The wealthiest families should pay the Coronovirus bill

[WellDoneBridge]

Aibu to think this is VERY unfair the household incomes of £100k plus should be tax EVEN further?!

Ffs... Anneliese Dodds. What a joke!!!!

They should tax all the dodgy billionaires with multiple houses in London first. Many of the properties are never lived in

@Iamthewombat

What actual difference does a £1m pension pot have on a young family tied to an expensive area (because the hospital is there) earning £65k pa of which student loans and professional fees strip away at least £10-15k (ofc not taken into account for tax purposes) being told they should pay even more tax?!!!

Have you got a £1m pension? Irrespective of the answer, do you think that you should pay less tax than everybody else? Why? Other people have student loans and professional memberships and have to live in expensive areas too. Why are you a special case?

Yes maybe in 20 years time when we’re not juggling a mortgage, a baby and 60 hour weeks we’ll be ‘well off’ but right now we are not and yet you think we should be footing the furlough bill

Yes, I think that everybody earning well will have to help pay for the effects of the virus.

Would you prefer for poorer people to pay it, preserving your money because you think you need it more? You’re not doing your cause many favours, in case you hadn’t realised. Your post upthread is right above a post from somebody with a household income of £12k. She’s not complaining a tenth as much as you are, although she would have every reason to do so.

I'm not a consultant (or related to any) but any system that means people in a shortage and essential profession have to pay to go to work is insane.

They are not ‘paying to go to work’. If they continue to pay into the NHS pension scheme from what they are paid for those shifts, it incurs a pension penalty when they retire and draw out funds because their pension pots are over £1m. One million pounds. The simple solution would be to leave the NHS pension scheme, but oh no, they’re not doing that, are they? I surmise, but I don’t know, that the individuals in question are asking for what the NHS would have paid in pension contributions as extra salary but the NHS have said no. Rightly.

More of an example of crazy government policy because pay scales aren't negotiated on an individual level, and because it is at the top level it is no something you can get through and then reap the benefits the other side without doing more private work and further reducing NHS hours.

Do you think it would be a wise use of public funds, especially at a time like this, to allow senior medics to individually bargain for pay deals? We all know what would happen then: one person manages to hold a hospital to ransom - somewhere in a remote area, for example, where medics may not want to live - then next thing you know, others get wind of it and demand the same or more. Pay scales serve a purpose in the NHS, and if they are good enough for nurses and other NHS workers, they are good enough for consultants, who can qualify for merit awards anyway to boost their salaries.

Don’t ask me to cry for the poor,underpaid hospital consultants. I don’t think you’d get much sympathy from others on this thread either. I’ll be saving my sympathy for the people who need it: the low paid kind. If the income tax rates go up, I’ll be happily paying my share.

They should tax all the dodgy billionaires with multiple houses in London first. Many of the properties are never lived in

Yeah, nobody will have thought of that.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers why would they need to live rent/mortgage free? It's possible to live on £12k a year while paying rent, I did it when I was on benefits. Rent was £425pm

Because I find it near on impossible to think people can survive on 1k a month

• 425 rent
• council tax
• Gas electric water broadband
• travel costs
• food

I’m not in a bubble, I consider 100k a year a fantastic salary who should pay more tax. But I can subtract and don’t see how you would ever survive

I don’t disagree people are selfish, but I do think there also has to be an incentive for us each to improve ourselves and our earnings otherwise as a country our productivity would collapse

My incentive to earn more is paramount. To improve my life. And my families. However, in the process, if more people benefit in the taxes I pay as I climb a salary ladder, that makes it even more worthwhile to me

Strange society we live in when people think its ok for us to be earning a very decent wage, whilst children and adults live in poverty - and not want to give a bit more to help them if we can

@OnlyFoolsnMothers you cut back. My income was £1000pm. Rent was £425, council tax £70 (band A flat) and all other household bills came to about £200. I didn't run a car as it was too costly, walked everywhere that I could. Food budget was £40pw. No treats or luxuries. Is it fun? No. Is it doable? Absolutely. It probably wouldn't be in the south east where housing costs are much higher but for me in the Midlands it was.

Isn’t the real question that people are actually asking here whether or not low earners should have to contribute?

I don’t think any high earners would complain if the costs were distributed affordably throughout society (including people not in the workforce!), they’re certainly not suggesting that low earners should foot the bill in totality!

Aren’t people pushing back because the suggestion is that high earners should bear a disproportionate burden of the costs, despite the fact that the recipients were predominantly low earners? In which case, the question remains, what if anything should low earners contribute?

The problem with higher taxation is that it doesn’t lead to increased revenue. This is a finding that economists have been pointing out for years. The higher taxation leads to behavioural changes that reduce revenue and productivity. Both of these things have an adverse impact on the poor and the vulnerable, even before consideration is given to increased borrowing or cuts in public expenditure. Neither of which will have an impact if revenue keeps falling. The best you can hope for is stagnation.

The policy doesn’t tax the wealthiest it just penalises the better off. They will, as evidenced by the problem with hospital consultants, just stop contributing their skills and time.These highly paid people are often hard to replace and they contribute more in terms of time, skill and experience than newly qualified staff. That’s measurable and quantifiable.

This might not be how you want the world to be, but it is how it is. Higher levels of personal taxation does not increase public revenues. If we reject the option of austerity then we need to embrace stimulus and that applies at all levels of income.

Waxonwaxoff0 with no travel costs I can just about see how to make it work but I can’t see it’s sustainable. There’s no room for emergencies in that budget.

The problem with higher taxation is that it doesn’t lead to increased revenue the laffer curve, it can but there are limits

@LemonTT isn’t that the Laffer Curve? (Famously featured in Ferris Buellers Day Off.)

The problem with higher taxation is that it doesn’t lead to increased revenue. This is a finding that economists have been pointing out for years

Not quite. If corporation tax is raised, it tends to reduce the overall tax take because it’s relatively easy for corporate entities to relocate.

For personal tax, the effect is far less pronounced. A couple of extra pennies on the pound for personal tax is not going to lead to well-paid people emigrating wholesale. If they did, they might get a shock when they land in their destination. Australia and New Zealand levy income taxes too.

The ‘super tax’ of the 1970s, where some very highly paid people were paying > 90% on marginal income, caused some of them to emigrate, but fewer than you’d think.

Put it this way, if higher income tax rates cause people to leave the country, why aren’t the citizens of France, the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia leaving in droves?

I wouldn't worry op.
We have a Tory government, the cost for this will fall on the backs of the young and the poorest.

ConiferGate, this is what people say isn't it? No one would work if they weren't paid. I disagree.

I think people would work, I think people who are interested in something will spend a lot of time studying without being paid and I think most people will strive to be better whatever they are. So I think people who are interested in, say, medicine will study medicine because they can because they don't have to worry about how on earth they are going to pay to live, how they are going to pay for digs, how they are going to buy clothes or have the odd evening out when they're not studying hard! I think that people will do the things they are interested in; and they will get bored doing nothing all day, or just indulging themselves because they have no financial incentive to work. I think that most people have enough of a social conscience (despite the evidence of this thread!) to donate their labour where it's needed from time to time, to help build a new wing on a hospital, to make sure the sewers are working properly, to ensure that that refugee family who have fled war and plague or whatever, have what they need to settle here and feel safe.

There are many many more people who enjoy imparting their knowledge than there are actual teachers.

There are many many more people who enjoy gardening and are knowledgeable about it than there are actual farm labourers.

Most people, once they've had a bit of time to do nothing, don't actually want to do nothing.

If there's a citizens' wage, sufficient citizens' wage, I think we would find that most people don't want to be 'scroungers', but want to do things which mean something. They may have to study to do that thing, but they want to and will therefore do it.

And I think that once we've created a society like that, based on everyone being 'valued' by the State to the same degree, then most of us will come round to the idea that no, we don't need to be paid in money for our expertise or labour, we are working for the people and that includes ourselves.

No one degraded by benefit sanctions. No one left to die uncounted. No one left in MH hell living on the streets.

You'll call me an idealistic idiot. I'd rather be that, than, well, the apparent alternative.

@Jux Idealistic yes, idiot no . It’s probably not the thread to continue that conversation though it’s interesting

Also I want to challenge the title of this thread the wealthiest families

There’s a huge difference between a household of one or two working adults with joint income of 50k versus a family of 4 or 5 with more food, clothing and costs to pay.

I agree Jux - you only have to look at the numbers of people who engage in volunteer work, or put time into running local societies etc. to see that lots of people will happily work without being paid if they believe in the value of what they are doing.

It depends on how you define 'work' though. Most people wouldn't work for the benefit of the shareholders of a large corporation without being paid, but plenty of people would (and do) run local sports clubs/teams for free.

People keep saying 50k, it’s 100k no?

OP could you have some empathy and realise strapped for cash after bills etc is NOT what you mean.

Strapped for cash is people who have lost their jobs and can't afford to feed their children, are now facing eviction or losing their house and being made homeless.

There’s also a big difference between a household with two people earning £100k and a household with one person earning nothing and their partner earning £100k. The tax position is very different.

I feel we are looking at this from the wrong angle.

Rather than increase taxation for everyone, or for any particular group, wouldn't it be better if we eradicate the huge gap between rich and poor and ensure that all people who work are paid a decent wage? That would mean the people who are at the top of the pile would earn less, but that more people would be paying tax and fewer people would need benefits.

There would be other benefits to this, of course. Everyone would feel that they have value in our society - the carers, the dustbin men, the shop workers, the farm labourers - as, indeed, they should have. I earn very well, but I would prefer to live in a society where there is more equality.

That isn't to say that study, risk taking and hard work should not be rewarded, just that rewards should be shared out a little more fairly than they are at the moment.

Many years ago, I met a couple at an event who were paying more per month to store their wine than they were paying a young woman to care for their kids. I found that, and still find it, utterly disgraceful.

Move over Jux - I'm joining you on the idealists bench .

personally I think this is an opportune moment to bring public sector pensions back to reality by abolishing final/average salary schemes and replacing with defined contributions - would save tens of billions

Have you got a £1m pension? Irrespective of the answer, do you think that you should pay less tax than everybody else? Why? Other people have student loans and professional memberships and have to live in expensive areas too. Why are you a special case?

No we do not have a £1m pension pot and the real question is why do you think we should pay more tax than everyone else? We certainly do.

• we pay more tax than low income earners!
• we pay more tax than households with the same income as us but distributed more evenly!
• DH pays more tax than someone earning the exact same wage as him, because his fees and student loan aren’t accounted for.

As has been pointed out several time’s in this thread medics pay one of the highest professional fees of any industry out of their own pocket. This is not typical of the majority of other professions most of which have fees paid or heavily subsidised by their company (I used to work in law and this was always the case)

...so yes, medics are a special case’

*Yes, I think that everybody earning well will have to help pay for the effects of the virus.

Would you prefer for poorer people to pay it, preserving your money because you think you need it more? You’re not doing your cause many favours, in case you hadn’t realised. Your post upthread is right above a post from somebody with a household income of £12k. She’s not complaining a tenth as much as you are, although she would have every reason to do so*

I can’t decide whether you’re a communist or being intentionally obtuse. By your logic, isn’t it poor peoples own fault they are poor, why should they consider themselves a ‘special case’?
We certainly don’t need our money less than they do so why expect us to pay and not them. Every level of society can stand to be poorer, unless you’re living on the streets. What you’re saying is ‘Your income exceeds my income so you should give your extra to pay our debt!’ And that’s communist bullshit !

If you went for a meal with a lower income friend and when the bill came they angrily pushed it toward you and said ‘well you have a better
Job, you should be happy to pay for me’ how would that sit with you? 😂 Every sodding MN user would be queueing up to call your friend a gigantic CF in that situation, but when it’s taxes it’s fine... right??

personally I think this is an opportune moment to bring public sector pensions back to reality by abolishing final/average salary schemes and replacing with defined contributions - would save tens of billions

I hope you’ve brought your Kevlar vest, @commentatorz.

Brace yourself for a tidal wave of outraged posts telling you that public sector workers get paid MUCH LESS than their private sector counterparts and that the pension is their reward and that they could all leave the public sector tomorrow and get a job in the private sector paying twice as much etc etc.

(I happen to agree with you, for what it’s worth, and having worked in both the private and public sectors I know that the counter arguments I’ve set out above are nonsense).

Jux I think you are referring to communism there and don’t think it has ever been very successful in any countries that have attempted it. Humans are by their very nature corrupt any there will never be total equality.