The tax system in this country is unfair and penalises hard work

[renouncefifty]

I have just finished an assignment working 20 days straight and put in nearly 300 hours. Im exhausted but have a week off to recuperate.

I get overtime for every hour over 8 hours a day I work and overtime for weekends all day. I just realised I've "earnt" £9000 this month which sounds fantastic BUT over £3000 is going in Tax and god knows how much in NI. I dont get a full personal tax allowance as im taxed on my private health insurance premium. I will be lucky to see 5.5k of that money. Oh im in scotland so we pay a penny more per pound in tax also.

I just think sometimes why bother ?

yes corporate non payment is the elephant in the room no govt can do anything about so far - it needs international cooperation, not unilateral action. These threads always get so bitter about who deserves what, and then we're setup to fight each other, rather than thinking about big problems with no easy solutions.

Well actually, lets be real about this.

Hardwork is not actually rewarded that well.

Since the late 70s the level of social mobility in the UK and the US, who both adopted neo liberal economic policies, has almost flat lined. At the same time, the vast majority of the proceeds from ecomnomic growth have gone to the owners of capital rather than increasing the incomes. This a direct opposite of what happened during the period of 1945-1978, where social mobility is high.

People get annoyed when people cite hard work as the cause of their financial success as most jobs are "hard work" and yes some are more than others, but saying " i worked hard" belittles others efforts, and of course bases all of your success entirely on your own efforts.

Which as the data shows, its unlikely to be, and if it is, then you are the exception and not the rule and so are guilty of survivor bias.

Also the 30 hours free childcare is only really a benefit for those earning above a certain amount because it’s not free it’s subsidised & only for term time so you still need to pay childcare costs. Eg for DC1 when we got the 30 hours my costs went from £65 a day to £30 & back up to £65 during holidays. It’s better for the gov to keep “us” in work to collect more tax if that makes sense.

why does me saying i work hard belittle anyone else? I work hard, I'm sure there are other people that work hard. Few high earners make the statement that their high earnings are solely due to their hard work, you'd have to look case by case to really figure out the effect of good choices and hard work, or indeed the weight of the societal benefit.

However I do think the higher rate kicks in far too low & it’s the 50-80k earners who really struggle as opposed to those on 100k I totally agree with this. While 50-60k is a decent salary. It isn't a fortune. DH and I are on around 80k between us but don't feel at all wealthy. Need a new kitchen but our mortgage is big so simply can't afford it. Pisses me off that so much of our income goes on tax.

What about emergency medical technicians or paramedics?
Less than what, 30k a year, more like 25k for an EMT. 12hr shifts with few breaks, high stress, skilled, risk of assault, PTSD, take jobs home, watch people's lives and see them die. That has more demands than some 6 figure jobs!

"Pisses me off that so much of our income goes on tax."

Your take home pay on £40k is £30, 581, without (untaxed) pension contribution which means that if you split your earnings.

Means that you pay an average tax rate of 23.54%, leaving you 77% or so of your income untaxed.

If you earn about 40k each it means you just start being net tax contributors too.

People need to work out average tax rates not marginal.

Oh and the higher Threshold for tax free allowance? Benefits middle and higher earners rather than lower.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/02/cameron-tax-cuts-benefit-middle-and-high-earners-not-poor

People who earn more should pay more tax. And they also shouldn’t be entitled to child benefit because they don’t need it. The only way it can be fair is via a progressive method of taxing people.

There is a problem with child benefit in that a single mum / dad earning 50k doesn’t get it but a two parent family earning 49k each does get it (I might have the thresholds wrong) but the gist is that the whole thing is a bit flawed. The 30 free hours thing is ridiculous too because you can get 30 free hours of childcare even if you only work 16 hours a week. And it’s not properly funded so those who do have to pay for childcare end up subsidising those who don’t by way of increased fees for non funded hours.

Aw Diddums. What was your hourly rate for that 200 hours, OP?

Imagine working 200 hours on NMW and see how that makes you feel.

Pitapotamus There cannot be many people working just 16 hours & claiming the 30 hours, unless they earn a lot. Like I said my bill went from £65 a day to £35 a day when eligible.

Didn’t everyone get CB in the past regardless of income?

USA Calling. Off u go. Bye

I work 22.5 and claim 30 free childcare.
It’s split over whole year. There are wraparound fees but I now pay a fraction of what I did before!

There's no such thing as truth, only more or less useful explanations. If people want to be successful, which belief is more likely to give good outcomes:-

a) To be successful I need to choose my field carefully, invest in my education, work hard and take calculated risks.
b) To be successful I need to be lucky.

If you are a sociologist, economist or philosopher doing a survey, it's fair to include luck in the causes of success. If you're just someone trying to succeed in life, it's not really a productive concept, it's only really useful for helping you not to feel bad about failure.

"1% of taxpayers pay 27% (that's nearly 1/3) of all income tax already."

But as a proportion of the total tax take income tax has fallen over the last 40 years in the UK, over 3 quarters of the tax take comes from other sources.

T"here simply are not enough HR taxpayers to go around -the 50% rate for >£150k was scrapped because it made no money."

Not true, actually cutting the tax rate cost the government money, but the first year of the 45% rate had a higher level of tax raised because people deferred earnings in order be taxed at a lower rate in that tax year.

"The government did some projections of this before the cut. It predicted that cutting the rate would cost £360m over five years—with a loss of £50 million 2013/14, £100 million in both 2014/15 and 2014/15 and £110 million in 2016/17."

fullfact.org/economy/did-cutting-50p-rate-tax-raise-8-billion/

"It's only really useful for helping you not to feel bad about failure."

Statements like that show that you aren't where you are based on your intelligence, academic or social.

All you have to do to understand that hard work and good choices don't equal success, and that luck and unearned privilege play a massive factor in determining success, is to look at the percentage of privately educated people in the highest earning positions.

Oh and certainly not envy, I pay a huge amount of tax ( 6 figures) and don't begrudge it at all .

I'm sort of in the middle here. I am high rate tax payer but don't begrudge it. I do however hunk that people claiming that those in six figure don't deserve it is reflective of a lack of understanding about the responsibilities they have for hundreds of people's livelihoods, the amount of stress they take home, the hours worked without pay, never really taking a holiday without being bothered by the office etc. You don't have any of that at the till in Tesco. What I do object to is that statutory maternity pay doesn't reflect salary. As the sole income earner in my house I couldn't afford to have a maternity leave longer than 9 weeks because I get the same as Kelly the carer. I literally would be unable to pay me mortgage, school fees at. I pay enough in and at times like that I think women should be helped to stay at home. I also agree with the point about the single salary being unfair versus two tax allowances on joint income

@Baum

I grew up in a working class family reliant on benefits! Does that make me less able to empathise with someone having 40% of their hard earnt money taken away?

No- because I’m not jealous or resentful as others CLEARLY are. Who the hell are you to tell people how they’re allowed to feel. So high earners can’t have feeling, shouldn’t strive to earn more and should constantly feel nothing but grateful and humble? Want to take away mental health services to those who earn over 50K? ... what have they got to be unhappy about. Right? Jesus!!!

Pull your head out of your (I’m guessing rather lazy and entitled bum) and find something better to do than troll mums net swearing at people. Perhaps if you were losing 40% of your earning every month you’d understand.

"Perhaps if you were losing 40% of your earning every month you’d understand."

You only start to lose 40% in average tax over £160k.

At which point your income after tax is £7,965 PCM

Topcat

Meteor has a habit of let's just say, embellishing facts.

A few posts ago they were a sahp with three children and a husband earning 70k.

I would proceed on the assumption it's all fictional.

Too many stereotypes there slapbitchface about people in both high and low paid jobs.

“Kelly the carer”.

"What I do object to is that statutory maternity pay doesn't reflect salary. As the sole income earner in my house I couldn't afford to have a maternity leave longer than 9 weeks because I get the same as Kelly the carer."

That was also due to your choice of employment and how your spend your salary.