To not want my children to pay for tax cuts for the middle-class?

[antelopevalley]

A new policy proposal to increase the ceiling for higher rate tax for individuals has been proposed so that it will only apply once you earn £80k plus. But there seems zero idea of how this will be funded.
Realistically the only way it will be funded is by increased government debt. Debt that my children and others will be working to pay off in the future.
Why should my children and others have to work in the future for tax cuts for the middle class?

Government borrowing should be for investment in the future. Building sources of cheap future energy for the future for example. It should not be used for short term political gains.

Not sure how it's relevant what age they'll be, the point is it won't be their taxes funding it, since it's going to be paid for by me privately.

Surely that's fairly simple to understand.

The band starting at about £50k paying 40p in pound has been frozen for years. It is about time it was raised. Paying 20 percent tax up to £80k is a great idea. Many middle earners will benefit. Including police, civil servants, teachers with responsibility points, fire people, some nurses, accountants, ICT coders, a lot of trades people. These are people who likely don't claim benefits so are net contributers. Why should all the perks and handouts be for people who don't work or only work few (16) hours? Higher earners pay more tax. Why should your kids be any different to anyone else?

@SweatyAndGrumpy

The current basic tax rate is about the lowest it ever has been.

NIC rates are the highest they've ever been.

In terms of average wages, the HR threshold is the lowest it's ever been.

VAT is just about the highest it's ever been.

Other indirect taxes (Fuel, alcohol, tobacco) etc are the highest they've ever been.

When talking about taxes, you have to look at the whole picture, not just cherry pick one particular tax.

Oh right so you don't care if they are educated do you? You want doctors and nurses to care for you but not to have gone to school? got you ok?

And you honestly won't ever use a public resource? ever?

with climate change and everything else that's coming for us this will be the least of their worries.

Come to Scotland where the higher rate tax is 41% not 40% and kicks in when you earn a lofty £43k. Got to fund the illegitimate indypondering somehow.

I disagree with tax cuts as public services need to be funded but would like to see England go to a higher rate starting at £80k just to see what the SNP do next.

One day your kids will earn good money and be successful hopefully, they shouldn’t be penalised for doing well and working hard

Okay so most of you are fine for the government to borrow yet more money to pay for tax cuts.
While the economy goes to shit.
I guess we get the government we deserve.

@Wibbly1008 You are extremely naive if you think taxes will not be much higher in the future. How do you think all this borrowing is going to be funded?

I will, but that's why I pay taxes which I'm happy to do.

The point I was making is that higher earners already contribute more while taking less. And now OP feels like it's an outrageous idea somehow to for once also help them since there's a cost of living crisis.

I don't have children and won't. I wasn't educated in this country. I moved here and this country has given me frankly nothing while I've been paying taxes, including at the higher rate.

But that's how life works. You don't get to pick and choose where your taxes go. OP seems to want to benefit from this (as these taxes fund her children's education) but she doesn't like anyone else benefitting from it unless they make less money?

Why can’t your children be the ones earning more money? You seem to think very little of them.

YANBU. It’s not progressive.

My DH is a higher rate payer. He earns very well. We do not need a government hand out; I’d far rather it went to the poorest households.

@ClottedCreamAndStrawberries It will not matter how much they earn. Taxes will be much higher in the future. All this borrowing costs money.

Most of us are able to comprehend that it's a reasonable solution for a group of people who don't benefit from any help from the government, yet pay more into the system, while also facing a cost of living crisis.

One person on 50k somewhere like London with a partner making minimum wage is hardly a millionaire. You don't think they also deserve to have some kind of quality of life? You think they should keep paying more? Tax is already proportional anyway. Even at 20% they already put in more towards you, your kids, everybody who benefits from public services.

Letting you keep your own money isn't a handout.

These debates re tax burdens seem to have come very late

I would have preferred this type of response re massive pandemic debt and impact on dc rather than just spend / debt more and more

I’m fine with these decisions now but wouldn’t have strained the system so much earlier on

@mia What I want is a decent economy. The UK economy has major structural weaknesses that nobody is doing anything to address.

@MarshaBradyo It does not surprise me at all that you are against government debt except for tax cuts for the middle class.

@VestaTilley £80k for a whole family in London won’t go far for a lot of households.

Do you perhaps realise that if people are paying less tax, they might eat out more? Or visit a nail salon? Help the economy.

’My DH is a high earner and I’m happy for him to pay more tax’. I’d love it if more posts on here were I’M a high earner and not just my DH.

More people earning more and more businesses making more profits means more tax revenue, even at lower rates.

Better to have someone earning £60k and paying 20% basic rate tax on £60k than having someone paying £10k of their £60k earnings (to avoid HR tax) and paying 20% on just £50k. (Ignoring personal allowance for simplicity to illustrate).

Same with businesses. Better to have a big firm with it's head office based in the UK paying 19% corporation tax on it's profits rather than it moving abroad and the UK treasury getting much less (if anything).

That's a more interesting point than your original one. I think part of it is underinvestment but companies need incentives to invest. Windfall taxes for example are a disincentive. Companies are better at investing than government because they better understand what their industry needs. To invest, they need to keep more of their money. They also need to be a bit leaner - clearing out a lot of unproductive middle management (same is true for schools and hospitals) - or using consultancy firms that do little (media advisers, PR, advertising people, and other creatives plus all the diversity industry).

Businesses used to do all that in house and as a much lower portion of the investments they made. Or even when they bought is in, it was a much simpler product (art for newspaper ad, etc., not some creative's 'vision'). Health and safety, though much maligned, is however a part of middle management worth keeping. It is easy to forget how many people suffered industrial accidents.

I run a business: my biggest barrier to growth is all the various things I have to sign up to, to export - instead of saying small businesses of less than 100K turn-over can just pay a flat fee to contribute to whatever bit of social engineering is current (VAT in country of sale, green packaging levies etc - nothing to do with Brexit which in my industry has been no problem) they want me to pay lots of small sums with lots of attached paperwork - keeping track of every bit of packing I use and its content for example - I don't have time, should I employ someone? How is that productive? I like Truss' idea that government should do less and do it better. I'd give her a chance.

Investing in broadband, energy infrastructure, high tech batteries, transport and ports is needed. The Tories are committed to two of those already. I'd like to see what they do with the railways/smart motorways, etc. And the problems of lots of electric cars when when so many people live in terraced houses of flats. And problem of increased plastic pollution from heavier electric cars (plastic particles from tyres/roads/road paint is huge generator of plastic micro waste in the sea).

And btw just because people don't agree with you, does not mean they do not understand economics.

Your obsessed with class. Lots of "working class" earn more than £50k such as train/tube drivers! Lots of "middle class" such as teachers/nurses etc earn less than £50k. Class is an out-dated concept and it does you cause no benefit to keep harping on about it!

@Badbadbunny Except that is not what will happen. An economic crisis is right on the horizon.
This measure will add to government debt and have no real impact economically. It is the worst of all worlds.

I come from another country and am always staggered by the lack of aspiration here, the lack of social mobility, and poor productivity (because a lot of people have no incentive to work harder). Such a policy would be good news IMO. Your children deserve better than this.

Can you stop going on about middle class?

you are muddling two separate things

As for the dig it’s very tiresome. I forgot what some posters are like. No discussion