To be irritated by this £100k a year whiner

[Viviennemary]

On Question Time tonight they were talking about subsidised childcare and the new benefits for younger children. Then a woman came on with a boo hoo sad face and said she wouldn't be getting it. So I think Fiona Bruce said because your income is £100k a year plus Then she said that it wasnt fair as there was only one wage. And their household only had one earner.

Well tough. Folk on just over £12k a year are paying tax and this cheeky woman thinks her child care should be subsidised. It made me mad.

Some of the comments on here are clearly satire, or written by the seriously deluded. If you believe there is no incentive to work hard, when are you giving up your job then? you obviously don't want it, it's giving you nothing isn't it? Then you won't have to pay so much tax (and will have no childcare bill!) I'm sure the U.K. will somehow manage without your tax contribution.

No don’t do that… simply put the extra money into his workplace pension to bring him under the £100k and then you’ll keep the childcare funding

Nail on the head.

Just to point out that if you receive a benefit top up to your wage you are not likely to be entitled to free nursery, free dentist or free prescriptions. Plenty of us in that situation.

They won’t. The state is already borrowing to pay its way with a 55% dependency rate.

I think the who works harder discourse is pointless, but it's not like people who are being disincentivised to work more need to give up their jobs. Much less drastic to simply drop a day, or never be full time in the first place, or not bother with the promotion or the offer of overtime because it's not worth it. That's what I did when I was hitting a bottleneck. Wasn't the 100k one, but the principle is identical. It's also the exact same process my dad went through when it came to tax credits, incidentally.

That poster only started working in their 30's. A bit rich to start on the unproductive when many of us have worked since we were teenagers.

@whistleblower99 if you're suggesting that means the U.K. won't cope without the tax revenue of those on here who are completely out of touch with how lucky they are, I think that's ridiculous. I think you should provide sources for your claims but even so, if what you say is true, how on earth is the revenue they were bringing making any difference anyway? I object significantly to the arrogance and superiority posters here have. They act as though they are the uk's collective 'saviours' and that they're totally altruistic staying in their jobs. My point is, they should leave, their jobs will be replaced and the world carries on, no one's irreplaceable

This is what is wrong with the UK and why it is in decline. You’re letting emotion and jealousy get in the way of economic fact. The statistics are all out there.

@whistleblower99 so when you're called out to actually provide a source for your comments you resort to calling people jealous? 😂

I'm a high earner and enormous tax payer. I achieved this though setting up a successful business that now employs over 80 people. I have worked my ass off over the years, paid good salaries and been a good employer. I've always voted labour, and Remain.

I used to want to contribute to a better and fairer society. Now? Fuck it. This country voted against Proportional Representation, voted Tory, voted to leave the EU. You get to enjoy what your efforts have achieved.

Your comments are emotional enough to see. It’s all out there. Maybe be more productive and look for it yourself? Start with the ONS.

Number of years worked doesn’t automatically mean more tax though. A person on £100k pays roughly ten times as much income tax and NI per year as someone on minimum wage. So if you work for 50 years on minimum wage you would only pay the same amount as someone who earns £100k for five years! And (as is most likely) if that £100k earner works for more than five years, (even if on a lower income), they will pay a lot more tax over the course of their working life.

I'm up for asking people to provide sources, but that also extends to claims that if people leave they'll all be replaced.

Yep and is contributing to the staff shortages, particularly doctors and dentists who are typically hit by the £100k threshold so just reduce their hours. That causes problems and waiting longer for patients!

Maybe. Can hardly berate those who don't work that much whilst spending a significant amount of your life without a job though.

This is what worries me, and is one of the reasons I think the moralising on this issue is so stupid. I don't give a fuck whether someone's unsympathetic about a worker responding to incentives by reducing their hours, but I care a lot if someone misses out on a service they need because of it. And this applies to eg care workers who need to think about the impact on UC as much as it does to consultants.

@youmustrememberthis

My point is, they should leave, their jobs will be replaced and the world carries on, no one's irreplaceable

Seeing as we have a skills shortage in many occupations, who do you think will replace them if you push even more away?

Not a maybe, it’s factual. You can do the calculations quite easily yourself.

Many people don’t establish their careers to late 20’s, early 30’s - I was 29 when I qualified as a solicitor. But over the course of their working life they often pay more tax than someone who starts work at 16 and doesn’t progress.

You might be underestimating how frustrating some of the perverse consequences of the way the tax and benefits systems are structured are for people just over various thresholds. People do feel quite angry about it.

For example, when earning c.£38k you can UC to help with childcare costs and child benefit. This means that you can have a net monthly income of nearly £3700 in total (using £1200 a month nursery fees for the entitledto calculation).

Changing to a new job earning £65k will mean you lose UC and child benefit and net £3950 (without student loan payments). You’d get tax free childcare, which is worth about £160 a month. But still… it hardly seems worth it. Especially if you consider how much more stressful the £65k job might be.

The bigger picture is, of course, that the hideous childcare payment years end. And the bulk of the UC award is childcare payment. In the longer term, it is much better to take the better paid job. And you are still better off, even if by less than you’d think.

But the system does not feel well designed when substantially increasing your gross salary isn’t reflected in what reaches your bank account each month.

It’s much worse at £100k and people do end up actually worse off for having crossed that threshold. And that is ridiculous.

Just to be entirely clear for the people determined to believe higher earners are just nasty complainers, I am not presenting this as a woe-is-me poverty tale for higher earners. I’m not trying to say that £4k a month is living on the breadline or something. Just that the outcomes from a poorly designed system can feel unfair.

It is easy to see why some people might feel quite angry about this stuff.

Great post @ClutchingOurBananas . This bit in particular...

You might be underestimating how frustrating some of the perverse consequences of the way the tax and benefits systems are structured are for people just over various thresholds. People do feel quite angry about it.

...should be required reading for, well, everyone.

To be clear, the calculations there have no pension payments or student loans. It’s a single mother of 2, one young child in FT nursery the other older and not needing childcare. Living in a mortgaged house.

the particular details don’t matter but people will probably want to poke at it to justify dismissing the point that there are points in the system where the outcomes feel stupid or even a bit unfair. That wouldn’t happen in a well designed system.

@whistleblower99 you're the one who states your comments as facts so back them or accept you've no intention of doing so and therefore they're meaningless. My emotions are entirely irrelevant you could defeat my point easily should you wish to because obviously you have the sources on hand I'm sure.

@taxguru are you seriously suggesting the people moaning on here with their empty threats of not seeing a point in carrying on with their jobs are irreplaceable and no one else in U.K. can do them?

This is a graph I did a couple of years ago which showed marginal "tax" (deduction) rates of around 70% at some income points. That doesn't even include the loss of free childcare at £100k! Just shows how "lumpy" the deductions are when wages increase. We need a smoother line for marginal deductions to avoid the cliff edge thresholds which are a massive disincentive to work an extra shift/day or take a promotion, etc.