To ask what you'll be doing to avoid the Labour tax hikes

[OptimismvsRealism]

Pension contributions
Gift aid
Selling my shares now while CGT is relatively low

What really worries me is that all the professionals we actually need to want to be here will just fuck off elsewhere, though.

It's not like we're knee deep in hospital doctors.

Oh well sorry to hear

I am in Australia (Sydney). I was in hospital a couple of days ago and 98%of doctors and nurses were from the UK and Ireland. I observed the same at another hospital a couple of months ago. Just literally every doctor and nurse was British or Irish. It looks like the long move did not bother them.

Also, I work at a major university, and many of my colleagues are British, with young families. So are a few of the teachers at my son's school, and his classmates' parents.... a growing number of British people everywhere. When I ask, they mention better salaries, better work conditions... and of course, the weather, which seems to be a major factor for some.

The rail workers had a decent salary prior to the pay rises. I agree with the WFA being removed, but it’s such a shame to see this money wasted on rail workers.

It’s ’we are sorry to lose you’

There are doctors abroad from the UK but the UK has never has as high lawful immigration ever even when we had the biggest empire the planet has ever seen so the UK is currently very very popular.
Someone mentioned the 2% NI band - I don't think Labour could change that to 13% because it has said it will not increase NI percentages - nor tax percentages.

My mum gets a tiny private pension that takes her £4 over the pension credit limit. She won't get the fuel allowance. Her total income is less than £11,600 per year. She's already said she'll spend her days in bed to keep warm. I've said I'll pay her fuel bill this winter. It's not all higher income pensioners.

The PM talked the other day about there being a societal black hole in this country and wow does this thread exemplify it.

So many people absolutely stinking of self interest and self importance. Everyone wants good public services, nobody wants to bloody pay for them. The main culture of this country is of take take take, bleed the country dry, dodge the tax and see how little you can get away with contributing.

It is shameful. Absolutely shameful. Feel free to move and become one of those immigrants you all seem to despise so much. I’m sure you will be made to feel very welcome elsewhere.

Do you mean the 2% over £50k rate?

Why would it become 13%?

Financial experts, on the radio, have been advising not to sell stocks or shares.

I’ve just opened another ISA and chucked the max in.

What’s silly, regarding the WFA, is that various charities and organisations are doing a huge push to get pensioners to claim Pension Credit. If only half do it, it will actually cost the government £3.6 billion more than it used to cost for universal WFA. 🤷‍♀️

Which will mean more cuts elsewhere.🙄

To be fair, those who are in the higher tax brackets are already paying more than their fair share. The top 10% of income tax payers pay 60% of all income tax. I’m fed up with the government always coming for high earners but never for those who have extreme wealth but hide away any income. We will never be able to afford a family home in London where we live but I have to subsidise people who bought them for 3 buttons and the fluff in their pocket and are sitting on millions locked away in their homes.

Are you really sitting here telling me you’re in the top 10% of income tax payers and you can’t afford a home? Really?

Yes. Top 10% income is around 67k.

An average sale price in London last year was 700k and that includes flats etc. the average price for a “house” is just over 1m according to Foxtons.

So yes. Salaries are totally out of whack with house prices. How many banks will give you a 10x multiplier.

To buy a 1m home you need a salary of around 200k minimum if you have a large 20% deposit.

Totally agree.

Also pissed off by the suggestion that medical professionals, who have been leaving due to wage stagnation and poor working conditions, would suddenly up sticks because they’re rolling in money sufficiently to be caught by as yet unannounced tax rises (which it has been announced will not be to income tax or NI). Insidious and inflammatory nonsense.

Shocking that 67k is considered a high salary and is top 10%, the average house price near me is around 265k, under the old 3x salary of affordability, a 67k wage wouldn't qualify.

The freezing of tax TH's by the Tories is a disgrace, why should the average worker always be punished?

So many people have been dragged into the 40% bracket who shouldn't be there, £50k really isn't a "high wage" anymore, an experienced band 6 Nurse/AHP doing a few extra shifts could easily find themselves paying 40% tax - ridiculous.

I realise there are lots of British people living - and permanently settled - in Australia and NZ already. Especially doctors and nurses, like you say. And I agree that there are so many factors that attract them to Aus, like the working conditions and salaries etc.

The main point I’m trying to make in my post above is that I don’t think we’re going to see a sudden huge exodus of doctors and nurses leaving the U.K. for Australia in the next few months, purely because we’ve got a Labour government - as some posters on here have suggested. Anyone moving to Aus or NZ would have to put a lot of thought and prep into it, so if they’re just thinking about it now, they won’t be able to move just yet. That’s the point I’m trying to get across.

I think a huge part of people being pissed off (and perhaps particularly higher earners) is that they often cannot afford a nice house in a nice area on a good income.

There is another thread this morning of a family with a £750k budget (so probably £150k-200k income) and the properties shared are fine but… probably not what you’d expect the top couple of percent of earners to be living in.

I think it comes as a bit of a surprise to land in the 40-60% brackets when your lifestyle still looks very ordinary (and depending on life stage and location - possibly still struggling to make ends meet).

The overarching factor is that highly skilled, paid and taxed workers - who have trained in UK universities - will emigrate to other locations where they see a better life for their families. They will pay tax and buy assets in these countries thus meaning an individual trained in this country takes the benefit of that with them, along with any contribution they would make to the UK. It will be the averagely paid (not very skilled) middle class who are stuck in the UK. That is what is known as brain drain, even if they trickle out of the country, it’s an own goal for a dense population, who has too few net contributors and too many families who do not pay enough tax to cover the cost of services they use.

Socialists don’t want you to have any money. They believe anything you own is theirs for the taking. It is a fundamental principle that stifles growth and limits ambition but it doesn’t matter to them because they don’t care about ordinary people. They only care about their ideals that have been proved time and time again not to improve anything.

Spot on.

Ffs 🙄

Assume you’re not in the SE

Weird post, as Labour aren't a Socialist Party.

The Tories were in power for 14 years, they achieved historically low growth rates and gave us the highest Tax rates since WW2.

Some of the UK best periods of growth have been under Labour administrations.
Thatcher despite N.Sea oil and selling everything off, had some of the lowest post war growth figures.

Tories also increased child poverty by 1997 to double that of the EU average.

They also wreck public services and have destroyed the water industry.

Sadly just throwing more money at the problem doesn't always work.

Socialist or not, I think this is generally the attitude difference. The discussion around tax relief on pension contributions shows it quite well.

Labour are thinking about it as “how much money the government is giving higher earners” when they get the tax relief of 40 or 45%. Whereas someone economically right wing would think of the money as being that persons to start with and it’s how much money the government will take off them.

Do our salaries belong to the government and it’s about how much we are allowed to keep or do they belong to us and it’s about how much the government need to take?

This really.

House prices are far to high and people cannot bring up families.

High house prices are proving ruinous to this country and they need to be fixed one way or another.

However no government has the bottle to actually do it, and I don't see anything Labour is proposing improving the situation.

Houses are still becoming more unaffordable due to tax rises and the cost of living and mortgage rates. If not the actual sticker price.