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.

I think this may be part of the problem in this country too higher tax burden falls on too few but it would be very unpopular to lower the tax free allowance for example

I don't think most people would mind paying tax if they saw the benefits of it. But we don't. Even paying Council tax my way there is still rubbish left about.

Not happy to pay more tax until things are shaken up. We have and do pay a lot of tax.

For example I've worked for a local council, the waste is shocking and it will almost certainly continue/get worse under Labour. There needs to be a shift in focus to individual responsibility as opposed to the first port of call being 'what are the government going to give me'. This government have already caved into the unions, the worse being the train drivers with no requirements to change working practices. Even I could solve a problem by throwing money at it.

Obviously we don't have the details yet so it's difficult to plan but I expect it will be council tax, cgt, IHT - maybe not all at once. But once they've started they'll be no going back, the rates will just increase. Evidently they are now talking about employee and employer NI and saying that they only meant employee NI won't increase. A new low with the 'clever' use of language to fool the public.

Anyway we will downsize in the next few years and start to pass money to DC. I won't work above tax threshold amount. DP will start to scale back at work. We too are thinking of moving overseas, Europe is attractive because of state pension increase rules.

I don't mind paying tax but throwing money at things is not the answer for this country. We are not rich but I do feel we pay enough and can see many families have nothing more to give. When people are educated, work hard etc I think they expect and deserve a certain standard of living. The gap between benefits and working is now too small. We need massive reform.

It isn't a fairer society, it is a levelling down, especially as it isn't going to schools an hospitals.
@OptimismvsRealism I put as much as I can into company pensions. As soon as my dc got national insurance numbers i made them employees, so instead of pocket money they get wages for genuine help in my business, which frees me up to pick up the slack with chores they would have had for pocket money at home. It costs the company £4800 pa, but saves me about £1,900 pa in tax and gives them a work ethic.
I still pay a good wack in tax, but by managing it all probably and claiming for as much as I can I can keep in the 20% tax bracket.

Government needs the money. We can afford it.
Im quite hopeful about this lot so far.

yes...lots of self congratulatory polishing of halos going on 😇

I am ploughing my garden over to convert into a small-holding.
And planning to sell the family’s kidneys. Only one each of course!!!

Just a general point - a well-funded and functioning education and healthcare system benefits everyone, even those with private health care and no kids, or kids in private education. This is because we need well-educated and healthy people to do all the jobs we depend on. Nursing, teaching, policing, refuse collecting, caring, building roads etc etc. The list is endless. This is why we need to pay tax and probably more tax as costs rise.

Well yes indeed, according to some posts on this thread 😐

We are these people - saw the writing on the wall with an incoming Labour government and had we genuinely believed Labour could turn things around and that the UK would improve id have stayed and everyday I’m glad we did it. It is fine to pay in if you feel it is fair and you are getting something back. As it was I felt I was funding a system I couldn’t benefit from for services like healthcare I couldn’t access, poor schools, dirty water, shit and expensive public transport, and decaying infrastructure.

Why have the doctors and their union left it for so long for pay rises that they now want 35%?

I'm fine with it. Happy to pay a bit extra to make the country fairer and help the NHS.
I do roll my eyes at all these so-called professionals throwing their toys out the cot because they might have to pay a little more tax. If you're wealthy enough that it'll hit you, you're wealthy enough to afford it so don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.
But I suspect its mostly just whinging. Most of the people complaining about it aren't going anywhere.

Considering the amount of scandals that some charities seem to be involved in I’m not sure that’s necessarily a moral choice either.

Working even fewer hours than I do already.

"Getting 0 in return"? Either that's massively hyperbolic or you don't understand what you do get for your taxes

Nothing...we need to pay our taxes and higher ones to get this country back to what it use to be.
We are already higher rate tax payers...in case you're wondering 😉

I pay less than £20 tax per month so will just make sure I don’t up my hours!

Pensions & paying into company shares are good ways to reduce income below thresholds and get your money later on in life.

Any lower rate tax payers willing to pay more tax?

I suppose we all have have different anecdotes to tell. I have two friends whose sons , both in their thirties, qualified in medicine ( in Scotland). Both now working in New Zealand. Should there not be a way that they should at least work in the UK for a certain amount of time.? Especially since they got their fees paid by the Scottish Government. Don’t know how it could be done though.

Loving all the moral grandstanding.

I personally can't wait to fuck the fuck off as soon as I am in a position in my career that will enable me to get a better paying job abroad and pay less taxes with a higher quality of life for me and my family.

@1apenny2apenny how are things ‘certainly’ going to get worse under Labour?

Again, we are in the shit we are in due to successive Tory governments who revelled in obscene levels of incompetence, corruption and a general debasement of community and civility yet Labour will make it worse?

Based on what? Oooh the lefties don’t understand how to manage money? Oh the bleeding heart liberals will be giving people enough to live on?

It is batshit that people can live through the most egregious and intentional lowering of living standards in decades but still think Torys = good with money, Labour = bad.
Tory governments are good at rinsing the public purse to fill their mates pockets. That’s it.

And I’m not even a Labour voter any more.

Not me!

Quite. And my friend who used to proclaim she was only person she knew who would happily pay more tax, actually got her accountant to come up with a wheeze when a change was brought in which actually meant she would pay more. The wheeze meant she did not have to.

And when another change was proposed which would have hit her and her husband's retirement income, she was absolutely apoplectic about it.

Since this, I have always been suspicious of those who like to publicly proclaim that they would happily pay more tax.

OP, your thread title implies an assumption that most of us are looking to weasel out of paying more tax. Like some pps, if it leads to improvements I will consider it money well spent. It seems a little illogical to complain about the state of things and then be unwilling to do anything to help improve them.