To be confused by 'high earners' complaining about taxes?

[tutuland]

So high earners pay lots of tax. The top 20% pay for 70% or whatever the numbers are.

But (beyond printing more money) isn't the money there high income people make just coming from the paying public? No matter who you work for, your company's profit is just an accumulation of normal people paying for things.

So ultimately, isn't it all our money anyway? Just beacuse the game is rigged and you get paid 400K for management whatever, it doesn't mean you're more deserving of that money than anyone.

Yeah you'd think the 'squeezed middle' would turn on them not people on benefits

Just in time for children to be allowed to vote at the next election.

Yes I did all of those things. Me hopes that helps!

Why not also compare the comparative take home salaries? The minimum wage worker takes home around £1600 a month after tax and national insurance. The £126k worker brings home £6500 a month after tax and national insurance.

I understand the hardship of losing access to free childcare but that’s relatively short lived and realistically can be absorbed by someone earning over £6k a month. Long term they will also be building their pension pot and looking forward to a comfortable retirement.

The effective tax rate is much higher for the £126k earner because they can afford it without being driven into poverty. The minimum wage worker would be on £1100 a month if they were on the same effective tax rate.

I wonder if the resentful higher earners (and their wives) on this thread, ever take a moment to pause and consider how life would be for them on a £1600 a month salary when they’re moaning about only taking home £10k a month on a £200k salary.

£1600 a month working full time. That’s about 2 million people in the U.K. working in shops, restaurants, cafes, hotels, supermarkets. All of these services that we all depend on to keep society going, or to provide luxuries and leisure activities to the better earners. They are cleaners, care workers, kitchen assistants, customer service workers, admin assistants, keeping everything ticking along at very low pay. And there’s millions more earning just a bit, but not much more, over that. What are they striving for, for such low pay? Why should they bother?

The entitlement, grandiosity and snobbery that’s been on display in this thread is shocking.

Why? What do you propose? Take all of their assets away? Is that not theft?

But just because you pay higher tax doesn’t mean you’re more entitled to an appointment than others? You can afford to go private, think of the people who are not financially able.

There’s an interesting study somewhere that shows that the poorest 10% in Britain take home 1/12th of the richest 10% but after tax and benefits the difference is only 1/3rd which goes to show why those on very little on these threads say ‘if I earned what you do I’d be loaded’ and those that earn highly say it’s not that much. I’ll see if I can dig it out.

Do you think higher tax payers should be entitled to receive the same services as lower earners?

Is this rage bait. Do you understand how business works. Of course it’s not. You can’t possibly think this and if you do that’s frankly bonkers.

Great summary.
Just to add - many of the spend items which low income people pay for don't attract VAT at all or lower rate VAT, e.g. no VAT on food and water bills, 5% VAT on energy bills.

Britain’s tax system combines the worst of the US and Scandinavia

"The average UK worker is taxed much less than in most countries, and no other country has a steeper climb from taxes on middle to high earners."

OP, this article answers your question.

It's possible to want fair taxation and for people on benefits who can work to get a job. They are not mutually exclusive.

I don't know why tax evaders think they're special and I also don't know why healthy benefit claimants think they're special. There is no benevolent tax payer cohort happy to fund healthy benefit claimants.

So if the actual take home of 126k is more like 50, what's the actual take home of 24.5? That number is before tax? I agree with you the system currently doesn't work but you need to compare like for like

Income tax is progressive but it’s well evidenced that the U.K. tax system overall is regressive due to the impact of VAT and other indirect taxes (fuel duty, alcohol, excise and tobacco duties, customs duties etc). Council tax is also regressive at the bottom.

What I’m saying isn’t spoken about very much so there’s ignorance in the general population, however it’s a standard argument and well accepted in public-finance economics and tax academics that overall the U.K. tax system is regressive.

As a share of income poorer household pay so much more VAT and other indirect taxes that it offsets the income tax progressivity.

Ah but that’s before extra £500 UC top up for 2 children. Taking you up to £2100 and on the other side after missing out on childcare for 2 children that’s the ‘high earner’ down to £4200, you could be paying £750 student loan and you’re down to £3500. £1400 extra for a month for a 60 hour week and lots of responsibility? Or stack shelves for 35 hours? Buy a nice house? mansion tax. Pay for the kids to go to school? Education tax. Pension that your kids an inherit? Forget it, IHT. Salary sarcrafice? Nope we’ll have that as well.

I’m 34 and it’s going to be worth it, but absolutely no chance in hell would I do it now in the U.K. if I was young again. Not a chance.

What you’re reading isn’t snobbery, it’s reality and it’s the future of the hard attitudes you will have to get used to after either the IMF bailout or the inevitable swing to the right for the next Government.

they should get a better service

l am always interested in just how much so called high earners and a pot of companies avoid in paying all the tax they should really pay.

From blatant tax evasion to dodgy criminal activities, trusts and overseas companies.

And get away with it because they are part of the World Wide Elite. And have all governments in their pocket.

The higher rate of income tax rate is fairly low now compared to past decades. Top rate in the Sixties was over 90%.

As in The Kinks song

Tax man's taken all my dough.
Left me in my stately home.
Lazin' on a sunny afternoon.

And l can't sail my yacht
He's taken everything l've got

Rich people.My heart bleeds for you.
I will say a prayer for you.
🙏💰💰💰💰

Surprised nobody has mentioned the enormous ‘student loans’ people are having to pay, aka an extra 9% lifetime tax on all income over £28,4k just for going to university. The true higher tax rate is substantially higher than 40% for graduates aged around 28-40, and is never ending. The more you earn, the higher the interest rate.

That’s before you start on national insurance.

No wonder so many professionals are leaving.

That’s fine, but you can only expect the same attitude from others when you have to support your own family in the future.

There’s an old phrase, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

You’re resentful at the single mother with two children, serving you at the supermarket / cafe / cleaning your office building who gets her £1600 a month topped up with UC allowing her to put food on her table and pay for her children to attend after school club while she slogs away?

I take home about £3k a month (after tax and student loan) on a £50k salary and think it’s plenty, more than enough. It is completely baffling why posters on this thread are seemingly working so hard to make more and more money but appear to be miserable, bitter, and unsatisfied with their growing pay check. Why not relax and set your sights a bit lower if you’re finding it so hard? There will be plenty of others to take your place I’m sure.

So, do you think your mum should have been prioritised over the child of someone on NMW because you pay more tax than them? Or just prioritised over another elderly person who's child paid less tax? And should she have waited longer than the mother of a person who paid more tax than you?
The service your mother recieved was appalling. But I'm interested in how you see your hierarchy working in practice.

We could take away all the billionaires’ assets away but leave them, say, £50m to live on.

They’d be just fine.

It entirely depends on your outgoings though. If you live in a cheap part of the UK you can live like a king on £50k. If you live in a big city you can’t.

@IcyPlumShaker I don’t believe in state theft either. Where does it end. And how many £billionaires do we have? It’s not that many. Pure politics of envy.

I live near, and work in, a big city like the majority of the population.

Yeah keep defending those poor old billionaires.

Like they give a shit about you.