Anyone else lost a bit of ambition now they’ve been taxed to the brink?

[Peasontoastt]

I used to be extremely ambitious and was really eager to reach some sort of financial security. As a consequence, I’m in what’s considered a highly paid career, I work hard and it took me many years to train.

Just as I paid off my student loan (which took many years), I then had a baby and returned to work to be stuck with the childcare dilemma. I struggled through that phase and have come out the other side but being taxed so much, no child benefit, still paying for nursery even though dd has ‘free’ hours now. It’s likely that savings are going to be bashed next, so what’s the point in even putting anything aside when there’s likely going to be a 4K cap on ISAs.

I used to feel so ambitious and of course I know money isn’t everything, not by a long shot. But having worked my way up the ladder and with huge responsibilities only to feel penalised financially for doing so…what is the point? Yes I have more financial security than someone claiming benefits but equally, I am not being flippant when I say a few years of resting and being at home and being frugal is starting to seem so much more attractive. Has anyone else started feeling this way? I feel taken the piss out of by every financial angle!

Well if the OP is ambitious I don’t think she doesn’t want to work, or probably spend every waking hour of the summer being an SAHP, or live in the kind of housing that housing benefit covers..

@soupyspoon did you read your article. The difference is because of other countries versions of NI taxes eg social security. But in other countries it's a different system eg we don't like benefits to what you pay in.

And if you look at income tax it's lower & middle earners who pay less than our European counterparts not higher earners.

As I said, see how it works out for you 😄

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No, but she doesn't want to pay for lazy ffers she doesn't even know to be living that lifestyle either. That's the problem, why on earth are people allowed to get away with it?

Yes. Completely. I’m cutting down to part time. I’d rather have the extra day for family than become a higher rate tax payer and pay half of it in tax. My husband runs his own business and has battened the hatches. He’s becoming a sole trader. He’ll work with other some traders but he won’t employ people. His clients are all overseas, so every penny his firm earns is a net gain to the U.K. economy, but the combination of taxes, red tape, insurance and so on meant he had to do this if he wanted to earn anything himself. Otherwise there’s nothing leftover after paying everyone and everything else.

Thing is a lot of people have opted out of paying tax via the black economy which is growing at an alarming rate and costs the country tens of billions in lost tax revenue, benefit fraud and CMS fraud. Unfortunately a lot of "customers" of such people are only too happy to pay cash to facilitate the black economy for their own selfish benefit of avoiding VAT etc., whilst the person providing the goods services evades income tax, NIC, and the staff they pay in cash also evade tax and NIC, often alongside continuing to claim unemployment benefits, etc. It's a massive problem and growing.

A huge number of other really successful countries have higher rates of tax than the UK. I have lived in two of them (Sweden and Germany) and I did not notice any lack of ambition in those countries. They manage to have ambitious, successful, entrepreneurial populations at the same time as well as decent public services, less child poverty, clean streets etc.

No. It’s only right that I pay more tax as my earnings increase. I’m a socialist.

We are a low tax economy overall, thats the point, we have less coming in.

Im a higher rate tax payer, but we're not the majority of tax payers.

I live in Ireland and pay 51% on marginal income, and that kicks in way lower than the UK. Add to that my pension contribution and I take home 40c/€.

honestly, I don’t begrudge the tax I pay.

it pays for free health service, teachers, policing, roads, social welfare etc. Sure - I believe they can be more effectively delivered, so there could be more bang for my buck, but honestly, i am of the view that if I and others don’t pay tax these type of services cannot be provided for all.

I am way more in favour of our model of society than the apparently low-tax US model which is all about the individual and nothing about society in general.

I’m astounded every one cares so much about the ISA allowance. We’re a £160k income household, and still struggle to use our full ISA allowance every year. We save £1,500 a month, and most of it outside of ISAs as even after tax you can still generally get a similar rate after tax so it’s not even that necessary.

Nooones asking for that high level stuff.
People are saying it's shit I can't afford a newer car or to go on holiday, I only just break even in life, I work loads and get bumped for tax, yet Betty and her family down the road who are all on benefits have a lovely new car and are on their 2nd Benidorm holiday.

I'm in the Cayman Islands. It's hot and there are hurricanes and mosquitoes to consider every summer. Summers here are utter shit. The worst. Depressingly hot and humid. But the positives outweigh the negatives. The standard of living has no comparison with what we had in London. Yes, I was making over 100k in London, just. But I had to work until 2am to get that kind of salary.

Net, I got paid less hourly than my cleaner. I actually did the maths. And I was childless at the time, fml if I had to pay for nursery too.

No, I've never felt taxed to the brink, because compared to most of Europe taxes are really rather low in the UK - they just aren't high enough to support a decent level of public services. I worry that at 20% my basic rate tax is unsustainably low. I think it should go up a modest amount, with steeper rises for the higher rates.

We're a low tax nation?

Give me a break.

If you can save £400 a month you can easily afford to have gone on holiday in the last ten years.

Do you genuinely think that spending a day a week with your family makes you "less ambitious" though?🙄 I'd say you have achieved the ability of being able to make that choice. Why is that a negative?

I'm ambitious but money isn't how I measure that. It's nice but I earn enough to consider myself lucky to be a net contributor and able to support my wider family. No one likes paying tax, but it's a bloody sight better than the alternative surely?

20 years ago I had a dozen staff, now it's just me! The cost of employing people, training them, employers NIC, then the introduction of workplace pensions, sick pay, etc was just too much. I slowly downsized the business as staff left (retired, moved away, left to have children or career changed) and just never replaced any of them. I now make as much profit on my own as I did with a dozen staff, and have started to cut down my working hours and cherry picking the work I do for the less stress/easier work for less stress/easier clients.

Thinking about it, very few clients have staff anymore and all cite the same reasons that it's too expensive, too stressful and too risky.

That's why there's barely any economic growth in the small business sector.

Sweden and Germany have lower corporation tax and other taxes that you don’t see but which massively impact business operating costs. We have the joint highest corporation tax in Europe with France, but their productivity is higher so they can bear it better. We combine this with the highest electricity prices in the world (due to tax). It makes doing business here impossibly high cost, especially in manufacturing.

OP they talked about limiting tax free amounts for cash ISAs to encourage people to put money in a stocks and shares ISA to aid investments. You can still put your 20k there.

@soupyspoon but the OP is a higher earner so why not just reply and tell her lower earners should be paying more tax?

Sounds similar. It’s really sad.

You want even more from the higher rates?? 🤣

Hmm not sure my job would be transferable there. Sounds great though!