'Taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society'

[Bargepole45]

Having just paid an enormous tax bill, I frankly am fed up with hearing this. There are lots of civilised countries that have a far lower tax burden than the UK. It's just a form of blackmail designed to make contributors believe that there is no other way other than to pay sky high taxes to subsidise people's crap life choices.

Have too many kids and can't afford them? No problem, the state steps in. Have a terrible lifestyle and don't look after your health at all? No problem, the NHS will treat you. Spent all your money with wild abandon and have nothing left to pay for your care when you get old? Don't fret, the state will fund the same care home as someone that has saved all their life.

Don't people understand that these 'safety nets' just facilitate reckless behaviour? We can have a civilised society where people aren't cushioned from all of their bad decision making. I say this as someone from a background where I didn't have much money and I am so fed up with people pretending that poor people don't know that an apple is healthier than a chocolate bar or that it's a good idea to actually attend school. It's insulting and disempowering to keep making excuses for people that simply aren't incentivised to make different, better choices.

People who live in Monaco don't pay any tax as I understand it, is this where we are heading? The MSM call it "Singapore-on-Sea".

Wages are higher because they have the flexicurity model, where TU's negotiate wages and Collective Bargaining agreement is used to set the wages, is that what you'd like to see here?

Oh god monaco is such a horrible place. I would not want the uk to be like that. Like the roman empire - a whole kingdom just based on serving the top 1%

Denmark's GDP per Capita is a third higher than the UK. Sweden's GDP per capita is around 10% higher but the PPP purchasing power is 15% higher.

Sweden has higher wealth inequality than the UK. Finland's too 10% control 50% of the wealth.

They are nowhere near socialist countries and generally are wealthier than us.

These countries have on the whole lower housing costs. High housing costs do such damage in the uk

Again, that isn't the whole reason why wages are higher. Introducing that into the UK would be disastrous if you don't couple it with the skills, productivity and higher GDP per capita than many of these countries enjoy.

Higher wages can lead to mass unemployment and inflation which can mean that overall everyone is worse off. Again, I refer you to Sweden's unemployment rate. What do you think would happen in the UK if we did introduce this change in isolation? Many companies are in financial distress. They simply don't have the money to pay higher wages and can't export internationally if they become uncompetitive.

You just sound like an awful person. Full of envy and bitterness!

Sweden has higher wealth inequality than the UK. Finland's too 10% control 50% of the wealth

Finlands wealth inequality is similar to the UK and both Sweden and Finland have lower income inequality vs the UK.

Ok then.. thanks for your constructive input.

What is it they say? 'When the debate is lost, insults become the tool of the loser'

High housing costs do such damage in the uk

This, it’s a massive problem

Wealth inequality is generally considered more important than income inequality when measuring inequality as it reflects long term patterns and is likely to be an indicator of future inequality.

I think for the level of tax I used to pay in the UK, society should've been a lot more civilised that it was! And yes I left to live elsewhere.

I agree wealth inequality is important but you need to look at all inequality imo.

Well I’m not sure how you define socialism. Socialism is just the concept of taking money from everyone and pooling it for common good. On that basis the UK is socialist to some extent, some other countries like France or Denmark are more so. And Scandinavian countries the dial is much more so in the direction of socialism.

My only comment is that in your perfectly reasonable posts I’m not sure what you think ‘good’ would look like and what kind of country you’d want to live in.

And commenting that for me, having lived all over, I have felt Scandinavia was nicest but that comes with a higher tax burden. So high taxes = bad country is definitely a massive simplification. As you say with higher GDP obviously in those places higher taxes doesn’t stifle productivity so there must be more to it than that.

For my part it feels like in the UK we haven’t had a consistent view on investment as we’ve had such different political whims. Like if we’d invested (with appropriate tax cuts etc) in tech, or the sciences, or the financial sector, we could have something to prop us up on the international stage.

For my part it feels like in the UK we haven’t had a consistent view on investment as we’ve had such different political whims

Another big issue, austerity meant little investment by business or government.

The problem is wealth at the top not being taxed.

By means of capitalism which props up the transfer of wealth from the working/middle classes to the rich.

The problem is not ordinary families trying to get by the best we can.

Look up, not down.

My niece was born in the Philippines. My sister in law needed a C section. Which couldn't happen until my brother in law had handed over his credit card.

I don't have an issue with paying taxes for healthcare free at the point of use and a safety net and support for those that need it.

We should be taxing the super rich and the big corporations more in my opinion to fund services desperately needed. Otherwise people like Farage get away with pitting one group of poor people against another. And stirring up disharmony.

There us no them, there is only us.

I think for the longest time the UK has relied on poaching talent from abroad - as in workers educated elsewhere and then coming to uni here and staying and contributing. If they then pay a lot of tax during their working lives, but leave for retirement, the UK gets the best of both worlds. Which is selfish.
If that reverses, are we in deep trouble?
I am seeing it reverse. But now Trump means a lot of talented US are fleeing and coming here, we may actually end up OK.
Whatever we do here, is never in a vacuum of what other countries are up to. Controlling the super rich who are getting richer by the day and can manipulate stock prices - that has to be a global effort.
Even the Scandis have benefitted from the recent peace. Some are pretty close to Russia. Their models are no longer a given either.

I think thats unfair. OP clearly has a lot of well thought through opinions. But they seem to be mostly about what’s wrong and broken and what we should do instead.

@Bargepole45 i’d love to hear your view on the latter. You obviously are a smart person it would be good to know what good would look like.

Personally I’m open. I pay a ton of tax and it would be lovely to pay less. But I don’t want to live in a place that feels like Dubai or Monaco. I want to live somewhere where I know if my granny has a fall she won’t be left lying on a stretcher in a corridor. Not saying the Uk ticks that box at present but aspirationally

Oh yes. We have by accident come into the orbit of the super rich. £100k a year is literally a pauper compared to them. Most of us have no idea.

There’s something wrong when a tiny minority are wealthy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, the middle are taxed to buggery and benefit bill rises by billions a year. I’m not an economist so can’t begin to fix it but something needs to change.

The people I know who earn 2 mill plus are limited companies, not on PAYE.

Yeah. So to hammer the example of scandi countries - denmark has consistently invested in the sciences and growing talent in that space. The end result is Novo Nordisk, one of the most valuable companies in the world, employing tens of thousands of danes in good jobs on good salaries, paying lots of taxes. Or Norway with their sovereign wealth fund which they have consistently grown outside of political whims.

We haven’t had a consistent national project like this in the uk

Having lived in Scandinavia too the biggest difference was the access to good public services. Just now tax is eye watering on those over £100k and yet if you need a hip op you’re waiting YEARS. In Scandinavia you get immediate access to healthcare in exchange for taxes. Here we don’t.

Agreed. We don’t seem to have an industrial strategy at all.

I agree with pp, this isn’t a fair take. State dependency is high.