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.

@WunTooThree
Can you explain in a succinct way what is your point? are you saying that our current welfare works well and we need to continue as is? or tax higher earners more to increase benefits?

High tax payers moaning they pay tax towards welfare, when people are on benefits due to disability, low pay, or not enough jobs to go round.
What do you think will help that?
The largest welfare spend is actually pensions. Can't stop people getting old.

Have you NC? sometime last year? Weyland something? former hospital cleaner now on long term on benefits? because why to do this hard job if you can get autism PIP and UC and get the same amount?

No, not me
Nice way to deflect though.

Really? I know loads of people. I also know of people who go to great lengths not to pay any tax at all in the UK, including non-dom status for years and then moving cash off shore. They also put their £2 million house in their daughter’s name and are evading tax by living in it and pretending it belongs to the daughter. I think it’s pretty disgusting to benefit from everything in this country but pay nothing towards it.

I also know loads of people who have over the years boasted about doing everything cash in hand and paying practically no tax. Someone today was saying they didn’t want to do one extra exercise class as it would mean they’d have to pay tax. God forbid.

But most of all I know people who have been serial users of the NHS, claimed benefits, had blue badges etc. but also done their utmost to avoid paying taxes. In fact there was a correlation between the amount someone avoided tax and the entitlement they had towards services. I think it’s down to being takers rather than givers.

Like you I’ve always been happy to pay my share because I believe in roads without potholes, an educated population and universal healthcare among other things.

you sound very familiar and that poster disappeared at exactly the same time as you started and you continue the same line.

Anyway.

Pensions are 50% of the overall welfare spend. Total welfare is now the top spend item, 22% of the overall budget IIRC, more than NHS. About 7.4m people claim UC and only 30% of them are in some form of employment, doesn't even mean it's FT.

We had to import millions of migrants to do NMW jobs whilst paying millions of locals to do nothing. There are jobs, possibly not the nicest ones, hard to do ones, but there are jobs. But benefits pay almost the same, so it's easier to "work" with your GP for some time, get MH diagnosis and life on benefits is yours.

Cleaners in my DCs school, shelf stockers in my local Tesco - they barely speak any English, clearly migrants. This is next to a large council estate where most people don't work. Why is this so? these migrants pay tax to support locals on benefits, why can they do these jobs and UC claimants can't?

out of interest - are you on PAYE or business owner? are you on 40% band? below 100k?

I bet they were fed up of repeating the same line I am. How does someone disappear on MN?

Benefits do not pay the same, How can £100pw be the same as 40 hours in NMW job? It isn't. It is way less.

Ah, another snipe at people with MH issues. It has been a theme throughout this thread. They must all be "self reporting" and faking 🙄

it's not £100/week though? £400/months is a "living expense" payment, but then there is housing support, free prescriptions, you don't need to pay for commute to work etc.
For a single person on NMW FT take home pay is £1600 pm. With housing support your benefits might be just slightly less. With kids the difference will be negligible.

ETA: Entitledto is frequently recommended here. Out of curiosity I put all my data there (lost job scenario, no savings obv). I was shocked how much I'd get. Not life of luxury of course, but I definitely could make it. This system needs to change.

Someone looking for work and on £100pw still has to go to the job centre and attend interviews that have been offered, and also any training course too. They also are expected to attend job fairs. Not everyone is on medication, so free prescriptions is hardly a perk.
Some people on job seekers own their home and get very limited help with their mortgage. They can and do lose their homes.
A person with kids can get a lot of help with UC, but if you are a single childless adult, you get very little.
And again, there are still not enough jobs to go around. Do you think the people who are jobless should just be on the street and starve?

Some people on job seekers own their home and get very limited help with their mortgage. They can and do lose their homes.
This is yet another illustration of the issue - if you worked, saved, bought a house and lost your job for whatever reason there is no help for you. Never worker in first place - taxpayers will house you.

And again, there are still not enough jobs to go around. Do you think the people who are jobless should just be on the street and starve?
Where do you have this statement that there are no jobs? there are just under 800k vacancies now. If all of them were filled it's 800k less of UC claimants to pay for and 800k of extra tax payers. This would have a huge impact.
I do think that people who are jobless should have some time limited support, probably higher than it is now, I'd advocate for the level of support to be linked to previous earnings, and then that's it. You take any job available, you move to whatever region where jobs are or you do community jobs FT equivalent and consider benefits to be your pay.

Seriously? Do you think all the people who pay 40% of their salaries all love their job? If tax payer funded non working people struggle to juggle child care, how do you think people working 60 hours a week manage it? Whilst also paying for it double through their taxes and directly? If litter picking is beneath you, how do you think generational farmers feel about working 90 hours a week just to keep the farm in the family? How do you think small business owners feel about losing their businesses they’re built up over decades ? Parents of children at independent schools that have now closed? All to fund entitled people who refuse to contribute.
No it’s absolutely not acceptable.

Oh they have to go to the job centre do they? Attended the occasional interview? Briefly pop into a job fair? Not exactly a hard day's graft is it?

Jesus wept.

Just because someone 'didn't want to be there' does not mean they 'are not up to the job' FFS.

I would hazard that the majority of people don't especially want to be in their job. Most jobs aren't there to fulfil a want, they're there to fulfil a NEED, which is to financially support yourself.

And even if they don't actually want to do their job they still do it correctly because, you know, they bloody need the job.

I thought she was Xeno something.

Fair point on pensions. I think it would be sensible to scrap the triple lock, means test subsidies and also move to a system where people privately save up for retirement.

No it's not "all our money anyway". Simple economics, some people's efforts and abilities deserve higher reward than others.

Any one who has a small business or is self-employed had better have saved privately, but Reeves has made sure you can't pass much down to your heirs. If you have successfully created a personal pension fund via direct contributions, it became subject to inheritance tax, with effect from April 2026. Auto-enrolment starting from 2012 and the pension freedoms from 2014 were starting to restore the UK pension sector to something approaching solvency following Gordon Brown's 1997 budget which made direct benefit pensions unaffordable long term for most employers by removing the dividend tax credit. An apparently trivial change that has cost very dearly.

That person hasn't worked in 8 years and appears to have no intention of ever working again.

Despite DH paying eye watering rates of tax

How long has he paid these high taxes? Are you a net tax payer too? If you have DC, were they privately educated?

Missed off part of my post!

I'm asking these questions because it's likely your family has taken out of the system far more than you've put in. Most of us do.

Hmm...

I'm asking these questions because it's likely your family has taken out of the system far more than you've put in. Most of us do.

That's the essence of the issue - because most of you do, you want minority of people like PP to pay even more. Those who pay enormous amounts of tax rarely take much back - no proverbial free childcare, kids are usually privately educated, with VAT added on, private healthcare etc etc.

The government raised NMW by a bit and that caused a huge furore.

Selective much.

It wasn't the minimum wage rise that caused the furore. It was the increase in NMW AND the increase in employer NI at the same time on top of the already high costs of running business.

and increased business rates and passed Employment Rights bill.

What they should've done is increase NWM but decrease (or at least keep as is) taxes and reduce welfare to balance the budget, but hey