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It seems weirdly outdated to me that mainstream political parties find raising taxes on the wealthy anathema.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!

I know you did, BoredZelda, but I wasn't singling you out, and in any case was talking about the "paying more tax" thing in that paragraph rather than charity donations

@BoredZelda the truly wealthy wouldn't earn in the PAYE sense

Hold on, has anyone told Xenia you all pay so much in tax? I thought she was the biggest tax payer in all the land?

@arethereanyleftatall people would have to be seriously stupid to enter their card details into a pre-loaded website set up on a laptop that a stranger presented to them on the street! I don't think their refusal to do so makes them hypocritical, it means they have at least a shred of common sense and dont want to be scammed.

I went from not earning that much to an absolutely spectacular payrise just before the last General Election and (despite misgivings about Corbyn) voted Labour even though I had just entered the top percentage of earners that Corbyn proposed to tax more (over £80k). I would rather pay more tax under a government which would spend that money on our punlic services.

I'd rather pay more tax that went on providing better state education to everyone that spend that same money on school fees to only benefit my children.

But me voluntarily paying more tax to a Tory government (I won't) or donating to charity (I do) is a drop in the ocean. I'll vote for governments whose policy is to fund health and education etc properly and I'm happy if everyone who earns like I do pays more towards that. I don't want want to pay taxes that go on vast contracts for Boris Johnson's friends while he oversees the dismantling and selling off of services that belong to and should benefit all of us.

Charity shouldn't take the place of proper government funding, it shouldn't shore up our schools and hospitals.

So yes, I support higher taxes for higher earners and wealthy people but I want the money spent on public services and supporting the vulnerable.

Higher rate tax earners pay an extraordinary amount of tax and get zero benefits for anything.

I’m a HR tax earner, we still get child benefit, my daughter gets DLA and a reduction in council tax. We also have had equipment and grants provided by the local authority and she gets enhanced support at school. And that’s on top of the access we have to the services our taxes pay for, the NHS in particular is well used by my daughter and lately by me.

I hate the “we get nothing back” whine. We don’t need anything back. We’re fortunate we can afford to plug the gaps in what helps our daughter and what is provided for her, and we still have money left over to save for our futures. It also ignores the blindingly obvious way that we are treated better by organisations like the NHS and local authority simply because we are educated, well off, and know how best to fight our corner.

No, please don't speak for me.

People 'say' they are willing to pay more taxes but push comes to shove they don't actually vote for it.

Personally I feel I pay plenty.

@awesomekilick

I used to feel and think like that. For years I've been a higher tax payer- and corporation tax omg I pay hundreds of thousands a year on that. I've voted Labour all my life.

Now, having seen how fucking selfish and stupid people are, courtesy of Brexit, Covid, the last Tory election, the support for the current bunch of fuckwits in power, well, I no longer give so much of a shit. I support some specific charities to a considerable sum, but I no longer see the virtue in being a small minority who tries to support the general good. Fuck em

I hear you. I’ve spent my working life paying taxes and fighting for a better deal for the low paid and vulnerable, but selfish behavior during the pandemic and Brexiteers combined with the public voting the Tories…

the truly wealthy wouldn't earn in the PAYE sense

The majority do. But, we shouldn’t not raise taxes on the “not really truly wealthy but still incredibly well off” because there are a tier that don’t have an earned income, we just need to look at how we can release tax revenues from the “truly wealthy” too.

Dh pays 20k in tax and i pay 20k in tax. I think 40k from our household is more than enough!

I’ve spent my working life paying taxes and fighting for a better deal for the low paid and vulnerable, but selfish behavior during the pandemic and Brexiteers combined with the public voting the Tories…

Perhaps you could provide a list of who are the poor people who deserve help?

[quote Puzzledandpissedoff]Take that money off people like me in taxes!

Nice bit of virtue signalling there, OP
If you care so much I assume you know there's nothing stopping you from writing a cheque to HMRC whenever you fancy? In fact this was publicised some time ago but almost completely ignored by everyone, even those who insist they should be paying more tax

In a spirit of helpfulness, though, I'll link how to do it so you can rush to make more contributions: www.taxjournal.com/articles/want-to-pay-more-tax-[/quote]
I agree feel free to give more op.

@BoredZelda more income tax and perhaps more high earners would be looking at selling up their London terraces to invest in a nice beach house on the Caymans...
Or those in finance would be snapping up those post-Brexit relocation offers

Then who is left to pay the tax bill?

People 'say' they are willing to pay more taxes but push comes to shove they don't actually vote for it.

Of the say, 6 elections since 2000, how many manifestos have included a proposal to raise taxes?

The majority do.

Do they?

I can't find more recent stats but

"Using anonymised data from personal tax returns, we show that in 2015-16 the average rate of tax paid by people who received one million pounds in taxable income and gains was just 35 per cent: the same as someone earning £100,000. But one in four of these paid 45 per cent – close to the top rate – whilst another quarter paid less than 30 per cent overall. One in ten paid just 11 per cent—the same as someone earning £15,000."

My DH pays £19,432.00 in tax yearly and
£5,478.84 in national insurance.

No I do not not think a lot of people would be happy to pay more tax!

Let’s swap it around and say, why don’t the lower earning people earn more so they can contribute more, I’m sure most would be happy to do that?

There is a massive difference between being happy to pay more tax to cover specific improvements in public services and just paying more tax into the current system. I would not be ok with the latter.

@IllManneredBitch
Ah, I should have said - it was a very well known comedian off the tv who did this experiment. It was for the bbc, clearly presented as not a scam.

I'm happy to pay more for a fair society to help those less privileged than me, but then I'm not a Tory

One year I earned around 200k. A substantial amount, obviously.

I paid around 90k in income tax. I moved house and paid around 65k in stamp duty (for a nice but fairly normal family home in the south east). Out of the remaining 45k I paid council tax, employer tax for our nanny, VAT, etc. I feel like the govt got a decent share!

Public services need to address their problems before I'd ever back that. It's like putting more water into a leaky bucket.

I'm not an additional tax payer though, I'm one of the poor sods stuck on the 40% tax bracket, living in the SE.

@RedToothBrush has a point though, there is too much burden on the young when you take into account housing costs.

I moved house and paid around 65k in stamp duty (for a nice but fairly normal family home in the south east).

This is a huge problem, the fairly normal home cost 1m plus.

I'm not a high rate tax payer and lately really struggle month to month with bill increases, but the idea of taxing higher earners more really bothers me. An increase on tax for unearned income seems a much better solution than pulling yet more money from people that have worked to earn what they have.