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

Not necessarily
I'm a min wage earner with no DC and not entitled to any benefits
So no I don't pay as much but I don't get anything back that a higher earner wouldn't and probably less as I'm not using schools/childcare/maternity rtc

Before DS , I worked full time as a teacher. On 40k after pension , NI and Tax - I took home 2,200 a month .

I now work 3 days and after pension, NI and Tax is gone , I take home 1800 .

It works out that I only earn £400 less a month even though I now work 2 less days a week .

If I wanted to go back to full time to earn my extra 400 a month, if would need to send DH to nursery at least 9 / possibly 10
days a month which would cost 800!!! So 2200-800 = 1400. Then take off petrol - it would work out id be taking home around 1,200!!!

I actually earn more by working less in my situation !!!!

YANBU

I'm referring to a different European country entirely. Taxsaver commute tickets are available to anyone in employment.

Bringabrolly - the whole point of easing taxes for contractors is exactly to pay for no holidays & benefits of any kind. However, the govt is now taxing so much that it really isn't much of an economic advantage to be a contractor. However, contractors are not contractors just to earn more money. Some people prefer the independence and the ability to take some time out when it suits us without quitting a job and therefore looking like somebody who can't keep a job. The American style HR nonsense has gotten a lot more ramped up in recent years too, and a contractor can avoid endless 360 degree evaluations (I was subject to a 3 hour 360 evaluation once a month in my last employed role), team meetings, endless politics, and the obligation to attend work socials. Some people just don't want politics and think tank processes. We just like to do skilled work, do it well, and go home. The govt wants us all in a box.

Then there are the people who don't pay taxes but benefit from others doing so...

Maybe you would ‘happily pay more tax’ because you pay a low amount at the moment. Not sure you would say the same if you were paying close to 40%.

Having read the rules I thought the goal was to reduce contractors by stealth. Certainly where I worked there were many 'contractors' who had been there years, and were employees in everything but name.
For true 'project' based roles it's still worth it.

It's shit. High taxation but a crumbling country. What incentive to move up the career ladder?

This is what happens when you have an electorate who are very resistant to taxes on on assets and capital but don't seem to have the same aversion to it being on income.

I got fed up with this too so I went self employed doing the same type of job and I am now much better off ! Although obviously this is not an option for everyone

@LovelyLovelyWarmCoffee give me the opportunity to be a higher rate tax payer and I’ll let you know (sadly our local government jobs dont get much more than our salaries anywhere in the country)

Well, yes, there was "false self employment" which sounds exactly what you were talking about and successive governments have been trying to tackle that for 30 years!

Unfortunately, IR35 is a sledgehammer to crack a nut and has caught huge numbers of genuinely "self employed" freelancers/contractors etc. Now that the onus is on the "employer", most employers are taking a risk averse stance and insisting all their "contractors" are paid via IR35, i.e. through agencies and umbrellas. The "employers" could undertake proper working practices assessments and proper risk evaluations, but they're too lazy to do that, and too tight to engage contractors on a proper employed basis, so, contractors really are stuck in the middle bearing all the costs themselves.

The Treasury and HMRC are basically incompetent and incapable of enacting rules that would leave the "innocent" alone and target the "bums on seat" contractors who are, in reality, employees in all but name.

Yep!

@Jesscococolake *If I wanted to go back to full time to earn my extra 400 a month, if would need to send DH to nursery at least 9 / possibly 10
days a month which would cost 800!!! So 2200-800 = 1400. Then take off petrol - it would work out id be taking home around 1,200!!!

I actually earn more by working less in my situation !!!!*

That has nothing to do with tax. In fact if you want childcare to be subsidised further it requires higher taxation.

From rough back of the envelope calcs, a contractor working for a ltd company would pay about £3K tax on earning of £50k and maintain their state pension entitlement.

Whereas someone on PAYE would pay about £12K.

Of course for the Ltd company you would have to pay for accounts compilation (maybe 1K or so) and insurance. But still, it's a fair bit of saving.

IMO the tax rates for dividends should be brought in line with the income tax rates (they are current 8.75% (vs the income tax 20%) at the lower rate and 37.5% at the higher rate (vs 40%)). The higher rate doesn't make much difference, but the lower rate is significant - plus of course the removal of NI contributions.

There is of course a price to pay for this, for example during covid there would have been far fewer benefits if you were not on PAYE.

But we've also had successive governments who've encouraged tax avoidance, i.e. tax breaks on pension contributions, tax breaks on ISAs, Brown replacing benefits with "TAX credits" giving the illusion of getting some of your tax back. Brown introducing 10% and 0% tax bands, now the Tories doubling (and more) the tax free personal allowance, increasing Inheritance tax exemptions, reduced VAT on hospitality etc in the pandemic, etc. Just so many "messages" about how to pay less tax. Over the decades, the "pay less tax" mentality has been drummed into the population. People start thinking more and more about how to pay less tax because it's become the thing to do, aided and abetted by politicians. Even retailers get in on the act by their "VAT free" weekends in furniture and carpet shops! It's not hard to see why more and more people take steps to reduce their taxes, even if their taxes aren't particularly high in the first place!

"Public services suck, what are we paying tax for? Cut taxes!"

"Public services are good, obviously they can have their budgets cut. Cut taxes!"

I think it does because the difference between earning 28k and 40k is so low due to tax.
What is the incentive ? I’d rather not work 10
days a month just to earn an £400
a month! It’s madness .

My husband ( here we go !!) earns 65k , so no child benefit . okay . But we could both earn 49k and get it . Side note !!

We were chatting this morning and he said he clears hardly any more now than when he was earning 49k.

I feel when it’s time for oldest to go to uni we should both look for low paying jobs and claim everything we can and allow children to get highest grant! Less stress. See each other more . And earn similar to what we do now ! Tax is mad !

i will get flamed for this but !!!

Agreed.

Tax on housing/land for example would be great. Houses are really hard to hide from the taxman because they are big and don't move very much.

Unfortunately if a land tax was proposed instead of raising money through income tax most of the people on here would go crackers.

People wonder why UK productivity is so poor. It's because speculation on asset prices is that much more rewarding from a taxation perspective than actually generating income.

We need to move the economy from being based on speculation on piles of bricks to being actually productive.

Where are these places with low taxation and civilised societies?

The true believers in small state government need to try living in, for example, Somalia. Very low government expenditure there.

This is why I will resent any demands for me to pay more tax. I don’t want a penny to go to Brexit voting areas.

Indeed. If I earnt £100k through selling my labour I would be taxed at least half of that. If I got a £100k through inheritance or selling my flat I would pay a big fat zero in tax.

@GasPanic

From rough back of the envelope calcs, a contractor working for a ltd company would pay about £3K tax on earning of £50k and maintain their state pension entitlement.

I think your envelope is faulty.

Total tax on £50k of income would be more like £9.5k if IR35 didn't apply.

If IR35 did apply total tax and NIC would be about £15k.

No idea where you got £3k from!

It depends how they (the government) spends that tax money as to how reasonable you think it is. Tax is obviously necessary and required but there is a lot of wastage that needs to be questioned.