To kind of agree with Boris about tax?

[taxwtf]

I've never voted Tory in my life and can't stand the man. I'll never vote for him/them. His plans won't work because he's spouting crap and nothing adds up and Brexit will make us all poorer.

But...

Earlier this week someone I line manage asked me to check their payslip as they'd had a couple of extra payments and sick pay and weren't sure it was all correct. This person works 50% of the hours I do and is several points below me on our pay scale. I am a manager with a lot of responsibility and they are not. I now know that they take home about half what I do for working half the hours AND having waaay less responsibility/tasks etc.

I obviously don't begrudge this individual a single penny. The reason for this disparity is tax. The last few pay rises I got were barely noticeable in reality once tax, NI and pension contributions had gone up. If this person ever goes full-time their pay obviously won't double, but will not be as far behind mine as they might imagine.

WTF is the point of all the extra I do? As a single parent I also lose out so I strongly believe household income should be looked at instead of me subsidising married couples as is the case now. I wish I'd never seen that payslip, but although Boris's 'plans' obviously won't work, AIBU to think the tax system needs a massive overhaul and people like me in decent jobs, high end of our careers but absolutely NOT on silly money, should be better off?

The personal allowance and basic rate band are now worth £50,000. My information says they have been rising materially in recent years.

I'm sorry for being snippy, Holly, but it is kind of a crucial detail that my colleague and I are in two very different roles...

thresholds for higher rate haven't been raised for years

If that is true, then what is this link talking about?

OP: what sort of pension pot does your colleague have?

That's just it, soontobe60, aside from the pension, which as I said I worry about (not state but the occupational one I have paid into) I don't think I am better off in any of the ways you listed. Colleague has an earning partner. I think we are quite similar in terms of lifestyle apart from my mortgage which is higher, but that worries me too with talk of a Brexit-induced crash.

It's ridiculous to complain about paying more in pension contributions, because that is just putting your own money away for retirement and you will personally benefit from it one day.

And if there is a case to raise the higher rate threshold from £50k (=allowance + £37.5k), why boost it up by £30k to £80k? Given low levels of inflation, the case is probably to raise it to maybe £55 or £60k or so; not all the way to £80.

There is a shrinking tax paying population & huge generational inequality, we can’t keep placing the burden on the younger generations.

Take my neighbours, 1 30 yr old doctor earning 55k paying £1000 to rent a shared property. Paying a fair whack into his pension & not an insignificant student loan repayment. Unsure how he will own his own property.

Take another neighbour in her 80s, lives in a mortgage free property worth 700k today but paid 20k for. Owns another property that is rented out & has a not bad private pension. This neighbour thinks a salary of 50k plus is “rich” as she has never earned anything like that & believes these people should be paying more tax & not less.

... did the higher salary help you get a mortgage, OP?

Why are you so sure the disparity is tax alone? Are you sure your pay reflects your responsibility, contribution and market rate etc?

We can all agree that the threshold for higher tax band hasn't gone up in line with earnings but, while we have street sleepers and hidden homelessness/food banks/NHS cuts/school funding being decimated etc etc I can't justify a tax break for those earning relatively well (and I would benefit from it).

Actually, I've managed to stay just below the tax threshold for most of my career, despite getting pay rises annually, so the threshold has risen.

If you want to start a thread about how shit nurse's pay is I'll agree with you DG but this isn't what I was talking about or OP.

Sorry, I'll report myself to the thread police.

Or maybe I won't - I'll let you.

A read of the quote that I was commenting on will show that it suggested the level of pay someone gets is somehow connected to their "responsibility" with the example that is reflected in a manager of a supermarket getting more than a till worker.

That being the case and responsibility determines reward, then I was suggesting (not insisting, that would be stupid) that a job where the possible outcome of a bad decision is death as opposed to a fall in sales of toilet tissue might be considered by some to have even more responsibility again.

Don't worry though. Old lefties like me will eventually die off with our weird notions, and it'll the be free for all everyone is craving.

Actually, you can't base a fair tax system on whether someone has a partner or not. Do you then say childless adults should pay more, as they don't have the expense of children, or less because they don't have children that need health care, education etc?

That's not what I was saying though, DG

The point is different roles bring in different amounts of money, therefore Holly was wrong.

You can bring nurses into it if you really want to. It just genuinely isn't relevant here.

So you think household taxation would be fairer? But then what about couples where one mm parent stays at home and so they don't have the cost of childcare: how would you make that "fair"?

You can bring nurses into it if you really want to.

I just did

It just genuinely isn't relevant here.

Well just ignore it then - it's not like you'd be alone.

Yabu. If you want considerably more then you negotiate a new wage taking in to account what that wage will be after tax.

You are being underpaid. They are not being overpaid.

I am always trying to console myself with thoughts of my pension, but I have no confidence that I will ever receive it as I believe there is an issue with the funding of it

In which case it’s defined benefit so a nice problem to have and a opportunity to educate yourself on the Pension Protection Fund

Otherwise YANBU. I’d be looking forward to Boris’s tax cut but no doubt it’ll get offset by full NI also up to £80k. Then another administration will come along later and reintroduce it whilst still leaving the increased NI in place. You read it here first folks

So you think household taxation would be fairer? But then what about couples where one mm parent stays at home and so they don't have the cost of childcare: how would you make that "fair"?

Maybe start by changing our views on childcare from being a "cost" to an "investment" ? Can't be much fun for an entire generation to slowly realises as they mature that they were just a "cost" on their parents ...

Again, far too whacky and ludicrous to find any agreement in 21st century England, I know. But we're all allowed our moments of madness. Especially in this heat ...

£50,000 (the threshold for higher rate income tax) puts you in the top 5% of earners in the UK of people who pay income tax.

I’m a higher rate payer. Whilst I don’t feel “comfortable” (11 year old car, shop at Aldi), I think of the 95% of the population who earn less and realise lots of other people need a break more than me. It is the utter mismanagement of this country by asshats like Boris that is the problem.

Sorry, I have read the thread but I'm not understanding how your subsidising married couples?

I think this is partly why i get fed up with some people berating part time workers not pulling their weight in the home financially. Sometimes with the way the personal allowance works and the way thresholds sit you can reduce your hours and obviously earn less but not as much less as you looks as all the 'loss' is the outside the personal allowance.

Anyway, it's not the tax system that is the main cause of the problem imo, it's the ridiculously low wages we have in this country.

I don’t understand how raising wages would help. All other costs would go up to compensate, so people would be in the same position.

If the higher band threshold in 1990-91 was about £20k (over allowance), inflation would make that ~£45k today, so the threshold could arguably be raised to £58k (=45k+allowance) rather than current £50k.

Screenshots from Financial Times, 2015, pointing out how much the personal tax allowance has gone up & wages, so income tax is down as proportion of income over this period regardless of the banding.

No case made to raise the higher band threshold to £80k.

Yanbu op, there will be a lot of people out there who secretly agree with you but you're unlikely to find many on Mumsnet.

Our tax system and tax credit system is so punitive that it incentivises people to work less hours than they could.

There is too much sensationalism in journalism where people who earn £50k are painted as rich / wealthy when I doubt many people who earn that feel wealthy at all,but no one questions it.

There are, a hell of a lot of people out there who are on low incomes purely because they don't work a 40 hour week. Yet as the op points out they're the ones who from a tax perspective get all the breaks.