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.

It's not identity politics. There are about three groups who, through history, have always coped the blame at points of social crisis. That doesn't mean those groups are special in some way or deserving of special treatment. However, when resentment of them starts to grow it's usually a sign all is not well in wider society. And can be a sign things are going to get very rough indeed. The growth of divisive identity politics (your words) in the US for example has happened on both sides of the political aisle. And rather suggests despite Missconducts claim that the US bounced back from 2008 that lots of problems remained.

The other points I made, about the costs 2008 banking collapse, about the systemic corruption/collaboration where wealthy individuals bought information to further enrich themselves directly from the purse of the taxpayer, about the problems deregulation caused and the current push from the right to deregulate again...
you don't need to have a read a word of Das Capital to know about it- you just need to look at the news. Its all there written down. It's not an ideological position. It's the facts.

No economy is perfect. Libertarianism is a fantasy. But the USA has a significantly higher GDP per capita compared to the UK. I feel in the USA there's an ethos of industry, working and making something of yourself and being self reliant.

I’d like equality of outcome in sport. It’s not fair that I’m old and short. I should be allowed to do the pole vault over 6”.

My DCs went to the local comp and encountered some teachers banging the “equity” drum. Yes, the idea was definitely that you do everything to stall them and that you move at the pace of the average to low. In fact this school has just decided to replace the word “excellence” in their Striving For banner with “equity”.

If you are paying 75k tax you can afford to go private.

Think there is some confusion over taxing the rich. It's not doctors or solicitors or other food jobs. It's the filthy rich who earn more just by waking up every day then most people could ever dream of. They can afford to be taxed so much more and still get richer.

At what level of net worth/income do they become "filthy rich"?

Real equality of outcome in sport would, arguably be abolishing the male and female categories.
I know there are already people trying to game that system. But I think many of the posters on Mumsnet would agree that was wrong. Sport tries to mitigate difference in other ways - eg weight categories and age categories.

Sport is also unfair. Some countries dominated the swimming and equestrian categories because people there have more money for pools and horses. Likewise most tennis players tend to be well of. And the Winter Olympics are noticeably dominated by countries with snow and/or money for artificial skislopes and skating rinks.

Does that matter? It's impossible to create a completely even playing field. But lots of sports bodies/clubs try to mitigate some of the unfairness by for example providing free/low cost training opportunities for talented youngsters who wouldn't be able to afford it. By providing funding to lower income countries to create more opportunities. By providing "wild card" entrants to some Olympic sports.

Sports is about competition. It's also meant to be about fair competition. It's impossible to perfectly meet the ideal of perfect fairness in a world which is distinctly unfair but I think most people would be OK with them taking steps to mitigate that unfairness where possible. Or it would just be watching a lot of drugged up super rich Americans running on robot legs. My problem is, some people on this thread equate that sort of mitigation with Marxism. It isn't. It's trying to stop an imperfect system (capitalism) destroying itself and the young with it.

Gotcha. It wasn’t in response to anything anybody has mentioned on this thread, it wasn’t a lazy attempt at a straw man argument, it wasn’t a cheap identity politic comment to imply anyone who disagrees with you is in someway immoral…. It was just that you know what people who disagree with you were thinking based on history so thought you’d throw it in? I think you should stop digging.

• If you can buy a football club you are filthy rich
• If you can buy a newspaper.or a TV company or a social media site you are filthy rich. (Trouble is you can then use that newspaper/TV company/social media site to tell everyone how wrong and dangerous taxing the filthy rich is.)
• If you can afford to lend money to politicians or royals you are filthy rich.
• If you can afford to travel to a private island with your nannies and children for a one hour lunch you are filthy rich. But at least rich Americans like that are go-getters and hard working😍😍😍

@Pithykestralfish So you agree with everything else I said apart from the blaming things on muslims point? We can agree to disagree on that then, it's always nice to find areas of agreement even if you don't agree with everything. Have a nice day.

You’re describing equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity would be something like banning drugging in competitions, equality of outcome would be picking the winner of a race based on an identity like race, sexual preference, gender or family economic circumstances growing up. That or breaking the legs of anyone who is too good at winning races to ensure a more equitable outcome based an arbitrary identity quota system.

I will clarify that it is my dh who is the higher rate tax payer and his mum who waited 22 hours for an ambulance. The point is that the NHS is free at the point of use for everyone, but when higher rate tax payers and their family can’t get a basic level of service it begs the question what are we paying for? Dh and I do pay to go private mainly because we can no longer be bothered to even try for an NHS appointment. In the last 2 years, Dh has paid to have a suspicious mole removed, ( he tried for 3 weeks to get a Gp appointment, gave up saw a private Gp and within 3 days was having the mole removed). I have paid to have an eye operation. We have paid for Dd to have private allergy testing and Ds private dermatology appointment for his acne and have and continue to pay for all associated medications. Even going as far back as 20 years ago we paid £20k for a private operation for my dad (he was not and had never been a higher rate tax payer), we paid because the NHS had a waiting list of over a year for the investigative operation he needed. During the operation they discovered a cancerous tumour which was removed during the operation. We begrudge paying so much for services that are non existent not just for us but everyone else as well.

Yes and the shop keeper is the one who takes on the risk of his business fails... But when much larger companies or banks are failing that risk is taken on by the government. If you are too big to fail and you fail you are bailed out by the tax payer. Or if you fuck up the pension fund- the government has to step in. Or if you pollute the waterways etc. Larger businesses and the very rich have always tried to privatise their profits but socialise their risks.

And of course maintaining infrastructure and public safety is the job of the government. It can only pay for this through taxation however. Where else would the money come from? And those who have benefitted the most are also the most able to pay that taxation.

Well, we do effectively pick the winner of a race based on sex though. We have whole races just for one sex (or used to). It that's by the by...

Because the world is unequal, in terms of material wealth and therefore individual opportunity one might seek to make the playing field as equal as possible (in terms of opportunity). Eg by providing free high quality education (primary, secondary, maybe even tertiary). This will enable (in a perfect world) equality of opportunity for those who don't have much money to do well. However, in order to provide that free education you need to tax someone. So money is being taken from the rich to give to the poor but it's not a Marxist redistribution of wealth. It's mitigating the effects of inequality not removing it.

There's a lot more to equality of opportunity than just education - class, who you know, etc all have an impact. People with resources will always try to game the system for themselves or their children which always creates inbalances. Therefore you can't create perfect equality (of opportunity) in a capitalist system or indeed in any system. However, to even try to do so, involves a certain amount of taxation and that's instantly decried on here as Marxism/trying to create equality of outcome. It isn't.

I’m always puzzled how if taxes are so high how do people in business / companies accumulate millions in capital … ? profit after deductions, it’s cos they are overpricing overcharging for services / products sold.

Banks now have bail in rules to mitigate the moral hazard issue.

Which came in after the 2008 financial crash. We all paid for that through our taxes since it took so long to pay of the debt. And is part of the reason things are fucked up today (why I don't see good enough public services for the tax I pay).

Trump is also in the process of removing those regulations from the banks (that's just US law but when America sneezes...). And pressurising other countries to deregulate AI and crypto. Here we go again....

By making goods and services consumers want and value.

Why do you think it's an "overcharge"? People aren't going to sell things at cost.

Can you show me the posts where anybody has decried taxation as Marxism to create equality of outcome other than in response to the below post arguing for taxation to be used to create equality of outcome. Incidentally a post you defended. Perhaps they’re with all the posts blaming Muslims for high taxes? This is getting a bit ridiculous now.

‘Interesting, though, to think the moral/fairness case for taxation/equality of outcome could be so outré as to be thought sarcastic. Interesting and sad.’

I mentioned the C...o word in my last post so Mumsnet hid it. I didn't say anything horrible.
In short, Trump is now removing those regulations that were in place since 2008. And deregulating in many other areas I can't mention because my post will be hidden.

Well, i talked about the reasons for taxation and the reasons for inequality and someone called me a Marxist? That's not reading anything into anything. I was literally called a Marxist for saying something decidedly non Marxist. Read back and check.

So no then, same as the posts of people blaming Muslims for taxes. I’m noticing a bit of a pattern here.

Most of those changes were legislative, in the Dodd Frank bill. Trump can’t change them without congressional approval.

I don't think we need more migration just now, and we do need to integrate anyone here much more intensively. It should not be possible to arrive and get residency in the UK without a one to one 20 minute interview in spoken English. Even if you have just married your Mirapuri cousin from Bradford to make your uncle happy.

Of course you have to have some level of taxation. OP’s argument was that all money remains public so that there is no reason for businesses to have a claim to any of it.

I wonder what’s happened to OP. I haven’t seen her since one of her posts got taken down yesterday. Perhaps she’s been very busy running her fintech startup. 😂