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.

Thing is this man is going after the wrong target, it's not Labour taking his money, or not affording him the lifestyle he wants. He should be looking up at the top 0.001% who have sucked up every single penny of profit out of the country and not rewarded their employees properly. I just really don't understand how billionaires can look at the inequality in the world and continue to hoard more money than they could ever spend in 100 lifetimes while going to extraordinary lengths to avoid tax.

My in-laws have saving of £100k from redundancy, no mortgage, but an income of £16k between them are they rich?

80k in London is quite normal.

It’s also one one of the most expensive cities in the world to live and work.

So there are many people earning upwards of 80k who certainly aren’t rich and must spend all their net income on their basic living costs.

Rich means people who don’t even have to work.

Why do people hate people who work hard and as a result earn a good salary?

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

If you're on a salary of £80k and you can't afford a couple of coffees a week, something has gone very wrong somewhere beyond the government 'fleecing' you.

When I earned about 80k, my net was about 47. From that I paid train fare over 6k and childcare 40k.

Was I rich?

I agree Ken Dodd.

The tax take needs to.come from higher up the tree.

Making assumptions again.

The straw that breaks the camels.
back spring to mind.

It’s a pretty fragile back if £21 a month would break it.

*When I earned about 80k, my net was about 47. From that I paid train fare over 6k and childcare 40k.

Was I rich?*

Most people couldn’t afford to pay £40k in childcare. So yes.

The straw that breaks the camels back spring to mind.

If the camel is carrying less than 95% of the other camels, it's probably not the camel at most risk of spine fracture due to being overloaded.

Why do people hate people who work hard and as a result earn a good salary?

There is no correlation between working hard and earning a good salary.

*When I earned about 80k, my net was about 47. From that I paid train fare over 6k and childcare 40k.

Was I rich?*

Assuming you must have had a partner to pay all other bills? Then yes, if you can afford a £40k childcare bill as a family then I would class that as rich. You must have made the decision to have multiple children knowing you could afford such high fees. Additionally you don't pay childcare forever, it's only for a few years that you make that sacrifice, like everyone else. Then you have £40k extra in your pocket a year, which is higher than the median UK salary.

You could argue about the definition of 'rich' all you like, but you are definitely well off by most people's living standards. I can't believe this thread.

calculate.forlabour.com/

On 80k there's no change in tax. Even on 100k it's not an unreasonable increase.

I think its fair.

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 agree. I live in Scotland where tax went up at nowhere near £80k. I’ve managed to cope with the extra £10 a month or so on my considerably less than £80k salary

I'm leaving this thread now. I'm off to have lobster and champagne and look at my huge bank balance.

this man is going after the wrong target, it's not Labour taking his money, or not affording him the lifestyle he wants. He should be looking up at the top 0.001% who have sucked up every single penny of profit out of the country and not rewarded their employees properly.

This.

Rich seems to be a matter of feeling not an absolute. You are rich if you have spare cash each month and poor if you don't. And with 2 families on the same income , one can feel rich and one poor. One can afford everything they "want", the other struggles to afford everything they "need". One is happy with their life, the other left feeling dissatisfied and disgruntled.

When I earned about 80k, my net was about 47. From that I paid train fare over 6k and childcare 40k.

But if your next door neighbour earned say 30k and they worked on the other side of the street from you then their train fare would also have been 6k. I don't understand people saying that they earn x salary but their commute has to come out of that. Everyone's commute has to come out of their salary. In my first job after leaving university my commuting costs were over half of my net pay. It's just a cost that people have to meet regardless of income.

In any case, it's not about being rich, it's about having an income that is over a certain figure.

So there are many people earning upwards of 80k who certainly aren’t rich and must spend all their net income on their basic living costs.
So 80k a year, give you what 4.5k a month after tax? Surely two grand will get you a nice rented two bedroom aoartment most places in zone 3 or even zone 2. A mortgage may be similar. That leaves you, what, 2 grand or 2.5 grand a month for a single person. If you can’t save any of that then your are shit at saving or living a life of luxury, constantly eating out etc etc Yes, London’s awesome for that, but that’s a choice not a necessity.

Some people seem to be mixing up the statement: 'If you earn over £80K you are in the top 5% of earners' with the statement 'If you earn over £80K you have plenty of disposable cash.' It is a fact, independently verified, that earners of over £80K are in the top 5% of earners - that's not up for discussion, and it speaks volumes about QT man's 1) arrogance and 2) lack of critical thinking skills that he was prepared to assert the opposite, with absolutely no statistics to back him up and plenty to prove him wrong. If he'd said, 'I may be in the top 5% of earners, but I don't feel wealthy,' he would have had a reasonable point. But that people are on this thread describing a lifestyle with a 4 bedroom house and two holidays a year as 'struggling to get by' is just more evidence that this entitled attitude is widespread. Just because you have less disposable cash than you'd like doesn't mean you are not well off. You have choices. An income in the top 5% of earners allows you choice - to move away, to take a lower salary in order to live in a cheaper area, to save, to choose to have no holiays a year and put the money in savings or investments or whatever else you like. It's astoundingly arrogant not to recognise how much better off you are than so many others, and incredibly ignorant not to know where your income places you in relation to other earners in your own country.

Lovemylot1 at £40k childcare you either employed a full time nanny or had triplets in nursery. By no means an average situation

Also you paid £40k childcare and £6k commuting costs- were you the only one in your family working? Or does your partner just earn the same as your household bills?

Why do people hate people who work hard and as a result earn a good salary?

I really don't like this attitude. It implies that poor people don't work hard and people on high salaries have somehow worked harder than those on low salaries.. Not so.

I don't hate well off people. I recognise that I am relatively well off but I earn half the amount we're talking about. I have two degrees and other high level qualifications. I have worked hard but work in education so I'm not going to be rich ever. Arguably my job benefits society as do many many jobs that earn waaaaay less. Isn't it fair that those that earn double and triple those salaries pay a bit more?

“So there are many people earning upwards of 80k who certainly aren’t rich and must spend all their net income on their basic living costs.“

But they’re choosing to spend that income on living and working in London... that doesn’t make it a lower income.

Blankscreen

The tax take needs to.come from higher up the tree.

That wasn't my point. My point was that billionaires should be paying more wages and distributing profit more fairly and not hoarding it all for themselves.

@eastwest
Well said. It’s like a new phenomenon, isn’t it? The “poor poor rich” or something. Perhaps Johnson started it when he claimed a few years back that his, what, 200k (?) annual salary for his weekly newspaper column of about 500 words was “peanuts”. I’m in the top 5% of earners and am bloody grateful about it and know it certainly isn’t “peanuts”.