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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think that people who threaten to leave the country because they resent paying more taxes should just bugger off without trying to elicit sympathy form the rest of us?

190 replies

AllFallDown · 23/04/2009 09:09

Oh and, many of those on high salaries earn that much either directly or indirectly because of the deregulation that caused this whole bloody mess in the first place. So to hear them moaning now they're aksed to pay a bit back ... Grrrr.

OP posts:
cory · 23/04/2009 13:21

ChilliCrab on Thu 23-Apr-09 13:12:04
"cory I didn't get the impression that she felt it would 'serve the country right' if the firm left, rather that she felt this country doesn't necessarily offer her her tax money's worth anymore. She's entitled to her opinion. I honestly don't think she was playing the 'woe is me' card as at least one person on her has stated."

if this was only her personal assessment of where she would be better off, surely she could emigrate as a private person

no need to say she was pleased that the firm as a whole was (possibly) relocating

curlygal · 23/04/2009 13:23

Glad it's not just me then long legs!

Just find it frustrating when those with high earnings are up in arms about allegedly paying 51% of their salary in tax when as far as I can see that isn;t actually the case.

OrmIrian · 23/04/2009 13:26

There may or may not be mileage in the assertion that the OP isn't getting her money's worth from the taxes she pays - I guess that might depend on your own experience of the services provided - but that is the case for all of us. I pay £X a year - whether that X represents 5k or 25k I would still want to see the money being spent well. Being very well paid and taxed accordingly doesn't give you more of a say in where the money goes.

ChilliCrab · 23/04/2009 13:28

cory But it's the firm relocating that has forced her hand! Sounds like she maybe wouldn't have considered it otherwise. But her husband's company is moving and he has the chance to move with it. And the OP has realised that on balance, she's not that upset about the move.

I'm not going to be petty and pedantic enough to go into the other OP and quote the poor woman. I do think disucssing another thread on here is a bit off and I don't wish to do so any further. Anyone who wants to criticise the OP and her 'brats' is able to do so on the other thread to the woman's face, as it were. But some are choosing to do so here instead, which I personally don't respect.

lalalonglegs · 23/04/2009 13:36

Whether this is a thread about another thread or not, it does strike me as a bit petty to threaten to leave the country over an extra 10% above what the vast majority consider a very generous wage. If someone were to move to Singapore or Cayman Islands or wherever because they felt penalised by the extra tax, they would probably end up paying the amount that they would have given to the taxman in flying back home with their family for visits a couple of times a year (£250k salary, pays an extra £10k tax, doesn't get you very far in business class).

ChilliCrab · 23/04/2009 13:41

But a relocation package may include free flights home. I don't know. There would clearly have to be other reasons to move. And it's hardly like the OP of the other thread is 'threatening' to leave the country. Her hsuband's job is moving and he wants to move with it. It's hardly the OP saying well that's it, I'm off. Although perhaps you are referring to other people who are threatening to leave rather than the OP

susie100 · 23/04/2009 13:47

What a vile thread.

AtheneNoctua · 23/04/2009 13:47

This thread was created with ill intentions. I'm surprised it hasn't been reported and subsequently pulled.

I actually think we be a lot worse off if if the high earners bugger off to another nation. We need their tax money for people on benefits. Not to mention the support they give to the NHS (and probably don't take much back from).

I do have a little trouble sympathising with someone who has that much money in the frist place. But, really, it is not good for us if they leave.

lalalonglegs · 23/04/2009 14:11

Chilli - yes, I was referring to people in general. Haven't read other thread.

My point stands that it seems almight upheaval for a few tens of thousands of pounds and I do get weary of people popping up and saying any sort of attempt to lessen social inequalities - and, equal pay, the minimum wage or better parental rights for workers could be included in this - immediately going to the UK uncompetitive.

As far as I know, none of these measures have led to the current massive national debt and plunging economy. I doubt whether paying an extra 10% over a very generous threshold will lead to a brain drain either.

lalalonglegs · 23/04/2009 14:14

is immediately going to make the UK uncompetitive...

sarah293 · 23/04/2009 14:17

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Litchick · 23/04/2009 14:18

Are there Riven? It seems to me the city types as you put it are okay. It's the poor buggers working in the plants/factories/shops who are getting it in the neck.

sarah293 · 23/04/2009 14:23

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higgle · 23/04/2009 14:27

Surely if the firm leaves the country and leaves people redundant then undler the usual economic laws there will be a gap in the market and someone else will step in and set up a similar business? i think all this leaving the country stuff is nonsense and the relocation costs - and the social costs to the fmilies involved is such that very few of them will really go, and even if they do there will be plenty of well qualified skille people here who would love to earn £149,999 and will step into the breach.

reach4sky · 23/04/2009 14:28

That was Lehman's - almost all of them have been employed by Nomura and Barclays.

Litchick · 23/04/2009 14:38

That's what I thought sky. I only know one guy who was made redundant (Lehmans) and he got a job after a month or so and certainly had enough put aside to keep himself in the meantime.
Of all the parents I kow at my children's school who will mostly be high earners there's only one family who have pulled out because their family business was suffering.
I think people want the city folk to be suffering and it is this desire that Gordy has played in to but really I don't think they are that much.
Redundancies are hitting the lower paid far more.

Blu · 23/04/2009 14:41

The problem is not to do with individuals upping sticks and moving out to hold on to their 2% (or whatever), but that the COMPANIES move out. In that case the jobs won't be here for the candidats on this thread to gratefully fill.

Companies leaving the country to get CHEAPER labour has ripped the heart out of the british manufacturing industry - was it Thetfrod, for e.g, that lost most of it's jobs when the Thermos factory moved to China?

Now the problem could be that companies move to get labour that is subject to lower taxes. Which will mean that all the other jobs (including the whole wage range) those companies offer will no longer be available either. Which will hit the independent sandwich bars that service the offices...everything.

I have no sympathy for whinging from people who are not experiencing actual hardship or need.

I Like to thnk that if I was a high earner 51% band taxpayer from one of those firms i would be banding together with my colleagus and saying to the Board of Directors 'please, DON'T move abroad - we'll stay, and pay'.

I doubt I would be dragging my children round the world to places my family didn't really want to liv simply to hang on to 2% of a small percentage of my overall income, unless it was a matter of sink or swim, financially. Which it clearly can't be for such high earners, surely?

BUT it was the COMPANY that was threatening to move...and the individual choosing to follow. The individul is immaterial - the company moving, not.

reach4sky · 23/04/2009 14:42

The irony is litchick that the Lehman people who went to Nomura (most of them) all got 2 years of guaranteed bonuses leaving them amongst the best paid of all city workers!

ABetaDad · 23/04/2009 14:57

higgle - problem is that there are not that many people in the country who can step into the breach even if you pay then £149,999. If City firms left the country their high skill high pay employees would go with them.

Can you price a binary currency call option, do you know how to trade a basis swap on a commodity forward? Not that many people do know and there loads of jobs like that in the City and those that do know how to do these things are really difficult to replace.

I am not saying these are worthwhile skills in the sense they add to the sum of humanity such as say a nurse or a doctor who also have very special skills but the people that can do these rare skill tasks in the City can make a lot of money for the City firms they work for. There are not that many of them so their price (i.e their wage) is naturally very high. It is the same with Premier League footballers or pop stars. That is how people in the City get paid - like pop stars and footballers. Do we all hate footballers and popstars or want them to leave the country?

Lichick - you are right. Redundancy and pay cuts are hitting lower paid far more. I wanted Gordon to really do something about that but he didn't. Just making a few rich people a bit poorer does not make a lot of poor people any richer.

onagar · 23/04/2009 15:02

It may be tricky to go back now, but I don't thing we should have been "pricing a binary currency call option or trading a basis swap on a commodity forward" in the first place.

They invented new terms for gambling and the fact that they know the terms makes them indispensible and somehow better than us?

And footballers could kick a ball just as hard for much less money. Everyone knows they must be paid more because... because they are paid more.

ABetaDad · 23/04/2009 15:07

onagar - I totally agree. I would pay them all a lot less. Problem is that there is always someone who will pay them all a lot more.

Thats capitalism - it does not always produce good, fair socially useful results. Now we need to decide how to stop the financial mess happening again. That is the hard part.

vezzie · 23/04/2009 16:23

Abetadad - it isn't like pop stars and footballers, because there are relatively few of them making stratospheric amounts of money. They haven't distorted the cost of living for everyone else to the extent that City workers have.

To those acquainted with salaries in finance, £150k really is very little money. (To me, and nearly everyone else, it is.) This means they spend, habitually, in a way that makes life very very difficult for everyone else (meanwhile having no idea that they are doing so). It is not at all the same as a limited number of ManU and Liverpool footballers in Cheshire having silly money and silly houses in return for being able to kick a ball like nobody else - which overall probably contributes to the local economy as their numbers are probably enough to spread the money around a bit to staff and businesses, but not enough to make it impossible for anyone else to afford a reasonable standard in basic things, eg, somewhere to live.

These discussions are so frustrating because certain current circumstantial facts keep getting cited as laws of nature. Eg, the competitive conditions of entry to certain jobs means that only certain kinds of people get to do them. It doesn't have to be like that! Not everyone who is clever enough to be a trader or an analyst is one. A certain fraction of the number of people who are clever enough actually get the jobs, and those who are most temperamentally aggressive, confident, energetic and determined - because these jobs are very well paid you have to be like a bull in a china shop to fight to get into them. If these jobs were less well paid, they would still require a certain amount of intelligence and analytic nous, but would attract a much more measured personality profile - arguably, to the benefit of the country in terms of less risk taking and more balanced results over time.

Similarly with certain professions - I did not apply to do a post grad law conversion course because the people I would be in competition with for the places, the placements, and ultimately the jobs, intimidated me - I knew them, they were all much more aggressive than me, much more single minded, and honestly better temperamentally equipped to focus their lives 100% on their ambitions. I knew I would be miserable with the lack of sleep, the aggression, the competition, the need to schmooze out of hours, and the lack of private down time. (I also would have had to borrow a lot of money and it seemed very risky.) The people who did succeed in becoming solicitors and barristers all work very hard and people like me who need to go for a walk on sundays and smell the flowers are quite right not to apply. HOWEVER every company I have ever worked for has had a real problem with an overstretched in house legal team: they barely have time to do 80% of their work, despite working long hours and weekends, there is a constant 20% that never gets done, and they are paid what I consider to be fortunes. Why? Why can't we have more lawyers, paid less? Why can't a very clever, thorough, analytic, creatively problem solving person with no taste for stupid late nights be a lawyer doing a good job in a 50 hour week for a decent - not stratospheric - salary? This is how we have chosen to set up the jobs market, not how it has to be.

Sorrento · 23/04/2009 16:26

Gosh what an ugly thread, some people have really really surprised me, shown their true colours I guess.

Peachy · 23/04/2009 16:27

The tax is a debatable thing but to expect sympathy? PMSL

Peachy · 23/04/2009 16:28

Sorrento my love, didn't you suggest I should be in a workhouse a week or so back? talking about true colours and all?