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 ?

"Is Kelly the carers role important to society- yes
Does she deserve to earn a living wage and take pride In her work- of course
Should she earn the same as or be compared to a heart surgeon- hmm HELL NO"

But then Kelly gets moaned at for needing social housing.

@midnight

When I was at uni (pretty recently) it was far easier financially on those from lower income families as full funding and generous maintenance loans were offered.

Those finding it hard to afford to attend university were actually the children of ‘middle class’ parents who had other siblings...etc at home.
Their parents could not afford to suplement them £750 a month which would have given them roughly equivalent money to their low income peers.

Are you totally ignorant to the fact that student finance is horiffically bias and higher education is becoming more accessible to lower income students than those with one parent earning over 50K??

@ohreally

I don’t think you’re an idiot at all but MN is a place where not spelling out an example VERY clearly leads to it being interpreted a thousand ways.
You’re bang on that we don’t need as many heart surgeons as carers but the uk tax system does punish those who achieve highly and I don’t agree that people who are in a completely incomparable financial situation should ‘guilt’ anyone over the loss of large sums of money.

Kelly felling Alexander he should be ‘grateful’ is akin to a non parent telling you not to be stressed out by your 3 under 5’s.

I stand by my original point, it’s NOT fair to tax high earners so highly - mainly because it doesn’t take into account their home situation. If DP earns 70K a year but I stay at home with 3 little ones why should we lose out on thousands of pounds compared to 2 people earning £35 and sticking their kids with grandparents for free childcare.

It’s 100% NOT FAIR.

@MeteorGarden I am genuinely dumbfounded. You really belive that. OK.

When I've stopped being amazed at your skewed view of the world I'll try and come back with an intelligent response.

I'd rather live in norway. There is more equality of pay between top and bottom and a good quality of life which is funded by higher tax.

(And I think it's disgusting that we moan about how much an nhs chief exec gets paid running a complex multi million £ organisation, in a job with a short shelf life because of stress and the possibility of being sent to prison but we don't moan about the fact that a footballer or that a banker gets paid more.)

@MeteorGarden if £70k isn't enough for you to be a SAHP (and most people manage on a lot less than that) then go back to work. You can't expect your partner to get a tax break to allow you to be a SAHP.

You CHOOSE your home situation. If you choose to take out a huge mortgage and have 3 children and want to be a SAHP but moan about lack of money then I've got no sympathy really. Those are life choices you make.

@makingmiracles - your husband's rate of tax was 20% (£400 out of £2000), which is low. Not sure what the problem is with that?

@midnight

I don’t ‘believe’ it, that’s what I physically saw whilst at university and if you perhaps do some research you may discover it’s enrirely true.

I had two very good friends one from a very low income background (L) in Liverpool and one from a ‘middle class’ background (D) in Durham.

Both had their tuition covered by loans but L got £8700 manintenance loan per year and a £500 cash bursary.

D got £3500 per year and no bursary. Her father earnt well but mother only worked part time. They had a mortgage...etc and D had two younger siblings. In that situation her parents would have had to subsidise her £450 a month (more if you spread the difference just over term time as she went home in the holidays) and her next sibling was due to go to uni the following year. £900 a month to support two children at university isn’t affordable for those earning £50,000 and supporting a family home.

D and L were very open about their financial situations and D totally acknowledged she had far less than L and that was just ‘the system’.

I do agree that it’s often harder for the children of low income families to achieve well at school and therefore get into good universities but that is NOT what you said.

You’re completely wrong that university is less affordable for low income students.

I stand by my original point, it’s NOT fair to tax high earners so highly - mainly because it doesn’t take into account their home situation. If DP earns 70K a year but I stay at home with 3 little ones why should we lose out on thousands of pounds compared to 2 people earning £35 and sticking their kids with grandparents for free childcare.

You had em, you pay for em.

I would much rather Kelly the carer be given subsidies and tax breaks than you.

The key is not to look at your gross income and just to look at take home pay and be grateful for that.

OP I don't understand why you're doing those crazy hours again this month. As a pp said, get your company to employ someone else. It's not good for your health to work such long hours.

Big corporations are sucking the life out of the UK though, especially the ones that pay low wages. They're forcing their employees to take money from the government in tax credits, housing benefit etc, and then paying minimal tax themselves. Win win for them. Lose lose for the people and govt of the UK. Oh I suppose the people should be grateful they've got a (shit) job.

@bitchqueen90

I’m not a SAHP that was purely an example but seriously you think it’s fine for families to lose out on thousands simply by the split of who earns what in a marriage? You think that’s fair? When you’re married and have children it’s all about household income not indeevidual gain.
Jesus, why would one family with a household income of 70k have a considerably higher tax bill than another family with a household income of 70K?

Why should one family with 70k get CB whilst another don’t. If the government made it about household income they’d actually save ALOT on CB which they are currently paying to families earning 90k simply because both parents earn 45k

@bitchqueen, does the family earning 90K need CB? Or could that be better spent on a family more in need?

Count yourself lucky you're a good earner and living in a stable, safe country with good infrastructure. Thats what tax does.
I slipped out the tax band as I'm a low earner but try and make sure I only use tax paying companies (I don't use amazon) so I'm still contributing.

@Baum

So you just dislike families earning over 50k. You just look at the annual income and think...sod them rich douches they don’t deserve tax breaks or household income equality with others earning the exact same amount but spilt differently between husband and wife? Because that’s what it sounds like.

If the government did tax via household income and therefore stopped paying CB to ALL high income families rather than just those with one high earning partner then perhaps the extra money could give Kelly a tax break...or a living wage.

But no just go ahead and enviously dislike high earners rather than appreciating it’s all a big circle.

Op if I worked as hard as you have and saw my pay slip with that much tax being sucked out I would also think why am I bothering.

The government shouldn’t tax its people, it should fund itself through the sale of arms and oil, or by taxing imports.

the huge amounts of tax we pay doesn't bother me, but the opprobrium for higher earners you often see on mumsnet threads does, as if you do a job anyone could do and you're purely lucky to be in that position. Thanks for earning all that money to fund important services - you should feel proud about that.

Poor you for being paid in one month the amount of a loan I have just been forced into getting as my car has blown up on me! I'll be paying that back for a few years, whilst working and juggling a toddler. I doubt you'll get much sympathy here about your big chunk of money.

My mum is a nurse and even working a 50+ hour week she wouldn't bring home anywhere near that so why don't you have a little think about what you are really saying.

I earn over 50k,* meteor.*

It's just your attitude of unfounded superiority I don't like.

I completely agree.

My DP has his own business. He started it when he was 17 and had left school with no qualifications.

Because of his age, he couldn't get any financial help, or any bank loans. He struggled for years at was homeless at one point.

Now he's 30. His business is doing very well and he has worked so hard to get it there, harder than anyone I have ever met.

But he pays so much tax. It is actually insane - not just on what he earns but on everything else besides.

I really do think that the tax system penalises succeess. Why should you be "punished" for working hard and doing well in life when someone else can twat about, and hardly pay anything?

And I speak as someone who has a low salary and is not successful. Tax should be equal, no matter what you earn.

Can I just point out that everyone pays the same levels of tax. As a high earner you still get the personal allowance and only pay the higher rate on what you earn OVER the threshold. There are plenty of people who work long hours and will never pay the higher tax rate because they are paid too little.
You are in a privileged position. Get a grip.

Complaining about taking home 4x the average pay

Wow

And for those who say it should be based on household income- I do see your point. But think about the mechanics of that. At what point would you be assessed as a household? What if you seperate? What if you’re linked to a financially abusive ex? How would that work? People could self certify- but that’s placing trust in people to be honest and as per my above point about self employed deductions, that’s not always the case! It’s adminsitratively simpler to keep seperate taxation.

My point about self employed people didn’t post bah. Basically you can’t legally deduct 100% personal expenses from business accounts. So people who say they do are exaggerating and not telling you full picture or “creative accounting” I.e committing fraud. It should get policed better but HMRC staff numbers have suffered. To increase them...we need more tax revenue.

Perhaps there is a point for everyone to pay the same eg a third. Assuming lower wages would go up. But it would make it a fairer playing field and the low paid eg me living on pensions and just at the cut off level wouldn't be paying virtually nothing.
Then me and other low paid workers might agree that a third is too much to pay, but whilst swathes of the country pay very little they are going to be very happy that others are getting hammered.
I think I agree with the OP that it isn't fair if one lot pay a huge proportion and others pay nothing. There might not be such a big wealth difference if those on the bottom were treated the same - on the minimum wage you would be paying 4,000 tax if it was a third and that would make the minimum wage too low, employers would have to up wages, especially now they can't rely on cheap east european labour.

So hard work = more pay? If only!

@MeteorGarden - I think you need to buy a gratitude journal.

@Meteor I actually agree with you re the household income and child benefit.