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.

I also think if you earn in that bracket, it's not by accident. You don't win jobs like that in the postcode lottery or get them from a back to work scheme. I always had a clear plan which included making some hard decisions and compromises along the line. I could be living in the UK in a middle class exhistence if I wanted but I chose to live a certain way. If I was living in the UK and evading tax fair enough but people still hate anyone they know doing well and act like it happened through luck rather than taking the tome to see that maybe we just make our choices according to our plans for life. Life is short, I'm not going to sacrifice any of the time I have while I am healthy and active swooning with guilt about people who chose a different life. You can't have it all but you can decide what you want and go for it. Or sit at home and feel sorry for yourself.

Oh love, is that really the best you can do? Totally irrelevant in this context. I have lived in many different countries with varying cultures toward women, children, animals, environment etc and each has its highs and lows. Luckily I don't depend on the Guardian to inform me about how the actual world is, I live in it. I think one of the worst things about the UK is the throwback to the empire attitude of thinking we are somehow more civilised than everyone else. Believe me, there are few less attractive places to be for a relatively successful female engineer in a corporate setting. Gammon is a massive problem, even in our primitive pork free host countries 🤣

I pay higher rate tax and wouldn't give up my rights to pay less, or to employ staff who have no employment rights and living standards I wouldn't tolerate, you might be fine but that's not the case for women outside of your socio-economic ex pat bubble, but you do you, love.

I would try to explain why you're wrong but frankly I doubt you have the capacity to understand

Of course you are.....

You did not answer the question. You fudged.

There is no need to be rude. If you want to explain do so. If not there’s no need for insults. However I realise I have made an error. I read “raising” as meaning “ever increasing” when in fact I think you probably meant it as simply “collecting” Of course we need taxes, but we don’t need them to keep increasing so we are left with very little of our own money.

But they don’t turn up for hours now. The system isn’t working. We have extortionate marginal rates of tax- as one person has said 100% in some cases. If we can’t deliver decent services when some people are paying all of what they earn, over and above a basic amount, there is something fundamentally wrong with the assumption that all we need is more money and everything will be hunky dory. We need a totally different attitude to tax, earnings and benefits. A rethink we are not going to get from a labour government how instead will inhibit growth and leave us slll worse off than we have ever been.

Nail on the head there. Public services have been on the decline for decades. Back in the 80s, it was a standing joke around here that if you wanted the police to attend, you had to over-exaggerate. Same with the NHS - it was crap back in the noughties when mis-diagnoses killed my father in law along with piss poor "care" of being left in his own wee all day - that was at the so-called height of Blair's spunking extra millions at the NHS and claiming how wonderful it was! I think people have rose coloured glasses (or are too young to experience it) if they think our public services were so much better a couple of decades or more ago.

Tory governments don't tend to raise income tax directly but the previous Conservative government froze the Personal Allowance so more people pay tax and more people pay tax at the higher rates. Previous Conservative governments have preferred to raise indirect taxes such as VAT.

The conservatives also increased personal allowances in past years far beyond inflation.

They also increased the NIC threshold meaning lots of people now pay no, or less, NIC. They also reduced the NIC rate. That was directed help at workers!

You have to look at the whole picture and not just pick things out.

Lower paid and those living on benefits have done very well out of the Tories. It's middle earners that were screwed.

According to the Resolution Foundation, pensioners are the only group to benefit from radical changes to the welfare system by Conservative governments since 2010. Their overhaul of social security has shifted spending on children and housing to supporting elderly people.

The hardest hit groups since 2010 have been out-of-work households receiving benefits, who have lost on average £2,200 a year, and large families of three children or more, who are worse off by £4,600 on average.

The main difference since 2010 is the narrative that being out of work and on benefits is a moral failing and the 'hard-working tax payer' is shouldering the burden. This led to the punitive processes for claiming sickness and disability benefits.

The only reason they have the option to take early retirement is if they have paid in to a pension when they were earning lots…

The tax isn’t the problem here - it’s the 10% into Pension (which you are giving to your future self) and paying back the student loan (which has resulted in you being able to earn £15k a month). I actually take home £7k a month and don’t earn anywhere near £15k gross - but my pension contributions are lower and my student loan has been paid off. Your scenario is fake news.

The country you live in out of interest what is their record like when it comes to women's rights?

At 18k tax free a month, honestly who cares? I've lived in the Gulf, it's pretty easy to stay well out of trouble.
Knew plenty of gay people and unmarried couples cohabiting, don't scare the horses and no-one cares.

Or benefitted from inheritances.

Really don’t think somebody earning £150k and paying 10% in to a pension will be awaiting their inheritance before deciding whether to retire.