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

We're not "rich-rich" but we do well relative to average local salaries. We have a micro-business, but we don't take multiples of our employees' salaries about 1.5x or work any less hard, although it's more intellectual than physical nowadays. And when we retire and sell, we shall get entrepreneur's relief in recognition of all that, and as compensation for the early years and recessions when we took little or nothing from the business. The sale price will be a large part of our retirement income plan. But it's ridiculous to compare our situation at nearly 70 with that of someone of 30.

What about taxing lottery wins over a certain amount?

i mean if you win like £75 million on the lottery…how come no one ever complains about the lack of tax on that?

@Toomuchschool

Imagine earning 1 million in the first place

And for what?

I honestly didn't realise that owning a couple of designer handbags makes me rich to the point of being able to afford my own yacht.

Yes imagine earning a million and giving 50% back from that in tax and come on, few people earn a million for doing a job that isn't worth a million. You don't just get paid that for fucking about, maybe looking at a few screens, taking a punt on interest rates. These people aren't just lucky, they have degrees and have worked hard to earn their salaries.

Just looking at the tax burden if you decrease the tax take from the top earners by ensuring they don’t earn so much - then who picks up the difference?

'Leave rich people alone'

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No. Make them fucking pay more.

I don’t see why rich people should pay more tax. Being successful should not be punishable - however I do think that the tax loopholes and non domicile status is BS. Everyone should be paying tax. The problem with higher taxes is that people stop paying them altogether. I’ve lived in countries where people will only trade in cash , backhanders are common practice etc. 20% os something is always more than 50% of nothing.

Indeed, we need to talk about what tax is used for.

What so the rich take from our system that is supported by taxes above and beyond the poor.

Because from where I sit they don’t use the schools which they pay for, a lot of the healthcare that they pay for, care homes, etc

They use none of this, but still have to pay.

They receive no child benefit, universal credits, free school meals, the list goes on.

They pay huge amounts of VAT and most of the IHT too.

You are waffling but not providing any evidence of your assertions.

They are overall massive net contributors.

You can have your opinion, sure. But it is not supported with any evidence.

Again, please describe to me in detail (you haven’t given one example yet) here of how the rich bleed the poor and the route of this problem is via unfair taxation.

Just how much more tax do you think they should pay. How much more redistribution of wealth will be enough for you?

And yes, I agree with you - those who have more should pay more.

And they do.

Lots of clichés about “rich people”. I’m an immigrant to this country, neither of my parents went to university. I went to state school in my home country and have no “connections”. If you want to earn money here you can, though you need to be prepared to give other stuff up too (time off, being with your kids, etc). Ok the whole many people don’t want to make those sacrifices and to be honest with the amount of money I have left over I often wonder why I bother too. Will probably downsize (job home lifestyle and move out of London) in next few years for similar reasons.

How come the onus is on finding ways to take forever more money from the rich/high-earning individuals, instead of finding ways to have most people be part of the work force and pay into the system?

Rich people/high-earning individuals pay massive amounts in taxes already.

I earn above 100k (and by no means am I rich) and pay huge amount in taxes which I am overall fine with because I believe in giving back and also grew up on benefits and food bank so see it as my turn to pay. I am NOT okay though with subsidizing people like my 25 yo brother who is 100% able to work but chooses not to or only work the minimal amount of time as to continuously live off of benefits. And my brother is only one of thousands who purposefully chose not to work because they see themselves as better off on benefits than without.

How is that acceptable? Also of the very very few rich people I know (and I know quite a lot of very rich people) who miiiight do some dodgy tax-related things, I know A LOT more non-rich people working under the table and not declaring their income or dodging taxes, etc… So it’s all relative. If you believe in taxes. Everyone should pay taxes not just one group carrying the weight of it all for everybody, and again I grew up on benefits and have zero problem now paying taxes.

But benefits and subsidies should be extremely limited to a certain select group of people who is genuinely in need of help, and there should be no way for people like my brother to live a good chunk of the year on subsidies when he has never paid taxes once in his life.

I personally wouldn’t be okay in paying more taxes than I already do (which is more a year than some people will ever pay in a lifetime) when too many abled people somehow purposefully don’t do their part adding to the problem that’s somehow for a good chunk of society, mine (and other people who likely similarly worked hard to earn well) to fix.

@Madamecastafiore

Lol.

Isnt there research that shows the majority of investment banker/hedge fund managers/ceos are absolute fuckups?

Lots of people have degrees and work hard and earn 1% of that.

There are a vanishingly small number of roles I'd consider to be worth that.

And yes, I think anyone earning that amount or more should be ok with paying that amount of tax.

Seems proportionate to me

Yes. There are lots of things that IMO could and should be taxed more heavily, long before income taxes.

Gambling winnings (incl lottery) - currently untaxed

House price increases on primary residence - currently untaxed

£325k of inheritance - currently untaxed

Financial gifts from parents/others, if made more than 7 yrs before their death - currently untaxed

I would like to see taxes on this unearned income (which generally benefits people from well off families) before we talk about raising taxes on income people have worked for.

Nail on the head. We need high earners to move to the UK and we need to stop those already living here from moving abroad to low tax countries and tax havens.

As for bonuses too, most banks increased salaries to negate the bonus cap so rather than maybe an extra 50k in your bonus you get £10k added onto your salary which you then get every year.

And jobs for the boys, you don't just rock up in Uncle Crispin's law firm and plonk a wig on, you actually have to you know become a lawyer. In a bank you have to pass a raft of exams to be able to trade, it's not something they let their dear nephews get on with after finishing Eton.

I think you mean "even more" OP, because "rich people" already pay more tax than non-rich people if they are employees.

I don't think taxing the sale of "luxury" goods is a great idea, it will simply mean people buy them in other countries instead of the UK. And VAT is already quite high.

You need to define "rich people" but obviously there comes a point when "rich people" will simply leave the country if they feel they are paying too much.

I also agree that many other countries with higher income tax intake also have much lower thresholds when people start paying tax. The UK's is really very high comparitively speaking. It might be better if the personal allowance wasn't quite so high, and a very low level of tax was brought in, e.g. 2% or something, so lower earning people wouldn't feel so disenfranchised from taxpayers.

As far as I can see about me, we really need more people to work full time in the UK, particularly young healthy men with no childcaring responsibilties. So many seem to not be in full time employment or simply not to work very hard ...dons hard hat. It will be dependent on which part of the country you come from, but this particular city is shocking.

A £10k dinner - is this £10k per head? Because those dinners don’t exist, and for most £10k bills for a group, a large part will be the wine which is already very heavily taxed.

Or £10k for the total bill regardless of how many people are there? Because that’s going to screw over an awful lot of people getting married!
And the majority of those dinners will be corporate entertainment to a lesser or greater degree

OP said £10k dining tables, not £10k dinners.

It's not at all straightforward to 'just' tax luxuries - there are millions of people worldwide who work to produce these luxury items, often on very little money. If you tax luxuries too much, you hurt the industry, and if you hurt the industry, you hurt the workers. There's also a geographical element - you don't want to drive the super-rich away from the UK, as they contribute a huge chunk of our tax revenue!

@Quincythequince

The latest budget is a great example.

Low wages subsidised by tax credits

High housing costs also subsidised by tax credits

High energy costs , once again, subsidised by the govt

Massive corporate tax evasion and avoidance

Do you actually even understand what wealth inequality is?

I'm a bit surprised anyone is actually trying to argue it doesn't exist or that the wealthiest enforce it.

equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk

So you are happy with the richest paying a smaller share of the bills to keep the country going than they have in decades? They paid far more even under Thatcher as a proportion of government spending than they are doing now, and that's the ones that pay at all- see also, non-doms screwing us out of billions a year in taxes.

I think the whole point is that they do pay more. As well as what Toomuchschool has put about income tax - below - the same logic applies to VAT. VAT is 20%.

£10 handbag includes £2 VAT
£500 handbag includes £100 VAT
So there is already lots of revenue coming from luxury items. If you put some sort of supertax on them, people will just buy them abroad.

start of quote
Toomuchschool · Today 14:22
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.
end of quote

saying “make the rich people pay more” is as stupid as saying “make the poor people work more”

Capitalism and the illusion of eternal growth and wealth is literally destroying the planet.

But yeah.

Leave those poor rich people alone.

I had a state education, went to uni on a student loan, did a masters on a private loan, paid it back from working 2 jobs that I applied for totally organically, never got a penny from my parents for anything other than shelter and food. Now I’m wealthy from doing a difficult job that pays well.

Tell me where I was “lucky” compared to you?

Where is the research that the investment bankers etc are fuck ups, they don't get paid what they do for being fuck ups, they get fired (and believe me it's easier to fire an investment banker who isn't performing than a doctor or public sector worker who fucks up and costs someone their life).

Yes some people have chosen career paths after obtaining degrees where they earn less. This isn't the fault of those who earn more.

And it's very very easy to say you'd be happy to pay more when you're not paying out in tax each month what the average person earns in a year.

The workforce went to shit when people figured out due to In work benefits they'd be better off not working as many hours. The benefits have to come from taxes and if you cut your hours you aren't paying so much tax but it has to come from somewhere. Wages have stagnated due to lots of things over the past 15 years but employers have been able to get away with not paying a living wage due to the government topping up earnings.