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

People want great services such as the NHS, social care, education, roads, transport, etc but many don't want to pay for it or the share that is currently deemed 'fair' for their income.

Many super rich use avoidance schemes. Many rich can use tax schemes to minimise what they pay. Even things such as contributing more to your pension (which is a lifelong way of saving for later) is a way to ensure some benefits are received (eg child benefit).

The bottom line is that society is unequal. There are people that are disabled, sick, poor or vulnerable that need help from people that are fit, healthy, more wealthy, etc. A decent society looks after people that cannot look after themselves.

We have people that are very rich and poorer who are charitable and people that are very rich or poorer that are not. Greed, or other reasons means some never feel that they have enough.

We all use what income we have in different ways, some spend every penny and others save lots. Many attack others for what they perceive they have/waste/spend. We are all different.

However, all this detracts from the fact that the government wastes large amount of tax. Try a different government and you get the 'they are all the same' 'X party would be much worse', although that is an unknown of course so we end up with the same old same old.

People want great services such as the NHS, social care, education, roads, transport, etc but many don't want to pay for it or the share that is currently deemed 'fair' for their income.

They want "someone else" to pay for it! It's always the same, everyone wants better public services but they want to minimise their own personal share towards it and maximise what services they get back from it. It's always "someone else" who has to pay, never them!

Indeed. There lies the problem.

True. And going by pp it looks like Labour are going for an income level. Glad some of their changes won’t impact us.

And we have now reached the end of the line.

Net Tax Recipients >>> Net Tax Payers

Not enough people paying in vs taking out, and we cannot borrow our way out anymore due to an aging population, and much higher debt service costs.

There are many pensioners who did not save a penny for retirement.

In most cases because they were in low paid occupations where it took every penny they earned just to keep afloat. There were no spare pennies to save for retirement. And even so they paid NI and tax their whole working lives - in many cases over 50 years. Those people are now living on £205 a week for everything. Fuck knows how they do it.

And you're a Tory shill.

Are pensioners not eligible for housing benefit then?

While also accessing the NHS for their multitude of ailments that would bankrupt them if they had to pay for it.

And getting free prescriptions.
And getting free travel.
And getting housing benefit.
And getting Pension Credit
And getting Council tax paid
And warm homes discount (another freebie).

See the "extras" now?

You have been told repeatedly on that this is completely unsustainable, and as usual, you show a complete inability to be objective.

And no, 50 years of limited tax does not remotely cover 20 years of expensive services and extras.

Way back in the 1950s, the life expectancy at 65 was 10 years and we had limited healthcare (so older people with complex conditions didn't live as long).

Today, life expectancy at 65 is about 20 years and we many more older people with complex needs, that require very expensive healthcare, and they now live twice as long.

The UK is going broke because of demographics.

We cannot keep funding these folks at the expense of everybody else. It is not fair or sustainable.

That is really well put, I will try to remember that.

That's the pot calling the kettle a dark shade of grey..... gotta be a word for that ?.

It is a nice sentiment but any society will struggle if the tax payers dwindle and recipients increase

So policies have to keep the balance in mind

@Blossomtoes

In most cases because they were in low paid occupations where it took every penny they earned just to keep afloat. There were no spare pennies to save for retirement. And even so they paid NI and tax their whole working lives - in many cases over 50 years.

People on very low wages would have paid very low amounts of tax/NIC, and yet will have benefitted from public services, such as NHS, education, police, infrastructure, etc., so they'd have been "net takers" for most, if not all, of their lives. Then they're going to be "net takers" in retirement too.

Low earners should have had the sense to realise they were never going to have a life of luxury and always going to struggle financially. They could accept that, or they could take steps to improve their lot, by taking a second job, getting further qualifications, working towards promotions, working longer hours, etc.

No one "deserves" or is entitled to a "comfortable" life if they make the minimal possible effort to improve their lot themselves. That's entirely the problem that the country is suffering now. Too many people expecting everyone else to fund their comfy life. To a large extent, we have to blame politicians for sending that message. I.e. Brown/Blair and their "work just 16 hours and get huge tax credits" message or work "full time" (just 30 hours) and be entitled to even more! Have more children and we'll pay you more tax credits. And so it goes on. At the same time, politicians announced tax breaks, like ISAs, tax relief on pension contributions, 0% and 10% rate tax bands, - all giving the wrong message, i.e. encouraging people to do things to save tax! And then a couple of decades later, we wonder why so many people are allergic to paying tax!

I don't think the squeezed middle want someone else to pay for it. They are in their minds paying for it, they used to pay for it as services were way better for the same tax burden and government piss poor management, wastage and an ever increasing welfare state is meaning they now aren't seeing the same benefits of their taxation. If we cut social spending and used that money for the NHS and to fix the roads then the squeezed middle that don't qualify/have a need for those social benefits would see an outcome from their taxes possibly a bit more in line with what they are paying and probably not be so grumpy about it, but as a society keeping people alive I guess it might not initially be a great move.

Low earners should have had the sense to realise they were never going to have a life of luxury and always going to struggle financially. They could accept that, or they could take steps to improve their lot, by taking a second job, getting further qualifications, working towards promotions, working longer hours, etc.

And if they all do that who’s going to do care work, clean our homes, offices and public buildings? Who’s going to stack supermarket shelves, work on the farms that supply our food? It’s amazing how quickly the lessons of the pandemic have been forgotten, those people kept the country afloat. We need those people. Watch society collapse without them.

As to a “life of luxury” - is that your definition of living on £205 a week?

People can't expect a decent standard of living for life if they're only working part time in minimum wage jobs. At the very least, they need to work more hours, stop refusing extra shifts, etc. If people worked closer to full time hours, then that would also help the labour shortages in the sectors you mention.

@TheThinkingGoblin - how do you suggest their ailments are funded? Many pensioners are accessing healthcare later in life than previously and enjoying their retirement - helping leisure industries, helping with childcare to enable their children to work longer hours, volunteering.

I'm not sure that current policies of encouraging a greater number of long term sick (e.g. covid) and associated access to work and education, growing number of people in poverty etc are going to help improve the economy or health resources either. I guess trend of lowered life expectancy will balance some of this out re pensions but feels like a shit swap to me.

60k is not a high earner . And it’s not double what you earn at all because we pay more tax ? I know this as that’s my increase over the last 6 years so assuming you get £2000 a month after no and tax or just above someone on 60 k will get £3400 . It’s hardly a high earner

@Nothingisblackandwhite
60k as a household income puts you above around 76% of the UK population. I'm not sure if the OP is a single parent or not - if so then I understand that would make a difference.
So if earning more than 75% of the population, or earning over double the average salary isn't high, then what is? I used the term high earner to mean someone paying the higher rate tax band 🤷

I don't actually take home 2k. It's less than that. So not far off half what you calculated someone on 60k would earn, despite the increase in taxes for someone on 60k.

But I didn't actually mean to go off on a tangent as I don't want to complain about my salary. What I was getting at was the OP complaining about "what others get" when someone earning half what she does is only entitled to child benefit as an extra. Nothing else.
Much lower earners of course may get housing benefit, tax credits etc... But they also have a lack of security and often lack of pension, or secure housing etc... Would the OP really want to swap places with those people? I don't think I would!

And specifically what I'd like to know (and what someone else has asked already) - what extra help as mentioned in the OP (apart from child benefit at £100ish a month) is available to someone on say 25-30k that is not available to someone on double that?

Regardless of anyone's arguments on what constitutes fairness, what we have is a working age population that's going to continue to get smaller relative to the non working age population, alongside a system that taxes income from work more highly than wealth or various forms of unearned income. This is not sustainable, even if we want it to be.

It would be prudent to at least try and tackle bottlenecks and cliff edges as a starter, since we could really do with not providing disincentives to work more. But even that isn't likely to be enough.

£60k is not loads of money. It's above an inadequate average, but it's certainly not riches. It doesn't buy a vastly better lifestyle.

If the tax rate were lower, companies would pay you less because they'd be able to offer less for the role, as a result of take home % bring higher.

You'd never get that extra money anyway so it's not worth whinging about.

Its too much of a sllippery slope deciding who gets what treatment and why. That decision should be left to the medical professionals, and they can decide.

What we can do is make pensioners pay more in because of their healthcare costs.

They should at the minimum be paying NI.

Lets keep in mind these folks are now the wealthiest population cohort around, so they can definitely afford to be paying in more.

If you want Drs & Nurses to be paid better, the pensioners need to start paying in more. Thats the only real solution now given the poor state of the public finances.

£60k is not loads of money. It's above an inadequate average, but it's certainly not riches. It doesn't buy a vastly better lifestyle

It’s more than 75% of the population earns.