a 50% band at five times median
then incentives to work would be maintained
tax transparency would be increased
and engagement could be improved

If I applied for and got a promotion, it would not be worth it as 40% of it would go in tax plus extra hassle, stress, expected to work longer hours etc.

I have had the “Shot across the bow” from the doctor a few years ago so.

A case of happy with what I have got and leave it up to the youngsters to climb the greasy pole and work silly hours

A bonus is delegation works both ways, not just downwards 😎

Taxes are too high, both direct and indirect taxation. The government has high tax in alcohol and tobacco to reduce consumption, after stamp duty rose, property sales have fallen. Raise income tax and the government will get lower tax receipts.

People that claim that they'd happily pay higher taxes actually want them paid by other people, people that have achieved more than they have.

This video illustrates it well.

JillianHoltzmann it may not show on your payslip how much you pay towards the NHS, police etc but I was sent an annual tax summery for 2016-2017 which gave me that information have not had one?

oldsu no I haven't had one of those, sounds handy! Never even heard of them!

Yes of course the way that student loan repayments work are insidious and could/should affect the rate of taxation but of course they are not counted as tax payments (although they should be)

As a sideline, my DS going to university in October will pay £9250 in tuition fees. My DD already at university will pay the same. DS will have a full time job effectively in labs and assessments including saturday morning lectures. So 5 1/2 days in total. DD will get 4 hours of contact time a week. It's ridiculous really

Schrodingersbox is there a link to that HMRC thing? Was speaking about this the other day with a friend and she was saying she'd like to donate to the public education fund, not sure if that link would help