To be fed up with the amount of tax / ni I pay

[Elephantstone1]

although my salary looks decent from the outside. I’m beginning to get really fed up with the amount of tax / ni I pay.

so on £60k end up coming out with just around £3k per month from £5k after all taxes (including council tax) have been paid.

we’re not entitled to any help that others may get

my commute costs about £400 a month, but I’ve already paid tax on that money, so i have to earn about £600 a month to pay for it.

i know I’m lucky to be on a decent salary. Just with the col increasing, I’m getting a bit fed up

You cannot have 20% of the population (over 65s now in 2023) paying £0 NI and little tax.

No, you can’t. But that’s not what’s happening, is it? There are plenty of new pensioners paying a lot of tax because we spent the best part of 50 years paying into occupational pensions. You can’t have it both ways - either we’re a drain on the economy or we’re resented for our “gold plated” (taxed) pensions. Which is it?

I'm part of the forgotten cohort who earns less than national average (£25k) and is too 'well off' for any handouts. It's people like us who'd be on our knees if cost of living gets any worse, and if taxes hiked too much. What I resent is paying tax for unusable services (can't register with a dentist, year long hospital waiting lists etc)

You cannot have 20% of the population (over 65s now in 2023) paying £0 NI and little tax.

The ageing population is a huge issue. In the 60s it was 5 workers to 1 retiree now it's about 3:1.

There are plenty of new pensioners paying a lot of tax because we spent the best part of 50 years paying into occupational pensions. You can’t have it both ways - either we’re a drain on the economy or we’re resented for our “gold plated” (taxed) pensions. Which is it?

I thought only old public sector pensions were "gold plated"? And I thought the point was that most people didn't pay in enough to fund what they get out of that or healthcare.

However the narrative on here is always every single pensioner worked all their lives, paid higher taxes, never used social housing, are healthy etc.
It's why rather then celebrating that people are living longer & planning for the shift in demographics the associated issues get ignored.

Im in the process of returning to the workplace after a few years out, with my eyes fully open.

Im purposely after a hybrid, part time, lower paid, less responsible job than I am trained for or ever would have wanted in the past.

The take home difference versus the energy/brain space/time you have to give up between a £38k job and a £60k job (which apparently well qualified women returning to the workplace after a couple of years out with children are not entitled to anyway) is just silly. Absolutely not worth the effort.

Bring on my lovely part time job reporting to a stressed-out 25 year old! Bring on keeping most of what I earn! Let the fucked up system work for me for a change.

Try that again with:

1. Pension
2. Mortgage
3. Nursery
4. Utilities
5. Transport
6. Council Tax
7. Insurance

You will find that £5.2k (net) basically evaporates.

The reason why is childcare costs. As a high earner you basically get zero help. In fact, the price you pay subsidises the lower earners (over and above the tax you pay).

And thats also why people on higher incomes get angry. They work hard but see little benefit from that extra effort.

The next few years will likely send many of these folks over the tipping point due to large increases in (2).

Lower earners will pay the price for this. Make no mistake about it.

Average pay is £30k. How is a middle earner on double the average?

It varies hugely by region and by age. For example many people aged 18-25 will earn far less than 30k, also many people in regions like North east will, this keeps the average low, however many, many people in london & the south east earn far far more, and in those areas, for people in their 30s & 40s, 60k is a middle income.

However @TheThinkingGoblin

as earlier stated - DH and I earn around £33k each and still have to pay these costs, with no assistance.

1. Pension - DH public sector, mine shitty AutoEnrolment
2. Mortgage - £750 a month
3. Nursery - £Currently £250 a week FT (after tax free childcare)
4. Utilities - £275 a month G&E £50 water.
5. Transport - £35 each a week diesel and petrol
6. Council Tax - £255 a month
7. Insurance - lots of them.

so our £4.2k a month is also lost on the same bills as the PP £90k gross earnings, but there's £1,000 a month less of a buffer too. Don't kid yourselves that every 'low' (because apparently some see £65k joint income as low) earner gets loads of help. We don't at all see ourselves as 'low' earners though, and also 'work hard (I bloody hate that rhetoric)

This is why I will not willingly accept paying anymore tax for anything. The Tories have overseen industrial scale corruption and public money has been stolen to give to their chums.

I’m afraid to say but it’s 2023 and £60k a year before tax is not a ‘very high earner’ anymore.
it’s not even enough to raise a family comfortably anymore. It would still involve both parents working full time whilst the kids are young. I get people earn a lot less but a ‘very high earner’ isn’t one that still struggles and has to budget. Nobody who is working for anyone else is a high earner these days.

I will not support giving any additional money to a Labour government either. The state needs be restructured.

The marginal ‘Tax’ rate for people with 2+ children earning 50-60K is 68% due to the loss of child benefit. Even higher than for people earning 100-120k who lose personal allowance. It’s a tough band to be in. I just entered it and will probably be in it for the next 5 years at least. There’s not much incentive to work for small pay rises.

Nobody who is working for anyone else is a high earner these days.

Not true. Salaries of 150k and upwards, before bonuses etc are added, are common in finance, IT and law roles in London/south east, as employees.

@Badbadbunny and @chupachucks

👏👏👏. Nodded along to all of your posts. The net contributors have had enough.

£1k/month nursery fees?

Thats unheard of down here in London if you make £95k

You pay £2k/month

These are HUGE costs. And they do come at a price: the right to access the NHS, good schools etc.

But with public services basically disintegrating, the unwritten "social contract" is beginning to evaporate.

So...why should I pay £2k nursery fees to subsidise a person that is paying £800 or less (as an example)?

These issues will not be "marginal" anymore. People will absolutely push back hard now when they feel their standard of living is deteriorating.

Completely agree.

You notice the Tories don't ever actually slash taxes, even while they're running public services into the ground?

Common?

That would be a no. You are describing the top 1% of salaries.

Very few people in finance make that kind of income. Only very senior managers do in the larger companies.

Anyone who earns even a reasonable amount is going private for most of these things. The tax they pay goes to provide these things for others. They will then pay more to access better services on top of their contribution to the state via tax.

I’m not making a judgement on the rights or wrongs of this, just pointing out that most higher earners will not directly benefit from the welfare state, funded childcare, state education or the NHS.

So...why should I pay £2k nursery fees to subsidise a person that is paying £800 or less (as an example)?

Because you chose to have the children that incur those fees. And you choose to live in London, presumably because you’d earn considerably less if you lived elsewhere. As I pointed out earlier, you can’t have it all ways.

Yeah, many of the biggest bottleneck points are to do with the intersection of increased tax and loss of other benefits. They exist basically across the income spectrum. It might be someone on a very low income and UC, might be someone in your shoes, might be someone who doesn't want to go over 100k because of the impact on free nursery hours.

TheThinkingGoblin
1% of people in the uk.

But then narrow that down, its a higher percentage of people in London as most people on these salaries are concentrated there. Then narrow it down to people in 30s/40s/50s and its an even higher percentage.

In a voluntary capacity i do the finances for a small village nursery in the south east. Of 40 children each year, under 10 typically are eligible for 30 hours ey funding. The other 30 or so are not because they have at least 1 parent earning over 100k. Lots of lawyers, consultant doctors, finance/accountants etc.

Fiscal drag in the 40% band is real and it is scandal it is not being addressed.

Not many people will earn over £150k but plenty of people can aspire to the kind of middle management positions that pay about £45k - £65k.

These often come with a lot more hours and respsonbility and any extra is taxed at a pretty high rate, so often it feels like a lot of responsibility for not much more financial benefit.

Government gets way with it as people often don't understand this and concentrate on getting outraged about inheritance tax or higher rate taxes they will probably never pay.

well, for a start those nursery fees are standard across where we are in the North East @TheThinkingGoblin - so the reduction in salary for living here, is reflected in cheaper living costs and lower nursery fees.

Yes I agree, they're huge costs - double what we pay, but the salary is also double what we earn surely you can see that balance there.

Our FT nursery workers here are on NMW, at 40 hours a week, almost £22k a year (which around here you can buy a house on and don't need benefits for) I couldn't go to work without them, neither could your 90k earner example, so although not a net contributor, they are well needed to allow others to become so - but I guess they don't work hard enough for their standard of living to be so much lower than a net contributor.

Agreed.

The 40% tax band should be at around £82k when adjusted for inflation.

By not adjusting it, they are creating an incentive to not work more.

Because why bother? You work more hours, generally feel less healthy, see your family less, and barely get 50% of the extra money you earn after tax & NI. Its even worse if you have a student loan.

That is precisely what is holding productivity back. It is also what is feeding the culture of dependency in the lower earners.

I think the 40% rate in particular isn't going to be a live issue until we start seeing and hearing more about people who are reducing the amount of work they do or at least declining to do any more, in order to avoid it. There hasn't necessarily been widespread understanding that you might be missing out on a dentists appointment or a tradesman as a consequence of this.

It isn't really a problem if people keep working/seeking promotion and just pay the extra into their pensions instead. Might even be a good thing for society in the long run. But it is a problem if people's response impacts on the labour they provide.

At the moment, a lot of the discussion is still couched in ooh my heart bleeds for you type attitudes. It hasn't really sunk in yet that all societies need to try and strike the best balance between maximising taxation whilst not discouraging work, and what we're doing with the combo of fiscal drag and inflation is moving the goalposts a lot in ours. None of which is to say we shouldn't be doing it, necessarily, but it would be a better thing if it were acknowledged and people understood the potential risks v benefits.