To ask how much you think income tax will rise by?

[Wonderofwimbledon]

We’re absolutely financially at our limit… I’m so incredibly stressed. An income tax rise will break us and we won’t be able to afford it. We won’t have money to eat.

What do you think it’ll be? I just want to curl up and cry- we can’t take anymore increases our bills , mortgage everything has increased we have no spare money at all

I did literally say that it was complicated.

Have you got a better idea? We're dealing with an aging population.

Increasing the tax but reducing the NI would affect working people. Those who work in little part-time jobs who never reach the threshold to pay NI. So they’ll be hitting the poorest yet again.

No way. Please don't tell me the government are using chatgbt to run the economy.
I can't draw down from my pension so can only watch helplessly whilst the sacrifice I've made to save for the future is eroded even more. I should have opted out.

Perhaps the workers of yesteryear that voted Labour have taken advantage of the boost in the eighties, change of working culture and equal pay.

Now they aren't ' working people' FFS Labour wants us all back in our poor box.

if Labour want to make it better for everyone then don't tax individuals, companies, schools so they stagnate. So people spiral into debt, the class and wealth divide worse.

And what's Keir Stamer doing travelling round the world ? He should be here, standing by his chancellor.

Lol, no you wouldn't .

high contributors are telling takers to sell their houses and give them money? I’ll have to take your word for it. Are you sure they’re not just saying that takers should live within their means so that people can spend some of the money they work for on their own families? Or tax money be used for things like education, police, infrastructure etc?

There is no UC mortgage support

You can get a loan after 3 months but that covers interest only.

Its approximately 1 in 10 people so nowhere near half. Lots of people who would be eligible dont claim.

@cottonwoolie

I've looked into that chart. It was originally posted on Fraser Nelson's Substack. There are around 15 results for it on google images - 2 of which are Fraser himself and five of which are Mumsnet - four times by one particular poster who constantly shills for Reform.

But rather than dismissing it because it was posted by someone like Nelson, I did what his substack suggested and went to the data on stat-explore.

Guess what? Quel suprise, he has completely misrepresented the data set. He has failed to remove the data for people aged under 18 or 65 and over for starters, which reduces the England figure by over half a million.

He also tries to claim that there is some kind of coverup going on by screenshotting the ONS claimant count data and highlighting that it is nowhere near the number in the DWP dataset.

He's right - it isn't. But that is because they count two completely different things.

The DWP dataset from which he produced his 'shock horror' chart shows all out of work benefits (including those being claimed by 16 and 17 year olds and those who are 65 and over and people who aren't required to work, such as those with caring responsibilities). It includes all sickness benefits AND people who do work but claim UC because they are in low wage jobs.

The only benefits that the DWP dataset doesn't contain is the state pension, PIP, DLA, AA, Widows Benefit and Industrial Injuries Benefit.

The ONS dataset on the other hand, only includes people who are claiming benefit specifically for the purposes of unemployment - basically, only those on JSA or in receipt of UC with a work requirement.

When you filter the DWP data to use similar definitions to the ONS data, the figures become very close (1,981,541 DWP vs 1,762,700 ONS) and could be easily explained by different counting periods or slightly different inclusions / exclusions.

When he is highlighting the ONS data he also quotes the unemployment figure of 4.4%, then proceeds to screenshot the claimant count - again, two different things. Not everyone who is unemployed claims benefits!

What I find absolutely fascinating is that way he spectacularly fails to acknowledge that even by his own graph, excluding 'other' which would have included tax credits, the 1997 - 2010 Labour government kept benefit claimant counts relatively steady and lower than most years of the Thatcher, Major and recent Tory governments!

Such an ignorant and ableist comment.

You do not get Pip for children.

@Wonderofwimbledon You work in the NHS?

That means you have access to the NHS pension scheme and can make AVC contributions right?

Therefore, any tax rise doesn't need to cost you a penny! All you would need to do is figure out what AVC to pay into your pension and you will keep your take home pay exactly the same - for example if you were on £45,000, a 2p rise in income tax would cost you about £648 a year.

If you paid around £3k a year as an AVC into your pension, your take home pay would remain exactly the same as it is now AND your pension would increase!

Alternatively, salary sacrifice like annual leave buy back, ride to work and car lease can have the same affect - same monthly take home, plus more time off / a new bike / car.

Exactly. Freezing the tax thresholds IS a tax rise. So this is a tax rise on top of the annual tax rise that we’ve been getting since 2021

Except that Rachel Reeves is looking at limiting tax breaks for pensions and salary sacrifice schemes.

She's looking at a lot of things. Doesn't mean they will all be implemented. Every single time the budget comes around there is speculation and panic.

Well of course. There are no guarantees about anything at this stage. But she does want to stop people in higher income bracket’s dodging tax by putting extra money into pensions and schemes.

I know - ridiculously short sighted - just like the talk aboutcreducing cash isa allowance to £10k.

It might bring in more money to the exchequer i the short term but its stores problems up more long term in respect of social care, support for pensioners and support for younger adults who may otherwise have benefitted from 'bank of mom and dad'.

While I would take Labour over the Tories any day, I am not a fan of Rachel Reeves at all. She has no creativity or vision, nor does she appear to be able to plan long term or for very obvious consequences.

She's very (small c) conservative in her approach which would be fine if the economy was good and she just wanted to maintain it, but it isn't - it's a house in need of serious repair and a coat of paint ain't going to cut it!

@BloominNora - your take home pay wouldn't stay the same. The point of salary sacrifice is that you 'sacrifice' some of your salary to get those benefits (pension, leave etc) instead. So your take home pay goes down.

It's a way to mitigate the tax if you can afford to take home less cash each month. But the OP has clearly said she can't . She needs the take-home pay to cover her expenses, and she can't afford to put it into pension/extra leave instead.

What taxes would you increase then?

The 11billion per year of Hunts NI cuts have to be paid for, so does the PO scandal compensation, the Blood scandal, Military deafness compensation.

Someone on another thread is worried about their Mother in AE, sat on a chair for 38hours & not getting treatment.

Who pays to improve the NHS ?

We need 10s of billions extra to boost defence spending, due to Putin.

Yet no one wants to pay the slightest extra in tax, even those with so much extra they can afford to take advantage of higher rate tax breaks on pensions.

We give consumers up to £3.7k to buy an EV, yet ppm causes outrage.

She wouldn't even be entitled anyway if she gave up her job. 😂

OP I am guessing you are both resident doctors? If so, I guess you have skills that are in demand and you have options. Have you considered moving abroad? I know some residents who are looking at this. A lot want to stay here still though and work in the NHS but it’s increasingly tough here.

How much is enough though?

I'm in Scotland so we already have higher rates along with weird marginals - e g our hrt threshold is below the level where NI reduces, so there's about an 8k band where people pay 42% tax plus 8% ni. So solidly 50% marginally rate.

Then we jump to 45% at 75k. Plus NI so 47%

Then at 100k you have loss of personal allowance. So for that 25k band you have a marginals rate of 69.5%. In my experience, it is a huge disincentive - people pile into pensions, reduce hours, decide not to go for promotions. I know a few people who have ideas for small businesses they'd love to start on the side but go "what's the point, I'll lose most of the income" because only retaining 30% is pretty demotivating.

Cliff edges and high marginal rates don't work. We'd probably have a higher tax take without them in reality, as so many people take action to avoid.

We saw a massive increase in tax take at the last budget, and sod all to show for it. Spending needs to be tackled first but Labour back benchers won't allow it. Actually we do have something to show - employers cutting jobs.

They need to think about how to drive investment and growth and none of these ideas will do it.

I don't trust Reform to sort this mess out and by the time they get in in 2029 the economic situation will be catastrophic anyway.

What we desperately need is to reduce the benefits bill. Far too many people I know are trying, and sometimes succeeding, to get out of the workplace by getting an ADHD or autism diagnosis

How do you fill a leaking bucket?

Spending needs to be cut.

The huge increase in the defence budget is questionable. It seems we are being played by Trump who could provide Ukraine with enough firepower to end the war. Instead he wants Europe and the UK to increase its spending on US weapons, tanks, etc. Great for Americas defence industry. As politicians have chosen that the UK should lead the support for Ukraine, this raises the prospect of our own future conflict with Russia. It is daft, we will never be able to defend ourselves against them. We need to reign in the defence spending and concentrate on problems at home.

You don’t pay NI until 242 a week which is the personal allowance for income tax.