To think getting less than 50% of your pay is crazy?

[rampe]

If someone earns £15,000 a month. They have a student loan. They pay in 10% into their pension.
They take home less than £7,000 a month.

And to be honest from my generation it is quite unusual to still be paying student loan and earning 180k. Mine was circa 25K and I paid it off about 8/9 years after starting work as a junior Dr so well before I got to consultant level where you start to see six figures. Maybe this type of salary with student loan scenario applies to those working in finance or law.

Wait and see. If it isn’t yet it soon will be as a large number of people have socialist attitudes as demonstrated by this thread. Socialists believe that the money I earn is there’s for the taking. This attitude keeps people poor as it stifles ambition. When the attitude is not only applied to what I earn but also to what I have accumulated it discourages thrift and fosters profilagcy.

All government taxes go into one pot. With the exception of the TV licence fee nothing is ring fenced.

Obviously tax needs to be raised in order to pay for the infrastructure that allows you to earn

Oh OP you think that’s bad, my top rate is 100%.

62% tax + NI

Plus ~£14k loss of childcare support (post-tax).

I pay a 100% rate between £100-135k.

I know a lot of people going part time as a result of this. It’s stupid.

I am pleased that we have a reasonably functioning democracy, nhs, criminal justice system, armed forces, social services, state pensions, benefits system and so on. None of this is free and it is only right that people earning bigger salaries pay more towards this. Plus we are lucky to have access to systems by which we can save for retirement. I did fall off my chair at the idea of a salary of 15k a month. My gross is less than half that and I consider myself very well off.

I guess many senior Drs are on that because of CEAs which have stopped now and all existing were kept. Any newer consultants on such amounts would be through additional work like pp or even ISTC work usually put through a LTD company so would have an accountant.

When you get knocked down by a car don't complain when the police and ambulance don't turn up for hours.

I don't understand why you are considering your hypothetical person's pension contribution of £1500 a month to be "lost" to them, as if it were tax.

I earn a lot less than £15000 a month, and if I chose to pay £1500 a month into my pension I'd be left with less than half of my gross income as take-home pay, too.

Yeah because the neoliberal wankfest this country has been since 1979 has really made the country really great and rosy, hasn't it.

Unfettered capitalism is great! Unless you're old and need help with heating, or you need to get medical attention. Or you're disabled and the government just decides you should die because you cost too much. Or the government spaffs all our tax money on their friends. Then it's great.

These doctors could do years less schooling and go into finance/banking/consultancy, to make the same amount with less stress (because if your slide deck is shit, no one dies).
But they CHOOSE to be doctors

Well thank goodness they do otherwise it wouldn’t be very helpful to society if they all did less schooling and went into finance.

Many Drs are on 12 PAs, our trust pays responsibility supplements of upto 20K, bit of waiting list work and the CMO is on a VSM contract...I promise there are medics on £180K PAYE. I don't quite earn that but I paid £50K income tax last year.

🤣 that's about what I earn in a year. I think that's an excellent take home! Your student loan won't last forever.

That may be so. I know Finland has a high rate of tax. But for that the Finns get an exceptional education for their children, a good health service and to top it all their roads aren't filled with potholes and their streets are clean. If i lived in Finland I might not feel the way I do about how much we pay in tax for so little in return.

The Finns are also far less likely to be burgled or stabbed than we are.

You talk of income tax. I wonder if you actually know what rate of tax we pay in England. Most people when asked don't get anywhere near the actual rate.

Not a chance the OP is returning...

But yes, boohoo, that monthly income is more than I earn annually.

Reasonably functioning is quite a stretch. Countries with a higher tax burden have sigificstbly better services, ours are crumbling.

The problem is with tax - we compare - it’s our LOWER and MIDDLE earners who have low taxes. The higher earners have some of the highest comparatively. There is no where to go with this tax base anymore. They are paying record high taxes. The IMF and HMRC now are warning about this. HMRC are now saying discussed CGT rises will result in a NET LOSS of tax revenue as people will simply move.

Posters on here have been saying this for ages. It’s already happening. We are at a tipping point of what higher earners will tolerate. They are taxed highly compared to peers in other countries. Other fiscal bodies have been saying this for a while. Even HMRC have now jumped in and said projected tax rises will result in a net loss.

The off you fuck brigade never had the strongest critical thinking skills. That’s what official bodies are now saying is and will happen. Compared to other countries where higher earners are taxed similarly and see a decent public service provision, lower and middle earners don’t pay enough. The welfare system is also overly generous in comparison too. So before people start shouting too loudly, I’d think carefully about the next logical step for any government.

@Aduvetday

Nail on the head there. It's the lower income people who aren't paying enough and/or claiming too much in benefits. As you say, higher wage earners already suffer a relatively high tax burden compared to their peers in other countries.

Lots of people are too blinded by jealously and resentment that if someone earns more than they do they are incapable of critically thinking about the wider implications. People on here also assume higher earners (over £100k, not exceptionally high for most countries) don't work as hard as people on lower wages which is laughable- clueless.

Yeah I heard some are on 12 PAs and I was advised that was the maximum activity I could do. I myself do 10.75. However a lot of trusts are in terrible deficit and some have even put a hold on waiting list work.

Great post.

Haha yes.

People do things without the profit motive all the time. The profit motive is only one in a very wide range of motivations for doing something. If someone is becoming a doctor only because they want to make good money, they tend to not be a doctor for very long (saw one influencer whose leaving the profession after a couple years to become a management consultant and make more money for less stress, so it does happen). Same as people who become teachers for the relative job security.

Hear hear.

One of the reasons UK public services are f--ked is because the lower and middle earners do not pay enough tax. Higher earners are already taxed to the limit with dangerous tax cliff edges (particularly at 100K) and removal of means tested benefits that disincentivise moving up the salary scale, whilst having to pay double/triple for private medical and schools because despite all of their high earnings, public services still remain poor.

Is it any wonder the UK economy is stagnant and cannot pull itself out of its rut. The private sector engines for growth are being stifled and will be even more under Labour. Cannot blame high earners for thinking of greener pastures.

No, socialists believe that more equal societies are generally more prosperous with better social cohesion that less equal societies. Less equal societies have less stable economies.

Rich people have far more opportunities than low and average earners to avoid paying tax, e.g. through trusts, and off-shore tax havens.