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'?

It's not just an ageing population we have a problem with, we also have a birth rate problem brewing. We have a birth rate of 1.56 births per woman (2020 figure) which I believe has dropped even further in 2021/22

This is not good.

I believe it is 2.1 that is needed to class as 'replacement'

An easy way to increase net contributors would be to increase investment in childcare so more women would work full time. A lot of well educated women work part time as they have multiple children and find that childcare costs more than what they would earn working full time. So they go part time and this reduces the tax they would pay. people who work full time are also more likely to get promotions etc and the fact that so many women go part time means they miss out on that as well as the opporunity to pay more tax.

Another way is to promote flexible working so that sick people (25% of the economically inactive) can actually work. Increase access to work for the disabled. I also feel that by forcing people who earn more than £1k to register for taxes, they are artificially depressing employment statistics. my SIL who has suspected aspergers thinks she is employed because she is registered as self employed. in reality she doesn't earn enough to pay tax (from writing online). In other countries, she would be regarded as pursuing a side hustle/hobby but in the UK, she is 'employed'. She would be eligible for top up benefits if she had a child or was living outside the family home.

Are they including pensioners too?

I think it is concerning that half the country take more back than they give, surely this is only going to get worse with inflation and an ever growing elderly population? It’s not sustainable, you can’t keep taking more and more of those who already contribute way more than their fair share, it’s not a race to the bottom, soon there will be no incentive to earn more as most of it will be taken off you.

It's not envy it's practicality.

Do you know what happens to societies with big gaps between the rich and poor?

*off

I think it is quite worrying that over half of households are taking more out the pot than they are putting in. It doesn't sound sustainable. I'm not angry at the households though. There's clearly something going wrong when that many households are reliant on 10% of people to help cover them.

The thing to watch out for is the benefit bill. For first time in a while it was higher proportion than tax payers.

So much distraction in this country via the media and demographics / issues like this are ignored. And we sleepwalk into pushing out higher end payers through petty incoming politics.

It’s depressing to watch

The Daily Mail really puts my belief in freedom of the press to the test. Daily.

All those households are also paying VAT on products and indirect taxes such as fuel duty and council tax etc

Depends what you class as a benefit.

I've seen calculations which include public sector pensions.

All benefits yes. But we’re aging so it doesn’t make it easier to deal with. It will get higher.

imo check you can keep higher tax payers as much as people get annoyed the tax burden is huge and can’t afford loss of input at top end.

An example of the 'tax the nasty landlords' rhetoric in the past few years were the changes that the govt made to mortgage interest relief, the scrapping of the ‘wear and tear’ allowance and introduction of a 3% stamp duty surcharge.

Yay, let's tax the rich some more.

Result is fewer privately let properties available and rents rising.

@MarshaBradyo

Public sector pensions are not benefits though- but the gov has used them to paint a picture of a high benefit bill.

They're part of the remuneration that public sector employees get

I think we may be looking at this the wrong way.

I have lived in 2 places where I paid 12-15% tax, and 3-7% sales tax (VAT), and no other taxes. The quality of life was better there. In both places the population was under 7m.

Here in the UK I think taxes are massive. My household pays max rate tax, max council tax, road tax, massive fuel tax, inheritance tax, etc.etc. Even on a high income, it’s difficult to save.

We have relatives who live in Spain who earn a lot less, but have holiday homes and a better quality of life.

We are over populated, with many people claiming benefits. If it wasn’t so expensive to live here, if our govt. didn’t piss money up the wall, these people wouldn’t need in work benefits.

The "think-tank" that came up with this report is based in 55 Tufton Street. If you know about that building's reputation you can draw your own conclusions.

I’m going by ONS figures

They know their statistics. Others might want to order things differently but it helps to use a consistent verifiable source such as ONS.

Smaller house, cheaper car and walk/bike where possible.

Which would be far less of a problem if we built more houses but that tends not to happen with a cabinet of ideological NIMBYs.

I certainly don't rely on low-paid people to do my job.

The majority of higher rate tax payers do. Whether that be directly (employees below them), indirectly (cleaners, admin support), or via the fact that the companies they are selling their services to do employ people on low wages. As do the utility providers.

Let me put it this way - if everyone working for minimum / low wage downed tools, how long would it be before you were unable to work? Within my organisation it would be about a week or so before I'd absolutely have to do their job on top of my own. But we probably wouldn't get that far because I can't do my job without heating, lighting and running water, and I don't think those things would last long without the low wage maintenance staff. Plus the fact that a fair number of colleagues rely on low paid childcare workers, so we'd be running on skeleton staff if they wouldn't work due to lack of childcare.

I'm not having a go at net contributors or higher rate tax payers (I'm already a net contributor and next tax year I'll be in the 40% bracket). I'm just pointing out that the idea that you can earn lots of money in this country without lower paid workers is nonsense.

And if you don't pay those workers enough, they won't work eventually. Though that's after they work so much they become ill, can't parent their kids or run their homes properly- with all of the resulting mess that the tax payer has to pay to clean up

Perhaps what we need is some sort of tax breaks on employers/companies who agree to pay higher wage? I'm thinking aloud here, but perhaps they pay a lower employer NI rate if they agree to pay higher salaries? I have no idea how the numbers would work out mind. Lower NI receipts from employers but higher income tax and fewer receiving in work benefits - would that work?

Make that bungalows with a decent garden and you’re on the money. Won’t happen though because they take up more space.

Young working people who can’t come here isn’t the problem. It’s the young people already here who dont want to work because they can claim benefits! There was someone on here the other day saying about their partner who doesn’t live with them because it suits them better, despite having children, the suits them better is a way of claiming benefits, in the next sentence he he 3 kids with 3 different mothers ffs…people need to get off their backsides and pay for their kids, not someone working long hours paying tax!!

But you can redraw societies views so those lower paid jobs become an option for school leavers, Saturday/evening jobs and university students (for who it is no longer easy to get an entry level job). I've done minimum wage jobs when I was 19/20 and doing my degree, I had a room in a shared halls then lived at home. I didn't expect that minimum wage job to support a family which is what is happening with universal credit top ups etc. Our son was a surprise and one of our first thoughts was about how we could make it affordable with our life plan at the time, for me that meant working until my due date and going back at 4 months as we didn't have enough in savings for when I went onto half pay, 9 years later it honestly didn't make a difference to him.

It also about what you want to spend money on, so could you cut the bill by say giving everyone free childcare from X age so mam has to go back to work and contribute?