Trickle down: To ask higher income earners...??

[venusandmars]

Following on from the budget announcements today which disproportionately benefit higher earners (particularly anyone earning over £150,000 pa), if you have a higher income and will therefore benefit from the tax changes, how will this really impact on your spending?

Will you actually spend more on local services (more coffees out in a locally owned cafe)? Will you increase what you pay your window cleaner? Will you donate more to local charities or spend more time volunteering? Will you make voluntary contributions to HMRC? What WILL you do with the extra money?

OK, I know IABU asking people to account for their choices, none of us know the financial pressures that higher earners might be under, but it seems to me that the whole 'trickle down' economic theory is completely flawed. So little of that additional money is going to be seen by lower earners - and almost none to those who cannot work.

I'm not in the +£150K bracket but I have enough when I know others are really struggling. I have increased what I pay my window cleaner. Over the next 4 months I will use my 100% of my energy payment to donate to local foodbanks. It's small stuff, nothing heroic.

I am despairing about the tax announcements today.

The announcements are desperate measures from a party looking to leave the biggest mess possible for the next government. Good to know the magic money tree is alive and well for the rich, but not the poor.

We are high earners, but not high enough to be affected by the highest rate of tax. We both firmly believe we should be taxed more to provide improved services for all. We are likely to be a little better off, and will continue to support local businesses and charities, probably a bit more than we anticipated.

I just want to say that as a high earner I am enraged and disgusted by todays decision. I’m happy to pay a higher rate of tax because I recognise to very fortunate position I find myself in.

BBC Headline - Pond sinks as investors question huge tax cuts
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63009173
What are they thinking? it's all just lunacy.

*Pound obviously!!

I think it's a very clear signal that only those in work will be looked after and they have definitely missed a trick by not raising the level at which people pay tax . I think if they took everyone on £25k or lower out of paying any tax it would have made a huge difference.
For me I think those who do have more can do things individually on a personal / local level to help .

This.

We won't have to get rid of the cleaner, gardener or guy who valets the cars. Rest will go towards our massive energy bill and increases in school transport for the DCs.

Honestly it will not affect our spending at all. We earn enough that we can basically buy what we want without thinking about the finances. So the money we will save on tax is just extra cash going into our long-term savings. We’ll spend it in another twenty years to buy our kids their first homes - which obviously does nothing to help the economy right now.

trickle down economics was disproved decades ago. It just doesn’t work.

we’ve decided to calculate how much tax we will save and add that to our normal foodbank donation. I hope other high earners will do the same.

tories are fucking mental.

"Trickle down" didn't work - and was discredited - under Thatcher and will clearly not work now, other than to make those well off people who will benefit from these policies even better off.

It’s nonsense. DH is in this bracket and it will
make zero difference to us. Nothing will trickle anywhere that it wasn’t going already. It is a hateful budget and we are the last people who should be left better off.

This. Stupid policy from the party which sells itself on fiscal responsibility.

No, I will just put more in our pensions

I’m in this bracket and it’ll make no difference to my spending. I despair of this country, I’m genuinely really sad about the state we’re in.

I will benefit from this and what it means for me is that I will not lay off my cleaner as I was planning to come January, and will use the extra to fund my fuel bills, my teenager at University and pat down some of the debt I have. not very exciting, but then I am not multimillion pound rich ...

It’s ridiculous, we are in the income bracket that will benefit most and, to be honest, we were not feeling the pinch at all. We don’t need or want a tax cut.

It’s utter lunacy

i work in financial services/banking, and my colleagues and I are all greatly financially benefitting from this but all incredulous at the stupidity of it.

Not a single person in my office thinks it’s a good idea for the economy.

In terms of the trickle down, we had already our nanny, housekeeper, window cleaner etc a payrise when the cost of living started to bite so I don’t anticipate another one this year

I think we will probably spend marginally more on a holiday next year because we were wavering. So a travel agent will benefit ever so slightly but the main benefit will be felt by a foreign hotel.
The rest will be going into savings and pensions to offset when our mortgage leaps up next year when BoE is forced to raise rates again to counteract the utter stupidity of government decisions

We earn a lot, but not millions.

We always divert any extra cash into investments. Pensions. paying down the mortgage. stuff that will get us into a more stable financial situation in the future.

Not extra lunches out (work too hard to enjoy them as often as we'd like). Not paying extra for services or goods, we clean our own windows anyway. Clean our own car.

Frugal but high income, we won't just splurge any extra to where it would trickle down.

the budget is fucking crazy.

So the 5% reduction over 150k will fund all that? Assuming you make some pension contributions your net must be enormous- I’m intrigued how you got into debt.

Same as others really
Won't affect my spending at all in any material way, as like other high earners we aren't feeling the pinch so hadn't cut back.

I do like the idea of calculating the difference and sending straight to food bank though.

Fail to see the sense or point in this budget really.

Agree a zero tax below £25,000 would have made a big difference, and saved the government a shed load of admin and paperwork to boot.

Although not 45% taxpayers, our house benefits by £150 a month on the NIC and then another £50 a month with the 19% income tax.

I’d honestly rather keep paying this tax, but since we have it we’ll probably just be as carefree as normal with cash (we have enough, easily) so there’s be some indirect benefit to others but not as much as if we’d just paid the tax in the first place…

As a higher earner I am so angry at this budget. It's ridiculous to cut taxes for the richest when we should be doing more to subsidise those who are struggling with price increases. And the trickle down effect is rubbish. I am not going to suddenly spend more because I pay slightly less tax..

Appalling budget & deceitful lies re: “trickle down”. Precious few high earners would drop their cleaner or gardener and don the marigolds to do it themselves because of the loss of income.
They’d maybe just invest a bit less. Maybe a tiny number would make do with a slightly cheaper wine, try to cut back on the beauty product hoard, nag the children to take better care of expensive school uniform / sports equipment/etc. None of which will actually impact the UK economy as much as the loss of tax revenues will, and more importantly as much as the growing wealth disparity will.

Theres a point of wealth inequality when we waste people’s talents and skills (due to lack of education, ill health, inability to move to different geographical area, etc), so we ALL lose out. We need to have “the best person for the job” in a role, not just recruit “that white guy in a smart suit with a nice accent with an Art History degree” as a matter of course.

We’ll be about £40k better off. We might spend some of it locally but most will probably go into investments (ultimately it will probably end up going towards buying DC a flat in a few years).

We are almost in this tax bracket and while we get some benefit, ultimately we are losing a LOT from the extremely poor exchange rate and the resulting inflation this is going to drive long term that no tax cut is going to make up. We have a gardener and I didnt mind that he raised his rates for this year, but at the same time we aren't going out nearly as much even though we could afford to do so. As I saw a quote somewhere - what good is being a high earner if the quality of service and infrastructure around you is shit?

Time to pack up and go; I stress ate a whole bar of Ritter Sport Marzipan while reading the news updates. I don't have the waistline to handle another two years of Tory bs and then however long it takes Labour (assuming people aren't stupid enough to vote for Conservatives again!) to right the ship.

My family are definitely a trickle down family, we’ve always been spenders rather than savers. I always try and support local businesses and put money back into the economy and also pay for my friends who have less money than me. Lots of my rich relatives (on similar incomes to myself) love to save their income, quibble over the bill, never tip when they rarely eat out. I can’t see them spending any more.