'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.

I don't mind paying taxes (I would prefer not to but realise it's necessary in a civilised society), but I do have issues with how that tax take is spent.

An example: an elderly relative got to the age of 93 and admitted that the cleaning was getting a bit much for her and she needed some help. She lived in an old pit village and as a consequence of Tebbit's 'get on your bikes' there was no family near enough to help. She was assessed for a benefit to pay a cleaner. She was awarded £70 per week (this was a few years ago). The cleaner cost £25 per week, so she told them she didn't need that much money, just £25 per week. She was told £70 per week or nothing, so she took the £70. The extra money that went into her bank account and sat there would have paid for another one, nearly two people to have cleaners - where's the sense in that?

I do get ranty about in work benefits. If you're getting 30 hours childcare but are only working 16 hours - why?
I think if you're working and claiming top-up benefits those top-ups should be repaid from the profits of your employer before they start paying out dividends etc. (why is the state enhancing a private company's profitability).

I'm approaching pension age. I have a 'gold-plated' public sector pension and will have worked full-time from 18 - 67. It will pay out around NMW, so I think my cruises will be limited to boat trips on the local duck pond. I'm glad I've got it though, because state pension is around half NMW, so not sure how I would manage on half the minimum amount the government thinks you need to exist on....

Some years ago there was lots of talk in the press about the idea of 'flat tax', so everything that is taxable is taxed at the same rate for everyone - no loopholes, no tax write-offs, no super wealthy employing fancy accountants to limit their tax.
Same for businesses - flat tax on all profits, dividends, bonuses. Completely level playing field. So although in real terms the wealthy would still pay more, their 'share' of the burden would be the same as everyone else's.
I don't know if this could work, I'm not any sort of economist, but would be interested if anyone who knows about this sort of thing could explain if it would be a good or bad thing.

Don’t underestimate the huge amount of pretty extreme socialist steps they’ve taken. Most inherited wealth is taxed away.

Why to post such wrong info??

So IHT:

Finland - up to 19% IHT for direct relatives (and 19% kicks on the amounts above 1m), so peanuts vs 40% UK

Sweden - no IHT at all

Denmark - 15% IHT for direct relatives, 25% for the rest. Again, peanuts vs 40% UK

Norway - no IHT

Estonia has a flat tax on all income of 22%.

One of the reasons why you have a rise in ‘problem families’ is because they have the example of people like me right in front of them. People like me who never had the money given to them for deposits, who never came from wealth and in fact come from very deprived backgrounds and have tried to do what was right regardless. People who worked through school, got the qualifications, worked some more, worked up, got on our bikes and worked some more.., and had everything taken away and made worthless by the shift to private landlording which took away everything we earned in rent. We’ve had to hussle and hussle again, retraining, working more, climbing ladders as fast as the rungs under our feet were removed.

I would have been better off now if I’d got myself pregnant at 13 like others on my estate, got a council house and bought it cheap under right to buy, selling high. I had to move back up north to cheap areas with nothing to stand a chance of getting half of what they were given. Youngsters locally see that, they see people like me working for the system, they see even the slightly better off than I was working for the system right now in London and elsewhere, and gaining nothing for it; and they quite rightly say there is no point.

I can understand the anger against those who’ve been given what I could not work for. But the needed response to that pattern is not merely to keep kicking the most vulnerable and certainly not to keep kicking working people in the teeth. The answer is to make work work by scrapping private landlords and reducing the cost of living by kicking private profiteers out of the fundamental cost of living by nationalising essential infrastructure like energy, transport and communications once again.

I agree with you to a certain extent OP.

I think removing the two child benefit cap was crazy. Why would a country enable parents living on benefits to have even more children who are more likely to grow up and continue the cycle? That money could be spent in much better ways to ensure better outcomes for children IMO.

I also think now that we have a NMW unions should be about health and safety and not be demanding large pay rises every year, a lot of people working in non gov jobs don't get a pay rise every year and a lot of people on very low pay for the gov see very little increase because their pay is so low to start with. However train drivers (no degree required) are earning 60k pretty shortly after they're trained, why is that? Well because of the unions. No one seems to care about TA's though or low paid NHS staff.

However the idea of seriously reducing or removing benefits, healthcare etc is a complete disaster - Skid Row anyone? The number of homeless people would sky rocket, drug use through the roof, slums popping up everywhere. I'd rather be over taxed than that any day.

The solutions IMO are - we need to be putting more money into kids - real help for struggling parents to parent or diagnose their kids, working out what the issues are and getting them proper help and support at as young an age as possible. Kids MH should be an absolute priority along with diagnosing ND and other conditions, every child should be screened for dyslexia at 7. Schools should have many more TA's and a lot less very highly paid CEO types. We also need many, many more SW's who have the time and resource to properly support people.

What options are there for kids with no GCSE's? Who is helping those kids with their options? Why didn't anyone suggest they did functional skills and alternative courses rather than come out of school with no self esteem and no qualifications? Why aren't schools offering functional skills? Why do you have to repeatedly fail your GCSE's to be offered it? What is happening to all the YA with degrees coming out and really struggling to find any job? Why is there not more help and support through their third year to actually get them all into jobs? Why is there not more support in navigating the job market? Who is supporting all the YA's with ASD and ADHD to navigate the job market?

I think we need to be putting our money into the kids. If we do that then the chances of them growing up into healthy, well adjusted, working adults has to be so much higher.

I don't think it's helpful comparing us to Denmark, Finland or Estonia though. We have a population of 69 million, they're populations are all below 6 million with Estonia closer to 2. There really is no comparison. We are vastly overpopulated and that is a huge part of our problem IMO.

The biggest barrier to the likes of you getting on the property market are taxes on landlords, which are passed on directly to tenants, making it harder for them to save a deposit.

The last property I rented was £1200, there is no way the mortgage on it was that high.

The house before that, I rented off a guy in his 70s who just considered it pocket money, that he mostly gave to his kids anyway. £550 pcm, only one less bedroom, slightly smaller garden.

The biggest barrier is absolutely profiteering.

I also know families on comparable income who send their children to school with a chocolate bar and can of coke for breakfast, let their kids skive school and have such chaotic houses that the children can't find their PE kit or school uniform. The parents vape, spend money on their own hobbies and going out and claim they don't have enough money to feed their kids.

These children are not to blame for their dysfunctional parents. As a society we have to protect these chidlren. We have no magic wand that will suddenly turn these parents into responsible people - chances are they themselves were poorly parented.

We may hate the fact that there are people who behave in this way, but we cannot let their chidlren be more of victims than they already are.

Having had a career as a social worker I openly acknowledge that there were some families who were (to use a Victorian term) simply feckless and they drove us all nuts; but our role was to protect their chidlren as best we could. Nothing we might have done would have turned them into the people we might have wished them to be.

BUT - and this is very important - by far and away greater in number were decent families who had had poor opportunities in life but had strong moral values and strove to do their best for their families.

Some "feckless" poor will always be with us, as will some amoral rich who exploit our tax systems. But in between are the vast majority of decent people who care about their families and their communities. The burden of the behaviour of these other two extreme groups falls on them - but there is no easy solution to this.

I understand why the OP is pissed off with her tax bill - we would all like not to have to pay - but it truly is how a civilized society functions. If she is unhappy with how the system is geared and wants to see that changed then she must lobby the politicians.

I entirely agree with your point, any system in place has presumably been assessed for net benefit. With my limited options and impact, I and the many others like me, are clearly an easier target than someone who can jet off.
That's the nail on the head really - the 'wider economy' (global now) can benefit, and in fact probably increasingly so, when it's at the expense of a majority of it's inhabitants.
And frustratingly, as this is global l, unless everyone kept the same checks and balances in place (which will never happen), our elite will always be able to move where the money is.
The policies in place (started in the 70s/80s) loopholes, trust funds etc won't be closed, and the genie is out of the lamp.
I don't even class a footballer as mega rich btw. And I don't advocate higher tax bands on individuals. I just have a pipe dream that profits are more equally distributed. And still maintain the average Joe pays proportionately more than mega corp TM.
People are just pissed off. And the real reasons are far bigger than PIP and we all know it.
Ps. Thanks for the mental challenge on a dreary Monday afternoon!

Recent Labour policies will make private renting more expensive. There may be more properties for sale but they could go to anyone. On renting that’ll go up due to reduced supply.

I don't know who you think you are writing to? Do you think I was just handed a home and never had to live in a privately rented house? It's bizarre the assumptions people make.

I don't know why you are so obsessed with painting private landlords as the bad guys. Do you think the government is sat on a tonne of money that they can go out and build social housing at £200/300k a pop to house everyone at a discounted rate? Do you understand the cost of capital? Someone somewhere is going to have absorb this and the government would prefer it's the private landlords right now.

“If you're getting 30 hours childcare but are only working 16 hours - why?”

Ah this does make sense actually, even if it sounds odd.

The 30 hours is term time only so more like 22 hours a week.

And then the nurseries will charge for full days - so that might be 11 hours, as they’re open 7.30 - 6.30.

So this means if you work 2 x 8 hour days plus travel = you’d use up the whole 30 free hours to do that.

How much was the house worth? If it was worth more than £250k the landlord almost certainly would have been better selling up and putting the money in the bank earning 5% interest a year.

The guy renting to you for peanuts obviously was very comfortable financially. Most of us couldn't afford to keep our money in a property like that earning peanuts when it could be invested elsewhere and making much more money. Even putting the money in the bank would have probably earned more in interest.

Lots of landlords rely on the money they have tied up in the property to deliver an income instead of having a pension. It isn't unreasonable that they need to make a profit from this.

100% tax is 100% civilised comrades

I wasn’t really talking about that. I was thinking more of having to live on what benefits pay out. If you’ve experienced trying to actually manage on them, I’m surprised by how you were talking in your ‘Benefits Street’ post.

Of course, thankfully those in need are supported though there are many people who decided to use these protections as a lifestyle choice, it isn’t sustainable longterm.
Sometimes entire households unemployed with able bodied parents and adult children.

The thing is you say you have no sympathy, but that’s why high earners are upping to leave to lower tax jurisdictions, which absolutely does not benefit those of us left behind in the UK

Just to clarify, are you a private landlord? Your phrasing would suggest so, and would explain the “giving them a break” idea.

The peanuts guy was indeed wealthy. It would have been less than £250k. Reasonable house in okay area, but nothing fancy.

The £1200pcm, would have been worth circa £250k. Owned by a couple, both working, so assuming the rent payments were a healthy top up to their existing income.

Sure, for them it is great financial planning to rinse somebody for a large profit so you can save it for later in life, or use it for a more affluent lifestyle. But morally, it’s not quite so great.

Or, some people/families are only working part-time with top up benefits.
This works both ways.
I think the stat is that only about 38% of those claiming benefits are actually working with only a small portion of that 38% actually working full time.
It does need to be acknowledged that for some people it makes no sense to work more hours as their benefits go down. I currently work with two people in this position - this is crazy. Who can blame individuals when this is the system?

Switzerland is much more complicated than you seem to appreciate and it is a very wealthy country.

Ireland has marginal tax rates of up to 52% which isn't all that different to the UK. It benefits from being small enough to position itself as a corporate tax haven, getting money from multinationals who place their brass plaques there in order to avoid taxes in the countries they operate in.

Singapore is a small island city state, it's not comparable in the slightest.

Bulgaria, really? You really are scraping the barrel for comparisons.

Why don't you try comparing to our peers, countries of a similar size and stage of development? Like France or Germany?

It’s not IHT in the same way but the taxation structures mean it’s almost impossible to pass on generational wealth in large amounts.

Are they though?

The only people I know who have moved to Dubai and other places are people who couldn’t make it here - squeezed middle for sure. Not business owners or genuinely super rich.

No I'm not one but I know a bit about the realities of being a landlord due to a relative being one.

I don't understand really why you can't see that they probably aren't rinsing you at all. A BTL mortgage for a £250k house would cost £900 alone in interest payments alone assuming a 25% deposit. The 25% deposit would be worth around 62k which would earn around £300 in interest each month if placed in a high interest savings account. So the cost to them of owning the house you are renting would be at least £1.2k a month and this doesn't include fees, maintenance costs etc. They could easily be losing money on renting the house to you.

This is nonsensical. People who emigrate are not generally people who “couldn’t make it in the UK”. Far from it. It took me 18 months to secure an overseas transfer with my company because they are fiercely competitive - I had to demonstrate consistent high performance and have the patience / tenacity to persevere with the process. The doctors who are leaving to Australia and New Zealand in droves aren’t unsuccessful, they go in search of better pay and conditions. The globally mobile are seldom thick failures who have been driven out of the UK due to their incompetence. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.

I don’t think people appreciate quite how many of the talented and high earning leave or are looking to leave.

I offered a range of examples of low tax civilised countries. I didn't suggest they were all comparable to the UK. There are others like the USA and even at a push Australia that are perhaps more comparable.

Why would I reference Germany and France? They aren't low tax countries.