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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU Income Tax rise.

627 replies

H202too · 30/10/2025 09:56

To be panicking about income tax rise.

Things are tight and to loae even £30-60 a month will be difficult.

I know people are talking about the mansion tax being a no go. But I would prefer this than taxing the workers as per usual.
The tax free rate should be put up. What a mess.

OP posts:
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5
dressinggowns · 30/10/2025 18:08

@Cyclingmummy1 the average private sector worker won't have a pension like a teacher....

Bruisername · 30/10/2025 18:08

the problem is that people don’t believe higher taxes will lead to better services and a better standard of living for all - and that makes it a hard sell

not helped by politicians and councillors who seem to have no understanding of the real world

Cyclingmummy1 · 30/10/2025 18:09

BananaPeels · 30/10/2025 17:16

why? I have paid in for the last 25 years.

Are you suggesting someone who has just emigrated to the country should not be allowed to use any public services until they have paid a certain amount?

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There are no public services for non-Emiratis in Dubai. Everything is private and needs to be paid for. With the added bonus of the happiness charge for any government service.

Cyclingmummy1 · 30/10/2025 18:13

dressinggowns · 30/10/2025 18:08

@Cyclingmummy1 the average private sector worker won't have a pension like a teacher....

No, amongst my frirnds, teacher's pensions are low.

dressinggowns · 30/10/2025 18:15

@Cyclingmummy1 presumably you aren't friends with everyone though....

silverbirchjuniper · 30/10/2025 18:15

@BananaPeels - well, I suppose the argument might be that people would just keep their salaries to under a million if that was in place. BUT most people earning like that can't or won't 'work less' - they are doing what they do.

It's pretty different from someone earning 99k who won't bother taking a promotion that demands a lot more work for their salary to go up to 120k, where the higher rate tax means it's barely worth doing!

Legolava · 30/10/2025 18:26

dressinggowns · 30/10/2025 18:08

@Cyclingmummy1 the average private sector worker won't have a pension like a teacher....

Plenty of teaching vacancies with 45k leaving a year. Get into teaching is a good place to start for those who think the pension is worth staying in the career for.

Cyclingmummy1 · 30/10/2025 18:37

@dressinggowns presumably everyone isn't paying 9.9% contribution...

EasternStandard · 30/10/2025 18:38

@222daysI really agree with you on welfare and lack of time limit and contribution based. I was just thinking today if we are a complete outlier on this.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 30/10/2025 18:44

We’ve tried (80% taxation) before. It didn’t end well. Look up the “brain drain” of the 1970s

Actually it hit 98% on investments, @Another76543, but I don't need to look it up - I was there

Otherwise you're absolutely right about it being a disaster, as was so much created by the Labour government of the time, but the very concept will appeal to some ... just think of all those "rich bast**ds" to hammer Confused

mindkey · 30/10/2025 18:44

BananaPeels · 30/10/2025 18:08

But like you say, they are already wealthy after that first million, they just won’t bother earning the second million- not worth the effort for £200k they don’t need. They will just work half the time. The state won’t get any tax on that second million rather than the 45% it gets now

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It's only worth moving if you think that's where you are going to be in a few years. The young, talented, hardworking (with very young kids are not comfortable enough to look at that eye-watering tax rate and think that's ok - they'll look at it and get scared - as the population gets older and sicker as predicted,there will be less people working and those people will carry a bigger tax burden, they'll come for us and we're getting out of here before they do, which is a very rational approach. It's the young and talented we need to worry about, not the old, rich and very comfortable - they won't go anywhere.

Bluegrassdfly · 30/10/2025 18:51

Nolletimiere · 30/10/2025 16:57

The writing was on the wall, as soon as this lot got in last year - with all the freebies etc - like kids in a sweet shop.

Then you had Rayner caught out doing hanky pinky with tax, Ali and her tenants, and now Reeves.

Reeves has previous, of course:
Plagiarism in her book, errors in her LinkedIn profile, misrepresenting the depth and quality of her banking experience, lying, crying, and now this latest property scandal.

They just cannot help themselves.

There is doubtless a lot more shit to come out too.

Edited

Oh for goodness’s sake! Angela Raynor was poorly advised with regards to a very technical tax matter which arouse due to her trying to protect her disabled child.

Rachel Reeves asked her agent who said a licence wasn’t needed.

Boris Johnson knowingly flouted the very Covid rules he was telling us all to adhere too.

You cannot equate knowingly breaking the rules and inadvertently breaking the rules. I’m no Labour fan but even I can see the difference!

lynnebenfieldshandbag · 30/10/2025 18:53

Our mortgage has just gone up by £600 a month. I am shitting myself about paying any more tax.

222days · 30/10/2025 18:56

EasternStandard · 30/10/2025 17:32

Ok thanks. I can see you’ve given it thought. Not much to disagree with really.

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And I think that’s where we need to get to.

It’s not some programme full of cake, but you’ve said you don’t really disagree with it, and others whom you’ve been diametrically opposed to in this discussion have said similar…

We need a sensible programme of reforms articulated in terms of why they are necessary, and what the long-term effect of that will be and a coherent strategy of how things will improve things for everyone.

Something people from currently warring factions can try to unite behind because - while they might not like every measure - as an overall package it will make things better for 99% of people than they are currently but with the understanding this will take time to have results, and as long as a clear plan is set out and people can see the steps along the agreed path are happening they will support and stick behind until it yields results.

We need some kind of actual leadership that can articulate a way out that doesn’t involve further polarisation and further decline in a never-ending doom loop.

Bluegrassdfly · 30/10/2025 19:02

222days · 30/10/2025 17:16

Ha!

I would never get involved in being a politician. Couldn’t afford the pay cut and I am a very private person. I’m someone who works on international and domestic economics, data, evidence, policy and fiscal choices and their implications and likely outcomes.

But yes - absolutely - no need to reinvent the wheel when for every significant problem in the UK there are tried and tested models that we can see around the world for what works. We don’t have to experiment or take a leap in the dark, simply copy them.

But we won’t.

Absolutely mad that people called you a Nazi for stating what is an unequivocal fact: this country will have no prospect of even maintaining current living standards let alone them rising unless there is a huge redirection of public spending from the old to the young, before we have a generation of old people that is even larger and actually impoverished. While we have one that is not, this must happen without further delay. It should have been done many years ago, but it’s not too late yet. If it happens now, then growth and rising living standards can happen and then the future generations may be able to sustain the rising numbers of elderly in the future. Unless there is quite radical change in the next few years the window to turn it around will have passed and the current generation of pensioners will be condemning not just their children to lower living standards (as they have already done) but also their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, because the doom loop will become irreversible.

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I’d vote for you too. Sensible policies. And if Keir stood up and said all that in parliament at least he’d be showing some sort of vision.

dressinggowns · 30/10/2025 19:06

presumably everyone isn't paying 9.9% contribution...

Into a DB scheme? no

dressinggowns · 30/10/2025 19:07

Plenty of teaching vacancies with 45k leaving a year. Get into teaching is a good place to start for those who think the pension is worth staying in the career for.

Who said that?

Puzzledandpissedoff · 30/10/2025 19:07

You cannot equate knowingly breaking the rules and inadvertently breaking the rules. I’m no Labour fan but even I can see the difference!

I agree about the difference, @Bluegrassdfly, but it's turned out this wasn't inadvertent at all and that Reeves knew perfectly well about the need for a licence - see the link at 12:13 today

This may well explain the latest story about a letting agent apologising for failing to get the licence for her, but they had a go at blaming others for Rayner as well and look how that worked out

222days · 30/10/2025 19:08

Bluegrassdfly · 30/10/2025 19:02

I’d vote for you too. Sensible policies. And if Keir stood up and said all that in parliament at least he’d be showing some sort of vision.

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Thanks.

No politician has the “guts”, sadly, to stand up and tell the truth and articulate a vision for the future.

I hold out hope that there are enough sensible people in the UK who have been left politically homeless, whose natural place is the reasonable centre ground that has been deserted, and who would get behind a politician who did so. Sadly, we have nobody in politics who seems capable of it.

Bruisername · 30/10/2025 19:09

I admire her confidence though. Renting out the family home because she is confident she’ll be in number 11 for a few years!!

funnily enough Westminster council is introducing a landlords licence later this year but it doesn’t apply to Pimlico and surrounds. Guess who likes to have property round there!

Bumblebee72 · 30/10/2025 19:18

silverbirchjuniper · 30/10/2025 17:12

@Orangemintcream - yes exactly. It's like the VAT on private school fees, supposedly due to raise 1.7 billion a year. Appreciate that we are just coming up to the first year of this...but has there been any positive change whatsoever to the state schools as a result?

Of course not. Just more kids in state schools but now with Tutors to fill the gaps.

dressinggowns · 30/10/2025 19:19

I hold out hope that there are enough sensible people in the UK who have been left politically homeless, whose natural place is the reasonable centre ground that has been deserted, and who would get behind a politician who did so.

Well @222days you have given me hope that I am not alone!

hettie · 30/10/2025 19:23

@222days As well as our economic woes which you have clearly outlined.....we have a problem with our politics and social media hasn't helped.
Whilst the demographic pensioner time bomb is plain for all to see any attempts to deal with it will be almost impossible. The media would whip voters into a storm. Tapered means testing could not be done overnight (or even NI on pension income) and any opposition party would simply have to state they would remove it to be guaranteed to win the very next election.
I fear we are stuck in doom loop until this demographic bubble has passed......

Chinsupmeloves · 30/10/2025 19:27

We will inevitably continue to pay more tax, including the huge hikes for food, rent etc to get anywhere near to cover the repercussions of covid. Can you imagine the amount spent on furlough, alone, especially for big businesses?

ThatLovelyPuppySmell · 30/10/2025 19:37

tupils · 30/10/2025 14:10

The cynic in me does suspect that supermarkets, now having pretty much gained a monopoly between them, are all just putting up their prices and saying “cost of living chaps” with a shrug, while filling their pockets.

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You're probably right. It will come back to bite them though, we have just doubled down on cutting costs at the supermarket as we can no longer afford some of the things we used to buy.
We have cut items from our weekly shop permanently and changed to cheaper versions of almost everything.
If we're doing it others must be too.
Maybe this is needed though to bring inflation down, I hope it means prices will have to come down soon.