to think that 6000 per month is excessive for the government to take off my pay for tax?

[tootaxed]

Surely there should be a maximum limit that each person has to pay as tax? Six grand per month in tax is just excessive imo. And that is before NI contributions etc. If the government set a maximum tax limit they would take more care over how they spent their central funds. And I wouldn't have to work so many hours away from my DCs only to have 72 bloody grand a year taken off my income to fund their mis-spending.

so am I thick or intelligent?

I went to a Russell Group University and got a 2:1

Until this thread I have never heard of Russell Group

oh and I earned a fortune and paid a lot of tax

and now I earn zip!

aha .. Russell Group formed in 1994 .. I graduated before then

me neither just had to go google it!russell group of universities

I feel a lot of sympathy for the OP tootaxed.

She is the sole breadwinner, not necessarily by choice, but by circumstances. She has to pay for the house, mortgage, support system around taking care of her dh and family, including a poorly dd, as a consequence of an unforeseen tragedy. She earns a lot (I say well done!) and doing a damn fine job of it, even sacrificing time with family to bring in the bacon. So what if she needs to let off steam at the amount of tax she pays.

She is trapped. Don't envy her high earnings. She has put everyone else in her family over her own needs. I wonder how many of you with high earning dps will be supportive if they said they wanted to step off the treadmill, especially if it means a severe curtailment in the standard of living for the family. In OP's case, who will pay for the cost of looking after her brain damaged dh?

Essentially I am saying what smallwhite cat has said eloquently: "I wonder if everyone would be having such a go at the OP for working long hours, not seeing her children if she were a man. She has because of her circumstances taken on the traditionally male breadwinner role. There's a lot of naivety being displayed on this thread; people simply don't realise that in certain types of job you more or less have to put in long hours if you're going to keep your foot in the door of your career at all. I for, example, can't walk into my corporate law firm and say I'm going to leave at 5 every night without fail. If I wnat to stay in that field I have to accept that a lot of the time I will not be able to. It's all very well to say go and do something else, but that is what I am trained for and where my skills and abilities lie.

I don;t think anyone's having a go other than to say the OP is insensitive for complaining about her tax bill.

Long hours/high salaries are just choices. There are people who step off the treadmill (dh for one, he's stayed in law but got out of the City and we took a pay cut that many wouldn't- different choices).

I don't have any qualifications, didn't go to university and am probably not as intelligent as some on here.

But quite frankly I don't lose any sleep over the matter.

Ah but you're my famous friend Olive that I use to name drop

LOL about moving to Bulgaria because of low taxation. Have you ever been to Bulgaria? They need to spend more money on the country desperately. As for Romania, well yes the rich live well but the rest of the country is crippling poor. If those two places are an argument for low taxation then no thanks.

Sorry but I disagree with blueshoes and smallwhite cat as well as OP.

OP is only trapped by her limited imagination and the golden cufflinks that is her high salary.

I have a degree and PhD in chemistry plus Diploma in Management, was managing a large scientific team and travelled a lot before I had my twins. I could have continued doing that and employed nannies to raise the twins but I chose to step off the treadmill, take a lower position and work part-time. It would have been so easy for me to say that that was what I was trained for so I have to continue in that role.

My career is still going strong four years on and next month I start a new position as the Operation Manager for a business unit comprising physicist, mathmaticians and computer scientist. In addition, last year I became a Non-Executive Director for my local NHS Trust. I have this thing that is often underestimated - transferable skills that are harnessed using both my tacit and explicit knowledge.

Taking your foot of the pedal does not have to mean the end of your career. It can mean that you can refocus as well retrain without sacrificing your personal life on the alter of an organsiation that will not think twice about making you redundant, despite all your personal sacrifices.

Those who say that they cannot do anything else are too afraid to try imho and if they are honest, they fear having to get by on a lower salary because that would mean they would have to consciously change their lifestyle and the fact is, many of them don't want to do that.

I am more confused by the fact that she is moaning about her tax bill and the dact that she doesn't see her dcs much Its not like she has no choice!

good point spokette

Hear hear spokette!

spokette, riven, yurt, you seem to be assuming that the OP has a choice to "take her foot off the pedal". You might be right but I read her earlier post as saying she does not have a lot of disposable income that you all seem to be assuming from her high pay: "Do you really want a breakdown of my monthly spending? After tax, tithing, NI, mortgage (which is a LOT because I have to house my, DH, DCs and parents), and usual outgoings there is not a lot left. Not enough to pay for a private operation anyway."

Does OP go on flash holidays, have new clothes and change cars every few years, or an opulent enough lifestyle to downscale? I don't know. All I know is that a huge mortgage alone can easily suck all the disposable income out of your pay packet.

I speak as someone who HAS taken her foot off the pedal and used my transferable skills to get a more flexible job. But I can do that because dh is earning a decent salary as well, and is not a dependent. OP has said that she wants to financial security for her children as well. That is in itself a perfectly valid reason.

Her dcs are being looked after by their grandparents, not 'strangers'. That is fine, by many books, isn't it? The OP has organised her life for her family in an admirable way. She has made huge personal sacrifices.

Whether she can or wants to downscale is up to her and I am sure she takes what you say on board. I can understand why she is moaning about taxes. Though I would agree with other posters that a cap on taxes is unlikely in the current political climate.

'Does OP go on flash holidays, have new clothes and change cars every few years, or an opulent enough lifestyle to downscale? I don't know. All I know is that a huge mortgage alone can easily suck all the disposable income out of your pay packet.'

move then!! if my mortgage is my life then i think i'd have to rethink.

JustaTadConcerned, where one lives is usually linked to the job. And OP's employer has shown her a lot of grace and concessions, especially in the light of her family tragedy. And high paying jobs are generally less mobile, than say checkout girl.

I know that in London (I don't know where OP is), a house of a certain size will be easily be £750k to over a million. And neither dh nor I can move out of London if we want a job that utilises our skills. And if OP does, she will be adding a long commute to her long hours.

Moving could be OP's answer, but there are good reasons for staying put, if staying put is what OP has decided on.

Blueshoes, if someone is paying £72k per annum in taxes, they are earning a lot of money which means that they have flexibility when it comes to financial planning. OP does have a choice.

I cannot believe that her parents are not receiving their own income whether it be via pensions or their own benefits. What about their house or did they live in rented accommodation? If they had their own house, what has happened to it? Her DH can claim DLA but they are not claiming it - why not? Is it because they have been assessed as having a high enough income that they do not qualify? Are her children at state school or private? There is a huge difference between needs and wants and it all depends on one's priorities.

I just don't buy her claim that she has no choice but to work all hours to earn a salary where you pay taxes of £72k per annum. You always have a choice but you need to be honest about what you consider important to you.

Working all hours and hardly seeing her children, DH or parents suggests that to me that she would rather be at work than at home(I would also say that if she was a man).

DH refuses to take a job where he has to work all hours because he wants to see his children in the evening and at weekends. He is lucky to have that choice. Like he says, what is the point of having children if you never see them?

I also have a science PhD but there's no way I could go back into research as it would be 7 days/week. DH is a doctor and works nights/weekends. It was easier for me to jack in science for a few years - as it is I'm re-training as a proofreader which allows me a flexible work pattern, keeps the DSs out of full-time childcare and also allows DH to focus on his career.

Yeah, we moan about 40% tax (who doesn't?). DH chooses not to do private work so that free weekends are free to spend with the kids. Not that the NHS work allows him any free time anyway. He woeks his butt off, has been ID'd as one of the hardest working doctors in his trust. The emotional stress of dealing with really sick people almost pushes him to the edge. He told last week how he had a break in theatre so he nipped to the ward to tell a poor lady she had cancer but then had to bomb back to theatre as a patient was on the table. As if that is bad enough he then has the hospital management team hassling him about waiting times etc.

He hates the image of doctors, rolling in it, fancy cars and houses. He says that the emotional stress of the job is awful, and the 40% tax thing sometimes feels like a kick in the teeth. But I think we would say that, no matter what jobs we did.

I think the height of loads money would be a week at Center Parcs in the summer

surely that would just be hell?

Spokette: "Working all hours and hardly seeing her children, DH or parents suggests that to me that she would rather be at work than at home(I would also say that if she was a man).

DH refuses to take a job where he has to work all hours because he wants to see his children in the evening and at weekends. He is lucky to have that choice. Like he says, what is the point of having children if you never see them?"

I am glad you have come clean with the hidden subtext. It really is "what is the point of having children if you don't see them" and then saying OP Always has a choice, despite what she says.

I see OP has having made a perfectly valid choice in the way she has structured her current circumstances, with her family's best interests in mind. Whether she wants to go yours and your DH's way is up to her. But it could be that she wants to continue working in this way because it is the best for her family. And just wants a little more relief on the tax front.

Highlander,last year we went for a week at a Hoseason site and DTS love it so much, they are always asking when we are going back.

Blueshoes

By tootaxed on Sun 23-Mar-08 19:48:34
Yeah, just take the piss chicky. But you try working 100+ hours a week often away from home and never seeing your DCs as a result. Then seeing how much gets taken out of your pay is like a smack in the face.

Tootaxed raised the issue of never seeing her DC so please don't accuse me of having a subtext to my arguments.

She chooses to work 100+ hours in order to earn that salary. Surely she knew that earning a high salary was accompanied by paying a lot of tax! Or am I thick?