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 ?

@serbska

We don’t have to take away the ability to be taxed indeevidually. But you think offering the option to be taxed on household income is a pile of horseshit?

You don’t think the family struggling to survive on a £24k income deserve that extra £300 that the other family earning the exact same amount get?

@MeteorGarden if the family feel they ‘deserve’ the extra £300 then they are perfectly within their rights to have two adults working.

I posted a thread on something i found out the other day (basically that my total compensation absolutely explodes when I make pension payments because I get more tax credits) - it was interesting to see just like here it was extremely divisive when the point about single earner Vs dual earner families came up. Some people can't understand that being a single earner family isn't always a choice.

I completely agree that household income is what should be taxed.

@serbska

That’s incredibly small minded. There are a multitude of good reasons a two parent home can’t have both parents working. Perhaps one partner really loves their career so the other stays home with the child. Perhaps one suffers mental health issues so the other works...etc. Perhaps they can’t both find part time roles that fit to manage child care.

What you’re saying @serbska is that two identical families with exactly the same income are not entitled to the same take home pay! That’s completely preposterous and wrong. Just because ‘some people’ choose to function indeevidual does not mean that it should be detrimental to function as a family unit.

@serbska if the family feel they ‘deserve’ the extra £300 then they are perfectly within their rights to have two adults working.

maybe they can't have 2 of them working as one is looking after the DC, or 1 doesnt drive and can't get to work or many other reasons

Go back to Waitrose you total pigeon!

Point proved.

Make a pretty sensible and informed point about a tax restructuring that would benefit quite a lot of people....MNuser does not like the tone of the font you typed it in and ignores point whilst having a go about font.

Point very much not proved

My point had nothing to do with that.

You sound very angry about life. I hope things get better for you soon.

Motherhood sincerest apologies for misinterpreting your post.

Women fought long and hard to change the law to ensure married women's property was not owned by their husband (as it used to be in England) and then to gain separate taxatino of husband and life which we fought and won in my lifetime. The child benefit change was an awful chipping away against that long fought for right and I hope we never move back in that direction again.

I am in higher tax bracket ( Scotland) and am more than happy to pay extra tax to run our services. I feel very lucky that I have a decent income when others are struggling, but I am one of those dreadful leftie liberals.
When your local foodbank is posting for donations because of our appalling benefits system, just shows that those who have more should help others in whatever way.
And don't get me started on the tax avoiding companies!

The argument about women fighting hard to gain independent taxation is well made and well intentioned, but better still would be to have the choice to tax as a unit when by not having the option you end up worse off.

Doesn't matter if the sole earner is male or female.

Did you really work hard OP? I mean the hardest work out there is probably digging a hole in hard soil. Was that what you were doing for 15 hours per day for 20 straight days?

Actually no, probably not, there is not much money in hole digging, though not through government penalties but rather due to the monetary value attached to the work in spite of it being the hardest work out there.

If you want to get paid well for work then I suggest you might need to start working smarter not harder, select a highly valued skill, hone the skill until you do it to maximum efficiency and then rake in the cash. Probably best off with your own company for maximum return.

Moaning about taking home £5,500 because you worked “hard” is just first world naval gazing toss. HTH

The argument about women fighting hard to gain independent taxation is well made and well intentioned, but better still would be to have the choice to tax as a unit when by not having the option you end up worse off

It’s got nothing to do with being male/female it’s about finding the best way to protect your family income from the government.