To think that there is no hope here?

[Taxed]

52.6% of UK individuals are reliant on the State (that is 35 million people). Only 47.4% are net contributors. How did we get here?

AIBU to think that the UK is now a declining economy that will never recover if this continues to be the case?

I am 49 and a high earner (just shy of the top 1%). My husband is also a high earner and we are thinking of leaving. We don't know where but we know we have to as the situation in the UK is getting worse not better. The only thing that is keeping us here is our son, who is still in secondary school. I am actively encouraging him to consider a future outside of the UK.

I genuinely feel that being ambitious and successful is not worth it in the UK. People hate you for it and want to see you penalised. They think that whatever you do to earn the money it must be easy and a breeze. That you are greedy and need to be made to pay for doing well. Just last week, I heard that the government might be thinking of implementing a charge, payable by high earners, to access the NHS. Everything is about taxing the already heavily taxed even more and few want to face up to the fact that this is unsustainable when you have most of your people relying on the State to live.

People complain about the immigrants but they make up a tiny proportion of 35 million.

I feel disliked for doing well and just can't see a future here and it is making me angry and sad. I believe in having a welfare state, in helping those who are in need but 52.6%? The country is on its knees when most of its people are in need. That is like a developing country not a developed and thriving economy.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm just tired, sad and have just about lost hope of enjoying life in the UK.

It's had not to conclude that there is definitely no hope for the UK when so many fail to acknowledge the cold hard facts and instead dive into weeds in an attempt to make the problem go away.

However, you cut it, the country cannot afford to tax the minority to fund the majority, regardless of what constitutes the growing majority. The composition of that majority may change and there may be a myriad of reasons why certain groups or even individuals are in that majority. Nevertheless, it has reached an unsustainable point where it is no longer beneficial to the UK to increase the taxes levied on the minority. We have reached the point of diminishing returns.

What is very worrying is that more people are on sick related benefits than before. The wealth of a nation is correlated with the health of its people. Why is happening? Is the answer to tax more to support a nation that is sicker and getting sicker? Or is the solution to tackle the root of the problem?

On another note, I marvel at those who feel such anger and contempt at those who are financially well-off. Reading some posts, it sounds like high income folks should be punished for being "lucky" and "undeserving". It's all very warped and quite frankly, a disastrous way of thinking for the future of the UK. Taxes should be paid to support those who, for whatever reason, simply cannot help themselves. It should be a safety net and not a way of life. When taxation begins to harm the future prosperity of a country and in turn, the well-being of the very people who rely on state support, then surely it is time to go back to the drawing board.

Do you understand that people working in the public sector pay taxes? It's really not clear whether you do.

Are you suggesting a cull at age 65, that would alleviate the burden of 12.6m of the people you reference who are receiving the state pension. The leeches. Except the ones who have an income that means they, err, pay tax - which is about 9 million of them. A tiny proportion.

Then we get rid of 6m public sector employees by stopping public services. Scrap the NHS, we can afford to pay privately so we don't benefit from that.

That leaves about 3m students and higher education employees - if you want to study, go abroad and pay someone else to do it. That sounds like a sound economic footing for any nation.

Then there's 150k HR and planning workers - who needs HR? They can retrain.

Finally, there are 6m people - some of whom, not all by any means, are unemployed. To be fair, I do agree that if you're working, you should be paid enough to not need benefits; but I can't help feeling that the private sector is at least partly at fault for that.

But that's less than 6m people who are not currently contributing, have contributed in the past, or will contribute in the future, economically. Which is a somewhat different figure.

I'm not suggesting anything. I'm simply stating that the UK is in a predicament and the minority cannot be taxed in a bid to fund the majority. We've reached a point where that is no longer sustainable and is in fact counterproductive.

Everything needs to be looked at by the policy makers to figure out how to strike a sustainable balance. It isn't easy and there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution.

Whoever is on the majority side of the equation is beside the point. The equation is no longer balancing. There is no magic formula but increasing taxes on the minority is not the answer.

I think it might help if you could flesh out your points with some of the specific facts and figures that concern you. Not doubting there are many that should, just helps to see exactly what you are thinking of.

There’s a lot of envy out there - the UK has always been so, but Labour have now got people at each other’s throats.

The tax payer is not a customer, they’re a member of society.

If society only exists to make the wealthy feel good about themselves we’ve truly lost the plot.

You’re saying governments should only make policies that retain the wealthiest taxpayers.

We can’t build a functioning society on the threat that rich people will walk unless we keep them disproportionately comfortable.

Tax payers money has been allocated away from public services.

The issue isn’t that taxpayers like you paid — it’s that public money went into things like housing benefit to private landlords (many of them wealthy), or propping up a buy-to-let economy, instead of building homes people can actually afford. That’s just an example of redistribution upwards.

If you look into a little political history you’ll find these problems route back to the 80’s.

Well let's punish the working non wealthy and squeeze the unemployed, sick and disabled then to make it fair. For heavens sake where will it stop. The government just handing us pocket money whether we work hard or not.

Income tax payments are concentrated among those individual taxpayers with the largest incomes. The 10% of income taxpayers with the largest incomes contribute over 60% of income tax receipts.

The OBR predicts that it will collect 37.1p of every pound generated in the economy in 2028-29 - the highest level in 80 years.

Its very simple - tax this cohort beyond what they are prepared to bear, and they will cut their exposure - via the methods I have mentioned.

Incidentally, Labour have belatedly seen this with the non-doms. I have sat on numerous round tables with family offices, UHNW, non-doms, tax lawyers. I can tell you all about this.

Provided that there is acceptance that taxation is essential to kickfund starting big expensive but vital infrastructure (power systems, NHS and transport networks for examples), and to provide the necessary support for the very elderly and seriously incapacitated for the remainder of their whole lives, then after that I believe that 1) you need to have contributed to earn benefits like unemployment or UC and that they should be time limited.

I don't resent paying tax; I do resent paying when the money is badly spent. And yes, I know defining badly spent is tricky. On young male economic migrant chancers coming on rubber dinghies... no, but on the disabled children of previous immigrants encouraged into close cousin marriages? I think the Pakistani model of close kinship marriages to create clans and family wealth is understandable, but really unhealthy.

For context.

The UK government currently has almost £5 trillion worth of pension liabilities which it will have to pay in the future (£1.2 trillion for public service pensions and £3.84 trillion in respect of the state pension).

Most of these are unfunded, meaning that they are largely paid out of annual tax revenues and the bill for them is being passed on to future generations because today’s government is not putting money aside to cover them.

It was ever thus. The current generation of pensioners has funded the two generations that went before them.

Ageing demographics, declining tax base.

Ask any actuary.

What do you estimate the real loss of tax income from UHNW, non doms etc since Labour came in?

I couldn't disagree with you, and it was an oversight on my part that I did not refer to pensions generally and especially public sector index-linked liablities. I don't have one personally so my SIPP is tucked into a commercial property that I control outright, but many of my friends retired from the armed services in their early 50s on two-thirds of final salary, annually reviewed. I know that several have gallantry decorations for defusing bombs during their service, but military chefs etc who never faced anything more dangerous than a sack of onions retire on the same basic terms.

Good question... I wish I had asked that.

You’re not wrong OP and I say this as an average earner ie not a net contributor probably.

Benefits are wildly out of control, we have an addiction to spending, and therefore all that can happen is further squeezing of the taxpayer.

You see it on here all the time, the response to virtually any problem is ‘can you claim benefits’ and an assumption that the taxpayer should financially mitigate everything for everyone. And if you disagree you obviously love billionaires and want people to starve etc

According to Gary's economics this morning Labour will increase taxes on middle earners at the next budget in October/November.

This was predictable with Labour. I agree with @JamesMacGillon benefits being the answer on here.

Impossible to say at this point - I can give personal knowledge but that’s it.

Of note, Labour tried to water down the non-dom phase out, and the City has been very vocal about the damage done, so QED.

So in my line of work I hear benefit claimants describe their financial circumstances on a daily basis. It is quite rare now to find a household that subsists off UC alone, and doesn’t claim some form of disability benefit on top of this. It really isn’t unusual to have a household which is claiming UC, one of the adults claiming PIP, and DLA for 2 or even 3 children. Sometimes more. All together that’s about £60,000 per year? It used to be very rare that a person would have 2 or 3 children so disabled they needed benefits; now it’s really really common.

The expectations continue to rise, the taxation continues to fall, so taxes go up. The expectations rise again. I think what will happen is Reform or similar will get in and just brutally cut all of them. It’s a shame but we’ve tried a softer approach with Labour and it’s just sabotaged by people who think the country exists as a welfare system.

If you disagree you haven’t done your own research and you just believe what you hear. A PP has already posted the numbers in this thread but information is free to all.

I wasn’t disagreeing with OP?

And as middle income pensioners, that might just be the spur enough to tip us from the "we'll move within the UK" to "we'll move to North Portugal and take intensive language classes for a year." We are already well past retirement age; we can meet the income requirements, and 10% taxation on pension income is not to be sniffed at. We are not oligarchs, we have an SME that's done okay, well enough to employ six properly paid people, but we'd like to retire. Because we are 70. I like living in the UK or at least in parts of it but my niece would happily swap houses during the school summer holiday when it's too hot for old Anglos and she could probably negotiate six weeks remote work provided the broadband is up to it.... which it will be.

And presumably a military chef and a detonations expert have salaries reflecting their skill sets and working conditions. I see nothing wrong wrong with retiring them both on the same percentage of final salary.

Napoleon was correct when he said that an army marches on its stomach.