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

@Blossomtoes Do you mean Kate Bingham who headed up the UK's covid taskforce? She is a venture capitalist so I suspect pretty money orientated.

Or Sarah Gilbert who is an academic at Oxford University? Probably less money focused, but the IP would belong to the University anyway.

Astrazeneca wasn't even as good as Pfizer or Moderna

So there are deserving rich and undeserving ones?

Deserving would be getting their money through legal means.

Undeserving would be like fraud and deception and theft.

First post nails it.

That's absurd, all you would do is remove the incentive to work hard. Anybody who could potentially make more than 1 million would just not bother trying to make more, by cutting their own hours, cutting employees' hours, cutting something that will have a knock on effect bc why would anybody want to put in more effort when there is no gain? As much as you would like to think people would just keep effort the same and pay the rest in taxes or charity it's just not the case. I certainly would put a cap on my output or the output of my company if there was a cap on what I could earn and would in no way be content with the fact that it's going to the govt so all good.

Just ridiculous.

Same. We are high earners and use every tax loophole in the book, we would be stupid not to.

Spoken like someone who likely doesn't earn much, lives off benefits and expects everyone else to pay her way.

No thanks, I will continue to use every tax loophole available to me as is my right.

No I mean Kate Gilbert who led the team in the lab that developed the vaccine.

So there are deserving rich and undeserving ones?

There are wealthy people who use their wealth for the benefit of society and to make the world a better place and those who accumulate it and sit on it. The rich have been great philanthropists in the past and have used their wealth positively, like Andrew Carnegie. It’s a shame so few wealthy people now have the same philosophy.

Frankly, if the option was to have everything above any hypothetical ceiling figure creamed off by government (any government) why would you bother putting in the hours earning it?

It will only shock a few naive earnest people if I say that in my 68 years on the planet, with 30 of them spent working to make a living, I have not seen many politicians who knew enough to direct and spend government tax revenues well. If you have only ever been in politics, and have never had to pay your staff and make a profit out of the difference, to pay yourself, then tant pis.

My DH's SME has operated for 30+ years. It was started with money earned tax free working overseas, not from family money. And now, to brag a little, it's still small but employs very highly skilled engineer technicians. We pay better than local wages, and (Normally)13 months salary a year. The 13th month depends on how much work and how much profit. But my work paid for us to live on in its first three years.

If I made the rules, nobody’s annual income would be allowed to exceed a million pounds. The self-employed would have to nominate a service, charity or cause to receive anything they made over that amount.

Imagine you want to buy a product of such a company, but they've already sold enough to make a million pounds in income. Unfortunately they therefore won't therefore produce any more and you'll have to wait until the next year.

Is that really what you want??????

Disingenuous. That post was about individuals, not companies.

That still isn’t right, though. I think JKR is wonderful. I will be eternally grateful to her for standing beside women and openly using the untouchable status her money gives her to shield us.

But on the flip side, there’s Elon Musk, who is quite clearly willing and able to use his money against truth and democracy whilst claiming the opposite. It’s terrifying that he can. And you can’t pick and choose who is allowed to keep their billions based on whether they support your particular worldview.

There are wealthy people who use their wealth for the benefit of society and to make the world a better place and those who accumulate it and sit on it.

What about those who work hard, therefore contributing to society through their work and by paying taxes, and then enjoying their wealth?

@Blossomtoes, so where do you draw the line between a small entrepreneur and a small company?

And if a small company prospers, and grows, do you redraw the framework?

You are a regular poster here, our politics are not so different and I trust your integrity, so give me a pen picture of where the balance tips. It's unlikely to upset me because I am fairly certain I won't fall foul of any rules you'd invent, but I am very interested in how you would frame a workable tax environment.

Disingenuous. That post was about individuals, not companies.

The same applies to individuals. Say you wanted to book a service from said individual, but unfortunately he/she again already passed the £1m threshold just before your enquiry? Again, they won't do any more work if they can't keep their earnings!

I’m not talking about those people. I’m talking about the Bezos and Jobs of this world.

Thank you for that post @Papyrophile, I’m curiously touched by the reference to trusting my integrity, how odd that something from a stranger I’ve never met should mean so much. Can I come back to you? I need to think it through and give you the considered answer you deserve.

Have you ever heard of Atom Learning?
Two co-founders, both are 32 years old Oxford grads. Last year turnover was £45m IIRC. Employed team are rather small.
Assume they can continue drawing income for another 50 years each, that's £100m both of them would be allowed to take in total. Business will bring this in another 4-5 years or so. Should they close this business then? and do what next?

Of course, @Blossomtoes. I've been here long enough to know whose posts are worth reading, even when I sometimes disagree with their views. Take your time to think.

Please define rich.

Why is it a problem if people put a cap on productivity etc and keep their companies small? Just means there’s more room in the market for other businesses. I can’t imagine anyone gets a salary of a million such that cutting hours etc would make a difference! People aren’t on annual salaries of £900,000 and then got a raise to a million ‘for working hard’!

I think it’s business owners that make that much. Nobody really needs more than a million pounds every year.
Plus people do work for reasons other than money, especially when they already have plenty of it. Look at Rishi Sunak. People want a legacy. Fame. To ‘make a difference’.
If there is less incentive for big corporations to swell and monopolise markets and earn megabucks for their CEOs that’s not a problem as far as I’m concerned. 🤷‍♀️

I mean, let’s cull them all!

@MrsSkylerWhite that's the question none of us can answer definitively. There are posters who think that if you earn £40k and have a pension you are rich, because they are on NMW and UC. And people who earn £250K plus bonus managing money in the City. And Russian oligarchs who raped their oil and gas industry after Boris Yeltsin croaked who swank aound immune from any rules. Leaving those crooks aside, you could think DH and I are rich. I would agree that we are prosperous now, at 68, after 45 years of work, and saving. We have a nice house we bought a long time ago, and we have savings and a SIPP that is working well right now. We are just about worth £1.5 million in property and cash after all those years of work. Neither of us inherited money, so it's all our earnings. But if we need care, we shall be expected to pay for it, and we will, cheerfully because we shall have a choice of where we end up. Losing the WFA does not present a problem. I can afford the oil and the logs (no gas supply) to stay warm.

My trepidation is around the new Government's wish to tax the rich. It's actually very very difficult to tax the ultra-rich who only alight briefly and flit off elsewhere. I fear that the Government will set their sights on the settled well to do middle class, instead. We're a much easier target and we have fewer options for flight.

And there are more of us!