To happily pay an extra £2000 per year to....

[Fatcish]

• see a GP f2f without a wait of 4 weeks and efficient onward referral as needed to sort the issue
• have my children taught by subject teachers and supported by TAs
• drive my car without hitting numerous potholes and missing road markings
• enable my elderly disabled neighbour to have more care at home (1 hour a week at the moment)
• ensure my son doesn't languish on the CAMHS waiting list for two years getting more and more broken
• pay public sector workers properly so they are not run ragged covering endless vacancies and schools and hospitals are viewed as aspirational and supportive places to work
• support government led, empowered oversight bodies of our water, rivers, trains and buses
• help the MNs on here with heart breaking experiences of seeking support with their SEN children

And on and on...all for £2k a year per FAMILY. I assume I will pay more as a higher earner. FINE. let's make it fair not equal.

Do you honestly think that they can promise all those things with just a £2k tax hike??
That money will be swallowed up and no benefits will be seen.

Yea I don't believe half that stuff would happen. If any at all.

Thank you 😊

I agree entirely with this sentiment. But please stop assisting Tory liars by repeating the lie and terrifying those who cannot afford it.

Sunak lied. The Tories are lying. They have no moral compass.

This thread is split broadly between those who are "Happy to pay £2k to save Our Beloved NHS! (Peace Be Upon It)" and those who either cannot afford it, or see the folly in contributing to an ever expanding public sector blackhole.

For those that are happy to pay more tax, what's stopping you already? Give HMRC a bell. Go on, do it today. Save the nation.

<crickets>

No, I wouldn’t happily pay an extra £2000 a year.

In my job I see people make a choice to be on benefits. People make a choice not to save or have a pension. I see people choose to spend their money on drugs and alcohol. And after nearly 30 years I ask myself, why should society be more equal?

Why shouldn’t people have to work for what they want? Why should hard working people subsidise a growing number of able people who don’t want to work, or who don’t want to work full time. I couldn’t afford childcare for mine, so I only had one child. I couldn’t afford another. Why should I have to pay for other people’s choices and decisions?

Of course I am not talking about the very disabled here, or emergency situations like redundancy.

I’ve never claimed a penny from the state and I’ve worked since I was 14, yet I’ve had my pension age raised to 68. I’ll have worked full time, in excess of 50 hours a week for 54 years.

Now I’ve been dedicated to work, done my overtime, gone up the ladder and I’m a higher earner. I’d like to reap the benefits of nice holidays and a few luxuries thank you.

No, I don’t want to give extra to society. I pay enough. I will not vote for a socialist government who aims to redistribute wealth. It isn’t fair.

But it isn't a lie really is it? Higher earners will pay more tax under Labour. Thats how they operate. Make all these promises and fund it by taxing the higher earners. But there's only so much they squeeze from that cash cow. Then they will turn to the middle earners. I will bet as the GE gets nearer, that's how they will outline the costings of their manifesto.

How can £2k over x years or even a year possibly pay for all those things???

Anyone who thinks so is seriously deluded.

And under the Tories the high earners are protected and the middle and lower earners taxed disproportionately

£50 a month a is about my limit. NHS has core issues rather than funding problems.

So if no one believes it can be done, the UK is f**d basically ?
Do people believe that cutting IHT, scrapping NI, getting of stamp duty will be positive for the country’s economy, public services etc.
I guess people want to pay as little tax as possible, sort themselves out, no thought to the rest of society. Just like Thatcher wanted.

@TheThingIsYeah what’s your answer then ?

The issue is that the top 10% earners pay 60% of income tax receipts in this country. If you start constantly pushing at people earning 50K+ then you disincentivise people to earn that and pay higher rate tax so they cut their hours etc.
What we need is a total re-think of the taxation system. You shouldn't be in a situation whereby the majority take more than they put in otherwise you will never achieve improvement in public services.

I was thinking the same as a pensioner. I would rather pay tax on the proportion of my state pension that exceeded the personal tax allowance than wait on a trolley in a corridor should I become seriously ill. I’m not that impressed by parties arguing that they won’t raise tax, although I would like reassurance about how the money would be spent.

That’s exactly what I want. Everyone to have personal accountability. If you want a good standard of living, work for it. Don’t expect anything for nothing. (With the exception of people with severe disabilities or short term emergency situations).

That’s what my husband and I have done. We’ve never had a big inheritance to help us, or handouts. DH’s dad died when he was 8 and his family were dirt poor. But he watched his mother spend their grants and help down the pub and on cigarettes, so he doesn’t believe in hand outs. We’ve worked and we have to make work pay.

If they raised my taxes now, I’d drop as many days as was possible to negate those taxes. And I’d perhaps start enjoying my life a bit more and let others pick up the slack for me.

The Tories have consistently raised taxes (with nothing to show for it).

I’m no expert on tax/maybe but from what I understand the UK tax system is deliberately setup to tax hard earned income (of any amount) but doesn’t tax “wealth” as much ie. Those with inherited wealth and investments and properties. If that’s the case - the whole system needs to be sorted. Because right now it’s discouraging many people to earn more.

I know. I’m not voting Tory. They are a waste of space, as are Labour.

I can promise you this, Labour will get in on July 4th and nothing, absolutely nothing, will change. Because they are all self serving liars, who are just looking for a big pension and an easy, phenomenally paid job after four-five years “work”. Same as the Conservatives.

None of them care about us, the people. They don’t care about the middle earners or the poor.

Nothing will change and we’ll just continue to flip flop between two incompetent governments.

So all I want is for them to take what they currently take from me and leave me alone.

ETA: oh, and for people who think that a working six figure (just) household should pay more back to society to buggar off…I shouldn’t be paying more, I should be going to Bali.

@CountryBear that’s quite a sad short sighted take.
Then again self made folk are often like that. No idea about other people’s struggles. No understanding that some people function differently. Typical mean spirited claptrap. Maybe spend sometime helping out at a food bank, work with the homeless, CAB. Not everyone is a work shy scrounger. Not everyone can ‘pull themselves up by the bootstraps’.
Maybe vote for the Tories then. You’d be happier. No make it Reform actually, they really will cut benefits if people don’t accept the first job they are given.

You’re mistaken.

DH and I have come from nothing. DH has experienced poverty like none of you probably ever have. He slept on a broken mattress with no bed sheets. Had one jumper in his wardrobe and no other clothes. He barely ate anything other than bread.

His mother declares herself a hard working mum. She took tax payers money to stay in bed until 4pm and to pay for booze and fags. Her kids were neglected…. But everyone celebrated her for being a single mum raising 7 kids. DH still won’t talk to her. She genuinely believes she was doing her best though.

I don’t care if I’m short sighted. Everyone has had the same opportunities as DH and myself. I’ve EARNED the right to be selfish. And I’m not ashamed that I feel I already give enough of my family household money to pay towards society. I do enough. Don’t ask for more.

Really? Because health insurance would cost me £100 a month (yes I looked into it). The private psychiatric assessment I've paid for my daughter is £900 and ongoing appointments are £100 each, which I'm doing because she attempted suicide and CAMHS still haven't seen her 4 months on. £2k doesn't scratch the surface.

Because if I paid more tax today the Tories would squander it on their mates.

Absolutely, yes. That is the kind of society I would want to be part of. And that is whether some of it benefits me directly or not.

2k can’t fix all that unfortunately, I’m not sure that will even cover the increased costs of the state pension.

Taxes are too weighted on PAYE in this country, wealth needs to be looked at. With an ageing population we don’t have enough workers for one.

In theory I kind of agree but in practice I live in Scotland and our household pays a lot more tax than we would in England.

All of those things are still a problem here, who knows what the money is actually going on. I guess its most likely on additional benefits for the lowest paid, but it's certainly not going on universally benecially things (and it would be nice, to be honest, to feel like I saw some benefit at least from the extra £££ that I'm putting in 🤪)

I'd only be happy to contribute more if I had confidence that the benefits you've outlined might actually appear.

In reality I'm so cross that I'm drastically increasing my pension contributions so I won't creep into the next tax band up- at least that way I will see something back 🤣