Quite a lot of better off people would be happy to pay more tax?

[Echobelly]

Provided it was channeled towards things like NHS, social care, education.

It seems weirdly outdated to me that mainstream political parties find raising taxes on the wealthy anathema. We've been living in such a low-tax society for so long, but households like mine (I'd say it's a 6-figure annual income between us) could easily afford to pay more in tax and still enjoy our lives.

But instead parties are obsessed with recouping money by removing benefits for the poorest people, which is stupid as the difficulties resulting from plunging people into greater poverty, as well as being cruel, will ultimately cost more money than it saves.

Take that money off people like me in taxes! We won't become homeless or sick or suffer mental distress for the sake of a bit more tax. Year after year I see budgets that will apparently save people like me £500 a year, as if this is supposed to be an incentive to vote for the Tories but tbh, I won't even notice being better off by £500 a year. Give that saving to someone for whom it'll make an impact!

Are you donating some of this money you don't need all ready? Say to cancer charities who provide free transport to chemo patients, to homelessness charities who run shelters, to family centres who provide free afterschool clubs and meals to children in need etc? Your money would be better off their rather than being lost in taxes and not really going anywhere.

Totally agree OP. I would love properly funded NHS, care and education and would be delighted to pay more in taxes.

@MichelleScarn there is masses of waste and corruption in charity and charity bosses aren't accountable to the voting public....

There are no restrictions into how much money you can pay into the state. If you contact HMRC they will tell you how to make payments over and above the taxes they ask from you.

Currently around the top 10% of earners pay 60% of all income tax, just how much more do you expect them to pay?

@pinkiepiee so op could contact local charity directly, offer £250 a month to the taxi firm used, do a food order with tesco/asda etc of a value of their choice directly to the the family centre if using my examples above. Charity doesn't always have to be at national level. Local grassroot charity often benefit much better with direct support.

I’d happily pay more if it went to the systems and people who needed it and wasn’t siphoned off to Cabinet’s old uni mates’ dodgy consultancy set ups.

@lfailed - i think the top 10% of people, which includes us, generally pay a fairly small % of our earnings into tax nonetheless.

But that does not and can not solve national problems. By your logic wealthy areas will have well funded charity based support for popular local issues. That's no way to run a country.

No we already pay 49%, when does it end?

Also we are not driven by taxes going on nhs, as we have private healthcare.

You say it now you'd be happy to pay for tax if you were a high earner, but a lot of high earners are in highly stressful jobs so you do feel like a high salary comes at a price. so no I don't want to give it away to yet more tax.

I agree. I remember when I started my career I was earning very little and needed a prescription which I struggled to pay for. 25 years later I was earning a very good salary and was putting a lot in savings just because I earnt a lot more than I needed despite living very well. At the time I thought I could afford to pay more tax and should do.

I agree OP and could afford to pay more AND it would make more financial sense, even for people like me to pay more.

I remember a poster on here once saying she'd never vote Labour because they'd put taxes up and add VAT to her private school fees meaning she could no longer afford them for her daughter. She then went on to say she'd had to take her child out of the state school as it couldn't provide the support her daughter needed. I just don't get the logic! Vote for a party you think will save you money on taxes, that party then cuts state services to the absolute bone so you feel you have no choice but to pay privately. Makes no sense to me. I bet she had private healthcare as well.

Unearned income (which is most of my income) needs to be taxed much more imo. Seems so unfair to increase the taxes on somebody scrapping by while someone else gets a half million pound inheritance and pays nothing.

We are in the top 2% of earners probably. But we don’t have loads of money because there is No family money on either side. We have a modest house and as this earning potential is relatively new we have no savings. Happy to pay our way in tax but resent shouldering the entire burden when I see so many around with so much family money that they haven’t earned themselves enjoying a far more luxurious life than us. So yes there needs to be tax on earned income but that can’t be the only way of generating revenue.

I pay more tax already as I live in Scotland. Naively when it was first introduced I was happy to do so. I can see no discernible difference between education, NHS or anything really as a result of this extra funding. Lots of SNP propaganda though. In theory extra tax is an appealing idea. In reality it puts people off earning more and generally hits the squeezed middle class rather than the genuinely rich.

I'd happily pay more to properly fund the NHS, social care, schools and social work departments if it wasn't going to be pocketed by which friends the Tories are funnelling funds to at the time.
So I'd pay more happily under a Labour government.

Even those of us who are wealthy enough to have private insurance (which I also do) should have a selfish reason to want to fund the NHS adequately. If you get hit by a bus, you are going to be pulled out from under it by state funded fire service, treated on the scene by state funded NHS paramedics, rushed in an NHS ambulance to NHS A&E and into NHS intensive care.

There is no private critical emergency care services. In an emergency it is the state funded emergency services who come to save you.

How can anyone not want to fund the NHS adequately even for selfish reasons?

Tip: being generous with other people's money does not make you nice.

The people like you who are willing to give away money are free to do so, and in all likelihood will be able to spend it better than the government would.

Don't try and rope in people who don't have the same feelings and priorities. For example, it is perfectly reasonable for any person to think they don't have enough money unless they could maintain their lifestyle for the rest of their life, without working, if they lost their job tomorrow. Almost no-one who works for a living is that well off.

I agree. I'd pay more tax, particularly if I believed the £ was used effectively.
I agree with Will Self that charities shouldn't be filling the hole that should be provided by the state.

I also agree with a previous poster that we should be taxing WEALTH more and not just INCOME.

The landowning classes should be pay a lot more. And so should those who inherit vast sums.

You are very welcome to pay more in op. Apparently there's a link in the government website. Or just give to charity.

Did anyone see that show where they asked this question of people in the street? For those who said 'yes, I'd pay more tax' they handed them a lap top with the page to pay direct to the government loaded up, and said 'just pop your card details in there.' It was quite funny watching their faces, as not one did it.

Loads of people won't agree though op.
These threads are always the same.
You get high earning posters standing in front of their big houses stamping their foot shouting "it's not fair".
And they don't mean it's not fair that the care assistants working 40 hours a week looking after their mum can't afford to put her heating on.

Are you joking? You spend your money how you see fit but please don't spend mine!

Absolutely not. Not until we tax corporations properly and stop our money being spaffed on MP's mates new businesses. 37billion on track and trace? We could have built another channel tunnel for that.

Have you thought of going into politics? We could do with more people who think like you in power.

The problem is it would take years for the improvements in the NHS and education to be made. In that time those in the higher tax bracket that are paying for private schools and private medical care, reducing demand on state services could be pushed into being unable to. This would then put extra pressure on the state sector before it is able to cope. That is if our corrupt government actually used extra taxes to improve the offering in the first place.

@Ifailed

Currently around the top 10% of earners pay 60% of all income tax, just how much more do you expect them to pay?

Income tax is only part of the story though.

Anyone earning more than £9,880 and under pension age will be paying NI on earned income. Someone working f/t on minimum wage will be earning nearly double that.

And even the poorest will be paying VAT. While a lot of stuff, eg most foods, is zero-rated, there are loads of everyday essentials that attract VAT.

"Did anyone see that show where they asked this question of people in the street? For those who said 'yes, I'd pay more tax' they handed them a lap top with the page to pay direct to the government loaded up, and said 'just pop your card details in there.' It was quite funny watching their faces, as not one did it."

No one would do this if a random person asked them to pay in the street though so not really a good measure. Whereas I expect a lot of people would be willing in a more regulated, official way.