To think people’s idea of what ‘a rich’ person is, is totally skewed?

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For example:

Who do you think of as rich?

When the government talk about wealthy people who do they mean?

Tax the rich. Who are ‘the rich’? Etc

I would consider anyone who has enough spare money to a send their children to private school is rich.
I am an LSA and I have to think twice before turning on the heating. I don’t consider myself rich.

I think the main issue is that the government judges ‘rich’ on earnings when it comes to tax as that’s the easiest approach to take. The wealthy in the UK are those with assets and they’re harder to tax. You’re wealthy if you have over £500k house with no mortgage and a defined benefit pension scheme. Oh but it’s much easier to heavily tax those on £100k who are mortgaged to the hilt and have kids in nursery.

Its someone who has more money than you.
If you are on Minimum wage, someone earning 50k per year will be rich. To the 50k person,it could be someone earning 80k or 100k. To someone on 100k, it could be 200k etc. And with the way outgoings creep up with income, that person on 100k or even 200k might not feel rich.

I would consider rich to be annual household income of 500k plus investments, equity and multiple properties

It seems a lot of rich people think they aren't rich because they aren't billionaires

I think the main issue is that the government judges ‘rich’ on earnings when it comes to tax as that’s the easiest approach to take.

Yes, far too much disparity between income and wealth which is damaging productivity

To me it’s someone whose wealth and income enable them to own outright a 4 bedroom house and go on more than one holiday a year.

I'd consider someone who is 'independently wealthy' to be rich.

Economically rich to me is someone who lives in a substantial property in a nice area, is mortgage free and probably has some other source of income like a extensive property portfolio. I don't know anyone like this. Rich could also be someone who is at peace, settled happily in their life and has a high emotional well-being. Have some friends who fall into the latter category

People mean anyone who is richer than them. They personally don’t want to pay for tax, they just want anyone who has more than they do to pay more tax.

What’s an LSA?

hmmm. Am I wealthy then?
I have the house - well, not worth quite that much but not a million miles off, but it’s shared with my husband. I have the defined benefit pension, but it’s based on a £30k salary and I can’t draw it for another 25 years.
how does that make me wealthy?

Depends, doesn't it.

On paper, my employer is "rich". He has a number of assets, a couple of companies, a very nice house, a nice car. The reality is that he doesn't actually have much money in the bank and he is always moving money around to plug gaps.

I suspect we have more actual cash savings than he does, and I definitely don't consider us to be rich. Our joint earnings are about £60k.

Yes I agree with most posts. It means that whenever someone / politicians / anyone talks about ‘the rich’- it’s pointless. Because we all have different ideas about what rich is.

If anyone ever talks about ‘the rich’ - they need to clarify exactly who they mean.

Like Labours talk of ‘working people’ - who do they mean? People who work? Are they rich? It’s crazy.

It's all proportional to your own circumstances though, isn't it.

People mean anyone who is richer than them. They personally don’t want to pay for tax, they just want anyone who has more than they do to pay more tax.

I think the majority just want the burden spread more equally.

Yes. Easy pickings.

Well no, you can be rich but not feel it due to living beyond your means. Just because someone spends more doesn’t make them less rich than than someone earning the same amount.

Well if recent reports are anything to go by, ‘working people’ now includes only those earning <£46k, which is a curiously specific number to have landed upon.

💯

I think several categories of financial standing often get lumped together. I would say there is comfortable, wealthy and then rich.

For me the four bed home and an annual holiday or two family is comfortable, but not wealthy.

The privately educated children family is wealthy but not necessarily rich.

Rich is something quite different I think. It's really a realm where you have no money worries whatsoever, even for completely unnecessary luxuries like chartered flights.

The vast majority of people are not "rich."

The burden lands disproportionately on 'high earners'. Our household income is just over 200k and we pay an eye watering amount of tax. We have a nice home with a large mortgage (semi detached) and can afford nice holidays, mainly because we are child free.

It's not an extravagant life by any means. Every time there is any change to tax it feels targeted at 'workers' like us 🙃

Income over 150k per year or assets over 5million is properly rich.

but it is the people with assets over 100million who really need to be taxed more. Billionaires lock up vast amounts of wealth for their own benefit and haven’t earned it. Either they inherited or they have been paid for too much because no one is that valuable to a company.

"you can be rich but live beyond your means" - what does rich mean here? It's proportional to you, your circumstances and what you consider rich.

How much someone spends, within or beyond their means, doesn't factor imo.

It's proportional to you, your circumstances and what you consider rich.

Is it? If I am a multi millionaire am I not rich if I consider billionaires rich?

I'm tall but i'm not 6ft, doesn't mean I'm not tall.