to think 51% tax is ridiculous, and already to be planning to move to Asia

[hedgiemum]

Namechanged. Married to someone who earns well in excess of £150,000 a year, though neither does he earn 7 figures.
He is still quite young in his career - a recent promotion to a senior position, but has not been earning this kind of money of long, so we still have a mortgage and haven't saved large amounts (what we have saved is through his pension which is no longer going to be particularly worth doing.)

He phoned me a minute after end of budget to say he'd watched it with his boss whose reaction was that he would move the company (not a bank, but in finance) to Asia. Probably Hong Kong - 12% tax rather than the 51% we'd be paying here.

Seems like a kneejerk reaction, and clearly we can afford to pay more, but boss doesn't feel he'll get good productivity from staff if they are getting to take home less than half their income. Plus it decreases ever-present risk of them being headhunted by companies in lower-tax economies.

AIBU to be PLEASED (I used to hate tax exiles.) Partly because it just does not seem fair. Partly because this country has been run so badly by New Labour of whom we had such high expectations, and the medical care we have received has been shite, the local schools are shite, the roads are insanely busy and yet is costs so much to live here.

What pagwatch said.

It's about value for money. I would mind less paying lots of taxes, if I could see a benefit, but I don't. Public transport in this country is expensive and crap. The NHS, although better than other places, is over-bureaucratised (sorry Pedants if that isn't a word), with resources being allocated in barking ways. When my nephew was born, ended up with a chest infection for the first six days of his life because the staff hadn't cleaned the surgical instruments properly. I mean, FFS: this is a first world country! Then, there's all the MP expense malarkey, the ridiculous benefit fraud malarkey, failing schools etc. etc.
At the end of the day, it is a consumer, capitalist society and you expect to get value for money. But you don't. And raising taxes but not giving any real benefit in return is ridiculous.

the fact is that most people live on a lot less than 150k , but its not a massive amount of money either is it?.

and anyway its 50% not 51%

exactly pooka- most of my (bright, Cambridge educated) friends work either in the public sector (the vast majority) or are earning 6 or 7 figure salaries. No difference between them in terms of intelligence, motivation, work ethic, etc... The public sector ones just happen to believe in what they're doing (which is not to say the private sector ones don't just trying to dispell the myth that the public sector is staffed by a bunch of skiving weirdos).

hmm, well you could go and live in Sweden then. Or in teh vicinity of a good school.

Pooka - by and large people in the public sector don't work as hard....you're not gonna like that!

If people choose to work in the public sector, then surely they are doing this with an awareness of what kind of salaries they will be receiving and what kind of work-life balance they will presumably have in the public sector.

People make choices, to an extent, about the kind of work they do. So, if an investment banker in the City, at the age of 21, decides that they're willing to work over 100 hours per week, have no social life and reap the rewards in the long-term, then that's a choice they make. Others might want a better work-life balance and so will settle for a job paying less money. Why should we penalise these kinds of choices?

Furthermore, executives in the public sector are often earning 6 and 7 figure salaries.

I think the NHS is amazing IF you need a high level of care.i have had 2 transplants and cancer treatment and am currently having other tests etc and the staff and all concerned have been efficient and brilliant.

Well said duchesse! (dh and I both being public sector slaves so slight bias )

£150k not massive amount of money ...?

if you earn £200,000 you will pay £5,000 more tax than before.

Business class airfares to HK every year will cost more than that so you'll have to move to Switzerland (please see previous comments on living in Switzerland).

Everyone earning more than £150,00 is not going to suddenly up and leave the country, don't be ridiculous.

Hedgie: "I think they attract a higher standard of politicians or something." Someone once said that a country gets the leaders it deserves. Hmm. Gives one pause, doesn't it?!

RockinSocks- would love to know why no-one realises (or chooses to understand) that their children's teachers are most probably working 60-70 hour weeks for 20 or 30,000 a year. And that social workers in most areas are probably doing the same. Not to mention doctors. I don't know about nurses because I don't really know any.

We won't actually have a choice; DH wants to stay with the company he is with, and they are saying they will relocate in oder to stay competitive with staff renumeration. I thought I'd be sad about that happening. I am English and love my country - or at least the lovely rural part of it that I grew up in). But with 3 (soon to be 4) young children, having no choice but to live very near a train station in a very busy part of the South East, I find I'm not sad after all.

Maybe once this has sunk in I'll feel sad about leaving... or decide to go into politics and try to do something about our public services!

primula - was question, not statement!

I am also roffling at the idea that in london £150K is a feeble income...

Get a grip.

Me and all my friends and all DHs friends live in london and none of us earn anything like that! And we have the required 2 cars and kids etc...

£150K is a lot of money and to argue it isn't is ridiculous.

It's just that people who earn at this level usually have a lifestyle to match (as do earners at any level) - the difference being that they seem to totally forget that any other kind of lifestyle is viable, and is lived perfectly happily by millions of people all around them every day.

hedgiemum - I do not blame your DH for reacting that way. I assume the others in his office were saying the same thing? Top end of the London property market going to collapase if people like you leave.

Hong Kong is not a great place to bring up kids though and to live in a decent house with some greenery is very expensive. You may not be better off.

I think it might be easier to rejig the balance of is earnings away from income to capital gains on share options which are now taxed at 18% in the UK.

We do what your DH does but with our own money and pay roughly the same rate of tax per year as Hong kong (but live in the UK as UK residents) and all perfectly legitimately and above board.

Maybe his firm should just move out of London to a cheaper nicer rural UK location, domicile the hedge fund in firm in Guernsey and then the employees take shares in the firm and go offshore just before selling them out in 10 years time when markets have recovered?

I have a friend that just did this.

remuneration not renumeration. Please.

Well if you work in the public sector you're right - you don't expect high salaries because we work there because we're committed. And I resent the accusation that the public sector staff don't work hard, choose it as an easy option and are obviously just in it for an easy life.

The 6-7 fig salaries go to a very, very small handful of senior execs and are hardly typical.

duchesse - I'm not disputing that lots of people work such hours. What I am saying is that they have chosen whether to be a teacher/social worker/doctor and presumably know that they aren't going to receive the kind of money that they would earn if they were working in the City. On the flip side, they may have long holidays (teachers) or greater job satisfaction.

I don't see why we should penalise those who have chosen to go down a route that is well-paid.

think nurses start at 18k ( which is pants tbh)and increases by grade.

Hedgie, make sure you come back to the UK as the sort of emotionally intelligent, professional and effective politician that a very successful and happy country deserves...! (i.e. nothing like those we already have)

£150k not a massive amount of money? I don't know if I want to laugh or cry about that. It's a hell of a lot of money.

BigBella, I think your confusion is caused by ABetaDad's typo: "rejig the balance of is earnings". The whole post makes more sense when you correct this to: "rejig the balance of his earnings". See?

Nancy 66 - "people in the public sector don't work as hard".
Really?
As a junior doctor I used to work a 56 hr shift. I would start work on saturday morning and be on call and working, and not sleeping, and not leaving the hospital till monday evening when my shift had finished.

I thought that was hard.