AIBU to believe rich people should contribute much more?

[marcusian]

A bit tongue in cheek, but given that its almost impossible for poorly paid workers including care workers and nurses to strike, and that the government have given people earning over £100K a massive pay rise, what other ways could the most wealthy be made to pay?

My idea: - a new LUXURIES tax (think 50% VAT) on things ordinary people cant buy, like superyachts, airplanes, £10K+ dining tables, a box at wimbledon, £500+ handbags, £100+ football boots!

AIBU - No - they should pay more and heres my ideas how they should do it!
AIBU - Yes - leave wealthy people alone, its not their fault

I'm another one that wants to know what the massive payrise is.

Rich people already pay more.

They haven't been "given a pay rise" by the government; they have been allowed to keep more of their earned income than previously.

That is exactly what we intend to do. I'm so sick of losing half of what I have worked hard for going in tax. We will now look for as many tax loopholes and avoidance as possible.

wealth tax, far too much focus on income & not enough on wealth.

How is a pair of £100 football boots or a £500+ bag classed as super rich?

Most branded trainers are nearly £100! Every day shoes for every day non super rich people!

Jeeze if you ever need reminding why the tories are in power

People actually believe this shite

🤣

Have you seen the price of football boots and trainers?

why are £100 trainers in the same category as super yachts?

is anyone not living hand to mouth ‘super rich’ in this scheme?

I do like the idea of the luxuries tax, kind of the opposite of the zero rated tax on the bare essentials of life.

But rich people contribute way more than poor people already. Just looked up the stats, the top 10% of earners pay 60% of the tax receipts.

I'd much prefer companies to pay more tax and to close loopholes that allow them to get away with paying nothing. But would that just make prices go up? Or shares go down impacting pensions?

I love that all these assumptions about wealthier people must be true; total stereotyping. But when stereotypes of poorer people are trotted out, people go mad.

I don’t believe in either set of stereotypes for the record.

Just thinking out aloud so apologies if it sounds daft and too simplistic but... would the higher income groups be more inclined to pay income tax rather than look into tax avoidance/evasion if it was a flat rate of 20% for everyone?

Rich people don't worker harder than non rich people

Lots of them don't work at all.

They also don't contribute more They just take more

They get and stay rich mostly through exploitation and greed

Everyone has the opportunity to make money in this country for themselves.

Don't talk shit.

They do contribute more That is an indisputable fact. You don’t have to like it, but it is.

43% British adults pay no tax at all!

None.

That would be a huge cut in tax, way beyond what they've done so far.

There is a personal allowance on which noone pays tax* of £12,570.00
You pay 20% of your earnings in tax between £12,570 and £50,270.
You pay 40% of any earnings above £50,270 in tax

There is a clawback of the personal allowance over £100,000. Every £2 you earn over £100,000, you lose £1 of personal allowance so all your income over £125k is taxed at least 20%.

When people say "tax the rich more" by rich they generally mean people with more money than them.

I do think unearned income and earned income should be taxed at the same rate, but this is very unlikely to happen under a Tory (in fact any) government.

Rich people pay more tax. Depending on the nature of their business, for instance they pay a lot of tax to the gov as well as the local authorities. They provide jobs, pay salaries so people like you or me can live on. The more they consume the more tax they pay. Not every rich are friends with the gov. Not every rich leeches off this country through loopholes. You should target corporations, the middle men/women and who's friends with who instead of hardworking rich people. While you're at it, target the money launderers who rob/corrupt their own people in their home country leaving them out dry living through famine whilst doing wheelspins with their batmobile's in Knightsbridge. Our country isn't in this position because of rich people, if anything you should be thankful of them. Our country is in this position because we our governed by corrupt people who serve a handful of people which isn't even 1%.

If I see the fucking idiotic “I’ve worked hard” trope one more time I wear to god…. Morons.

The word rich has no meaning on MN any more. People just mean ‘people who earn more than me’.

That’s why this ridiculous list of luxuries starts at £100 football boots.

*Swear obviously a typo in rage.

50% vat on things like yachts, private jets etc just mean they sell less, as well as less maintenance packages to support.

Yacht/aircraft builders, mechanics and sales teams, who are not rich find themselves in the dole queue....

But plenty of rich people do work hard.
This doesn’t mean that plenty of poor people don’t also work hard too.

The two things are not mutually exclusive.

There was a thread on here yesterday - a lady on benefits who stands to inherit 100+k
admittedly her child had a severe disability

many people were trying to find ways for her to squirrel the money whilst still claiming full benefits

Isn’t that the same thing rich people do? Avoiding paying in.

why should anyone in this country want to better their life circumstances when people like the OP and others just see the rich as a group of people who are the enemy, and the poor as a group of people who are more worthy than the rest?

Actually, as a point of principal, I don't think the rich should be especially responsible for subsidising even just the poor, let alone more than half of the population. (Currently more than half of households are not paying their own way, although it's not only the rich subsidising them.)

As a first principle, I ask myself who should be subsidised? The answer to that is only "the poor", which is currently defined to be those on 60% of median income, a definition I'm OK with. The point of mentioning this is that I believe that the median person should not be subsidised. "The poor" should always be defined to be an exceptional minority. Society should be structured so that by default most people pay their own way, and only an exceptional minority need subsidy.

As a second principle, I don't believe anyone should lose more than 50% of their income to tax. Given that even basic-rate tax-payers are on a marginal rate of just under 40% once all NI (including employer NI) is counted, that means there's very little scope to have multiple rates of tax. We might as well just have a single rate between 40% and 50% for everyone, for all income above the personal allowance. (This is assuming NI merged into income tax and an employer NI replacement counted as a tax payment on behalf of the individual, making it both a taxable benefit and a prepayment of part of the individuals overall tax bill.)

I don't believe a minority of people should be victimised for the benefit of the majority, that is the ethics of a lynch mob. If the top 1% would rather spend the half of their money they get to keep on a yacht rather than whatever others deem worthy, they should be allowed to. It's their money.

Its equal. we could have all come up with Facebook or any other ideas that make money but we didnt did we?