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.

I agree!!!
Amazon and the big businesses definitely need to be taxed more/taxed better. That is why I was careful to specify a "well run" system. The system we have is deeply imperfect and scared to tax the very rich (Amazon etc) because they can up sticks and move or afford the money to spend on expensive tax lawyers and avoiding practices! Also, to be frank, the very rich can afford to lobby government to reduce their taxes and can afford newspapers that argue that any attempt to tax the rich will destroy the country. It is true that the richer people are the more mobile their liquid assets are and done badly taxing the rich could be counterproductive. But I still think that it's worth trying to tax wealth (which is harder to move around as it's normally in the form of houses) or to tax very large international businesses at the points they are making profit.

The problem with that is, anyone who tries to effectively tax the very wealthy and mega businesses will then get a barrage of headlines from the media (owned by multimillionaires and billionaires) that they are destroying the country/attacking regular people. Which will affect how those regular people vote. So it's actually more politically sound for the government to tax the middle and normal people or to put the blame on people on benefits for costing to much. Because people in the middle (PAYE tax payers or normal business owners) and people on benefits will both be consuming traditional media or new media like X/TikTok/Facebook.

The problem is that the government is the one dressing up the so called 'lucky' middle as strawmen to sacrifice to the those on benefits. Whilst also taxing them excessively for being productive.

I don't agree with the mansion tax, another lazy, clumsy tax that penalises people for staying put and building communities. Additional homes are fair game because nobody needs two homes - especially when some people don't even have one.

The housing crisis wasn’t caused by ordinary taxpayers. It’s the result of decisions made by governments, banks, and developers over many years, yet once again it’s everyday earners who are portrayed as the problem. The irony is the great Labour housing plan is not going to solve anything. Private enterprise and social / truly affordable housing do not play well.

It's hard to believe that there are no policy makers or academics that can think of a better tax & benefits systems.

Illegal evasion is the largest part of the tax gap I believe. This vastly dwarves legal avoidance and is predominantly done by small business.

What does Amazon do after it has extra cash. It uses it to invest in infrastructure, capacity, data centres and funnels so much into R&D.

Only country that successfully did a wealth tax was Switzerland because the rates were low and competitive and other taxes were low as well making it still a business friendly environment.

Some PPs on this thread want mass expropriation of wealth. Some want to take everything above a certain limit.

All good points when it comes to the super rich.
Of course, we all know that, in reality, there is a lot of corruption/legal influence which benefits this group.

Wrt the very high earners, a lot of this group has benefitted greatly from the current political/financial system which has goosed the financial economy. Anyone with a job related to finance/assets has therefore benefitted plus all the people who service their needs eg lawyers, accountants. No doubt, most of this group will think that they deserve their very high salaries, which have increased hugely while wages in most other professions have stagnated or fallen, but the reality is that they have benefitted from the current system. As a result of their very high salaries, they have also gained in terms of quality of life eg ability to afford v comfortable lifestyle, perhaps a SAH partner with a relaxed lifestyle, lots of holidays, PTs, etc, etc. I think it's fair to consider all those things when talking about 'tax the rich'.

I don't think that those on £100,000 are 'the rich' though and the tax rate at that level, espcially for those with student loans to pay, are ridicuous.

"I don't think that those on £100,000 are 'the rich' though and the tax rate at that level, espcially for those with student loans to pay, are ridicuous."

That's a fundamental issue. To some that is indeed rich. Or 80K is. Or 150K. Who get's to decide? It's subjective. That's why flat taxes are much fairer. Removes questions like that. If you earn more, you pay more. Everyone pays based on their income. No one is taxed twice on the same money.

"Amazon and the big businesses definitely need to be taxed more/taxed better."

I'm not sure you get why Amazon and their ilk are taxed so low. Some part of it is because they operate in multiple tax domains and can pay in the most favourable by structuring their business. That, overall, benefits the UK. Our financial system is built on servicing people moving money around.

But a large part of it is that they massively invest in growth to have minimal taxable profits. That's what creates huge numbers of jobs both at Amazon (warehouses) and in their service chain (delivery companies). Never mind all the small businesses that use them as a sales platform.

I agree with you! They invest so much in R&D

We get that. The PP was making the point that they shouldn’t be able to shop around for ‘the most favourable tax rate’. They should be paying tax in the region in which they supply the goods/services. They benefit from the structural facilities of that country and the market available in terms of customers so they should have to pay tax to support that infrastructure and their contribution towards that country’s economy in return for their access to the markets.

They may massively invest in growth but they also maximise their profits to benefit their shareholders.

It’s like the mirage of the trickle down effect. It doesn’t happen. People continue to work harder for less and billionaires keep paying themselves more and more.

Why? What is the relevance of tax collection from them? Why is that rake of $$ how they are judged? Our own govt says Amazon has created over 75,000 permanent jobs in the UK as of 2025, making it one of the top 10 private sector employers. The company supports over 200,000 additional jobs through its supply chain, with significant investments—including £40bn pledged by 2027—aimed at boosting local economies and infrastructure. That doesn't count? Tax is one piece of an overall economy. Getting hung up on it is just missing the big picture. Much of the financial system of offshoring, shell companies etc is a British invention. We did it to attract business into our finance industries. It has worked remarkably well. Ireland tried something like it and created the "tiger" boom as businesses located there creating huge numbers of jobs and wealth, but not tax. The EU stepped in and killed it, a blow from which Ireland has not, and may not ever, recover.

It’s not that the UK doesn’t want to tax Amazon ‘better’, they cannot. It’s not legislatively possible for the UK government. And attempts to tax the hyper mobile hyper wealthy has seen REAL evidence of rich people leaving. Not just threats to leave. Actual people leaving. There is a reason why the non dom tax changes were watered down.

Labour are a left wing party. They want to rinse the rich for as much as they possibly can while maximising the UK tax take, and they are doing so. It’s an extremely thin tightrope for them to walk, and they are trying to do so as best as possible.

If you know better than Rachel Reeves, I’m sure she’ll appreciate your input!

I think they already pay billions in the UK anyway.

I don't see any evil in shareholders profiting. My pension is invested in shares. Amazon doesn't even pay dividends. The only way shareholders benefit is if the money is reinvested and fuels growth.

The Directors of a company have a DUTY to maximise profits for shareholders. It is their job. They make decisions with the aim of maximising shareholder duty. If they made decisions to maximise UK tax they would be failing to do their job.

Can think why people would not minimise tax liability when they can.

The new issue of The Economist has an in-depth analysis of why wealth taxes and increasing tax rates on very high-income people don't work and are counterproductive.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/02/19/dont-go-after-the-rich-to-fix-broken-budgets?giftId=NTYxOWY5N2MtOWY0NS00MGM4LTg3YmItM2ZhZjk2MmYyNzI4&utm_campaign=gifted_article

Thanks for sharing. Could not have put it better.

This Is indeed the case. I earn highly. I am taxed highly. I want better public services. You’re not going to get that by taxing the mythical ‘wealthy’ or mythical ‘tax evading multinationals’. Thats just utter nonsense. Doing these things is just going to make the country poorer. There is no magic money tree out there to save us.

If we want better public services we have to look at how the welfare bill is sucking all the money from other public budgets. And look at raising taxes for EVERYONE rather than just a small cohort of already highly taxed people.

How do hk, Singapore and the gulf states manage with low or even no income taxes?

None of these countries have welfare state.

The Gulf states (UAE, SA) do. It is completely Cradle to grave. However, they do it wil oil money. Its basically like getting an infinite money cheat code in SIM city.

Like you say, for gulf it's funded by oil and provided to citizens only and there are very few of them. Most of the work is done by immigrants who generally don't have access to welfare.

It is possible, but we'd need to fully leave the EU.

EU rules allow complex accounting systems where fees are paid to another part of the same company for intellectual property (e.g. Starbucks UK pays 'Starbucks brand' a royalty fee that wipes out the UK profits and consequent tax liability). The Netherlands has a zero percent tax rate for intellectual property profits, so all the money moves through their system of expensive specialist accountants, who they tax instead.

Are you willing to fully leave the EU on a 'no deal' Brexit basis?

You can't compare the UK to those countries. The Gulf States have obviously survived very well on their oil for a long time. Singapore and HK are very small, with very wealthy populations, much better managed over many decades and a completely different social structure.

Yes, what constitutes 'rich' is subjective.

I don't know what you mean by flat taxes though. Do you mean the same rate across income tax, CGT and all other forms of tax?

Probs missed it - what’s the OP’s job and salary?

Labour haven't been a left wing party for decades. They also aren't rinsing the rich at all (unless you are talking about middle class on higher incomes). Blackrock CEO, Larry Fink had a meeting with Keir Starmer!