Getting vilified as a high earner

[MagicMondays]

DH and I are both high earners. We do highly skilled and quite niche professional jobs which involved most of our 20s spent grafting, living apart, anti social hours etc when our friends were all having more fun! Both jobs still demand long hours and have a lot of responsibility. We have two DC and it's a struggle to sort childcare that works and make sure one of us is around for them. Our mortgage is huge (cos London) on a run of the mill Victorian terrace.
We obviously get no allowances - no personal allowances on income tax, no 30 hours childcare, no child benefit etc. Our tax bill is huge.
No issue with any of that. High earners should pay a disproportionate amount into the system to support others/redistribute wealth etc.

What I can't get my head around is how much people in the UK seem to dislike people like me. I see it on these boards all the time. People demanding I pay more tax, people complaining high earners are not as deserving as nurses, teachers etc, my own family making unfavourable comparisons with others.
We don't live a flash lifestyle at all - ordinary clothes, old car, not really interested in grand holidays, posh restaurants etc. You wouldn't know other than from knowing the jobs we do that we must have a good income.

I'm just a bit tired of this idea that people like me are arseholes in some way. I'm really not!

Very simple - we need to pay more tax or see more cuts- which do you propose we do as a country op?!
oh and fyi I’m a middle income earner in London and will be screwed paying more tax but it needs to be done!

Ricky Gervais once said that if you turned up at your old street in a Rolls Royce after making it big in the USA, people would crowd round and congratulate you on achieving the American dream. In the UK they’d key the car and if you turned your back it would be on bricks. This thread bears that out.

Ah! Is this really a high earners need tax cut thread?

If you work and do PAYE then you might be a bit justified in feeling how you do. You are putting more in disproportionally.

BUT you're angry at the wrong people. Lower earners are still putting a fair amount in. Guess who isn't!?!

@DotAndCarryOne2 Absolute rubbish
Gervais is a an arse.

70%?

In any case, it's not like it's a secret is it? I'm a relatively high earner and know exactly what I'm going to pay, how I can minimise my tax etc. If you don't want to pay so much tax then don't earn the money.

If you're capable of earning this kind of money then just suck it up and get in with it. Moaning about it is just crass.

Balls. Most people I know on big money were doing 55+ hours a week, often a lot more. I know plenty of people who took unpleasant jobs no one else wanted to do to get ahead. Plus worked super hard at school and moved away from family. Plenty of people here doing the equivalent of 9-5, who stayed local and didn't make any of those sacrifices and then moan about others who earn more who grafted, planned ahead and then moved across the country or moved countries.

The government has fucked up the UK economy. We do need higher taxes. Without investment the economy will continue to struggle.

You don't have to that is a choice, and a stupid choice if it's going to add pressure. My sister and husband are wealthy (we are not). They have 2 mid range cars second hand cars, have paid off their mortgage on their nice but not massive 4bed house, go on nice but not crazy holidays, eat nice food, have a cleaner, kids at state school. All things that have set them up if things go wrong. They are very generous and donate lots, and invest in ethical trade.

How much do you earn @MagicMondays ?

How much do you come out with after tax and outgoings?

@Jonnywishbone The person I know who works the hardest is a friend who is a cleaner. She cleans at various offices, works long hours, and has bought a small house as a result.
And loads of people move away from where they were brought up. That really is not unusual.

It's 70% of what you made between £100K and ~£125.5K only. The weird thing is that it goes back to 40% above that until £150K then up to %45 above £150K and that's the highest tax you'll pay (except for those £25K you got taxed at 70K).

At no point you get taxed over 50% of your income, but the closest you get is by making exactly the 125K or so that you just got the entire PTA reduced to zero. You get taxed more as a proportion by making 125K than any amount over that.

IMO it's kind of silly and perhaps a measure to appease the populace that high earners have no PTA. It would make more sense if they brought the 45% bracket down from £150K to £100K and left the PTA alone, for everybody.

But those people calling for taxing the rich, according to you your lifestyle isn’t flash, you aren’t really rich, you are at the upper end of middle class. So either you are high earners just getting by or you have a huge amount in savings and/or pensions. Lots of people worked hard in their twenties and beyond and sacrificed plenty and don’t earn a fortune. You are being v v unreasonable. It’s literally not about you.

You have your opinion, I have mine.

I worked really hard in my twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.
I then retired.

I was a nurse and midwife so I was never a high earner, and I resent your assertion that only high earners worked really hard.

Very simple - we need to pay more tax or see more cuts- which do you propose we do as a country op?!

stop targeting only income & look at wealth

YABVU.
This is not a thread about how your family treat you. It is you playing poor me, cut my tax bill.

Yes and ignoring the fact that not many people are given opportunities to earn that much from their hard work.

Whilst the initial post was quite clueless with references to "working hard" in your 20s rather than saying e.g. "you worked differently in your 20s i.e. were skint at Uni and built up mountains of debt rather than working hard physically in a supermarket and having cash in your pocket for holidays" I do understand a little.

I work long days - mentally draining - and it's grim. It doesn't mean it's less demanding than a physical job on a lower salary (similar income to you OP I think) but I am stressed, snappy and don't ever fully switch off. I have a crappy pension compared with nurses, teachers and other public servants and I do sometimes think that the package overall is lost (teacher's holidays) over the bottom line salary figure.

Sometimes I think I would rather have a less stressful job and be more present for the kids.

The commenter who said the lawyer needed to work less hours - go part time - and see his kids more. It doesn't work like that. You can't work part time at jobs like that. You're mentally "on" all the time. That's as naive as saying higher earners just need to pay more tax.

So donate more. Or reduce your hours and spend the extra time volunteering. Retrain to do something less well paid and more worthwhile.

The point is as a high earner you have choices, those choices include reducing your income.

I grew up poor, I'm a very high earner now. I worked long hours when some of my friends did the 9-5, I don't think I've ever worked "normal" hours. However other friends also worked and continue to work very long hours and ended up on very average salaries due to their sector.

I also don't recognise this "people in the UK" thing. IME its similar here to many other places - mostly the people I grew up with are happy for us, others not fussed either way. If you find earning too much to be a problem for you then the solution is in your hands.

What most people don’t understand is ‘more money’ more problems.

When people in your position are represented by people who post this kind of bollocks, OP, you're always going to get people resenting you I'm afraid.

Perhaps if those high earners stopped being high earners (because why bother or left the UK) and you personally had to pay more tax, had worse services from the state and had lower welfare benefits you might care?

Until then perhaps be pleased those higher earners are there contributing more in tax to pay for all the services the government provides? The top 10% of earners pay 60% of tax in the UK and the bottom 40% are met tax receipients eg take out more than they put in.

70% of what you earn would never go to tax, what would make you think that?

Don't talk nonsense! I know lawyers who work part time, who work jobs where they earn less per hour to allow that too. We all make choices, more money, more choices and options.

It’s the super rich that’s are driving inequality. The majority of the U.K. population are seeing their standard of living drop whilst a few thousand billionaires continue to hoover up more and more of the nation’s wealth.