... to be appalled by this point in today's 'mini budget'

[SafferUpNorth]

Abolishing the upper income tax bracket of 45% which applies to incomes of £150,000+...

I mean WTF? WHY? Do these people need help? Why blow a hole in the country's tax revenue to help high earners??? I know the answer, of course... because it's the Tories. But goddammit, this is so blatantly favouring the wealthy at a time of crisis, it's absurd.

Quite! This budget has deliberately been targeted so it only benefits the top 5%.

I agree, whole heartily.
But at least you are thinking of the rest of us! I would say, if you can, spend the money on local shops, go for an extra coffee, gift shop and so on.
So it does actually trickle down to us.
But.... many people who earns high figures do not even "live" in UK, so they may be just moving to savings or investments abroad and how is that going to work for us? I cannot understand it really.
If they were going to up benefits, but they actually cut them!
As you say, the NHS is lacking.
Education is not coming out well either, not so long ago newspapers were stating that the quality of education may come down as to pay for teacher's payrise as there is no further funding to pay for it.
Regarding energy, things are grim, we are extremely dependant on other countries.
The prices keep going up, with huge inflaction, which if they do not tackle pronto, will bring the economy to a real shrink! People cannot expend any extra money that they do not have, so busineses will suffer, in a domino effect.
The only way I do see forward is to find innovative products, on the scale of amazon, facebook, super powerful batteries, 100% green energy, super medical advances... new things that make UK top on the investment league, patents, new companies...
But it does not look like we are going crazy in R&D either.
I am not understanding the path these guys are following at all.

All these outraged, non-Tory voting, high earners can overpay their tax by 5% or as much as they like., I’m slightly surprised that they don’t know about this already!

The Tories can get away with this sort of shit because most people (including some on this thread) don't understand how marginal tax rates work.

As a PP has said, 45% was only ever levied on earnings above £150k. Everything earned under that was taxed in the same way, so 20% basic rate then 40% higher rate over approx £50k etc.

www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/7/18171975/tax-bracket-marginal-cartoon-ocasio-cortez-70-percent

So the basic philosophy is that the rich are taxed more because they have more. This is then redistributed in the form of the welfare state.

The problem comes when the rich, particularly the revenue generators that run businesses and invest in them, leave the country and take their money elsewhere to protect themselves from high taxes.

I get that. What I don't get is how we are able to print or borrow billions to subsidise our tax revenues and pay for stuff and this not have a far more negative impact on the economy and the country in the long term. That's far more worrying to me.

True

Pound at $1.09 and falling. Do you think they are aiming for parity?

I am aware of how it works, thank you. No violins needed for me, I’m on a low income, I’m just not jealous of those who aren’t.

It will never affect me on my wage but I think 45% tax is obscene
To take just short of 1/2 what u earn I’d do everything I could to avoid it

@rwalker why does it bother you to give up 45% of anything you earn over the really large sum of £150k? That smacks of greed to me.

They aren't given more. They are having less taken away.

100% agree with this and was about to write an almost identical post. We talked v seriously this summer about relocating to a high tax country with top quality infrastructure (public transport, state education, affordable universities, excellent and affordable health system, very high environmental standards). Because everything here is falling to pieces. What is the benefit of holding onto your cash if everything around you is rubbish?

And they don't leave anyway. They avoid paying tax. Did people think Rishi's wife is the only multimillionaire in the UK paying next to nothing?

There is a certain group of people who won't pay whatever the top rate is, the 40% or 45% thing is not going to make any difference to that.

You need to consider people on PAYE though who do pay the tax - that is who this is affecting not Rishi’s wife and similar

It will never affect me on my wage but I think 45% tax is obscene
To take just short of 1/2 what u earn I’d do everything I could to avoid it

As PP have said, it doesn't work like that. They only pay the 45% on the part of their earnings that is OVER £150,000. So taxed on the same scale as everyone else up to the £150k. If they earn £175,000 they pay 45% of the £25k.

They don’t mind paying their fair share, but people like you seem to want them to pay far more than their fair share.

Higher earners will be paying more than 45% of their whole income in tax and NI.

It's utterly obscene.

But currently 18% of voters on this thread also want to make the rich richer and the poor suffer.

Yes and labour camps they bloody would if they could get away with it.

So I gave this some thought today…If they’d raise the personal allowance to say £15k that would benefit far more people. That extra £2.5k for taxpayers would at least help to pay for the increased utility bills. I’d also raise child benefit. If each child got an extra £50/m that money would quickly be spent and keep circulating benefitting more businesses and families.

We also really need to be offering grants to people to make home improvements such as solar panels and insulation or improvements to boilers etc. Todays budget did none of these things.

Totally agree

This too!!

The best tax rates are the ones that bring in the most tax. Set them too high and more people find ways to avoid them. There's absolutely no difference between a 0% tax rate and a 100% tax rate.

So many don't understand how the tax system works, unfortunately