'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.

Thank you for such a reasoned response. I think I need to step away from this thread as it all gets a bit nasty sometimes.

Ironically, good for me isn't a million miles away from the socialist mantra "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" We should all be compelled to make responsible decisions and to contribute what we can. We should expect life to be difficult and hard to some extent. We are living for longer so we will have to work longer with poor health in lots of cases. We have to carry our own burden as much as possible to reduce the overall burden on others. We should be proud to do that and that should be considered the decent thing to do.

In return we should have a guarantee that our basic needs will be met if we can't meet them ourselves. Basic means basic though and in lots of cases won't be what people have become accustomed to in some areas. There has to be an incentive to work and this disappears when you can get the same amount of money and comfort for doing nothing.

I think overall we need to manage our own expectations of what life will look like if we can't improve productivity, grow the economy and reduce economic inactivity. We will be basically splitting a smaller and smaller pie amongst more and more people. We know wealth taxes don't work and we can see how taxing high earners and businesses is impacting productivity and employment. We can't tax our way out of this.

So they earn that money and put it in a limited company. That company will pay corporation tax on that money at 25%. Then of the remaining money it would be taxed as a dividend at 39.35% when removed. So tax will be paid. Did you think it wouldn’t be?

Yes.

I've worked in the public sector for decades and known numerous cases of people who should be supported by the state who were not.

And more who were being supported where it didn't matter.

Having multiple DC when they weren't doing a great job with the ones they had and they were all funded by the state.

Men with single Mums who had DC with each new partner and Mum failing to protect them from abuse or her own problems so they were the ADHD kids in the 90s to early 2000s.So they were in special educational provision then.

It didn't help or make a difference.

They're mostly now all reliant on benefits and in and out of prison. But not for long sentences.

Not because there is no alternative but because they think that people who work are mugs. You can receive benefits, housing etc to meet your needs and do some drug-dealing or whatever on the side to pay for your branded clothes and drive cars that you're not insured to drive or have a licence to.

Alll recieving disability benefits. ESA and PIP.

That's their life, of course they think we're mugs.

@Weetabixw why did you think I thought they didn’t pay tax?

Well yes, structurally the UK systems need an overhaul and do not work, how do you think economic growth happens - by massive wealth inequalities and poor welfare provision? Your argument seems to be that Denmark's economic performance is unrelated to the mechanisms in place that ensure higher standards of welfare for its population.

What do you actually want? So lower taxes? Any taxes? A U.S. system with shoddy welfare provision and long hours, low pay, limited to non existent Trade union presence?

Because you said they weren’t paying PAYE as though that makes a difference.

I don’t know these people think others are mugs. I think they believe this is what life is and they can’t see an alternative. I come from a very poor ex industrial town and I absolutely recognise these people exist. But I feel they need to be helped with opportunities and education.

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.

I think this needs changing, perhaps workers should be prioritised on waiting lists?

@Weetabixw but they aren’t on PAYE.

That includes someone on PIP, which isn't means tested, so the working family would also qualify for this, should one of them become disabled. Making the article and certainly the headline completely untrue.

But they still pay tax. They are legally obliged to do a self assessment.

Yes, i’m aware but it’s not PAYE and when people take about income taxes they are usually referring to those who are on PAYE.

I think the thing is the OP doesn’t really know. Because our system sucks but it’s better than some places. And the changes to improve things will have to be so fundamental I don’t think the public have the appetite for it.

For example if you look at what for middle or lower earners the vast amount of people’s money goes on is housing. So we could have proper regulation about the quality of housing and proper rent controls so no one has to spend more than say, 30% of their income on accomodation.

This would make a massive difference to so many people. You could reduce benefits as currently most benefit money just goes into the pockets of landlords.

But there is zero public appetite for this as it would crash house prices and so many people’s wealth is tied up in property. We’ve become addicted to this drug that house prices always rise.

It just can't continue where the middle are paying for those on welfare and the people at the top (1%) aren't paying their way. People on £100k aren't millionaires and shouldn't be vilified for wanting to keep a decent proportion of the money they've earned.

We can't tax our way out of this

@Bargepole45 what can we do?

@Thingything I agree we need to fix housing but too many will be against it even though long term it’s better.

Sorry i’m on a six figure amount and I don’t feel personally villified for paying taxes. Thats just silly. We all pay what we can. Someone has to pay and 100k puts a person in the top 1%.

@angelos02 middle earners pay less here vs other European countries. But housing cost are higher

They still pay taxes based on their income. Makes no difference how it’s received by HMRC.

Yes, I think that is a flaw in the study though I suppose the question remains about whether a family that doesn't work with a child that qualifies for PIP should be that much better off than a working family that doesn't have a disabled child? We are in danger of creating a two tier system where a disability can mean that the benefit cap is lifted and suddenly families with lots of children become eligible for tens of thousands of additional benefits.

I meant people in the top 1% of wealth - around 3-4 million.

@Weetabixw I have no idea why you are arguing with me. I haven’t said they don’t pay tax. I said they aren’t on PAYE because they aren’t 🤷🏻‍♀️

Someone has to pay and 100k puts a person in the top 1%

For example this statistic will be based on PAYE data! Although I think you need to earn 160k to be the 1% now.

Is it tens of thousands though? I’d like to see what set of circumstances would lead to this being the case - you’d need to have loads of kids all with massive disabilities to be qualifying for higher level pip? To get the highest rates people do need to prove physical impairments, not just a spurious ADHD diagnosis.

To be fair if that were the case (unemployed mum cares for her three profoundly disabled kids full time for example) I don’t think I’d begrudge them truly.

It's not about house prices increases though but about economic stability and security. Intentionally crashing the price of an important economic commodity is hugely risky and will have lots of long term consequences. Who would want to invest in anything in the UK knowing that the state can step in and put in Draconian legislation that basically means you are guaranteed to lose money? Who would want to be a landlord in this environment? Who would want to be a developer?

For many people, housing will be their biggest investment. Many people in their 20s, 30s and 40s have probably only just bought a house with a high mortgage. If you suddenly intentionally crashed the market what would that mean for these people? Would they ever recover from the negative equity they would be in?

Houses also cost a certain amount to build. We are talking at least £200k on most places in construction costs alone for a basic 3 bed house. That doesn't include the cost of the land to build it on in the first place. It could well be the case that crashing the market means that it's just not economically viable anymore to build anymore houses if you know you can't sell them for enough money to even recover your costs.

For these reasons and lots more, rent controls have been proven not to work iea.org.uk/media/rent-controls-do-far-more-harm-than-good-comprehensive-review-finds/