to not want people to judge those who recieve benefits????

[TidyTink]

Im a single mother of one,

i was working up until my DD (3) was born, rather than take a part time job that i knew i would always be stuck in i decided to get to college and study asubject that will lead me to a very hard working and well paid job so that i can fully support my DD in the future.

I hate recieving benefits and cannot wait untill i have finished my degree

Once i start at work i will be paying enough taxes in the future to more than cover the benefits ive recieved over the few yrs.

So why does everyone assume your a complete waste of space?? not all of us take advantage of the system!!!!

oops xpost expat- you answered what i asked already!

DS in bed - off to get some supper.

Can someone please explain what a 'dom' or a 'non dom' is?

Dal, I suggested some things already, since it's become personal again, as so often happens these days on MN .

Again, DH is helping get the girls ready for bed so I've got one eye on the chaos and another on this thread at the moment.

Apologies for my tone, dal, they've been, erm, challenging, today, my daughters.

Peacefully watching a pigeon with a TomTom on its back for the next two seconds at present, however.

Excuse the extraneous comma as well, please.

Peace has been disrupted.

Arrggggghhhh!

hey no worries expat.

non dom - is a non domiciled person in the UK. So they work here etc. and any income they earn here is taxed in the normal manner. But their country of residence is elsewhere and for that reason - they dont pay tax on their offshore income unless they bring it into the country (the thinking being that they will pay it where they are resident). They also (off the top of my head, so someone please correct me if I am wrong) - dont pay things like capital gains tax.

Our lovely current (hopefully not for much longer) chancellorhas basically suggested that non doms pay a flat fee per year - £25k or so to be able to claim non dom status - which was fine. But then also suggested that they needed to declare sources and locations etc of their offshore incomes - which absolutely backfired with many high profile non doms threatening to quit london and bas their headquarters elsewhere in Europe. Some hedge fund managers have already moved their operations.

If the government loses the revenue the non doms generate (through both business and personal expenditure) - it will hit the economy very badly.

oh and I also meant to add that the chancellors reasoning for making them disclose the income was that they use lots of off shore outfits so they may never pay tax on some offshore monies.

from what i can tell he got a little too greedy, they already contribute plenty (including to the labour party coffers some of them) so not quite sure what he was on when he started on them tbh. he wasnt coming under any pressure to do so.

"Should we penalise everybody that acheives a certain wage even more than the tax they already pay"

Isn't that the point that was made intially? The non dom and high earners don't pay a fair amount of tax. With tax avoidance, being able to basically live in Britain, but say they don;t etc, they proportianlly pay less than people on low wages. Wasn't it one director who said that he paid less tax than his cleaner as a percentage of earnings. And the question is why aren't people more angry about that than worrying if someone ahd earnt an extra £20 a week that theyr're not entitled to?

peppamum - how many people do you honestly think get away with paying little/ no tax? I read the article and there were inaccuracies. there are ways for high net individuals to delay paying tax - invest that money elsewhere and hence make money on income that would have been with the taxman. But those schemes are monitored by the govt. and the government has histoically wanted money to go into the sectors to fund them.

Who do you think funded the British film industry for years?

My guess is that what pisses people off is the lack of community spirit or societal conscience. This applies to both fat cats (of whom there are remarkeably few and mostly in the private sector) and those who are able to work but choose not to- of whom there seem to be a larger than expected percentage. Most of us will not fit into that category and therefore feel justified in sticking up for themselves and the people they know. I don't know what your idea of fat cat is, expat: does it include city workers earning a certain salary and above? It is also obvious from the discussion that people, like the OP and the discussion re carers, feel that they are looked down upon. I don't look down on the people who have contributed to this thread. What i do object to is people who believe 'it is their right' to claim a benefit and feel no compunction to work, even if their circumstances allow it. I treated many such people when i worked in the NHS as a physiotherapist, many back pain sufferers who hobbled in and then proceeded to undress and hop on the couch with absolutely no difficulty.
We cannot blame fat cats for the contracts they manage to negotiate, immoral as it is. Nor can we really blame people who claim benefits when they are able to work, (and not in the situations described on this thread) immoral as it is. What should happen, IMHO, is that it should never be more cost effective not to work than to work, and that the government should not spend public money on paying management consultants who get paid a lot of money despite their performance. For example

What about the percentage of the population who do live here and are in the 40% bracket (every day working people)

people should not be penalised for earning more money the people who avoid it that should be penalised the loop holes need to be closed

of course that has to be weighed up against the fact that if l these people remove their business from the UK all their employees lose there jobs all of which also pay tax then we will probably lose more than we will gain of the people that decide to stay

Personally I think to tax anymore would be a disincentive to go any further up the career ladder

We need to help people more from grass roots and we need to start paying for there education again

High earners certainly don't pay a fair amount of tax. It is very unfair I pay 41p in every pound to support those on benefits etc when someone who works less hard and earns less pays nearly half what I pay. It's completely unfair. there should be one tax rate. There is no justification other than left wing redistributive politics to tax you at a higher rate the more you earn. It's the politics of envy. In the US people see high earners and think great I could do that. In the UK they sit watching TV eating chips and whingeing about it.

Well non doms like Phillip Green (Top shop in case I've got his name wrong), the director who said that he paid less tax than his cleaner. Its not that they're doing it illegally, it's that the system favours those who can afford good accountants to avoid paying their fair share. I'm sure most people on PAYE don't pay less tax than they should.

The point was also made about bonuses. Some people in financial institutions made a fantastic living when economic conditions were good, but they're not the ones who are suffering if conditions take a trun for the worse. Why shouldn't the chief exec of NRothern Rock have to pay back the bonuses he got, when he abviously made a rubbsih of it. I notice he sold all his shares at the top of the market, levaing other oredary shareholders to take the rap.

THe question that was being asked on this thread was 'why arean't people maoning about people like him, instead of moaning about people on benefits, as he's cost the country more.

(excuse crap typing)

Well, actually, Xenia, you still pay no tax on the first £5035 of your earnings, 10% on the next few thou, and 22% on the next few thousand after that. Most people never even get as far as 40% tax. So you are not actually paying any more tax than anybody else who earns a hell of a lot more money than most people in this country.

If you lived and worked as a self-employed person in France as my sister does, your contributions would add up to practically 75% of your income. So it could be worse...

peppa the northern rock guy was scandalous, i grant you. But in the rest of the financial sector they lose their jobs in a downturn. A lot of them. Independent of how hard they have worked or how good at their job they are.

duchesse when you factor in other taxes like vat and stamp duty you probably do end up paying nearly that if you are a higher tax payer

peppa - 'Some people in financial institutions made a fantastic living when economic conditions were good, but they're not the ones who are suffering if conditions take a trun for the worse. '

the overall economy therefore the overall population fare well when conditions are good. and everyone suffers if conditions take a turn for the worse. jobs are lost, less ferraris are bought....

surely fewer, dal

Independence for greater London? Screw it, we'll be generous, how about independence for the whole of the South East of England? You guys can have your Tory police state, you could even call it Airstrip One. The rest of us (I live in Scotland) can shape a liberal paradise on the Scandinavian model.

Whaddya say?

suey- I disagree- VAT and stamp duty are essentially voluntary taxes. You do not have to buy more stuff, more expensive stuff or houses just because you earn more.

oh and what a wonderfully liberal labour government we have, dizie, FFS.

sure, duchesse, not a tax I resent paying, but a tax nonetheless.

The overall population didn't make thousands if not millions in bonuses in those economic conditions as a result of apparently being so good at their job (as opposed to being in a rising economic climate. And the elite (I'm not talking about everyone who works in the finance sector)aren't the ones who are going to be made unemployed or have their houses repossessed

Xenia says 'High earners certainly don't pay a fair amount of tax. It is very unfair I pay 41p in every pound to support those on benefits etc when someone who works less hard and earns less pays nearly half what I pay. It's completely unfair. there should be one tax rate. There is no justification other than left wing redistributive politics to tax you at a higher rate the more you earn. It's the politics of envy'

Actually, you only pay 40p for every pound earned over about £40,000. Under thats its about 22% on half of it.
The majority don't even get to 40 grand. And the tax you pay will support you if you ever fall sick, become disabled or your children if the same thing happens.
And its not envy. I don't want dh to work long hours and never see his family so we can have 'stuff'. Its not green to buy 'stuff' for the sake of it. I was quite happy seeing more dh and having second hand clothes etc. Now of course, I see way too much dh cos dd was born brain damaged and he is her carer. i wish it was otherwise.

The basic rate band bit is the small bit that doesn't count. All marginal income over that I pay the higher rate at. Why shoudl I pay more tax? Anyway because of how markets work if rates get too high people live. Philip Green moved to Monaco. The new man to run Northern Rock is on £90k a month as that is the market rate - good to see Brown putting all my tax to good use there.... and he is not domiciled in the UK. People just move if tax gets too high and Brown is making such a mess of it at the moment.

What will Norther Rock do about repossessions? It will repossess . It will have to. It is going to have to operate like a normal bank or it will be in trouble. It has no choice.

Actually, I imagine you Xenia have a very comprehensive safety net an dgood on you for it- but many, many people work for years and then hit problems and end up basically claiming on the insurance- National Insurance- they've been payi9ng since they were sixteen, eighteen whatever. Pretty much like us with the DLA I guess- Dh pays tax on both his jobs but ir doesn't quite cover what we get back at the moment, however if you take intoa ccount the twenty years he was working before we had the boys then it's been an excellent safety net.

Which I think you'll find is how it is supposed to work isn't it? People like my Dad who worked every day of their lives since they were kids and their pensions blew up in their face- without NI they'd be starving in the streets.

Oh and there's places in the South that aren't London you know.