To actually not mind paying tax?

[Squareplate]

I'm sick of hearing about how Labour will increase tax (they will, they'll have to, after the mess they've been handed) at the same time as demanding better services.

I quite like what Clement Attlee said
"Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim"

And yet I know loads of people who do great work for charity at the same time as doing whatever they can to hide their money from the tax man. They'll say taxes are wasted or there's corruption etc, but that happens in the charity sector too.

FWIW, I'm a higher rate taxpayer and my parents estate will likely be subject to significant inheritance tax, but I still think that's right and fair.

I don't understand why paying your taxes isn't seen as a social duty.

Paying more tax, my head isn’t even above the water as it is!! If I have to pay more, me and family will be the poor and needy! Which is unjust being as I work full time!

If I’m a single parent earning £51k (very recent promotion), with barely any savings and almost no equity in my home - how much more do you think I should pay?? I’m already having nearly half taken away, there have been posters on other threads today gleefully clamouring that people like me should give more. It’s so hard to be a single earner, I’d love to take my children on holiday and pay for music lessons, it’s probably not going to happen. But according to some on mumsnet today I am elite and privileged. I am working class, went to a sink school comp, have clawed my way up to this point at the age of 42. I have no one to inherit wealth from. If Labour takes more taxes off me than I currently pay then I may as well just switch to a career in claiming benefits.

The fact that people in the U.K. think only a billionaire pays 100k in tax is laughable.

Then when the same people complain about paying more via VAT on private school fees, people tell them they're being greedy and are unwilling to contribute...

Ridiculous

Why would you say that? Many of us pay more than 6 figures in tax just through PAYE. That’s before you add VAT, council tax, CGT, fuel duty, alcohol duty etc etc. You’d probably get there in terms of total tax paid by earning under £200k so you definitely don’t need to be a billionaire - I would have noticed if I was 😂

I see a numeracy fail right there 😂
Which is both worrying and unsurprising at the same time…

For those who can't do maths, 6 figures = 100,000 to 999,999.

Was obvious what the poster who referred to paying more than six figures mean though, so I don't know why the poster above insists on being facetious...

You’ve gone in a bit strong given your error

I don't mind paying tax in theory, but I DO mind seeing where all the wealth is concentrated (massive companies, the two Duchys and a few very wealthy individuals) and seeing that wealth compound because almost all those same entities do everything they can to avoid paying as much tax as possible while individual tax payers are squeezed for more and more money, while receiving worse public services (and being subject to the unfair ever-increasing costs of non-negotiables like gas and electricity), and basically aren't able to do anything about it.

I am a standard rate tax payer. I receive child benefit and no further benefits. I would happily pay more tax for better public services and better pay for those working in front line nhs and education. Not better pay for endless managers, but those who do the cleaning, patching up and educating. Teaching assistant and carer pay is a national disgrace.

I don't believe that anyone should pay more than half of their salary in tax amd national insurance combined.

Could everyone saying they are happy to pay more taxes express precise amount how much more?

Ideally in ££ or as a % of total income?

Also those of you with savings and/or assets which you were planning to give your kids (either as gifts or inheritance), what share of it you're happy to give to HMRC instead?

Even if you take that interpretation, which isn’t how most would interpret it, you still don’t need to be a billionaire to pay £1m in tax every year, even through PAYÉ.

The number that pay more than that in tax because they have their own company, which pays Corporation tax, PAYE, VAT etc etc is also huge. You’d only need to turn over £3m in VATable stuff while employing half a dozen people and making a few hundred k profit, some of which is extracted by dividends, to be sending HMRC more than a million every year. 200,000 odd companies in the UK turnover between £1m and £5m, and total turnover for SMEs, most of which are privately owned, is £2.4 trillion.

Which is the point everyone is making :)

I'm in a similar position to you, OP, and I agree. I would gladly pay more tax in exchange for a fairer society and properly functioning public services.

After paying tax since I was 16, and now being a pensioner, I’d sooner not pay any more.

@nearlylovemyusername I am a higher rate tax payer (40%) and would be happy to pay 50% if services were improved and some breaks were allowed for childcare so I felt better supported in those early years when finances are tighter. At the moment I pay for private medical for myself and my children because of my lack of confidence in the NHS. This amounts to about 10%-15% of my post tax salary anyway.

I would not want to give away my savings to HMRC. My estate will already pay IHT, if it’s not eroded by care home fees.

£240k taxable income will get you to around £100k in tax + NI contributions.
Of course people will salary sacrifice / pension stuff to minimise taxable income.
I pay quite a lot of tax, which I really don’t mind - I just wish it was progressive and simple. None of the faffing with personal allowance, adjusted income, removal of pension allowance etc etc.

I’m a top rate tax payer and I won’t be happy to pay more tax. We don’t use the NHS, dentists or state schools and haven’t taken a penny in benefits while paying in about £250,000 in tax each year.

We’ve worked our way up from nothing, and are very happy to pass over more than 50% of our earnings in tax as long as the system is working and the right people are benefitting. But it isn’t and they’re not. And somehow we are branded selfish for daring to be high earners who question how that money is being spent, rather than just agreeing we should hand more over.

If our taxes are increased to more than 50% we will take it as a sign of where things are headed and probably take early retirement and shut our business down or possibly move abroad, because it just wouldn’t be worth the stress.

If Labour manage to turn things around, I will feel differently, but I have very little hope.

This is me too, and how I feel. I'm a single parent with no support and feel like I am expected to pay for quite a few things I am excluded from accessing.

My partner pays the higher tax rate and I'm on the lower one and I'm not happy about paying more tax. Go after the tax dodging corporations and leave the public alone.

I actually dont want to pay more. I'm a single parent wit no help from my DCs other parent and I'm taxed a LOT on every penny i earn, I get no personal allowance and carry a huge tax burden. What I would like to see is 1. money being more appropriately and accountably spent 2. the super rich paying their fair share and 3. there being incentive to actually work.

Happy to pay tax.

Not happy that we have shit public services and that the NHS is so useless I have to pay a second time to access healthcare.

Kind of struggling now so higher taxes are not welcome I am afraid. I also get caught with private dentistry costs and podiatry as no help available. Pay rises have been scant for a decade or more. Worrying times

In principle I don’t mind paying tax. And I wouldn’t grumble if it wasn’t for the following:

First, the U.K. is unbearably crowded. Here in Essex I’m surrounded by ghastly rabbit hutch houses all jammed on top of one another. It’s also noisy. I was woken at 2 am this morning by the screeching and exploding of boy racer cars. If the U.K. (and the world generally) wasn’t so crowded, I could find a nice quiet place to live. But to find peace and quiet in the U.K. you need money - lots and lots of it. The noise and lack of personal space is awful and is really impacting my mental health. If I had a bit of garden, and a bit of space, I’d be content. I really wouldn’t want much else. But to have those things I need to save every penny. I also don’t want to live around violent and unpleasant people. Again, that takes money.

Second, so many of the people who receive welfare don’t deserve it. My cousin is basically Vicky Pollard. She’s ignorant, rude and violent. She’s had three children by different men, and is a lazy, useless mother who has brought them up to be as lazy, rude, anti-social and entitled as she is. Needless to say she’s never worked and has spent most of her life on welfare. In return for the tens of thousands of pounds wasted on her, society has got three ignorant, uneducated, unskilled kids who will be nothing but a drain.

Third, I don’t trust left-wing governments to spend the money wisely. If they used it to preserve beautiful buildings, keep the museums and art galleries free, repair the roads, maintain the armed forces, improve public transport, fund proper degrees (physics, chemistry, engineering, biochemistry, even the study of Shakespeare and medieval art), etc, it wouldn’t be so bad. But they’ll blow it on ‘diversity and inclusion managers’, ‘de-colonising the libraries’, social housing for illegal immigrants, and so on. The left have a genius for wasting public money.

Obviously that’s a bit simplistic. I know there are many, many people who need and deserve help. Though I sound heartless I’m really not. I do care about the good people, and I do want to help them. But I’m realistic. The NHS is another example. If something is free, people will take, take, take. It’s human nature. I know people who are constantly at the doctors and treat it like a day out. The slightest twinge in their knee, or a blocked nose, and off they go. The more money you pour into their GP surgery, the more often they’ll visit.

Absolutely not happy to pay more. Like many in the thread we are paying around 100k just in income taxes in our household before you even think about capital gains tax, or VAT + extortionate council tax, and for all of this we are not getting a great service.

It is not right for a small percentage of people to pay huge sums of money in tax, and it’s also not right for those lower earners to be made to pay still quite a bit of tax when they can’t afford it. The whole system does not work.

Taxes should be reduced across the board and state reliance also drastically reduced and streamlined. People sat on benefits needs to be drastically cut down on and wastage in all of the services needs to be reduced. The government should be ashamed of wasting everyone’s money tbh, and people sat on benefits talking about higher earners should pay more taxes should also be ashamed of that.

I’m sure the basic services like NHS could be provided much more efficiently and even with that - many higher earners are paying for private health care on top of paying so many taxes, so paying over the odds for it and not even using it.

DH and I are both higher rate tax payers who would be happy to pay more income tax if we were confident it was actually going to improve public services. We don't want to contribute to things like dodgy PPE deals and new boats for party donors though...hopefully less of an issue going forwards but let's see what happens.

Thats what conservatism is