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.

Or if you are are clever enough to earn that much can’t you go to your employer and say reduce my pay by £1?

Your child has another parent. Just in another household. If they could put the child in nursery, then they could get the benefits of tax relief, if their earnings were at the right level.

I know in practice that parents don’t always pay for their offspring or the other parent may be deceased but purely from a tax perspective, this is not a sensible argument.

My pension looks great as I’ve contributed nearly everything over £100k into it during my 30s. Most years it’s worked out to be a very similar amount either as a tax bill or pension contribution so I had to pay it either way.

We pay twice for nursery, once because we don’t qualify for funded hours and again because the funding doesn’t cover the cost for the nursery, so fully paid places are higher to cover the shortfall.

None of this contributes to productivity but that’s the way the tax system encourages you to behave if a rational person.

Two people earning 50k each would pay far less tax than one person earning £100k.

I don't think this woman is badly off in the wide scheme of things compared to folk on minimum wage, but there are inequalities like this for the single earner compared to double income households, which she was not wrong to highlight.

YABU. Folks on just over £12k per year will pay minimum tax on their income whilst being entitled to lots of help from the benefits system (paid for by the taxes of this lady who will be paying something like £30k from her £100k income in tax alone!). She has every right to feel pissed off.

But that’s why we have life insurance which is very inexpensive for the amount of benefit provided.

@transformandriseup

slightly off topic can I ask what you do that gives you a £30k retirement pension ? Just had a shock at how low mine is for working 30 odd years 😪

I just do not understand how any nursery could be 4k a month. It was only few years ago my forest school nursery in a converted barn in a area of SSI 40 miles from London was 1k a month. It was 10mins walk to a station that got to London in 1 hour and 3 bed semi is 555k. So not a cheap area to live

It really isn't a race to the bottom. Granted the average household is earning less. But I put money on you being annoyed if you worked a 60hr week with enormous pressure to have £33k taxed and then be sneered at for not being able to access the benefits you pay for.

While higher earners should definitely pay more tax, we cannot keep expecting people to pay higher tax rates and not see any benefits

so someone paying at the higher rate of tax doesn't have roads to drive on, can't phone 999 and expect fire/ambulance/police to turn up, won't get a school place for their child, didn't get maternity care at their local hospital etc etc etc?

But they all rely on the people who did make the effort to better themselves and/or do work hard or stressful jobs that might not always be especially fulfilling to pay the taxes required for the people earning £12k to enjoy the benefits of the welfare state they enjoy

is this what we're reduced to now? berating people for working, just not working hard enough? Looking at a person's tax contribution to determine whether or not they are a useful member of society?

The women could pay more into her pension and would get the hours.

Same like with child benefit isnt it, 2 people can earn 49999 and get full CB- but if one earns 55000 then its reduced and at 60000 nothing at all.

Sunaks not interested tho, he wants to send more bmbs to gaza costing 100 000 each

I hope all of those people telling higher earners to work less have never complained about getting a GP appointment. Most GPs I know are working less because of tax and workload….

As a household, we paid well north of £100k in tax for 22-23; we’re both higher earners and we bought a house, so paid loads of stamp duty. For this we get childcare vouchers only because my DH hasn’t moved jobs since childcare vouchers were offered. We’ve never had child benefit. Public services are a bit shit. Why should my household subsidise anyone earning any less? That’s not a particular path I’d want to go down.

In the SE, £100k is not a good income if you need to pay childcare, commute costs, a mortgage and student loan. Some people really don’t have a clue.

I think the issues are about our low wage economy and how the country subsidises employers through supporting low wage families financially. People are pitted against each other through this as is evident in this thread. Many people on low wages are contributing their labour to support basic services for which they are not paid enough, society tops up for the employer.

Full time place in the Home Counties is £1800 currently; my friends in London pay £2K. Presumably she’s got 2 children in nursery.

Also the govt can happily figure out how much a household earns for benefits, it can’t be rocket science to do it for tax…

Cliff edges in taxation systems feel very unfair whether you earn £10k or £100k. Especially when couples under the threshold are not affected. No point in being nasty about it.

You are all looking at this the tottlay wrong way round.

The government should ot be subsidizing childcare - they should be forcing businesses to pay their staff a living wage so everyone can pay their own childcare fees.

Before the min wage hit, people worked to afford homes and childcare - homes were affordable in one wage and woman usually stayed home for the first few years.

Now there’s a minimum wage cap - and it is a cap where staff with 20 years experince earn the same as new starters. Which is madness!!

There’s no way this should be out of control and giverment is paying a huge price for something labour brought in and it’s screwed the economy massively.

there is usually a cap of self contributions,like 6%,she might have maxed out

Exactly this. Truly wealthy people are not salaried.

But it is a bonkers system. Two parent household each earning 99k so 198k total, get free childcare while a single parent earning 100k doesn’t?? I know they have to have a cap but they should do it by household total not individual earnings. Maybe she made the point badly but it needs addressing.

And some people earn £12k a year and work bloody hard for it at jobs that are necessary for society to function but which are criminally undervalued. Like carers, for example.

I absolutely agree with this.

Mine was also £1k a month also about 40 miles from London. It’s now £1.4k for the same nursery. The one I used was always cheaper than the nurseries in the nearest large town and significantly cheaper than those in London. It’s now £2 to £2.5k for many nurseries in London.

It’s a stupid hard threshold as is the child benefit threshold. Many people have already given the examples of dropping hours, paying more into pensions etc. it drives behaviour that isn’t economically efficient.