AIBU to say that I have had enough of this government and Its grabby supporters.

[Ihavehadenough1345]

I have name changed for this and am prepared for the pile on, backlash, kicking I am going to get but I have had enough!

My tax bill was £80,000 this year. I am self employed. I pay £16,000 a year in VAT. I have a valuable asset. I own my own home.
no mortgage. I have worked bloody hard. No inheritance, no Oxbridge, no privilege and no luck!

I pay for private school for 2 DC.

I am asset rich, cash poor. I have enough money to pay all of my bills, no debt, I’m not extravagant. If you met me you wouldn’t know my financial situation. I am normal.

But my tax contribution is not enough for this government and its supporters.

I read all of the posts of all of the threads regarding VAT on school fees, UC, the cost
of living crisis and on and on and on!

I have had enough.

And I do not need therapy and I do not have ADHD or bipolar.

Let the games begin!

Sorry £187K is this year's income I think it was £160 ish in 23/24.

@Neurodiversitydoctor you honestly think £187k pa is the middle? Wow!

They’re not employed in the UK. Are you seriously suggesting that a UK company should be banned from employing non UK residents? I’m not sure you’ve thought that through!

What you say is true. But it is also true that the system is very near breaking point, not only in UK, but globally. Corporations and ultra- rich people are taking too much money, while the vast majority of people are struggling more and more and more as days go on.
Money needs to be put back at the lower earning scales, to substain the capitalist system.
Otherwise, you can find the consequences in the history books.
So, or you either are aware and ready to do your bit for society, or you are the problem. So do not act surprised if those struggling do not show much sympathy or concern about rich people leaving the country in mass....

I am completely archetypally middle class...

Really? DD's bf is Canadian. He reckons the Canadian economy is dire. He says he has come to realise he will never be able to afford to buy a house as the prices of everything has shot up so much.

Food, etc is way more expensive there. Yes wages are higher but I guess this is the problem with increasing wages - prices just go up as well. I don't know what the answer is, I really don't.

We seem to have a service economy rather than a manufacturing industry. Maybe we should concentrate on trying to rectify that. Which seems to be what Trump wants for the USA. But how can Western countries compete with places like China, etc which due to their poor working conditions will always be able to make stuff for cheaper?

Maybe we are seeing a reset of world order - China, etc will become the powerful ones and we will sink into poverty over the next 50-100 years?

I have much more outgoings than private school fees x 2. Cost of living crisis!

This whole them vs us thing is so silly. You aren't a super rich person. You have more in common with the "grabby" people who rely on taxes than you do with the really wealthy who manage to avoid taxes. You're taking your frustrations out on the wrong people.

Agree with pp re the states. I'm a US citizen, (but haven't lived there since I was tiny). The cost of living there is huge now. Paying less in taxes would not make you feel rich living there. Depending on what you do for a living you would be better paid, but for people who studied there, their student loan bills can become obscene. Then there is health care. Student loans are never forgiven and have huge levels of interest there, so you could be making a modest salary there and have many thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Even if you declare bankruptcy your student loans don't get forgiven. It is one of the debts you cannot get out of. Then health care, which I'm sure people know can become ridiculous. Some states pass on the debt to the patient's children if they can't get money out of the patient as well. Even if they are estranged or the patient is dead. It isn't a soft life over there for people who earn the equivalent of £80k p/a. Sorry, it just isn't.

You might be - doesn't mean you don't earn more than the vast majority of people.

I know someone with over 100million in the bank who's working class. So what? He's still loaded!

You should. Any increase in knowledge would amount to 100% uplift in your case. That’s a good return on time invested.

To be fair I think people are thinking more about multimillionaires or billionaires when they say these things, not people on £200k.

Personally my sympathies are more with the disabled people scraping by and about to lose benefits because they "can work" even though nobody would ever employ them than they are with people who are in the top 1% of income though.

As someone who presumably runs a business, would you consider employing someone with mental health problems that make them unreliable, or chronic fatigue syndrome who can only work an hour or two a day, on a good day, or someone in a wheelchair that means you need to adapt your premises to accommodate them, or someone autistic who might struggle with communication?

After all you can't complain about people holding their hands out instead of working if you yourself consider them to be unemployable.

The issue with this country is that no one wants change. The NHS is no longer fit for purpose and needs scrapping and we need serious benefit reform - as whether people want to accept this or not - it’s being abused by people who can actually work.
until these matters are dealt with the rich will continue to bear the brunt and be leaving in their droves.
I feel for your OP. Sadly we live in a country where we just want to drain the workers to pay for everyone else and it makes working hard seem fruitless.

For that particular poster, the answer to every question and every argument is Nigel Farage. Apparently, if he were Prime Minister, he would make the UK an immigrant-free paradise, the NHS would become a social insurance model and he would massively lower taxes and all our problems would be solved.

Fuck me. You hear about kids living in poverty and your response is ‘poor rich people’ ‘get your hands off my money’ ‘those poor people should have just worked harder’?

Thats disgraceful

Sorry, you must make £200k-ish p/a, not £80k.

Even still, my point is you aren't Bezos. You are closer to poverty than you are the mega wealthy who manage to avoid tax

It's magical how well off people always make this big point about how they worked for it. It's always someone else who got lucky or had privileges. Meanwhile I suppose the poor should just have worked harder.

the UK really doesn't have this massively generous benefit system like people think it does. It does have a poor match of jobs to available workers and a poor record at education and training. Not to mention the big regional differences in employment and housing costs, so people who can't find a job are told to move somewhere that has more but people who can't afford housing are told to go somewhere it's cheaper. I haven't figured out this mythical location where jobs and housing balance out...

Canada's economy is quite strong but it has a housing cost problem. Quite honestly all the anglophone countries do at the moment.

Exactly. People have always had a right to other people's money. That is how society functions. We don't qualify for any benefits fwiw, but a decent society doesn't let people starve to death or freeze to death because they haven't got enough money "and my money's mines, mines, MINES" <stamps toddler foot>

Can someone explain how has the Op's tax position changed since July last year?
I understand the p/s vat but what else is the thread about? I feel like I must be missing something.

That doesn’t make you middle income though.

Likewise my brother in Australia.

Middle East I buy but you have to be OK with the human rights record there to go there, which probably won’t be an issue for some of the people on this thread from what I’m reading. They can carry on counting their pile of money, congratulating themselves on how hard they’ve worked whilst berating those pesky poor people who just aren’t making an effort.

And a final point about my homeland - if people don't pay their taxes there (you have to file and pay them every year even if you don't live there anymore, with no help from the government/IRS to do so), they can (and do) throw people in federal prison.

That is absolutely not what you said in your op 🙄

I mean I am a higher rate tax payer that pays for state schooling that I as someone who is child free will never use at all. Sucks to be me eh?

Or you could say I am happy to pay my contribution to educating the next generation.

And then no one from overseas would ever - ever - invest in the UK again. Communism does not work.