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

Those with the broadest shoulders …

I feel you - if the country worked it would be ok but everything seems so negative and broken. I was listening to the radio earlier and they used the term broken Britain and I’ve never felt it more 😭

Yes. We will be screwed if they do this.

sending hugs 🥰

There are a lot of public sector redundancies coming with the new unitary councils. They'll have to find money somewhere to fund the increase in unemployed. Yes we weren't coping. But redundancy presents much worse challenges. It's not as if there are spare jobs out there.

I think top rate will go up to 48% to mirror Scotland.

On a practical note @Wonderofwimbledon - does your employer offer any salary sacrifice schemes? Specifically pension, purchasing additional annual leave or cycle to work?

If they do you can utilise them to keep your take home pay exactly the same despite the tax rise and get extra leave / pension contributions / a new bike.

I doubt she will even get that per week. She would be in for a shock.

This is what happened to those of us who bought diesel cars. We didn't fall for the crap this time.

This does screw pensioners though as they don’t pay ni, so they may not want to annoy them

Op we are the same. There is no money. The only solution is more credit card debt, for us.
Pouncing on anyone earning more than £45k is just stupid. It doesn't mean they have spare money to burn.
People will fuck off abroad to be doctors and dentists and nurses. What's the point in surviving in the uk and rachel banging on about austerity, and we still don't know where the money is going.

I'd like to see a p&l for the UK. No analyst or dumb down bullshit.

we are moving at pace to a socialist society. This is what Labour do. Jeremy corbin must be thrilled.

There might not be - the ones I am familiar with led to a small number of senior management redundancies but the majority of employees are autimatically transferred to the new organisations.

In some cases jobs have been created, often funded by infrastructure savings, to the point where some have had trouble recruiting.

I earn just under 50k, I am expecting to pay more income tax…not sure if it will be an extra 1 or 2p. But if that happens and they drag the higher tax rate down to 46k then I think that would be quite noticeable!

'Working person' is just coded language for 'working class' but sounds slightly more polite.

Earning between £40,000 and £70,000 is the generally accepted range that would denote 'middle class'.

There is a myth in the public sector that the private sector is a utopia of high wages and increases. Most people I know, myself included, have been receiving increases of about 2-2.5%, which after tax amounts to very little. Some years it's zero. There is rarely union recognition so you are fighting on your own merit. A generous pension contribution is 6% so you will need to sacrifice a bigger chunk of your salary to try to make up the shortfall. Sick pay can be 2-4 weeks at employer discretion or else you're on SSP. This means that a cancer diagnosis or caring for and death of a parent has to be done and dusted in a month unless you have expensive income protection insurance insurance. Some employers advertise 20 days holiday plus 8 days bank holiday as generous. I don't doubt there are challenges in the other direction but the grass is not always greener. I think most of the private sector increases are based on job moves or executive raises that raised them average.

I genuinely feel we’d be better of sacking work off and living off benefits - we can’t live like this.

Do you genuinely believe this?

Why don't you do it, if so?

Actually having done focus groups with the wealthier pensioners who this would affect most, they mainly appreciated that racking more tax purely on the younger generations was just not fair.

You understand that the pension is part of the overall package, pay is less. It makes sense for the government to balance things this way. More employers should have to do the same then pensioners wouldnt need things like winter fuel payments.

I am in a civil service job but am currently looking at leaving and can earn at least double my total package in the private sector. Most of my very skilled and hard working peers would leave too if they slashed the pensions but didn't increase salaries

In my sector I can earn double easily in the private sector and I think the hours will be better too. This isn't pie in the sky stuff I have already had one job offer I am mulling over.

keir Starmer was quoted by saying when asked to define working people.
‘ A person who goes out and earns their living, usually paid in a sort of monthly cheque’

Wtah!? Where do we get these people from?

According to Rachel Reeves now, people on over £45k are not "ordinary working people".

It’s awful you’re feeling stressed op. Labour have wound everyone up with the conference, bogus definitions and nonsense kite flying

OP, I understand you might be stressed but your comment about benefits is bullshit and wildly insulting. If you think you’d be living in clover on UC, why not try it, as others have suggested? Or is this all just a thinly veiled bashing session?

Incidentally, you say you didn’t vote for any of the main parties. Does that mean you voted Reform? Just curious as to how you think they’d do better at helping fix the finances of a country blasted by Tory inadequacy?

I have just in my mid 40s tipped over 45k after studying hard as an adult, whilst raising a family and working full time and finally finally I have money left each month, I can buy nicer clothes and make up and have weekends away.
now they want it back. So unbelievably fed up. What was the point of studying on days off work. I may as well have not bothered is how it feels

What’s strangest about that, is that she lives in Dulwich.

You wouldn’t be able to buy a studio flat in Dulwich on £45k. You’d probably struggle to rent one.

I am in the same position. I have two kids at University and earn too much for anything but minimal support, Im self employed and run a small business. Have been absolutely shafted by increase in employee NICs. Im just so so broke, increase in everything , I have had my personal income eroded for the past 15 years, but now Im 'the enemy' to the Labour Party and fair game to have more taken from me....

MPs and those earning over that of average joe should not get those pensions.