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.

but the war economy can only last for so long then when you eventually get other countries joining in the arms trade, then gun runners and then Pmc companies etc at some point they will get cheaper weapons elsewhere

if we want to grow the pie then we need to use spooks for rigging the stock markets etc

Exactly, the UK needs a growth strategy. A rising tide lifts all boats.

The current Labour government seems intent on alienating wealth creators and destroying value and growth. Unfortunately, the 'strategy' if you can call it one is to tax the 'high earning' pips till they squeak rather than nurture growth. Short termism dominates as does political survival by Starmer. He is weak leader to not bring his left leaning backbenchers in line who want to keep the benefits gravy train going so they do not lose their seats in the next election.

It is politics over the economy and the UK is an economic basket case. The real fear is Labour is paving the way for Reform in the next election.

The worldwide export market for arms is over 600b USD per year, and the UK’s share of that is only 3.6%. There is plenty of room to expand its market share.

https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/fs_2503_at_2024_0.pdf

You’re assuming that military spending will go down globally and that British firms can’t compete effectively. I doubt either of those assumptions are correct.

And what about expanding service exports? Is that doomed to fail as well?

when you have a number of players all selling weapons, etc then at some point via what ever methods some will get them cheaper, and then it reduces profits etc, plus wars can only last for so long, after all humans can only spend so much on weapons before they run out of battles,

as for the services again you only need so many people to sell the services to and when you have American giants eg JP Morgan, BlackRock etc then how can we compete with them and other countries, etc

The answer to both of those problems is innovation. As arms become more technologically intensive (look at drones in Ukraine, for example), countries will buy from whoever has the most effective systems for sale. Only the lowest value added products become commodities.

Tech is a promising area for British exports, thanks to innovation. Look at Darktrace, a world leader in AI driven cybersecurity. It was started by a group of mathematicians from Cambridge.

But if you don’t believe success is possible, then it isn’t.

or you make the product then corporate espionage happens and other countries copy the designs or modifiy them enough to claim they too have invented similar and then they undercut the uk sales of the tech etc

@Eddiestrangerthings you sound defeatist. Guess we should all just give up now.

The UK has great qualities like innovation and creativity which if nurtured by a government within a favourable tax regime and supportive framework, including attracting quality talent <shock>, could plant the seeds for growth. It is not going to be overnight but the government should be focusing on ways and means to support businesses in growing sectors, not tax businesses out of existence.

My friend's son is a talented computer genius. He is not from UK and is currently studying in Cambridge. He has been accepted on a very competitive London internship by one of the largest US hedge funds. Having worked out the UK tax regime, he has decided that UK tax residency is not worth it and will be going back to his low tax regime to work once he has graduated. I am sure people wil say don't let the door slam you on the way out. Just another example of a high earning tax payer (he will earn 6 figures off the bat) who could earn his fortune in any developed country making the very rational decision to give the UK a swerve. Oh well, that's his lifetime of potential tax contributions gone.

im not saying dont try, im just looking at the end game

So Darktrace and similar UK tech firms should just close their doors and make everyone redundant. Got it.

Or they could continue to innovate and improve their products and grow. Never mind, that’s just daft.

yes we need to try, but at the same time, we need to be different too and not just rely on the war economy

Don’t make a crazy amount, however as someone who pays “just” 40% tax (Scotland) I won’t be going for any sort of promotion as it will push me into the next bracket and it’s already bullshit I have to pay so much tax then pay tax again on everything I purchase (petrol/food etc.) I’ve worked hard for what I see to be a good job, saved for a house I pay for, paid for my car…(had no “government help) and as yet have never had a child (because I’ve not been in the financial position to support a child) so no IMO I’ve not worked myself into the ground for people who have given half an effort for a small amount of their time to have an equal lifestyle and feel we are all due the same, it’s like saying the person who pushes themselves to go to the gym everyday and eat well should be the same weight as the person who has never stepped foot in the gym and gets a takeaway every night

Sure it is competitive, but to stagnate is to die.

You know the premise of The Red Queen. You have to run just to stay in one place. To get anywhere, you have to run faster than everyone else. Invest more, innovate more, sell more.

The US is the dominant economy but you got to admire the Chinese. They have a different economy and political system but starting from a low base have put in place long term plans decades in the making that are now bearing fruit.

Yes, it is possible to catch up, but the will must be there. The incentives of capitalism ultimately drive businesses and individual endeavour.

but when companies become too good then its anti monopoly etc so how does that help etc

I don’t understand your point. BAE is never going to have a monopoly on arms exports and Darktrace will never have a monopoly on cybersecurity software and services.

fair points , ive just done some extra research on the point i was going to make and ill admit i was wrong, and from my analysis your correct at this point in time

after running analysis on our coversations on this thread i realise a better option is : Chase growth and use the intelligence services to help assist with that growth

That is a bare faced lie. Do better.

This is an unintelligent and uneducated view.

No, the public isn’t literally paying for the salaries of higher earners. You can only make that argument for public sector workers and that obviously includes the low paid ones. You can also make that argument for benefit claimants as that comes out of the public purse.

But no, the salaries of self employed or high earning employees in private sector do not stem from the public purse and are not allocated in the budget etc the same way public sector salaries or benefit claims are.

Beyond that obviously you have to be special and work hard to command a high salary to begin with, so it’s totally valid to find it frustrating seeing 40% of that being taxed when others are scrounging off the public purse. People don’t pay you £125k for nothing there is going to be an element of risk/expertise/stress attached.

Charitable activities? Fix pot holes? Litter picking? Low level policing/visible presence to deter anti social behaviour, Lolly pop people? Traffic wardens? Something to give back, rebuild self esteem and make people feel part of society, As evidenced by the comments on this thread, large groups of people who are dependent on the system are feeling resentful and in some cases hostile towards the people funding it. In turn the people funding it, again obvious in the comments, are fed up of the cost and hostility and are resentful towards the dependent group. It’s not a good situation.

Just click on ‘show quote history’ and go right to the start. It was a different poster but you jumped in to respond and continue the argument. You said “you missed a bit. Quite a bit actually” and started talking about how income tax receipts are bigger. I continued my argument that I’m talking about proportion of income, which was the initial comment I responded to.
Calling me a bare faced liar is dramatic, rude, and inaccurate.

I earn 55k a year so just a few K into the 40% bracket. Which means that if I get a pay rise this year, almost half of it goes to tax.

Not all higher-rate tax payers are earning huge amounts.

It's deflating when you will only receive half of a pay rise and if you're one of those people that doesn't receive a lot of tangible personal benefits from paying tax, it can cause a bit of resentment.

and how many of those roles would be profitable ? at present a few of them would need cheap labour or volunteers to do the roles, and if a job could be made from those roles then proper wages should be paid for those roles, but then its who pays for the wages and then its back to the argument that yes the roles need doing but its not profitable

🤣🤣👊🏻

It’s profitable for society, maybe not the individual. It’s not profitable for individual because benefits make it more profitable to not do the job, it’s distorted the market.