Do you believe that rich people should exist?

[Bumpitybumper]

Having read lots of threads on here, I am starting to wonder about the proportion of people that believe that rich people shouldn't exist at all and that policies should be enacted to ensure a more or less even distribution of wealth.

So out of interest and just to satisfy my curiosity please vote:
YABU - there shouldn't be rich people in this country and that wealth should be distributed evenly to the extent that people aren't significantly richer than others.
YANBU - rich people are a necessary (and potentially even desirable) part of society

I don't mind the rich who have earned it but why do so many wealthy people evade tax? Greedy, horrible people.

I made some bad decisions in life and im proud dd wants to be a banker. I regret choosing nhs/ teaching jobs as they are high stress, low wage but where would we be without them?

I went to a very elite private achool as my dad taught there and got money off. I didn't fit in and was bullied awfully for not having armarni suits etc. I developed a socialist mindset and my motto is that the rich dont let anyone in.
It put me off money as I could see how fucked up it wad. Dd was brought up by a single mum by modestmeans. She wants to be rich and become an investment banker and has made sensible decisions...good for her.

As a slightly random aside i worked in private education and private hospitals...I get paid better in the nhs.

I would minimise my tax bill if I could. It's perfectly normal and sensible.

But to evade it totally? Come on....i suppose you could argue that if you pay for private jets, medicine and schooling why pay for the proles to have public services?

I agree. Basing wealth creation on homes due to ignorance of other ways to create wealth is hugely problematic. At some point the carousel stops.

And also deeply immoral.

They get a society and the infrastructure that allows them to acquire and keep their wealth, more often than not through the exploitation of others. How well do you think a Musk, Zuckerberg, Dyson or Mullins would have faired if the US or UK was governed like Somalia or had their infrastructure?

It would take someone earning the median UK wage 28,602 years to earn £1 billion and 55,903 years for someone on the national wage. I fundamentally disagree with anyone who thinks that level of wealth inequality should exist.

Like others have said I don't have an issue with people getting rich, I have an issue with disparity between the top and bottom and an issue with people become that rich while poverty exists.

That is easy to say but, seriously, if people do actually work for their money and are not stingy or uncaring to society, is it really fair to take roughly half of any income over a certain level? It doesn't apply to me and never has because I haven't been in that income bracket and am now retired, on pension, so don't pay much income tax. I have never grudged paying tax but I think if I suddenly lost a lot of my hard earned income in tax I would wonder why I bothered to put in the effort.

I'd suggest, do it legally, get a good accountant to sort finances.

And what state schools did they go to? And were any of the railway workers, factory hands etc as when the Labour Party first entered Parliament in the early twentieth century? The point I was making is that the Labour Party no longer represents the working classes (that's most of us) but the bien pensants of the middle classes - professional people - and are themselves professionals of a professional backround, just like the Conservatives.

But the concept that people get rich just on the basis of hard work is a fairytale these days. Some people may well work really really hard but are from a relatively wealthy family and they have education , connections and opportunities that come from that financial support. They in turn are able to support their own children, wealth accumulates via inheritance etc. The same opportunity to become wealthy will be much more difficult for someone without that base upon which to build success. This is what people are resentful of and this gap is just getting bigger. Society is becoming more unequal and the UK is starting to feel a lot more like the US.

And this is exactly the mentality that makes this country so fucked up. Please don’t then have the temerity to complain about shit public services. Who do you think should pay for them?

I would like to see a more even distribution in wages, I think it would make a healthier society if there was a flatter distribution. However becoming rich is a consequence of a number of different things, ability, effort, luck etc. it’s not a moral issue.

Everyone. Everyone should pay. Not just the highest earners who are being squeezed from every direction and demonised for this

The rich already pay most tax though and get least benefit from it. I say that as a former tax advisor not a rich person

To flip that around, the rich get least benefit from the last bit of their income. The last £10k of your income is food and shelter on a £20k/year salary, but if you're on £250k/year it's the difference between changing your car for a new one every year instead of every 3 years.

There are two undetermined values, one for income and one for retained wealth, above which it just becomes scorekeeping in the game called capitalism. Above these values it makes no difference to your lifestyle, it's just keeping score with your peers. The more extremely wealth you are the less value that wealth has other than as a comparator to measure yourself against the other few in that position. You could tax that surplus wealth at 100% and no one would care as long as there was a public scorecard for the 0.1% to measure themselves against each other.

Bill Gates gets this, it's why he's determined to give so much away. Elon Musk hasn't quite got it, but he's on the verge of it as he keeps trying to reframe his boys toys vanity projects as benefits to humankind. Trump and Tate will never get it because they have personalities driven by vanity and fears of inferiority. Bryan Johnson (the guy with the longevity project) will never get it, he's too focussed on turning "you can't take it with you" into "I'm not going anywhere".

What are we talking about here? Paying into an ISA, paying pension via salary sacrifice?

I have friends who are skilled and qualified and yet neither partner works because, by their own admission, they are better off on benefits. I would suggest that is also a problem.

Planning to minimise tax and tax evasion are entirely different things.

Everyone does pay. People on PAYE don’t do tax planning.

I’d love to see the figures on how a skilled and qualified person gets more on benefits than from a job. Sounds like bollocks to me.

I don't disagree - I suspect there is an element of they are "better off" in terms of they don't have to go out to work for it. And I guess no childcare etc etc

Indeed.
Planning to minimise tax is immoral.
Tax evasion is illegal.
HTH.

Planning to minimise tax is immoral.

Really - so everyone with an ISA is immoral?

I agree that using tax loopholes in ways they were not intended is immoral (and these days far less likely to work anyway as there is now anti avoidance legislation which allows schemes to be struck down if this was their purpose). But saying ALL planning to minimise tax is immoral goes far too far IMO.

Using tax breaks the government has planned is not avoidance.

Avoidance is developing schemes which avoid tax against legislative intent.

Evasion is straightforwardly illegal.

The rich already pay most tax though
That's because they are the ones hoarding all the money!

Minimising tax isn't any more immoral than being careful with what you spend, minimising tax is just another word for being financially prudent.

Planning to minimise tax is immoral.

Surely it is the most rational thing to do?!

That's how Governments incentivise us to save for our retirement - by minimising taxes on savings in ISAs and SIPPs

Rhe poor pay mist proportionately to charity though.