To think that the tax system for lower earners is ridiculous...

[Startingagainandagain]

I was thinking about that this morning after the organisation I work for announced pay rises levels for this year.

I am disabled, work part-time because of it (so no choice) and don't claim any benefits.

My pay rise is 4.6 % which sounds great but equals to very little extra each month once tax/national insurance is taken out...I will be maybe £20 better off.

There are many people in the organisation who make less than I do (my salary is around 26.8K which for a part-time role is not bad and will go up with the pay rise)

Am I wrong in thinking that the tax burden should not be that high on people who bring that sort of salaries home?

It seems to me that the tax system is hammering the lower paid and brings a vicious circle of people then having to claim benefits, even if they have a job, to have any kind of decent life.

Do we think the next government should address this?

I'm not sure how a tax that you don't pay being cut has a detrimental effect on your finances. Yes, there is no benefit to you, but I think that pensioners have been more than catered for with the triple lock seemingly guaranteed for at least another 5 years.

The pension triple lock is not for current pensioners but for future pensioners. It was designed to gradually increase state pension from far too low, to on par with peer nations for when working people today collect their state pension in twenty/thirty/forty years or more. Especially since tomorrow’s pensioners are less and less likely to own a home outright and will have housing costs- rent or mortgage to pay until they die.

Yes I agree, dot think pensioners can really complain when they got a huge % increase this year.

So tedious to see another thread saying we should tax higher earners more !

They already pay a huge amount of tax!! And don’t get the benefits of things like the new free nursery hours etc.

What’s your solution - to just keep taxing someone who earns £100k so their take home pay is the same as someone on £20k ?? There would be zero incentive to take a high paying (and potentially more stressful) role.

Eh?

It’s definitely to benefit pensioners today. They are being paid it now.

I’d be highly sceptical that any such provision will exist without means testing is 30-40 years.

I did think that the triple lock linked rises will benefit pensioners of the future when I was writing my post. My fear is that the generous rises will position the affordability at a place where qualifying ages and funding though taxation will have to change. But I agree with your post broadly.

My main point was to the previous poster who implied some kind of detriment or snub to pensioners by a reduction in the rates of NI. I strongly disagree with this sentiment as addressing an unfairness in the effective tax paid on investment income v. earned income is not going to hurt her, but bring others, paying a greater rate of tax, closer to her rate. And no grievance should be felt as pensioners have been comparatively well catered for by an unparalleled 'multi-index' linking of state pension, where they simply cannot lose.

The reality is that a lot of people believe that it is the income bracket above them that should be taxed more. Those earning mid-20s are the envy of those who rely on state benefits (well, some may see them as mugs depending on who you believe) while those on mid-20s see those with 100k as filthy rich. Those on 100k see themselves as hard smart workers who have made huge sacrifices to get where they are and are happy to pay tax but rightly want to be rewarded for their endevours and not hammered by the taxman, and it should be those who earn £500k a year that are taxed "properly". And so on and so on.

I see little point in taxing people and then giving it back in the form of UC? WTF is that about?

I do see a point in higher taxes if you get decent public services out of it.
I'd love to see a complete rethink of the tax system and a really critical eye over what could be considered discretionary government spending. I don't for one second see why whole sectors were privatised, make extensive dividend payments to shareholders and now receive extensive subsidies for example.

Have a look at this OP:

www.ft.com/content/610533d0-2385-451f-9321-9ddb03bc8af2

As everyone has been saying, it's higher earners who are seeing their disposable income decimated by taxes, not lower earners.

Your point was that the tax regime is unfair on lower paid workers. Well no it isn’t, you pay much less tax as a percentage of your income then me. If you don’t have enough to live on, make changes and move up the career ladder like I have. Then you can be a net contributor instead of a net beneficiary. I and other higher earners are sick of being told that we need to pay more when there’s lots of people paying very little.

Across the board COL pay rises are always a fixed % of salary per employee, they aren’t a fixed £ amount per employee.

Absolutely not true. My company gave a fixed £ pay rise to everyone about 18 months ago. Our higher earners complained and were told to pipe down.

Are you serious ??

Come on

If you were to work part time and be taxed so lightly that you weren’t much worse off, then fuck it, I’ll work part time too.

And then productivity drops through the floor.

Your taxes aren’t too high, your hours are too low. I understand why, but it’s still the case.

More skilled, possibly. More qualified, probably. More stressful? I don't think so. I was more stressed working in a call centre, where every call was timed, people listened to you every day, people were fired for nothing, very poorly paid, had to ask to go to the loo, times breaks, shit managers, poorly paid and insecure, than I am now I get paid more.

The idea that higher earners work harder or have more stress is largely nonsense. Would I rather be middle management or on the bins? Would you?

There are plenty of people who choose simple jobs instead of managerial jobs.
just because your current job is less stressful than the call centre doesn’t mean that all high earning jobs are not stressful.
really high earners and high earning professions are very stressful in a way other jobs are not. And many do work harder. 80-90 hour weeks are pretty normal, and very senior people can still be pulling all nighters etc, without paid overtime. Its just part of the job. additionally being a manager is different skillset and even talent so good managers have skills that others dont to rise to that level

very senior people can still be pulling all nighters etc, without paid overtime

I worked 12 and 24 hour night shifts in homeless shelters. For basically minimum wage. I didn't see any of the managers there for those. They were 'on call' but we never did. Because we were highly skilled.

Some do work very hard. But the gap between the lowest and highest paid is large and getting larger. More than makes up for it.

@DodoTired how stressful would a job have to be to get paid 200 times as much as a NMW job?

You're right about call centres. Hideous conditions. Hideous mini-Hitler managers. My manager banned internet usage and banned eating at our desks. I walked past her desk one day and she was eating a donut while putting bets on using the paddy power website. I couldn’t read the bbc website between calls though, no!

The £100k-£125k bit is brutal. If you’re paying a student loan it’s a marginal tax rate of 71%. Once you get to the point of paying 40% income tax you finally become much better off as it drops to 51%. I’m not necessarily against losing the personal allowance, but it really, really shouldn’t be taxed at 40% - after all it’s definitely below the 20% tax threshold.

Charity sector is generally not very well
paid. Because it is charity sector. It’s a bit odd to be unhappy you weren’t paid well there? If you wanted to be paid well for all nighters you’d need to go into law or investment banking

The gap may be too wide, yes. But you are generally questioning the gap of any size, suggesting that CEO’s job is no more stressful or skilful than a call centre job, which is just silly

45% now starts at £125K:)

Well I was far less stressed working on the checkout at Tesco than in my current job. All I had to worry about was giving the wrong change out and my checkout being a few quid down. The last person who did my current job lost the company £25 million.

I was a lot less stressed working as a waitress than at my current job. I sometimes dream of going back to that, but I can’t afford it. Maybe I will if higher earners get taxed more and more though.

Higher earners should get taxed more so you can go back to a minimum wage job as a waitress?!