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???? 😡

Apart from Japan I think you find that care robots are not likely in the near term.

Here's a quick google but I have seen proper papers also

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/aug/20/robots-are-not-destroying-jobs-but-they-are-hollow-out-the-middle-class

Downtown, My company, for example is a medium sized private company and just invested millions in new IT systems. They won’t do that again for at least 10 years so - it’s easier it continue paying staff than keep changing systems to replace them.

However automation is still there- this IT system needs 20% fewer purchase ledger staff, for example. That’s what I mean, it’s a gradual erosion rather than a step change.

I think carers can easily be replaced, but society isn’t ready to accept their replacements.

A good example is banking- in 15 or so years banks have gradually introduced technology which allows us to bank ourselves and got rid of retail staff. An app isn’t a person who smiles and gives you £20 notes and a receipt, but gradually it is happening and society has, in a large part, decided that the convenience is worth losing the personal touch.

It’ll be similar with caring- we will accept the cheapness and convenience of the robot carer eventually

@ MIdgebabe - Japanese developers are partly developing these to eventually export to China / Europe etc. India currently doesn’t have an ageing population it has a growing / young one, but is using robots to replace surgeons.

Alexa I agree.

Pass, being able to bypass the awful staff in my local bank has been a joy. Sorry to good bank staff but in my town in the two banks I use they have been awful. Probably management and company to blame but certainly no smiling handing over receipts.

Taxation shouldn’t be seen as a punishment, it should be seen as contributing to a well functioning society where earners at all levels can thrive and nobody goes hungry and homeless just because their skills and contributions don’t command the same salary.
Taxation is seen as a punishment by many because they have no control over how it is spent. It's rarely the amount that people have to pay they begrudge, it's where they believe it is going.

Now there is a lot of misconception there, and that certainly fuels the resentment. The media are severely to blame there, but at the same time, there is such misconception that people who do well do so because they had more opportunities than those who don't when in the last majority of cases, they do because they've made sacrifices, or investment that others have opted not to make.

Most of the people I know who are doing well had no better opportunities than those I know who are not as comfortable financially. The latter have tended to prioritise their family life and are 'richer' that way.

It does sometimes feel that it is ok to begrudge those who have more money, but never those who are richer in different ways, through having more time for themselves, richer relationships with their family because they had more time and energy to give them.

If you take two brothers, one whose become CEO but by working long hours, being stressed all the time, he has lost his wife who got tired of become second all the time, has poor relationships with his kids because he never really gave them the attention they deserved, and feel awkward with his parents because he's moved miles away from home and has rarely seen them in the last 40 years.

His brother opted for a less demanding professional life, working in low management, 4 days a week, 9-5. He has been married for 30 years, has raised 4 great children who had the chance to take to after school activities, go to their soccer games, ballet shows, took them to the doctors, got up at night to give them a cuddle when they were scared. He got to see his parents every week-ends and love going there for their Sunday roast. He might not have much money, but he is Rich emotionally.

Would anyone begrudge him, say that since he has so more time for himself, he should give back to society and be forced to spend his day off helping people in need, volunteering in a career home, hospital, school?

I never read threads talking about the selfishness of people who have more time for themselves and give it to their family instead of society. It's easy target the rich and critisize them for being selfish with their money, and not consider that other people are as selfish with other richness in lives.

I am a high rate tax payer as is DH and both of us support higher taxation but we would want improved facilities in exchange. The UK currently does tax higher earners a lot (If you add up my income tax, national insurance tax, tax on my share dividends / capital gains tax, and VAT I have paid in my lifetime it is probably close to 40-60% of any income) but then not provide any of the facilities for my use that Scandinavian countries do. I want a guaranteed 2 year maternity / paternity leave, I want world leading free childcare, I want society to benefit people who work too. But I don’t think we will ever get that any time soon.

Often higher earners take on more risk and responsibilities.

Also, tax is theft.

Most high earners have more responsibility or bring revenue for their companies. Do you think there is a salary lottery?

I'd not be happy to pay all salary hike in taxes but that's the only way to cross the threshold. You don't go from 20k to 200k at once.

Very rich open limited companies so pay less taxes, very low salaried employees pay no or less tax too. The middle are squeezed and many may loose the motivation on the way up.

I’ve been poorly paid and well paid. I have to say, where I’ve been, my poorly paid jobs have been far less stress and work than the well paid ones.
No one will die in my job if I make a mistake, but jobs could be lost if I set a strategy that losses money and that’s a responsibility that I never had in a lower paid job.
Saying it’s high paid v low paid is incredibly naive, it’s about people in those critical jobs where lives depend or they are putting their lives on the line where the pay or tax structure should be examined.

Of course it's ridiculous that people are so anti-taxes- they didn't get to where they are without the help of all of the resources and opportunities available to them in our country!

Do people really think that they deserve sympathy for only getting £40K+ take home pay? Surely £3,567 per week is enough for anyone when others are having to survive on 15,000 a year?

Most of the people I know who are doing well had no better opportunities than those I know who are not as comfortable financially

Your personal anecdotal experience doesn’t square with the reams of research which demonstrates the link between financial success in adulthood and home life in childhood (along with race, gender, social class, etc). Just because it’s not your experience doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Are you honestly saying that growing up with successful professional parents who love their jobs, encourage reading at home, encourage their children to be ambitious, who’ve been to university and encourage their children to do the same, who can afford to live in the catchment areas of good schools, can pay for tutors etc have no advantage over children who live with a single working parent in over crowded social housing, attend an inner city school in special measures, are not encouraged academically, are surrounded by adults with no academic qualifications who work zero hours minimum wage jobs they hate etc etc?

Or is it just that most people you know come from similar backgrounds (in relative terms) who’ve therefore had similar opportunities to succeed?

I spent my early childhood in a very rough area of a major city, where my mum grew up - she was very intelligent but left school at 16 to work in a bank as a cashier, and to help support the household after my grandmother left my abusive grandfather. My mum divorced my abusive father shortly after I was born and was a single parent for several years.

We moved to a middle class area when my mum remarried and got a new job at the other end of the country. As a result, I went to better schools, including a grammar school and then on to university. I’m no smarter than my mother was, but I had opportunities she didn’t.

Who do you think is doing better in life now - the kids I went to primary school with as a child in a deprived area, or the kids I went to grammar school with? There are exceptions of course, but the overwhelming majority of my friends from grammar school are successful high earners in interesting and demanding jobs. That is certainly not the case for those I knew at primary school.

The middle are squeezed and many may loose the motivation on the way up.

I’ve never met a single person who’s given up trying to progress in their career because of taxes. And I’ve worked with a lot of HR tax payers, and those close to the threshold. I’ve seen people decide against taking jobs which would take them marginally over the threshold, but I’ve never heard a single career-minded person say “I’m not going to bother trying for a promotion as my tax bill will go up with my salary”.

In the UK all public sector work (or middle sector work) is really underpaid (so are equivalent private roles which a dragged down by public sector pay). But in general pay is relative the skill, responsibility and effort. Additional rare payers definitely aren’t the only ones that work hard but the vast majority do work very hard, saying that they do doesn’t need to imply that some lower paid workers do not.

@Deathgrip, every average local comprehensive will have some children who don't have parents who pay for tutors, who don't read to them every day, and who themselves haven't been to Uni and yet do very well and will go on to have a successful career.

As a matter of fact, there are now a number of opportunities that are only offered to kids' whose parents have never been to Uni.

Of course statistics show that poor background bread poverty and vice versa, but I hate when people make it it out to be an uncontrollable predestination. It isn't and that's how it should be.

Ultimately, however much you do to support children from poorer background, you cannot take away the responsibility that falls under the hands of their parents. Kids are much more likely to be let down by their
own parents than by the society they grow into, at least in the UK.

I’ve never understood why people who work sitting down get paid more that people who work standing up.

"I’ve never understood why people who work sitting down get paid more that people who work standing up."
That's just ridiculous. Have you been drinking?
So should a train driver earn less than someone who puts the trolleys away in Asda?

My two sisters have ‘standing up’ jobs. One works in retail, the other is healthcare. Both earn not much more than minimum wage. Neither have qualifications higher than GCSE, neither take work home with them or are responsible for others work, development, health and safety etc.
I have a ‘Sitting down’ job. I work double the hours they do, regularly take work home, am responsible for multi million pound projects, management of people, budgets, performance. I have 2 degrees, professional qualifications and the student debt that goes with it. My salary reflects this.

Physically they work harder than I do. Mentally I work harder and if things go wrong I hold the responsibility.
I wouldn’t do their job and they wouldn’t do mine, doesn’t mean either is ‘better’. But, I don’t think it’s wrong that I earn more. I also pay more tax.

'well-paid work is easier IMO. And generally a little more secure and a little more flexible.'

I agree with this. Low paid manual workers work the hardest IMO and have much less flexibility.

Um. When you earn more you would pay more under PAYE even if taxes were flat rate. It’s just accelerated when you bing in higher brackets. Which is fine, but there’s a tipping point, personally against any system where tax is over 50 pct.. as at that point, Any additional dollar is benefitting the State more than the individual actually putting in the sweat

I think people who earn more generally have more responsibilities and have spent some time building skills and experience. Often (but not always) they work harder too. My profession has very long hours but generally higher pay than average. But few outsiders seem to understand that one comes with the other.

It’s true that some lower earners don’t work very hard or put in many hours. I think that’s probably rarer for higher earners.

@AutumnColours9 - not necessarily the case at all. I would say the opposite.

I think there are many people on comparatively low salaries who work very hard. The same people often also work really hard outside of work as it's hard to afford to outsource domestic work if you're not on a big salary.

I was however shocked by the life of one high earner (>£200k) who is a friend of a friend. She is expected to move countries to live as required and is always on call so can never guarantee to make weddings or any other social commitment. She has no kids and a stay at home partner. She often takes calls and emails at weekends and evenings (has no choice) and basically whatever her boss wants and whenever she has to deliver it. She is pretty much a slave to her boss and this goes beyond the normal parameters of a job and into his social life too. In return she has a luxury lifestyle and buys herself diamonds as a hobby. I wouldn't want her life.

My cousin however owns a few IT related companies he has created himself, employs >200 people and is worth many many millions. He doesn't work especially hard, more of a family man.

Another cousin employs 100 people (built own company again) and again doesn't work especially hard, again a real family guy.

Yet another cousin is a prof of medicine in another country and again doesn't work especially hard but earns a lot. Spends a lot of time with his family and does more than 50% of childcare and all of the cooking. He did however work very hard early in his career.

Another close relative is a corporate exec managing 600 people internationally, earns >£200k, skis all weekend every weekend and has plenty of other hobbies. Has no qualifications at all.

The men had kids in their 40s, the women not at all. This is pretty much the only common denominator I can find. Only one did well academically at school.

There are certainly many other family members who have worked much harder, some also have more qualifications and yet earn way less.

@TeachesOfPeaches

Me too. Ex doesn't pay maintenance either. They seem incapable of chasing him but very easily chase me to pay back child benefit.

A high salary doesn't always mean much money left over. In fact when I put my calculations into entitledto it said I would have more money working part time than full time - mainly based on childcare costs which are huge

I'm only a higher rate tax payer as I work a second job to pay for everything the kids need. Which is then taxed at 40%.

DH is a higher rate tax payer. Naturally clever and also worked his socks of at school/Uni/work to get to a pay level his parents couldn’t have imagined.

He always votes for tax rises in general and especially for the higher paid because:

1. He knows he is lucky that he was born clever
2. He knows he was lucky his parents gave him an emotionally stable home
3. He knows how much he benefitted from free schooling/free-ish* university/growing up in a council house/the NHS and knows he wouldn’t have got anywhere like as far without that support/opportunity from society. He doesn’t want the ladder to be drawn up behind him.

Lots of people work like dogs to stand still if they are lucky. That’s not a good way for the country to be.

• went to Uni when/where fees were free and maintenance was a combination of grant/loan