To think this is the WHOLE POINT of tax?

[wheresmymojo]

Daily Fail are frothing today that higher earners pay more tax, and lower earners get more out in various benefits than they pay in.

I thought even the DF understood that the entire point of tax, it's whole reason for existing, is to re-distribute wealth to some extent with the wealthier paying more so that the less wealthy can benefit from a better standard of living?

Have I missed something - are there people who don't know this is what tax is fundamentally supposed to do?

I mean, I'm being fairly genuine...are there actually people who think it's like a bank account and you 'pay in' to 'get out'?

He was whinging about food banks in The Telegraph. Nasty, nasty piece of work.

From a quick Google, junior doctors earn about $70k AUS, which is about £39k...

You make a very good anti-immigration argument there, with the countryside being for animals. Applause for that!

Of course it's the government's fault.
However, you can't expect an income of an amount, because it's based on what people are willing to pay, relative to other things.

I have 3 questions:

1.How much should the person who makes your coffee at Pret be paid, in your opinion?

1. How much would they have to be paid until it became too expensive for you to buy coffee from Pret?
2. How much would you want to be paid if your Pret barista earned as much as you do?

I agree that 62k isn't crazy money. But it's a good wage beyond the reach of most people.

The problem is more the distribution of those at the lower and middle. If full time annual earnings varied between say 25k and 65k (with 10% earning more) and the median full time salary was 40k, there'd be much less need for in work benefits and higher tax revenues. As it is, many full time workers earn only 16 or 17 k, which means they are paying very little tax (although they still pay a good whack of national insurance). The median is about 26 k.

Not everyone who pays a high amount of tax is able to do that, if you’re paid via PAYE you have no choice but to pay your tax because your employer pays it
for you. I see a lot of people saying to increase tax rates for the “rich” because they “can afford it”, but you can only do that for so long before there’s no incentive for people (employees) to earn more.

The threshold for being a higher rate tax payer is £50,000, that’s comfortable (unless you’re the only one in the family working), but by no means rich. They need to tackle tax avoidance rather than just keep freezing tax thresholds despite inflation (which is a covert way of increasing tax).

well the vast majority of immigrants don't live in the countryside.

Minimum wage should be £15 per hour. The cost of the coffee would also depend on rent in addition to how many cups of coffee can be sold. If people had more disposable income, they may buy more coffee and this would generate economies of scale.

What pret servers earn has nothing to do with what I earn. I am probably not going to be a Pret server even if they paid £60k as i believe that there is not much means of progression. I want to be in a job where pay would increase as I increase my seniority and where i can increase my pay by 20-40% whenever I move. Which is quite normal in my industry. No matter how high the minimum wage is, this isn't possible in the hospitality industry as the nature of the job would mean that it is less difficult to train up people to make coffee and also coffee has far lower margins. On the other hand, other industries are more lucrative and can afford to pay even junior employees more.

One of the effects of a more equal society is that luxuries are more expensive, but also within reach of more of the population. Cafes are relatively more expensive in more equal countries such as Norway. In less equal countries they are cheaper (to the better off) but more people are too poor to afford them.

Buying coffee at pret is something that's probably too expensive for someone who earns minimum wage to do. Therefore increasing the wage of a pret barista doesn't have any negative effect on poorer people

I agree with this - it's the top 0.0001% (or similar) who hoard most of the world's wealth, and the disparity in the top 1% is quite big. Obvs there's a big gap between people on £100K a year and people with millions/billions. Even so, though, it's a huge exaggeration to paint higher-rate tax payers as struggling as much as people paying less tax. They might not actively be rich but unless they're overspending in some way, they are certainly comfortable enough not to think an 'easy' life on the dole is in any way comparable.

Where does the city go when it wants to expand and build the 300k+ new houses we apparently need every year (despite a sub-replacement birth rate)? The countryside.

Anyway, you're not hearing me.

What the Pret guy earns has everything to do with you. For one because he's just an example, and for another because wages are relative to jobs, which are relative to people's appetite and capacity to fulfil them.

£15/hr is about £30k/yr. How much do the people who currently earn £30k then have to be paid to make it worth their while to do what they're doing?

Another example: My job is quite stressful and demands many hours. If I could earn the same money stacking trollies at Tesco 9-5, then why would I do this job? Why would anybody?

So I ask again: if the Pret guy earned what you earn now, how much would you want to be paid to keep doing what you're doing?

My job is quite stressful and demands many hours. If I could earn the same money stacking trollies at Tesco 9-5, then why would I do this job? Why would anybody?

I can only speak for myself but I’d find stacking trolleys at Tesco incredibly stressful. I’d be bored out of my mind, pissed off at having to deal with people all the time and detest having to be out in all weathers. I’d also find working as a barista just as stressful, they actually have to be nice to customers all the time.

I find the concept of having to be paid more than people whose jobs you perceive as inferior really interesting. If you’re being paid enough to have the lifestyle you want why would you be bothered if a care assistant or a checkout operator was paid the same as you?

Yes it’s what tax is supposed to do but I think the question is over the contribution rate eg too much dependence on the rich and too many not contributing….

A lot of properties in the city lie empty because they are built for a luxury market and developers would rather wait years for a suitable buyer than sell it at a lower price. There should be a tax for developers that you have to pay if you don't sell the properties you build within two years. A carmelite monastry just down the road just got converted to 2,3 and 4 bedroom townhouses starting at £825k. They are not going to sell all the houses in a hurry because for that price, you can get a 2 bedroom mansion apartment in Kensington (and which would be bigger than the cheapest 2 bedroom house in that development). And I am in surburban London. THey already have 4 3 bed £1.5 million houses a few streets away and those are still rented out several yeaers on even though they were built to sell. They could have used the land to build key worker housing. So we don't necessarily need to build in the countryside as the problem is inefficient allocation of housing. Lots of older people in 5 bedroom properties because there is nothing suitable to downsize to. Apparently even in London, there are more bedrooms than people.

I assume your job is either a vocation or has progression opportunities or at least the chance to jump to another job and get 20% more pay? It isn't just stressful and take up your energy with no hope of a six figure salary at the end of it? What is the point of it for your personally unless its a vocation or calling ? Jobs can be many things- it can be a way of gaining entry into a high earning or prestigious sector,getting trained up, a way of providing purpose, a calling but if it is none of these things and doesn't even pay you well enough (to make up for the long hours and the stress), then it is a dead end job.

And you deserve to earn more just like the Pret baristas. In fact you should be protected just as much as the Pret baristas. Do you know why people in banking or corporate law don't strike even when their jobs are beyond awful? Its because they are being well paid and they know it and this makes up for whatever indignities they have experienced. And it is not worth ditching that job even for a £15 per hour job in the supermarket. Even if it was £20 or £25, its not worth it.
Same with trainee lawyers (many of whom earn very low salaries as paralegals for many years); they know that it would probably work out eventually.

Does this include pensioners who are more likely not to be high tax payers but who are more likely to be using the NHS more than younger people?

I had a fun argument on twitter the other day - someone complaining about the money you get on universal credit and how its a giveaway from the government.

But the same person was a high rate taxpayer and claiming 40% tax relief on his pension contributions. I argued that - depending on his contributions - the government is also handing him about the same amount by not deducting income tax from that amount of his earnings. le you pay £10k into your pension but you're only paying £6k from net salary the government covers the rest.

But apparantly thats 'good' tax policy because it benefits him. I suggestd he should be taxed on it as its income but he didnt like it.

All those high level tax payers in top income brackets do very well out of the tax system though. They will have benefited from the state education system either directly (their own education) or indirectly (their educators' education, their employees' education). The services and benefits that they use or their employees use. Such as health care, social services, all the public services and public sector work (eg planning system to grant permission for new buildings, infrastructure and so on).

They will have benefited from tax just not in the same way as the tabloids like to complain about.

www.statista.com/statistics/802183/annual-pay-employees-in-the-uk/

Statistics are funny old things aren't they, have a look at the median annual earnings for full-time employees by age and gender in the UK in 2022.

I've not read all replies.

Taxes should be paying for services, schools, military, NHS, care, roads, elderly, and disabled / sick.

Fit adults should be able to earn enough to house and feed themselves they shouldn't be relying on top up benefits to make ends meet.
Something seriously wrong with the benefits system when it's better for people to work two days a week and get top up benefits than to work full-time.

Can I just check, never having been a higher rate tax payer,

you all get your personal allowance like I do which you don't pay tax on,
then what you earn up to £50,270 you pay 20% like I do,
then anything over £50,270 you pay 40% on, up to £150,000
then after £150,000 you pay 45% tax on the amount earned over £150,000.

I only ask because the way it sounds sometimes, people are talking as though they are paying 40% tax on everything they earn ?

Taxes in the UK are too high. The services are rubbish. Loads of people do nothing, Whilst the UK doesnt have corruption it has mountains of pointless bureaucracy.

Im happy to work and live in a tax haven with zero benefits and pay for schools and healthcare. Time to remove benefits from those who arent disabled or carers.

Also guys with the aging population, the UK benefits system is going to fail. In 2050 1 in 4 people will be over 65. Less than a a third of the population will be working and potentially less than 1/4 in the private sector creating the wealth which pays for taxes and benefits. The country is a demographic time bomb.

@socialmedia23

There should be a tax for developers that you have to pay if you don't sell the properties you build within two years.

If you own the land, why should you be penalised or forced to do anything to it at all? If the ongoing costs don't outweigh what they think they'll make later, then that is up to them.

Do you know why people in banking or corporate law don't strike even when their jobs are beyond awful? Its because they are being well paid and they know it and this makes up for whatever indignities they have experienced.

This is literally my point, how can you not be getting this? They accept the downsides because the RELATIVE upsides i.e. the salary are worth it.

If people could earn the same doing a far easier job [insert your personal definition of an easy job here], then they would be doing that instead. There will always be outliers, before you say it, but this is what humans do in response to a removal of the hierarchy of reward - they stop trying.

Spot on. That’s it exactly.

So you problem is that he isnt paying enough tax to subsidise other people?

Feel like selling my assets in the UK when I read some of these comments. Country is dead.

you all get your personal allowance like I do which you don't pay tax on

I don't get a personal tax allowance.

If people could earn the same doing a far easier job [insert your personal definition of an easy job here], then they would be doing that instead. There will always be outliers, before you say it, but this is what humans do in response to a removal of the hierarchy of reward - they stop trying.

I couldn’t agree less. If that was true nobody would do the relatively poorly paid but hugely demanding jobs. We’d have virtually nobody working in the public sector - no nurses, teachers, paramedics. You make the mistake of thinking that, because money is your motivation, everyone is the same. Different people are motivated by different things.

They are examples of entry level jobs for which one would expect to earn minimum wage.
At no point did I say they were inferior - you inferred that entirely on your own.

Feel free to pick an alternative job which you would find to be easy and apply the same logic.

The reward for particularly difficult or dangerous jobs is generally higher than those which are not difficult or dangerous. Why do you think that could be?

@Dymaxion no, not everyone gets a personal allowance. Once you earn over 100k, you gradually lose the personal allowance pound by pound.