To reduce hours when labour win election

[Parttimeplay]

I fall into the “60%” tax bracket. With the upcoming elections and knowing the government always hammer the middle ground….woudlnt it make more sense for me to cut my hours for a more relaxed life, eligibility for childcare, reduced tax?

Do you pay them enough they don’t need UC top ups?

how do you like your shoe leather ? fried or boiled

The answer’s simple. Cull us. Lethal injection on our 70th birthday. Job done.

"I’m fed up with being a net contributor and especially irritated by the “entitled to” website."

Leave. You are replaceable, no one earning PAYE salaries ( or even in fact the vast majority of contractors/small business owners) is of such rarefied skill that you can't be easily replaced. If you died tomorrow they'd replace you in a week.

Also, I'm dumbfounded how many of you so called "high earners" keep repeating all the points about being net contributors anyway. The figure arrived at only considers direct benefits in cash and in kind, it doesn't include any of the things provided by society at 0 opportunity cost (policing, rule of law, fire services, defence etc) which is actually most of what the government pays for. It also doesn't include the benefit of living in a society that has facilitated your earning power greatly. It also only uses income tax as a measure, not total tax burden, which of course, lower earners pay more of their entire income in.

Most people who threaten to leave do not, there have been studies that find this, they often also get rude awakenings when they realise that they are just not as special or important as they think they are when they can't instantly recreate the success they had enjoyed at home.

You are not the masters of the universe, you do not "carry" or " prop up" others. You are replaceable.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I think we're headed for a future without the top-ups because they're simply unaffordable and result in people playing the system doing part-time work in order to maximise their benefits for the minimum hours worked.

Some people receiving UC seem to think that they're entitled to the same lifestyle as those earning £70k (as per the other thread). They're not.

Oh and whilst on "net tax contributors" 97 % of people die in net tax deficit for their lifetimes. Net tax contributors do not start at that figure, nor do they end at it and it's calculated on a yearly basis not lifetime. For example if you went to University to study medicine, in 5 years you could easily be a net tax contributor for that year, but you would be a long way off it using the lifetime calculation, Doctors will be well into their 40s or possibly 50s before they've contributed enough tax to cover the state subsidised cost of their degrees.

Reading many posts on here I think we’re headed to a future without being able to afford a fair few things

Hi. The engineering, science and cyber security sector called. They want your ill informed comments to be true.

Problem is - it is the high earning people on PAYE who do have the skills to go elsewhere. The ones in demand. The ones funding the majority.

I don't think @Aladdinzane realises that these jobs can be done from Portugal or Dubai by the same people working as contractors legally paying zero income tax.

Easy access to friends and family is worth a lot, but if your friends and colleagues are also planning to make a move abroad, things get a lot easier.

I’m happy to pay my fair share of tax. 😊 I’m just saying that the benefits burden isn’t swathes of feckless lazy guys that can’t be bothered to work. It’s people that have worked all their life and retired and low income workers.

So instead of allowing shareholders to cream off most of the profits, companies could choose to pay their staff fairly.

We can raise wages but it tends to go down badly

Eg when businesses lift wages to off set lower number of work visas

People give mixed messages

We'll have to see what happens. I expect that wages will have to rise to attract and retain staff, but those people currently maximising their part-time incomes via UC and the full gamet of dubious disability claims will find that their incomes drop substantially.

Perhaps child benefit will rise substantially to help offset the hit to working parents. Who knows?

What we can be sure of is that cuts are coming. The debt interest payments are now £120 billion a year and rising. Meanwhile, we're saying we can't afford to build a railway between London and Manchester.

Big, big cuts are coming.

"Problem is - it is the high earning people on PAYE who do have the skills to go elsewhere. The ones in demand. The ones funding the majority."

But you aren't "funding" the majority at all, we all pay tax, in fact poorer people pay far more of their income in total tax than higher income.

I think a number of you appear to be thinking "skills shortages" is the same as "unfilled vacancies", it isn't. Oh and yes you can do those jobs in Dubai when paying 0 income tax, but, as many people who do these things find out, the companies that you work for actually want you in the country, contactable at the right times, available for meetings and a whole host of other stuff that actually makes it a lot more difficult. What actually happens A LOT is that people make these kind of moves and after a while aren't working for the same company anymore ( of course this is one of the reasons that people end up returning).

But yes, you just keep congratulating yourself on your magnificence, the rest of us will be just fine without you. You really aren't that special.

in fact poorer people pay far more of their income in total tax than higher income.

This doesn’t mean it’s not problematic when the tax burden stays and higher earners go

It won’t help lower earners. The opposite

Labour v likely will not raise income tax. While the tax burden on working people is at a historic high, I would like Labour to consider increasing taxes on wealth and capital which remain comparatively low, see article below. Those with many assets such as multiple properties, stocks and shares have increased their wealth considerably since 2010.

“There is an overwhelming economic and ethical case for higher taxes on wealth and for taxing capital gains at the same rate as income, not least the soaring levels of wealth inequality in Britain.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/01/why-labour-must-adopt-a-radical-new-taxes-including-on-wealth-and-capital-gains?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

So, the suggestion is the richest 20% have got no financial benefit while the other 80% have?
It is th eeconomics of poor people having all the money.

"But you aren't "funding" the majority at all, we all pay tax, in fact poorer people pay far more of their income in total tax than higher income."

But they don't pay enough tax to cover the cost of the services they consume. The lowest paid take out huge amounts in benefits and that's on top of all the other government spending on hospitals, schools, roads, defence, etc.

I work for a multinational. We have an office in Dubai. There's no reason why i couldn't work from that office. The timezone might be a slight issue for the UK, but it would allow me to work on both the APAC and EMEA infrastructure.

Dubai has never really appealed and it would be a big move for the family, but an extra £26k in my pocket would be nice.

If I did transfer to that office, there would be no need to replace me in the UK, so that tax money would completely disappear with me.

For now, I'm happy to wait and see how things pan out, but it's certainly something to think about.

"This doesn’t mean it’s not problematic when the tax burden stays and higher earners go"

As said this is mostly an idle threat as most do not, and the vast majority (99.999%) will be replaced by someone else earning the same amount and paying as much tax.

Even then I go back to the whole concept of the "net tax contributor" thing to be a very basic calculation that makes some pretty big ( and erroneous) assumptions to come to its conclusion. Yet people here thing that this should be the thing that grants them special privileges and meek cap doffing from the rest of the population.

As I said, they can leave, the UK will be just fine, and the net tax receipts just the same, without them.

I doubt it. Net tax receipts go up and down all the time based on behaviour.

A good example is lower CT in ROI

"ut they don't pay enough tax to cover the cost of the services they consume. The lowest paid take out huge amounts in benefits and that's on top of all the other government spending on hospitals, schools, roads, defence, etc."

Once you take into account the other things very few are net tax contributors, even then once you put a value on the the benefits that society bring and how it facilitates earnings the vast majority will not be. Even with the very basic calculation though, only 3 percent die as net tax contributors across their lifetime so even the vast majority of people who class themselves as contributors now are only really paying for what they will get out later.

Actually the global companies which attract and need the jobs - are happy for you to go and work in any office. Better salary, better tax, better options. Countries falling over themselves to allow this in areas of skill shortage. Hence why we are struggling. Tell me you don’t know what you’ve commented on without actually telling me.

Given that the organisation that ran the survey have had to come out to say that the ISC/Daily Mail misrepresented their statistics I really don't think it will matter.

https://www.bainescutler.com/media/0vdhdvzi/statement-re-vat-on-school-fees-0624.pdf#

You’re making it personal rather than an overview of behaviour.

Countries compete for high earners already via attractive tax policies

Becoming the ones who do this fuck off version won’t help. It really won’t help lower earners.