Question time man top 5 percent.

[refraction]

Did anyone see the man on QT asking about tax?

Apparently he doesn't even think he is in the top 50 percent of earners.

All doctors earn more apparently and solicitors.

How out of touch with reality?

He didn't come across well and very out of touch.

The point is it's not a king's ransom and why pick on the top 5% not the top 2%?

Paying a bit more tax isn't being 'picked on'. I'd happily pay more tax for better-funded national services and I don't earn half of what that man does.

I doubt you can privately educate your children if you earn £80k

Why would you want to when you can afford to buy a house in an area with excellent schools? 93% of children are state educated, private education is hardly a basic human right.

I'm rich. My husband and I earn just over 50k each, and we live in the Midlands where housing is reasonable.

We have been on 9 foreign breaks this year, have a cleaner, no debt and 15k savings. (more personal savings on top)

I've lived by myself on minimum wage. I'm not bragging, I just know that we're rich rich rich by any non-fucking-moronic standards.

I didn't say I want to educate my children privately. There was a point made earlier whereby if you are earning £80k you might be paying school fees. I was merely pointing out that you probably wouldn't be.

You might well be able to privately educate your children on one income of 80k in northern Greater Manchester.

Google tells me the fees for Bury Grammar at senior level are a shade under 11k per annum. For two children, that's about £1850 a month. If he were on PAYE, which he is not, assuming student loan repayments and standard pension contributions there'd be about 2k left after that. Now I know private school has other costs too, but a family of four in Bury can live on 2k a month. And in reality there'd be more not just because he's not PAYE but also if they're at senior school the other parent could work. Or if she's a SAHP because they're younger, the fees will be lower.

He really is pretty well off in the context of the region where he lives.

I doubt you can privately educate your children if you earn £80k

OK, fair enough, but it's not really the point I was making. The point I was trying to make was that above the basic necessities of life - food on the table, a roof over your head, heat and light, everything else is a choice.

We don't have a family income of anywhere near 80k but we have all those things and can afford to go on holidays, eat out etc. It doesn't make us rich but to claim that we're not living a decent life on our income because our outgoings are higher than other people's would be pretty insulting to those who don't have the option of having higher outgoings.

Can someone who is claiming it explain the £100-£125k problem further? I have just messed around with a current salary calculator assuming everything the same and a 5% pension contribution, you always take home more the more you earn. Ie;

£5338- on 98k
£5193- on 95k
£5532 - on 102k
£5725 on 108k
£5788 on 110k
£5946 on 115k
£6105 on 120k
£6263 on 125k

Oh I thought the private school discussion was QT man specifically. Carry on!

Thing is, paying a bit more tax is fine if it's not you having to do it. When you've set up your life bought your house made financial commitments and then the rules are suddenly changed it doesn't seem particularly fair.

Also to the rich poster 2 people earning £50k each will be about £700 a month better off than one person earning £100k.

Add in the new tax between £80-£100k and that is another £1,000 in tax so circa an extra £90 a month.

Also don't forget on circa £50k you still have some entitlemnt to child benefit so that's another way in which you'd be richer.

“Thing is, paying a bit more tax is fine if it's not you having to do it.”

I’ll be doing it. It’s barely anything

@Lifecraft Yep. Just a shame it couldn't be an emotional IQ test...

Thing is, paying a bit more tax is fine if it's not you having to do it.

It’s £21 a month on £80k, that’s a couple of coffees a week.

80K in the SE goes nowhere near as far as it would up north. For example, my Dad lives in a 4 bed house worth £140K. Where I live it would cost 500K. It's not unusual to pay 60% of your wages on rent/ mortgage in the SE. Then we pay 1.5K to park the car at the station, 4K a year to commute into London as we are priced out of central London. My council tax is 2.5k a year. Can't save anything. Hey, let's tax those who spend 1.25 hours each way commuting into the city who pay CT and housing thru the roof. Let's milk the cow dead.

I used to live overseas and pay 17% tax. It's the only time I've ever saved. If JC gets in and takes more from me, I'll leave. I'm not paying more tax than I do now.

Look at the figures you quoted

5946-5788 £158 a month extra. So on a £5k pay rise you actually nett about £1896.

Assuming the person on £80k buys/can afford t buy a couple of coffees a week.

I suspect you are as out of touch with sections of society as you claim I am.

If you have a high salary and you set up your financial commitments to the extent that you don't have enough wriggle room for an extra £15 a month (or whatever the figure was that someone quoted upthread) then I can't muster much sympathy.

For someone on a low salary that's a worrying amount of money, but that's not who we're talking about in this scenario.

But you’re always earning more. You never suffer from being paid more

Lichtenstein has a tax system whereby you actually take home less when you hit certain tax levels. The posts here led me to believe that posters believed the same was happening here.

What possible advantage would an employee have to refuse to have their pay increased from £110k to £115k?

Does only one of you work blankscreen?

Higher responsibility perhaps? More international travel required? .is it worth it for £158 a month???? Companies don't tend to offer pay rises for nothing.

My point stands people just tipping into the magical.5% bracket aren't rich, can't continue to be fleeced and the government should look to raises taxes higher up the tree. But they won't.

No we both work.

Paying a bit more tax isn't being 'picked on'. I'd happily pay more tax for better-funded national services and I don't earn half of what that man does.

Me too. I have a very small income much less than a quarter of 80k but would absolutely be willing to pay an extra penny in the pound on tax to fund better public services.
Its not being picked on its asking those who can afford to to pay more. Income tax in the UK is actually too low at the moment.

You don't earn less, although you do lose free 30 hours childcare at 100k so some people would factor that in with a pay rise from eg 97k to 102k. So except for the 30 hours childcare situation, nobody's going to refuse an increase if they don't have to make any extra effort. The issue is that if some extra effort needs to be made or work needs to be done, there comes a point when people don't get to keep enough of the extra money for them to be willing to bother. So sure, if you can go from 110k to 115k whilst making no adjustment whatsoever then you'll take it, but in the scenario where you'd have to do something for that 5k, maybe not.

The issue is finding that sweet spot where enough people get to keep enough to motivate them whilst also maximising revenues. A lot easier said than done I think, particularly as people's responses to being taxed more vary. Some work harder to earn more to get the things they want or need, others don't bother beyond a certain point because they feel their time is worth more. I earn a long way under 80k but am in the latter camp.

*Assuming the person on £80k buys/can afford t buy a couple of coffees a week.

I suspect you are as out of touch with sections of society as you claim I am.*

My income is considerably lower than yours, I can afford a couple of coffees a week. I can also afford to pay more tax. And you accuse me of being out of touch.

Passthecherrycoke

It's only the portion of income between £100-125k that pays an effective 60%. When you look at the tax for income overall it's much less than that. It's because you are losing your personal allowance on a taper system between those values, and having to pay tax on what you lose in addition to what you earn. It's weird, I'd never heard of it before tonight. Then again, I don't know anyone personally who is on this kind of money. Even my friends who I would consider quite well off. Definitely wouldn't call it a 'middle class' income!

My point stands people just tipping into the magical.5% bracket aren't rich, can't continue to be fleeced

You feel fleeced when you both work and at least one of you is above £80k? Really??

Thing is you make sweeping generalisations about other people's finances.

You assume that somebody on £80k can afford it. You don't know that.

I wouldn't assume to know what someone on £30k can or cannot afford to pay for.

I realise there at many factors at play.