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

@Elephantstone1 does your council tax come out of your wages in Scotland? Genuinely interested. We pay ours as a monthly direct debit (south east England) like we pay gas/electric

The reason salaries start going up in tens after about 50K is to offset the extra tax you pay 🤦‍♀️

You pay the same tax on 30K as someone earning 30K and the same tax on 20K as someone earning 20K.

So although you may feel worse off, the highest level of tax is only applied to the part of your salary that is artificially higher to correct this.

So, if you're paying 30% tax on the extra 20K of £6000, your salary will adjust upwards so you're paying an equivalent of 20% tax.

And with minimum wage being less than 20K a year, whilst you're not earning triple that, I'm sure your take home pay is much more than double...

The train fares in the UK (I commute by train) are ridiculously expensive.

Oh ... And I'm on Carers too. And don't qualify for any extra benefits. We live on air.

Monthly direct debit. But it’s just another example of having to fork out yet another tax that others don’t need to pay, and getting so little to show for it

This is not something I have ever heard. Where did you get that information from?

Of course it's not.

Try being self-employed and inside IR35 where you pick up employer and employee costs...

I am paid weekly 1 month in arrerars. My last income was 38.1% of the time I charged the client.....

33-38% is what I typically pay out if costs go through my Ltd company so its not like I'm avoiding tax , yet Rishi managed to pay just 23% tax on his £ms....

nice theory but unless you can guarantee a long life to higher payers, it’s largely irrelevant

Well in terms of my lived experience it is. Sure, a different government might spend taxes better, but I've not experienced that, so yes, same difference.

@Elephantstone1 which part?

I did use arbitrary numbers for my example but the rest is just a mix of understanding how tax works and basic HR.

Again, using rough figures:

1. You pay no tax at all on the first £12750, pus any other Tax allowances you may have such as uniforms, equipment or Marriage Offset Allowance.
2. You then pay the Basic Tax Rate, same as everyone up until £50270 on the amount over the £12750 (£37Kish).
3. You are then taxed at the higher rate of 40% only on the remaining 7K which is £2800. However your employer is likely to have offset this by paying you £60K rather than £55K a year.

If you think of your employer actually paying your tax and focus on Take Home Pay, it's much easier...

Who are the people who do not need to pay Council Tax?

You've not experienced it, so not a valid point? I've never had Cointreau, but I know it exists.

Well quite, you know Cointreau exists but it makes bugger all difference to you.

For everyone playing small violins

In some areas of the county that's actually an entire monthly mortgage repayment!

So I understand you OP

It's all retrospective of outgoings , doesn't mean OP has anymore disposable income compared to someone on £30k

It'll be worse than that. They also want to remove charity status from private schools meaning UK parents will have to pay VAT. All of a sudden you'll see a mass increase in demand for school places as UK parents won't be able to afford the cost, putting more strain on parents getting kids into schools and classroom sizes rocketing, resulting in children's education standards falling through the floor

Hi, remember I’m in Scotland where the higher tax rate kicks in much earlier.

what I’ve never heard of is employers paying you more to offset the tax: that’s the point that I was wondering where you got that information from.

And then the loss of child benefit. So I earn £60k, but a couple earning £99k between them (£49.5k each) still get the child benefit. It’s just nuts

A lot of people on benefits. And students.

Why do people always moan about child benefit on these types of threads? I mean I get the fact that it's done on single incomes rather than household isn't fair, but we're not talking huge amounts of money here.
I earn around 30k and get child benefit. That's literally the only benefit I'm entitled to that you're not (also in Scotland). Really reckon you're sooooo much worse off than someone on half your salary, just because I get an extra £120ish a month? So bringing my salary up to a heady 31k a year?! 🙄 I sympathise with you up to a point. The cost of living is extortionate just now. But for the part of the UK you're in, you're hardly destitute and I think it's hard for people to really feel bad when high earners complain about this kind of issue, lower earners are so much more affected by rising food/fuel/living costs.

Don't forget pensioners. They can also fall in the "dont pay" category.

This is actually a serious problem in lower income areas with a higher % of peneioners.

Its one of the drivers of why those areas are failing.

This is why (in my view) the UK is headed for a hard fall.

I see many people with their hand out asking for higher rate tax payers to pay more tax to subsidise their lives.

Aspiration is being decimated.

The larger amount of lower earners are now voting to pull every middle earner with aspiration down to their level.

Once aspiration gets crushed due to higher taxation there will be no going back.

I am not kidding here. It will take society decades to recover (if ever).

Child benefit should be universal.

Full stop.

Stop trying to rationalise your "need". Its irrelevant.

I didn't try and rationalise "my need", or indeed say it shouldn't be universal so I'm not completely sure what your point is...

However, as someone who earns half what OP does, I could manage without child benefit. So I'm not quite sure why being without it is such a genuine struggle for her. My point is that in threads like this people always go on about how much "other people" are entitled to (as the OP did here) and I was trying to point out that people on much less aren't really entitled to much more at all.

I didn’t want to be ageist. But yeah.

and probably I’m a little bit miffed as the retirement age is climbing and I’m thinking I’ll probably not see state pension age