To think rich people steal money all the time and that’s often why they’re rich?

[MyAmusedOpalCrab]

We hear so much about “hard work” and “smart investments” but let’s be honest, so many rich people didn’t get wealthy by being ethical. From dodgy business practices to exploiting workers, tax dodging, insider deals and straight-up corruption, wealth often comes at someone else’s expense.

Governments bail out billionaires while ordinary people struggle to afford rent. CEOs cut wages and benefits while pocketing massive bonuses. Huge corporations find loopholes to avoid taxes while the rest of us get squeezed.

Obviously not every rich person is a thief but AIBU to think that a lot of them are? That the system is rigged in their favour and they keep getting richer by bending or outright breaking the rules?

Hey OP, are you a journalist?

Here are some of your thread titles

• To think hope is overrated because it doesn’t actually change anything
• To think being a woman of your word still matters - even when life is busy or feelings changeTo think people idealise the private sector as more efficient, when it’s just as subject to egos and..
• To think “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” is not a flex - it’s a red flag
• To think parents respect their adult children more once they move out

Have a look at how many investigators HMRC employ to tackle tax evaders and how may DWP employ for benefit fraud.

It is crazy.

If the employee doesn’t want to earn the money they shouldn’t take the job. If no one takes the job the salary will increase to find someone who is willing to work.

Bitter, much?

We're 'rich' and not a cent of it was inherited or stolen or gained in any kind of deviant way.

Rich people could be:

• lucky (right place, right time, right job, right investment kind of gist)
• clever / talented (good at identifying, pursuing the right opportunities)
• financially driven - they make it their business to become wealthy from an early stage

Now we are 'rich' we can afford to invest in ways that mean it is diversified, it grows, and we can pay for advice from people who recommend how we minimise tax (and BTW we still pay c55% on anything newly earned!)

Not in the way many here seem to. Would I like them to pay more tax? Sure. But what will create a stronger, more resilient economy is people actually working, curbing the ever-skyrocketing welfare state, and stopping our addiction to spending where every life ill needs compensating financially by the state.

The number of threads about non-working lazy teen/20 something kids on here; and the first response is always ‘how dare they leech from you, make them claim benefits instead’. So they can then leech the taxpayer rather than the parent who has enabled them to be a layabout

I said ignore t(e tax bit as it’s unhelpful. The massive disparity between fraud and unclaimed benefits is unlikely to be down to lack of investigation.

Nope. The economy’s money is being sucked into the accounts of a small number of people who not only don’t pay much tax (because they’ve rigged the system) but also don't send the money round the economy. They outcompete us - including governments - for assets. A few more people on minimum wage will make no difference.

I’m not saying every rich person has stolen or inherited their wealth, I did say in the OP that not all fit this description. But the system does tend to reward those who already have wealth and the ability to ‘minimise tax’ or access elite advice is part of that advantage. My point is more about how structural advantages and loopholes contribute to keeping the richest people at the top, often in ways that aren’t open to everyone else.

Why?

What you have observed OP is a simple uncontroversial fact.

Ahhh… Government estimates. Usually run by their party HQ to support ongoing policies.
ISAs aren’t tax evasion whatsoever btw.

The fact you put ‘rich’ in inverted commas shows me you aren’t the sort of rich this is really about. It’s not about working people who have made good or had well paid jobs. Not at all.

TheGrimSmile

This whole idea that rich people work hard is utter rubbish. They have inherited wealth or exploited others. I'm talking super rich eg multi millionaires/ billionaires, not people on a good salary. Somebody like Elon Musk has never done a day's work in his life.

I personally wish Elon Musk had never made it as far as he had but I have talked to (bitched about) him to a lot of computer nerdy types and he is seen as a genius in both the computer and management stratosphere. I would guess he has worked days and nights long and hard as a lot of computer programmers do, people don’t see them as ‘doing work’ but imo they code late into the night and create a lot of what we take for granted until it breaks down!!

Who?

Great example.

I've read that the top 10% of PAYE earners are currently contributing over 60% of the total tax receipts in this country. The UK is in a tough spot, and excessively taxing the only people who are net contributors until they're completely drained seems unwise. It's fascinating how much hate they receive online.
The common sentiment in these discussions seems to be that success or financial prudence is penalized rather than rewarded. I might have been aiming for the wrong goal. I believed earning a lot was positive because it allowed me to support my family, and I took pride in my tax contributions. The resentment towards higher earners has me reconsidering—maybe I had it all wrong. Perhaps stepping back would be healthier for me.
This is Mumsnet. If you're not on the breadline, prepare to be completely torn apart. If you dare to voice complaints about managing on your income, you'll be hit with phrases like ‘read the room’ or ‘check your privilege,’ along with all the other tired clichés.
These people seem like frogs in boiling water, so accustomed to being mistreated that they no longer feel the pain. They’re content with being poorer overall as long as they receive a few benefits and freebies, instead of pushing for wealth creation, lower taxes, or more efficient public spending.
Our economy is declining, the population is surging, unemployment is rising as businesses cut jobs, contributing taxpayers are leaving the country, taxes and borrowing are increasing, and energy costs are sky-high while the government focuses on its ‘Green agenda.’ This country feels doomed.

if the top 1% of earners didn't pay 30% of all income tax revenue then where would be be

And like Boris Johnson before him, Nigel Farage is the next in line to bleed the country dry, while some threads are pleading for him to become prime minister, because they think he will solve everything, when he actually intends to solve everything for one person only: Nigel Farage.

Steal no, use existing tax codes and various specialists to maximize their savings and minimize outgoing taxes yes.
Anyone (who can pay) can get taxation and investment help.

The first two I know are each worth mid-8 figures. The third, high 7-figures.

As for billionaires, the UK only has 154 of them. There aren't enough of them to make much of a difference.

Service Announcement!

While we’re all bickering amongst ourselves we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture. Depressing as fuck, but hopefully those who survive the AI revolution will have much better prospects.

I know. Like the landlords pocketing Housing Benefit and the employers paying wages that need topping up by the state. They’re awful.

I heard a really good quote recently:

Priviledge is having good choices to choose between. When people say they are rich as they made good choices, this is what they had.

There’s been a few rich vs poor threads today. People work hard and sometimes study hard, make money and that’s how it is.

Great post but I will add the sheer level of ‘need’ is rising in the public. In the 1970s generally speaking there was a lot of social housing etc, but you died at 70 and freed that house up, the NHS only offered basic or life saving treatments (no IVF, complex mental health etc), and the ‘dole’ payment was relatively small and not boosted by PIP and DLA as they didn’t exist.

Now we have enormous numbers of people needing constant high level or multifaceted NHS care, rapidly rising numbers of SEN children needing bespoke educations costing hundreds of thousands each, we have the equivalent of the entire population of Scotland on disability benefits, and services are basically all stretched to the max. Everyone expects much more from the state, and for every part of their life to be financially mitigated by the taxpayer.

I follow a lady on Insta who has 4 children. She doesn’t work, 2 of her children are in special educational settings and receive DLA plus the obligatory transport. She recently moved to a new 4 bedroom social house, and owing to the transport situation, the local council asked if she could take the youngest to their special school for a couple of weeks until they’d sorted a taxi from the new house. All hell broke loose - she posted relentlessly about how they were being ‘failed’ and how ‘broken’ the system was.

I felt like saying for Gods sake. You have a free 4 bedroom house, you don’t work, your children’s education will be costing hundreds of thousands a year, and you’re complaining because you have to drive your kid to school yourself for a couple of weeks? The level of entitlement is insane.

Yes, that £200k a year (or whatever their cost to the taxpayer) is pennies compared to billionaires. But when you replicate this situation across the country hundreds of thousands of times the numbers become enormous.

Plenty of them are. Like this one

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/04/ofwat-examines-13m-paid-to-yorkshire-water-boss-nicola-shaw-via-offshore-parent-company

My bills are up 40% and she’s getting paid extra.