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

you dont need to be educated privately lol.

Anyone can make money if they can come up with an idea or service that sells.

Think for example, Friends Reunited, Facebook, Ebay, Deliveroo, Twitter, you could have thought of that and made money but you didnt nor did I.

Nothing to do with education.

Countless studies have shown that the difference between the successful Scandinavian welfare states and the UK’s tax system is the level of basic rate tax. If we want a better welfare state we all have to pay more basic rate tax. Putting the current 20% rate up to 30% would raise lots of money as so many more people pay basic rate tax. But that kind of system would not be popular with those who only want to bash the wealthy, however you define it.

id agree with a capital gains tax on house sales and a wealth tax. There’s not enough tax on assets and too much on earnings.

I agree with this post, and What I would like to know and what nobody ever seems to have an answer to is if it’s not possible to better oneself here in the UK, why do so many people choose to move here?

Either it is possible to do this (better yourself because of opportunity), or we hand out too many benefits and so people can have an easy life?

Which is it?

Short version: Abolish National Insurance, give everyone a tax rate of at most 50% on income above the personal allowance, raise the personal allowance so that no-one on median or lower income is made worse off as a result of the change. (Those on above-median incomes won't be significantly worse off, as they're already paying high rates.)

I don't think the rich should contribute more. But I do think:

• none earned income should be taxed the same as earned income. If we have two rates: 20% and 40% on earned income, then the same rates and thresholds should apply to none earned income. Right now, it's generally taxed at lower rates.
• the potential to earn money needs a level playing field, which means weeding out nepotisim, corruption and the general 'jobs for the Eton boys' we see far too much of. Everyone should get as fair a shot as possible.

@Quincythequince

Yeah that depends on your definition of contribute really.

They contribute most to lots of inequality, thats for sure

I actually can’t believe someone is sitting there thinking “what other ways could we make the wealthy pay”

honestly it’s so ridiculous. And cringe.

Stupid idea. They already pay a huge proportion of their income in tax and as much as people on her like to waffle on about offshore accounts and buying property abroad to evade tax it's actually not very easy to do when you are paid by your employer and then have to fill in a tax return and declare bonuses (which you pay tax on before they hit your account), also have to declare CHT on any shares etc sold or risk a jail sentence. When you pay monthly in tax what some people earn in a month you feel slightly less sympathetic for those moaning about how much you get back from the system. You get fuck all. You don't even have a tax free personal allowance.

It's hard to get jobs through relatives in real companies but hat aren't family owned these days too so very few jobs for the boys anymore.

We pay private school fees and private dentist and doctors and on top pay tax which covers nhs and dentists and schooling which we don't use. And there's no free school transport, we pay for that too.

Do you want these so called rich people not being able to cough up for private schools and healthcare and just adding to the overburdened system??

Well we’re talking about tax in this thread aren’t we.

And I assumed without further detail, that that’s what you were talking about.

If you have another specific meaning of the word contribute, please enlighten me and also describe how they contribute lots to inequality.

The emotional ‘hate the rich’ hyperbole is very very tiresome.

As are the constant generalisations.

We need rich people in this country though. If you scare them off by hitting them with high taxes, then the revenue they provide will diminish. Which means the whole country getting poorer. If there is no-one to buy the high end goods, then there is no need for workers to design them, produce them, market them and sell them. What a loss of jobs! Poor people need rich people to employ them.

People in poverty are the ones that really need subsidising by the government. Anyone who has a home, food, clothes, education, medicine, etc. is not poor, they are just living a normal life and it's not theirs to ask for more money off other people just because they want it.

*I agree with this post, and What I would like to know and what nobody ever seems to have an answer to is if it’s not possible to better oneself here in the UK, why do so many people choose to move here?

Either it is possible to do this (better yourself because of opportunity), or we hand out too many benefits and so people can have an easy life?*

I think this misses magic number 3: we speak English. For many countries, people tend to have a basic grasp of English as a 2nd language. Or American English. It's much easier to move to a country where you at least know a few words of the local language.

When I lived in India and asked people where they most wanted to go...
Number 1: America
Number 2: Australia/UK about even

When asked why, there were three key reasons:

1. They'd seen them in films
2. They all spoke English
3. They knew people who came from those countries

People like to think the decline in public services is the fault of the rich. It’s not. It’s a problem that can only be faced by all of us together. What is a problem that the government need to tackle is the cost of housing. Think of the tax raises we would be able to stomach if house prices and rents were halved. With house prices being so ludicrously high, no one can afford the high taxes needed to improve public services. We need lots more housing, and lots and lots more council housing.

For me the morons are those who think the fact that their are non-rich people who work hard has any relevance. When someone says they are rich because they worked hard for it, they mean they have more money than they would have done if they'd done nothing. Which is true, usually.

The are describing cause and effect in the history of their own life, it's got fuck-all to do with what other people have or haven't achieved.

OP you have posted on AIBU.
Any views expressed on here are not necessarily those of the people posting them.
😁😁

I would also say that I have worked in HR in investment banks and EVERYONE pays PAYE, even the directors. On salaries and bonuses. The amount of people that think all bankers dodge tax. It’s just not true!

I live in London. People on 100k to 300k here are not particularly “rich”. Most have worked really hard and pay a huge amount in tax proportionally to their wage. Most have big mortgages, a couple of kids etc, textbook middle class hard workers. They shouldn’t be “punished”.

The rich are the CEOs on multiple millions a year and the international rich who can dodge tax anyway. I work with some of them. If you tax these people too much they really do just leave. Same applies to the big bankers in London, they really can mostly just up sticks easily and send their kids to boarding school here instead.
In addition, there are loads and loads of people in this country who choose not to pay tax or don’t declare what they earn fully. That is more of an issue.
Anyone with a job should be paid a proper living wage and people should work more than just working very part time with top up benefits. We really need good quality heavily subsidised childcare so any working women have a fair chance.

I agree that the very rich should in principle be taxed more but they will just leave. I have seen it time and time again. I don’t think we should punish the hard working middle classes. Where is the incentive to work hard to get to the top.

Middle class people who have worked hard including consultant doctors who have had their pensions cut really have been retiring early. I see it in my law firm all the time. Why work 60 hours plus with little quality of life if so much of the salary then goes to the tax man. This really has been happening for the 50 plus - since they managed to get on the properly ladder early enough to have paid off their mortgages, largely.

There is a strong argument that simplifying tax is far better - the more complex you make it / the more you put it up - the more the wealthy will find ways around it - just look at Philip Green and his wife's 'wealth' abroad...

Most of the wealthy are pretty reasonable about tax and happy to pay it - just make it easy, so fine, a lower rate and then a higher rate - seems reasonable, but the minute you start to see punitive taxes which punish the wealthy, they won't put their wealth through that tax system - Liz Truss in removing the 45% tax band will I am sure mean that for a number of people there is less incentive to find a way around tax, so more tax will be paid...

the problem with this country is the very vocal minority who believe that they are somehow entitled to do nothing and live off those who work hard - all in the name of making it fair - we should have a country where we are open to all becoming wealthy and make it easy - but retain compassion for those who really can't, but with an expectation that if you can, you work...

They already contribute vastly more.

That’s a good point.

But if life is so hard here, and you have no chance of getting ahead at all, as some would have you believe, then why would you bother?

If you are just going to move somewhere why life is hard and you have always got someone’s boot on your throat, you simply wouldn’t bother would you. Not even if you spoken the language.

So the point being is you can get ahead here, quite easily, if you are willing to try.

Won’t be true for everyone of course, but to say there is no way to improve yourself here is just a lie that so many pedal to continue to try and justify being supported by someone else.

I earn over 100k - but not substantially over it to feel “rich” and I’d love to see what this “massive pay rise” looks like please? I certainly don’t buy any of the luxury goods you mentioned.

Also bear in mind I am exempt from claiming anything towards full time child care costs, so for years I’ve paid >35k GBP a year out of my taxed income. This includes employers NI (and pension etc) which I pay, also out of my taxed income unlike a normal firm which can deduct it before tax. Childcare is prohibitively expensive because I need someone to cover from 7am to 7pm and even that is often not long enough to cover the work day. I am not in receipt of child benefit, nor the childcare tax free benefit nor the personal tax free allowance. I don’t mind paying tax, and I didn’t mind paying the 45% tax either, (and I think it should not be abolished not least because it feeds threads like these) for the common good, but it is pure ignorance to think that a ~£100k salary amounts to anything more than a decent standard of living, at least in London and especially for parents where childcare needs to be covered. “£500 hand bags” are not part of this life. I would have to earn near on £1000 gross to fund that and I have nowhere like that level of disposable income. As for yachts?

I had a play around with the tax calculator, and was astounded how much tax higher earners pay a year:

Earnings - Tax
£100,000 - £27,433
£400,00 - £164,950
£800,000 - £344,960
£1,000,000 - £434,960

Imagine paying £434,000 in tax EVERY YEAR and holding down a job that beasts you body and soul, and still having people griping at you for not paying enough.

I think think this country already does quite well out of higher earners. I’m guessing that’s why the government is trying to attract them.

What is rich these days? £100k in London is not rich at all. The people I know on those salaries did work hard to get there.
Admittedly, it was working hard at school and uni but they worked hard to learn and study.
They weren't born to rich parents or went to private school. In fact, most of the parents are immigrants who had barely any idea how the education system worked in this country and just expected their children to get good grades.
It's hard to be very rich without networks and connections, but jobs that pay very well after a few years can be achieved with hard work.

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

It's not equal. Society isn't equal.

Coming up with an idea is only part of it. Having the finances to make it happen or the financial security somewhere in your family to allow you to take a risk really does make a difference.

That's not to say only rich people are successful but to suggest everyone has access to equal opportunities is naive at best.

Money goes to money the majority of the time. Not everyone gets the same opportunities in life.

@Quincythequince

We cant talk about contributions to tax without also talking about what they (the rich, ie the 1%) also take.

Imo it's a negative balance. And even if it was a positive thats as it should be right? They're nit doing us a favour we should all be grateful for.

If you cant see the vast inequalities set up and enforced by those in power (the 1%) then I suggest opening your eyes a bit?

Its not really deniable.

Wealth inequality is worse now than ever.

We didn't get here because the rich contribute the most.