Would you be willing to take a pay cut to help fight coronavirus?

[Eyewhisker]

The Times today was reporting that 90% of people want the lockdown to continue but the economic cost is at least double what the government originally estimated. A lockdown beyond end April is probably totally unaffordable.

One way to make this work is to impose a one-off ‘NHS levy’ where everyone with an income above a certain minimum level - say £1500 per month, pays 20% of the income above that level as an extra tax for the duration of the lockdown, going back to normal a month afterwards. Benefits and the triple-lock pension increase could be frozen for two years and the winter fuel allowance abolished. Those companies which benefit from the crisis - supermarkets, Amazon could also pay the NHS levy for the extra profits that they have for the lockdown. This will not be enough to pay for the lockdown but could allow the longer lockdown that people seem to want and reduce the debt that we will all have to pay back afterwards.

If you’re in favour of the lockdown, would you be willing to do this?

I can't lose more money as shortly to be furloughed meaning I will go overdrawn every month as already cut to the bone before Covid.

I've lost all my work. I'm self employed since last April so no tax return yet so no government help. I can't pay extra tax on nothing. But if you tax my husband extra we could lose our house.

Why not redeploy the clearly not occupied enough police from parks and private front gardens to arrest the super wealthy tax avoiders?

How about paying tax to the spirit of the law rather than the letter being the requirement for gaining (and continuing to hold) citizenship and any form of residency?

Get Priti working on those deportations.

How about we come down on those bastards like a ton of corona infected bricks before reaching further into already emptied average working pockets?

No, because I would prefer the restrictions to be lifted and most non-vulnerable people going back to work sooner rather than later.

However, I suspect the government will want to be seen as prioritizing saving lives directly over the economy, because the lives lost to the recession/lockdown are harder to measure and won't be measured until much later.

So in reality I will most likely be paying for it via higher taxes and worse public services in future.

Also recession is generally not a good time to cut back spending or increase taxes. It makes sense to pay for it over the long term rather than this year.

I don't favour anyone taking money NOW (as so many are having a massively reduced income)

I DO FAVOUR THE GERMAN MODEL OF HAVING 18% OF TAXES CARVED OFF FOR NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

These articles are test balloons to guage public opinion on exiting lockdown. People will campaign for stricter lockdown when sitting at home being paid. Not so much if it is going to cost them personally. Platitudes and social media posts are cheap.

It's no true that this is impossible to fund, look at what happened after WW2, which was the second major conflict of the 20th century, after that we set up the NHS and a major house building programme. It took about 60 years for the government to repay the borrowing we incurred, but it was an excellent use of resources.

We absolutely can afford this, mainly because we can't afford to not have lockdown, the cost of not supporting the wider economy will be massive. I don't buy that the government weren't expecting this to last 12 weeks at least.

We have over the last 12 years widened the wealth inequality and concentrated huge wealth in the hands of a few. My income as a public sector worker has dropped in real terms while the government's quantitative easing has lined the pockets of the super rich.

I fully expect my wages to drop further in real terms following this. I am not prepared for my wages to be further raided by taxation unless high earners and the asset rich are paying a fair share. The likes of Green and Branson asking for bail outs while aggressively tax avoiding is disgusting and those loopholes need closing pronto.

Me taking a pay cut would not help the NHS

It would help my private employer. It would in fact mean less for govt coffers as I would pay less tax and NI.

Any additional profits my company made would not stay in UK.

Wonder stuff - if you think world war 2 was a great example, I presume you’re in favour of having 10+ years of food rationing as well??

I started this thread to see whether people are prepared for the economic costs as I see lots of threads about people loving lockdown. If you’re happy to be furloughed or have a secure income, it is very easy to not appreciate the massive cost we - and our children- will all have to pay. It looks like most people are not willing to pay these costs.

At the same time, lots of threads on here are totally hysterical. The government thought that half of people would not comply with the restrictions. They didn’t think people would turn into the Stasi, reporting on their neighbours, or worse locking their daughter into her room for meeting her boyfriend in a open air space. The media have whipped this up into total hysteria and overreaction.

We do need a short lockdown to slow the spread and get NHS capacity up, but it needs to be short. Once the capacity is up and running, we have to relax some measures, allow some people to slowly catch the virus (happy to be one of them by the way, if I haven’t had it already) and build up herd immunity. The total overeaction of ‘OMG I was within 2m if someone outside - will we all die?????’ needs to stop.

DP has no income right now as self-employed. I can’t afford to take another cut and support us both.

Op are you not going to link the article or the study? Or is this all just made up?

Cut benefits? Definitely not.

I would be ok about paying more tax, but I would want it to see a root and branch review of our tax system so that it reduces inequalities in the long term., and doesn't just end up being a bailout to protect the wealthy. An end to the use of off-shore tax havens.

No chance. As a PP said, will all the pay freezes. NHS staff have already paid their way. We work bloody hard. (Usually) we have a right to be paid fairly for that work.

An economy is not a household budget. In your plan growth is stifled because nobody has disposable income to spend or invest in businesses and the economy contracts and off into recession we go...

Austerity was ideological, not good economic policy.

If we had food or other shortages then I'd be in favour of rationing. But we don't so that seems an odd argument?

The government spending on furlough etc. to support the economy during the lockdown is to shore up the economy, it's not a case of choosing lockdown over economy, it's all about protecting the economy. If healthcare fails that has dramatic economic consequences.
Herd immunity is likely impossible without a vaccine. We don't have herd immunity to other viruses, we have vaccines.

I'd pay more income tax. That's what should happen.

Or the government could make Google/Amazon and other massive tax dodging big businesses pay the tax they should pay & solve the problem instantly instead of targeting individuals

Yes, this. Lots of people are suffering right now - they have lost their jobs, have been furloughed or otherwise having to take a pay cut. The ramifications of this will go on for years and many people will be ruined.

As much as I love and appreciate the NHS it's staff are in the luckiest position at the moment with regard to pay and job stability. It is not fair on people who have lost so much, will lose so much to pay anymore towards the NHS.

Besides, this government has now shown that there is such a thing as a magic money tree. They need to go after the corporations who take take take from this country and give nothing back rather than people suffering and struggling already.

I don't actually think I would be happy to take a pay cut, even as a well paid part of the NHS. Businesses have been bailed out to the tune of billions, even those that were barely financially viable in the first place. The airlines now want bailing out. Billionaires have taken dividends from their company and then taken government bailouts. The rich are making millions out of this while I'm risking my life every day, plus that of my family. So I'm sorry but until this govt has been held accountable for all their financial mismanagements I'm not willing to pay anymore in tax.

We definitely would as our ( DH and my) salaries.have not yet been cut. I think they will be soon though and we are quite financially vulnerable in that we both work for.the same employe, so if they go under DH and I will have no income . So at the moment yes but it depends what happens with our work I suppose.

I applaud you OP. Most people are just vaguely thinking that this will be paid for by other people at some point in the future. You have realised that our tax bills will have to rise. And that this will affect all of us - not just additional rate or higher rate tax payers. Most people haven’t reached this conclusion yet.

I do think an extra 20% across the board is unfair though. I’d stagger it by tax band. I don’t think you can realistically expect the lowest tax band to jump from 20% to 40%. I’d propose a basic rate of 30% (+10%), a higher rate of 55% (+15%) and an additional rate of 65% (+20%). Although I think this is for when we’re out of lockdown - I don’t want bad law rushed through now. We need a proper debate about how the additional revenues will be spent - and how the NHS should be structured to make it fit for the future.

65% tax!!! Plus council tax, road tax, pension tax vat, etc.. there will be zero incentive to earn that money. If that happens I for one would stop killing myself working like a maniac... And so would everyone else.

No incentive to progress at all. Welcome to socialism!!

I fully expect my wages to drop further in real terms following this. I am not prepared for my wages to be further raided by taxation unless high earners and the asset rich are paying a fair share.

100% agree.

My wages are stagnant year after year for 15 years! Already cut to the bone.

I don't believe raiding my income further would make a jot of difference in real terms.

The government should focus on corporate tax evasion / aggressive tax setups. Simplify tax for ordinary employees who have currently-complex setups (abolish some taxes, simplify rules around others). Not keep dipping into my dwindling salary so yet again there's a year where my costs are higher than ever (e.g. council tax) but my net income is going down, again!
There's nothing more to give!!

My DH and I are both frontline (police and NHS) working long shifts around each other, putting our health at risk, and trying to home school our 2 young children around our shifts. We're absolutely at the point of breaking. No, we wouldn't be happy to take a pay cut.

Sure, I save half my salary every month and my job is mainly refreshing some code and going for coffee. I would happily pay loads more for the NHS if it meant I didn't have to wait 4 months for a hospital appointment!

Funny how everyone wants lockdown but not to pay for it...

Oh and I'm not a "high earner", just don't buy a lot and live in small flat