To not be happy about paying this much tax

[Lovingthehamsterwheel]

Name changed to enable objectivity.
I just saw this new tax calculator that shows you how much tax you are paying in total, including all hidden taxes, council tax etc

For a Person on 75k a year, 44 percent of earnings go on tax.

10k of that is spent on welfare.

Am i being unreasonable to think this is absolutely a terrible time to be alive in terms of taxes in the UK. And it is no wonder higher earners are leaving the country.

tax.corgi.global/

We're paying 556% more tax than he average UK household. Seems a bit much.

Are you now? How are you managing that?

All of it, especially when said in such a dismissive way.

If it is true that an increasing number of employers are 'apparently' removing a degree from person specs, that is wonderful news but that has clearly not been the case for the last several decades, where more employers required degrees for entry over that time period, sometimes even Masters degrees. It also hasn't happened yet (you say apparently in may be starting). Good apprenticeships are very competitive and few and far between, some entrants relying on nepotism to gain a position.
I have never been favour of 50% of the population having degrees but this is the situation that those in their 20s and 30s, even 40s have had to deal with. It was much, much easier to get a job when their parents were young. They probably had the benefit of a better secondary school education too.

It also hasn't happened yet

The link from The Times says it’s happening now. 40% of companies have done it. 🤷‍♀️

Interesting. I don't have a subscription currently. Are you able to C&P/link without a paywall? I would be interested to see how things may be changing, especially if for the better!

Research from LinkedIn last year showed there was a 14.2 per cent increase in the share of UK job postings not requiring a degree between 2021 and 2024. Meanwhile, a study by recruiter Hays in 2023 found nearly half of UK employers agreed that “it is no longer important that a job applicant has a degree”.

“Tech-reliant roles evolve so fast that any previous education can become outdated quickly, so employers are less concerned about this when looking for new hires,” explained Matt Weston, UK senior managing director at the recruitment firm Robert Half.

Only half of technology workers now have a degree, according to the 2024 Global Tech Talent & Salary Report from recruitment firm Harvey Nash.

Even that proportion could now be shrinking, according to Mike Britton, who worked in cybersecurity for big companies including tech giant IBM and is now chief information officer at specialist firm Abnormal Security.

“Generative AI is moving so fast that a certificate or degree could be outpaced in months,” Britton said. “Firms are more interested in candidates’ soft skills to tackle new technology.”

Many thanks for posting that @BIossomtoes. I wonder if these are mainly tech jobs, where AI is taking over a lot of the content. It's really hard to know what to advise my children nowadays as things are changing so fast in every way. The UK doesn't look like the good option it has been previously though.

If it’s nearly half of UK employers it seems unlikely to be just tech jobs. It’s the inevitable result of degrees being devalued, it’s what many of my generation predicted when Blair introduced the policy. I feel very sorry for all those people saddled with huge amounts of pointless debt.

Exactly. I feel really sorry for younger generations, for this and other reasons.
I don't think I'm of your generation so was young when Blair introduced this particular aim but was also against it from the start. He just imagined that the well paid, skilled jobs would appear, which was totally unrealistic. Cynically, now that I am older, I suspect that there was an element of wanting to keep the employment numbers looking good. I have had long discussions with my children about whether degrees are worthwhile nowadays.

They lump the state pension in with welfare which they shouldn’t. We all pay for our state pension through national insurance contributions.

No, your NI contributions are paying for the pensioners that exist now.

NI contributions are a joke. Hint: if it's measured in "qualifying years!" instead of pounds, it's probably not funded.

I don't see how pensions are any different to any other type of welfare. It's money from the public purse awarded to you because the state deems you unable to earn your own income. No different to the basis on which disability payments are awarded. Yes, pensioners have paid in all or most of their lives but most disabled people also paid in for as long as they were able to. A tiny number of the disabled have never contributed through working and those in that situation are almost entirely the most profoundly disabled who of course have been totally unable to.

Whilst I agree fully with you. I think the problem arose because for a few decades, we had "enhanced" earnings related state pensions, with graduated pensions, then SERPS, then S2P, etc., where you got higher state pension based on your earnings levels. Along with that, we had "contracting out" where you could pay less NIC for a corresponding amount paid into your personal pension instead. Those decades really muddied the waters with pensioners having the mindset that they're "earned" their pensions, as most indeed have "earned" some of it - the earnings related portion! We've now gone back to where we started, i.e. you get a fixed state pension if you've enough years' worth of credits (or stamps as they used to be known). But most people who are now receiving state pension will be receiving a mix of basic and enhanced state pensions. New retirees will only receive the basic state pension, like newly retired used to get a few decades ago. I think that's part of why there's such a mentality of "entitlement" to state pensions from current pensioners as they've had decades of there being promises of higher state pensions the more you earn (assuming you didn't contract out). That mentality has now shifted for younger workers into thinking that if they want a higher pension than the basic state pension, they have to fund it themselves via private or workplace pension schemes and they are generally seeing the state benefit as a "state benefit" rather than something they've earned, because that's what it's reverted back to (if they expect one at all - lots don't think they'll be entitled anyway in 30/40 years time with a universal benefit like state pension being unaffordable).

No, you really don't. NIC is now just another tax. No longer any link between NIC payments and state pension. Lots of people have paid little or no NIC yet still eligible for state pension.

That calculator does seem off but I agree with you, the taxes here are shocking and high rate tax payers see no benefit. We are both high rate tax payers who can't get out of this country soon enough!

I hate to be the devil's advocate but really do you think that without a sophisticated society with infrastructure and social safety nets that you would be able to earn 75k- you would be lucky to earn a tenth of that- you just have to suck it up or disappear up your own fundament like the tax hating US of A- soon they won't even have democracy or the rule of law, all because they took very stupid decisions because they hate tax so much they voted to self destruct instead.

There are lots of low tax countries where people can earn relatively high amounts.

Where? Dubai, UAE- certain problems with that.
The tax rates in European countries are similar to each other , except in Scandinavia, which has higher wages a better standard of living and higher tax.
Where were you thinking of?

Yes, it's very common. In fact they tend to be countries where you can get staff for extremely cheap wages because they're so impoverished and desperate. You might have some private security costs you wouldn't have here, but again, security guards are cheap enough that any middle class family can have one...

The downside is that you feel like an exploitative dickhead and you feel bad because there are beggars on every street when you go outside. But you'll probably be raking it in (if you're one of the top earners).

Point is the downside is social/guilt not that you won't be able to make enough money

Depends on what skills you have, this option isn't open to everyone.

You paid these under the last conservative government 🙄

Australia, Canada, Singapore, Japan all spring to mind. Probably more SE Asian countries too, but I haven’t worked in them. Closer to home there’s probably Switzerland!

Australia, Canada and Switzerland , all pay similar or higher tax than we do. Singapore tax is lower but you pay a year in advance or go to jail, you will also need to speak Cantonese or Mandarin in Switzerland one of their 4 languages. Japan has taxes as high as ours and you have to speak fluent Japanese.

Sure but the set of people we're considering (high tax payers in the UK) they're more likely to be in that group