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'?

@Slowingdownagain I understand the argument and why people feel that way re the ethics. But the net result to me and fellow private school users is the same - we hand over more of our income in tax, after already handing over up to 60% of it. And the suggestions are that on top of that, we should also pay wealth taxes on our homes/pensions. I'm well paid and grateful for it, but I don't have an unlimited pot of money and there comes a tipping point where you have to question whether it wouldn't be better to go PT, take a lower paying job and get better 'value' for the contribution you make.

I don't think most people, even higher tax payers, have a problem with this. I suppose maybe the higher tax payers, the businesses and the evil multinational corporations who pay all the tax to subsidise the majority of the population are pretty sick of the constant inference that the are evil and greedy and should be paying more taxes.

The main thing is to control house prices and rents.

They'll just rise if benefits or minimum wage rises, so people would end up no better off. That's just basic economics of supply and demand. It's where Gordon Brown went wrong with his tax credits - it fuelled house price and rent inflation as people could afford to pay more!

So, before we even start to think about increasing wages or benefits, we need to have rent and house price controls so that people can actually benefit from their increased income, and for it not just to be eaten up in housing costs.

I can kind of see where you are coming from - I am a higher rate tax payer too, and although comfortable we are not rolling in money that we are dying to give away, and comment after comment about how rich we must be and therefore how much more we ought to contirbute without complaint is frustrating sometimes because although I am accutely aware of my privilege, that's just not the reality of it. However, the VAT of school fees I agree with because it's a policu question. They are businesses enjoying an, in my view, inaccurate classification as a charity. If Government want to ring fence them with their own tax exclusion then they ought to do that, not chuck them in with charities.

house price and rent controls don't work as they would just restrict supply for newcomers. Existing tenants would benefit from rent controls but very difficult for new people finding a property as existing tenants would cling onto their new property. Few developers would build if there was a cap on housing price.

What is needed is to increase supply and to ensure that new properties are going to people who need them rather the sons and daughters of the rich, the state should build housing. lots of them. For the poor and middle income who find it difficult to buy on the private market.

Do people know what happens when you cut the incomes of the lower paid?

To society?

I do. You won't like it

There is a point where you can’t extract ever more. I know on many threads the answer is ‘tax them more’ but it’s usually not the person suggesting it paying.

Tax burden falls mostly to top centiles I’m ok with that and wouldn’t change much - more or less

socialmedia23

can I add flats that aren’t rabbit hutches for older people needing to downsize from family homes but who would still like the much reduced in number rooms to be large enough to swing their cats.
developers seem to think all retirees just want to sit in a chair looking out of a window all day.

At @Slowingdownagain I completely respect people with that view and understand it. And if it was that in isolation and DC are in the middle of exam years, I guess we'd suck it up until they are through them. But, it feels we're being asked to potentially also pay one off wealth taxes/higher income taxes on top.

I think the marginal rate of tax when people lose their child benefit is even high, someone will know the figures better than me but I think it worked out at about 70-80% or something for going over that 50% threshold.

Please note: we do not swing our cats 😁

The worst part is that some people get more on benefits (not working) than others who are working on a lower income earn but the workers are not entitled to any help. I'm in that group and losing so much of my income to taxes and NI when my bills are going up is very frustrating.

Few developers would build if there was a cap on housing price.

The market caps the price on housing, you can see developers build X house in one area and charge £400k and 50 miles down the road the exact same X house, built at the same time is £300k.

Yes you did miss the point OP. Over half of households being net recipients is not the point of tax. And and ever shrinking pool of net contributors is a disaster for the country.

Do the math. If you have fewer and fewer people supporting more and more and people, what do you think will happen.

I was fairly shocked by the percentages. Do the top earners pay for all the support payments? If not where does the extra come from and how long can the bank of Rishi and co. sustain this level of support? Why don’t we have a debate about how to fix the crisis rather than just a DF bashing session? It would be far more useful IMHO 😊

Socialism is bad. De facto socialism is exactly what what we have right now in this country. In case you had missed it.

In other news, about 12k millionaires have left the UK since 2017. Bad, evil, millionaires paying their taxes and spending their money elsewhere. The UK can do without that kind of money, or any kind of money. Who needs rich people to pay anyway, let’s just borrow or print. Oops, we tried that in the last 3 years and it hasn’t worked out too well.

The stupidity of the public will always win out over logic, as displayed in the thread. Gun, shot, foot.

People on here love it when they leave. Any law that can get them on a plane is a good one.

That tax burden doesn’t go with them - oops.

Do you know why they left? Where did you get that figure from? Do you know how many came here?

Handy little graph

this is actually a good point. The way society is set up, we need net contributors. If not we run out of money and cannot support the system as it is. We get, proportionately, less and less of them every year due to an ever increasing aging population. This isn't just about raising more money NOW by taking everthing we can get away with from those that already contribute, it's about getting as many people as we can to be able to support themselves/ contribute too (again I mean through improving their outcomes long term through helathcare, education, etc).

Also interesting !

You don't have to earn much in this country to pay the higher rate. I certainly don't rely on low-paid people to do my job. As one of the 10% who is paying more than their share, I get no better services or pension than anybody else. In fact, in many cases I get less back.

How is that fair?

Also, nobody should be campaigning for Increasing the minimum wage and capping rents, as they both lead to undesirable effects.

If you increase the minimum wage, then the higher wages also generally have to increase. Certain jobs (like carers) become less desirable because you can get paid the same for doing ANYTHING else. Everything gets more expensive, prices go up to compensate, and then we're back where we started except the money has inflated.

If you cap rents then you will eliminate the supply because people stop moving. As a result, prices rise due to S&D and people end up paying more for the same, except the money has inflated and there is less choice.

The government does not control house prices. That is a market matter, and nothing is overpriced in a free market.

I mean, it's a bit nuts that so many posters talk about us being a "low tax country" when over half the country may as well not bother. There's such a culture of envy in this country and yet the richest pay such a huge percentage of everything in the public purse.

@orangeoyster

Of course it's fair.

You get an orderly society in which you have the opportunity to earn that money

So what's the solution if you don't want to increase taxes on the higher earners and you don't want the lower earners to earn more or be able to have more affordable lifestyles? Just let the poor be poor? Sod them and grabbiness?