To think that being in a high tax bracket doesn't mean you work 'harder'

[dietcokeandgalaxyplease]

I'm so so sick of reading about people who welcome the Tory's tax reduction for high earners because of course they 'work hard' and why should they be penalised.
AIBU to think that even though you work HARD you don't always earn a lot? I genuinely think that if you earn more you should contribute more.
I'm a nurse married to a paramedic. Neither of us are paying the higher tax rate.... obviously we need to work harder???? 😡

The tax reduction is not to 'reward' higher paid earners, it is to incentivise people to work at that level.

A perfect example is doctors. What most people don't appreciate is that a large proportion of hospital doctors work much over their contracted hours when in period of need. This includes week-end work. However, they are now penalised for doing so as they have to pay more tax on their pension, so not only are they not rewarded above the pay, they actually get penalised and lose out. So those working at the threshold, ie. those more experienced, those most likely to save lives etc... don't do it. Who can blame them, they already work long hours. Who pays for it, us, who have to wait even longer for a much needed operation, us who might not have the emergency care we needed to save our lives, or reduce our likelihood of disability.

We need high paid earners just as we need lower paid earners. The latter should be rewarded if their work FT so that they can still benefit from a decent lifestyle. The former shouldn't penalised so that they too continue to provide essential services to the public and/or wealth to the country.

The thing is though everyone benefits ultimately from a more equal society. If schools and hospitals are run down everyone suffers. Even if you personally use private schools and medicine, you'll suffer from social dissatisfaction and unrest.

Do we want people homeless on the street? Do we want people poorly educated? Do we want mental health issues spiralling because provision for it is cut? There is a knock on effect for all of us when services are cut. There is clearly a connection between knife crime and cuts to youth services, social services and police.

My DH has always been a higher rate taxpayer and I wouldn't want to see everyone else struggling so we can afford even more meals out or weekends away.

I hate the Tory message that society doesn't count, it's only what individual families get that's important. How can people not see the long term disadvantages of their short term selfishness?

I struggle to understand why people with loads of money twist and turn out of paying tax, celebrities for example. Surely contributing to society with so little real effect on yourself should feel like a positive thing!

I’m a higher rate tax payer, I don’t work particularly hard, I do have a lot of responsibility and worked my arse off to qualify quickly.

I don’t think I should pay less tax. Lower earners should be paying less tax and I would like the tax threshold to increase to around £15k.

I think really has little to do with how “hard” you work and more to do with the skills and sacrifices needed to do the job. There isn’t much in the world that isn’t driven by supply and demand.

The fewer people there are who:

1. Are trained (or able to be trained) for a role (skills, languages, qualifications, experience etc)
2. Who have the characteristics required to do it well (eg leadership, resilience to stress etc)
3. Who are willing to give up other things in their life such as time with family and friends to work long hours or travel, potentially even long term health in some cases

...the higher the salary will be to incentivise them. Add to that that many high skilled roles will not just want people who can do the job, they’ll also want the best people, and there is an extra premium for incentivising the employee to choose company A over company B.

I don’t know many people who are high earners who don’t have at least some of these in their job. The other differentiation is career progression. If you’re in a job which can be started at entry level but in which complexity and responsibility change significantly with experience (eg IT, law, specialists in any field) then the pay will increase faster to reflect that.

We need these people in the labour market. I don’t begrudge them a higher salary and to be honest I think we are all mugs for falling for the politics of division and envy that are being peddled by politicians to make us fight amongst each other whilst missing the point that all our lives would be better if big businesses paid more of what they really owe.

I used to be a high earner pre kids, I’m now earning around average wage in a similar field but in return for the drop I have infinitely more flexibility and less stress. So in my personal case it’s true, I worked much harder when I was in a higher paid job, but I don’t think that’s true if everyone.

How high someone is paid is not proportional to how hard they work. There are extremely hardworking people and also a number of lazy buggers at every possible income level.

Salaries are set from a complex dependence on how the supply-and-demand market is balanced for the particular combination of natural talent, knowledge and experience needed to be able to perform that function well, how popular the career path is, plus the profitability of that job function.

Care workers and nursery staff are not low paid because they don't work hard but because people with the skills and experience needed to do the job are in sufficient supply that wages don't need to be any higher and in any case the system couldn't function of wages were much higher because the service users can't afford to pay much more so that won't change.

Investment bankers aren't working much harder but the talent, knowledge and experience needed to do it well is pretty rare and the banks need to recruit and retain the best talent because the most talented individuals personally generate millions of pounds a year in income for the bank and well happily take their talent to a higher-paying employer if offered so the market forces spiral their remuneration up and up. If your employers know they will lose millions of they don't agree to a request for a £30k pay rise then you have them over a barrel.

So yanbu OP - the justification for cutting higher rate taxes being linked to hard work is ridiculous but those saying it know that it's a lie anyway. The truth is that the Tories want lower taxes for the rich because they are funded by donations from wealthy donors and there is an election coming up so they need to Pay the Piper. Don't waste time analysing why liars lie or deconstructing the specifics of each lie.

I'd like to see a tax system which applied a "social good" adjustment at every tax band so that each industry and job function could be given a rating on a universal five-point scale according to how beneficial to society that work is. So nurses, doctors, paramedics, fire fighters, teachers etc get the highest rating, ethically neutral careers like software engineering, restaurant staff, and people working in retail get a neutral medium rating and those whose work is exploitative or damaging get a negative rating - arms dealers and polluters for example. It could never work because we could never get universal agreement on the ethics behind such a rating system

So a highly talented surgeon earning over £100,000 because the rarity of her skill and experience justify that salary pays the same tax as someone earning the same income working for an arms dealer (or probably more, as the latter will be fiddling their taxes) - and that sucks.

Losing the personal allowance is extremely painful and incentivises weird behaviour. And the tax system in general incentivises weird behaviours. For example, 9 months ago I cut down my hours to 4 days a week instead of full time because when I worked out what I was earning after tax, childcare and student loan for my 5th day it was around £1 an hour. DH is a high earner and his salary means that we don’t qualify for help with childcare (tax free childcare, child benefit etc) and it makes the payoff of working not worth it... we are expecting again and I am not likely to return to my (>£50k fte salary) job because the numbers don’t make it worth it. That means I will never pay back my student loan and will stop contributing to the coffers. I’m not going to spend time away from my kids and take on the stress of my job to be in a worse financial situation as a family....

I wouldn't say work harder, that wouldn't be fair as most people give 100% in their role and each role is vital to the service. I'd say it's more the responsibility and how much is expected of you for the higher pay. Husband is now a middle manager and its constant shit from both sides, has to be available at the drop of a hat and by phone from 7am - 10pm. At the time the pay sounded great but he probably doesn't earn that much more to make it worthwhile being in the higher tax bracket. So he earns 55k but this comes with downsides. Alot of companies give benefits but it affects the tax you pay. E.g he has a car which he needs to drive all over the country but that's about 9k in his tax allowance. Then theres healrhcare and some other bits. When you work it out with the loss of child benefit for 2 kids, you wonder what the point was!!

Btw I'm not complaining at all, we started with nothing. Both didn't go to university etc and we have always been happy with what we have. To sum up, you should pay more tax if you earn more but sometimes I question why the rate jumps so high when you are just over it - like there should be % deductions based on what earn or something.

In most cases (above a minimum clearly!) salary has a small effect on people's motivation to work hard.

In the doctors case, taking cash away will demotivate, but that's not the Same as giving a higher salary in the first place. Most ( not all of course ) people are motivated by other stuff, I could earn 3 times what I do, but my current role is making the world a little better not banking

the higher salary potential does help motivate people to do additional training. In some cases people on high salaries are doing a hard job, requiring special skills and knowledge. Not all people on high or low salaries are working hard. Be interesting to compare the rates of ( physical and mental ) burn out across the salary ranges though.

@Greenwingmemories, your post doesn't make sense. You talk about a more equal society, but then point out that all deserve education and health.

If it wasn't for the CEO running out the hospitals, and the doctors to treat people, there would be nowhere to go to be treated for serious conditions. If there weren't Headteachers, there'd be no school for kids to be educated to.

If there were no bank directors, there'd be nowhere to get mortgages to house families, nowhere to get loans safely etc...

For those who claim equality in income, are you really saying that if you'd be happy to train to get the skills and then work as a CEO with all what it demands and be happy that your income is shared with others who go home at 4pm and can forget about work so that they get to enjoy the same luxuries as you do? I very much doubt it.

Being paid more is not really about working harder, it's about having more responsibility, and because you're expected to take the blame if/when things go wrong.

MIdgebabe

I think that’s an interesting point. Most people get their salaries regardless of their performance and performance related pay is usually a small component of their take home pay. Especially because they are charged their marginal rate of tax on it.

DH receives around half of his salary in his bonus and this really motivates him to work hard and put in the hours. He’s more sensible about it now but at his previous job which had more of a “FaceTime” culture he would be in the office from 7:30am until 9:30pm most days...

Its becoming boring hearing that I should pay more taxes. I worked 70 hour weeks away from home without any additional allowances, making years of sacrifices which has now put me in a position where I'm a in the higher tax bracket. I done this whilst suffering up to 50 epileptic fits a day at some stages I am not from a privileged back ground. I grafted hard as do others and have a can so attitude and wanted to prove that my various medical conditions will not hold me back and stop me achieving.

I believe professions such as carers and our emergency services are under paid. But an increase in my taxes will not bring these people up to a salary to which they deserve!

Too simplistic there's very hard and demanding/ piss easy jobs in ALL pay brackets

Decades ago it was discovered that CEOs, senior management had fewer heart attacks than lower down the ladder staff. Those at the top had more agency (I think that's the word) over their lives and more recognition than the minions, so suffered less stress.

Care workers and nursery staff are not low paid because they don't work hard but because people with the skills and experience needed to do the job are in sufficient supply that wages don't need to be any higher and in any case the system couldn't function of wages were much higher because the service users can't afford to pay much more so that won't change.
It's not just that. Care workers don't earn much because they have few responsibilities. They are told how to do their job and 'all' they have to do is adhere to what they are told. There is little decision making to be made. If anything happens, they are expected to rely on more senior people to guide them as to what to do.

Being a carer is very hard, but your responsibility in relation to other people is low. The more senior you are the more you are expected to make decisions that will impact on others, and that's what comes with a higher income.

yip, I can believe at that at the very highest levels the autonomy and possibly also esteem helps

DH is a top rate tax payer. He works blooming hard and double the hours of most people. Anyone saying that someone putting in 35h of unskilled labour compares, is taking the proverbial.

Care workers do have responsibility for other people. How they act and behave towards their clients has a huge impact on the live of those people. Probably more than deciding who can go on holiday or have a pay rise. The choices that senior management make often do not affect a business as much as they would like to think.

What gets me is the high tax that I pay and the way that the government pisses it away, offering utterly piss poor services to support those that need it. It's an absolute scandal. I would happily pay more tax if it was put to good use.

No hard work doesn’t necessarily correlate with pay. Other factors such as profit making or cost saving are more relevant.

Someone at any level of pay can work hard or not.

YANBU. I earn in the higher bracket and I think I have a really easy time- my job is safe, warm, hot drinks on tap, cakes in the office most days, cooking facilities for lunch, technology to easy communicate with others, car allowance, private healthcare

It’s mentally very stressful and I do suffer in that regard. But I get a great pension so I compare myself to a roofer or an electrician who has a short hard career out in all elements, very physically hard, and often their bodies are worn out by 50, and they didn’t have a good pension (or a good salary) And I feel lucky.

In fact I visited a site last year and was told by way of accomplishment only one person had died during the build. No one has ever died in an office I work in, to my knowledge, and certainly not died from a work accident.

fallfallfall
the term "harder" is too simplistic.
are we talking physically harder, hot sweaty physical labor under difficult conditions (pick ax in a mine)
or mentally harder, forensic accountant.
or harder more people reliant on your accuracy (civil engineer drawing up a bridge).

Very succinctly put.

Does the city lawyer working 20 hours a day work "harder" than the min wage carer?

What if the lawyer is a human rights specialist taking on some of the worst violations against vulnerable people? Or a celebrity specialist getting rockstars off driving bans?

As for:
Where I work, it seems the higher up you are, the less work you do hmm
My DP and I will never get close to the higher bracket but we work hard and always have.

You are either incredibly naive or willfully ignorant.

Just because you personally don't see what the "highers" in your company are doing, doesn't mean they don't also work hard like you.

Threads like this always have this nasty reverse snobbery and it is most unbecoming. If it is such a damn easy ride, why aren't all the complaining pp doing it?

People have crumbled to high stress in some work. A case near my old work which was very sad. Big companies often know to look out for the people there in some way. It’s not always a walk in the park. Either end can be hard, or not.

Re the supply and demand point- there are more qualified accountants in the U.K. than there are doctors. Their salaries haven’t diminished despite this massive increase in supply, because organisations have been convinced they are needed, therefore jobs have been created. The reason companies don’t find the same money for carers Is two pronged: they don’t need to professionalise the role and they convince society they can’t afford to