'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.

Even St Paul said we are to pay our taxes and shut up.

exactly....the sales office managers who sit on their asses all day or wave theirs fannies around the business expos are not doing the hard work, the labourers who make the product for sale do

Are they not actually getting the product sold?

I am wondering also, because all the lazy asses on benefits simply sit at the council house or flat all day long, eat, drink and watch tv. Lazy even to catch a bus down to the seaside or go to London for a nice concert.....where is their money gone? On crack, beer, fatty take always, fake eye lashes and nails....

I could not never live like that and be proud of anything or happy.
I prefer my hard work on NMW and my hubby's slightly higher wage but boy, we have a decent life, self respecting and nice holidays and even private health care.

you chose. I don't envy a benefit scrounger or even worse, a mother with disability benefit for her kids - the last one's life can be a hell

plus don't start me on the tax my self employed husband has to pay. He would be in bancruptcy if it was not my wage and I still not dare complain or envy others

this is why our countries right now are up and coming, keeping our national identities alive and Christianity alive and these here the complainers are saliving after our cheap properties and are migrating like mad...surprise, surprise, you got to pay up for all you want to use as facility, even abroad.

this is spot on. The middle wage person who just makes it through life has to finance everyone else but hey, the rich are untouchable....WHY?

The rich pay the most in taxation?

"Basic sustenance levels" for the disabled. What would that look like? Food parcels, plain grey tracksuits, and a bucket to piss in?

We always get a woman on these threads complaining about how much tax her self-employed husband pays. If your husband is paying a fortune in tax, he’s already earned a fortune x2. If he were near bankruptcy, he wouldn’t have to pay a lot of tax. His money must be going somewhere else (ie. Not to HMRC).

Money for rent, utilities bills, internet, clothes and healthy food. The essentials needed to be alive. And the money needed for their disability and medical condition.

That is pretty much what they get anyway. Disabled people do not get a lot at all. Just the UC is less than the state pension.
Some are great at budgeting though, so can afford some luxuries too.

Thanks. You just said it - my last post was prophetic.

I don’t think anyone truly rich will be complaining this year as they will have passive investments which have gone up (equities are up, interest rates are up, precious metals up). Most got richer this tax year and significantly so.
The complaints are from those pushed into higher tax brackets (many many) by inflation but not getting back due to cost of living and a perverse benefits and incentives system. Ignore at your peril. Add in the HMRC approach of taxing people forward now to make figures look better, it’s not looking good..

The "rich" on these threads vastly overestimate their own importance. If you're on PAYE, you're not that rich, and you're not that important. If you leave, someone else will take your place.

We could probably do with a few of you leaving, to help out the 2.3 job seekers for every vacancy.

The rich we actually need, the business owners who create wealth and employment, are not as mobile as people on this thread seem to think.

It is funny how the most vocal on these sorts of threads tend to be women that are bankrolled by their husbands.

Small businesses are actually the largest component of the tax gap

I mean ones is supported by a partner (as partners do) instead of being reliant on the taxpayer.

Not at all. You can maintain your own roads, staff your own hospital, process your own sewage, drive your own bus, police your own neighbourhood, direct your own air traffic, fight your own fires and build your own dialysis machine.

I think the question @Chiseltip is how do I teach my children to be good at playing life's game, to their own satisfaction? (I am assuming that you can afford to pay the overheads). It may be a personal opinion, founded on nothing substantial, but actually I think that if people only have the children they can afford TO NURTURE, then we probably can adjust to a lower birth rate quite quickly. It won't suit the plutocrats who want to consume cheap labour and resources though. Or the politicians who want to claim that the economy is growing at 3%. Intelligence (I hope) will create elegant new solutions.

I do not want anyone to breed tax-payers.

Well, no. You get wives of high rate tax payers berate people on benefits, when they also have none of their own income.
It is hypocritical.

Not very fair @UserFront242 . My Dsis was a trailing spouse for 35 years, and learned so much about relocating globally that she eventually ended up the higher paid. You seem to have a UK mindset because internationally, tax rates are usually irrelevant.

More than 7 million now paying higher tax rates, plus their spouses I guess according to some. Not an insignificant amount of voters and no wonder some want them to leave the country, lest they cast their vote in a certain way. You know exactly what I am saying and you also know that I am right.

We would have left by now were it not for a drug that makes DH intolerant of direct light and heat. We're not the big tax payers, but at 70, as two successful competent formerly self employed people, we'd be welcome in most countries outside the obvious billionaire tax havens.

@UserFront242

Quite. I think what some mean by “Why can’t these people solve their own financial problems?” Is “Why don’t they just marry a rich man?”