The wealthiest families should pay the Coronovirus bill

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

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

There are far more people paying higher rate income tax than there are people paying additional rate. Now that you understand the difference, have you changed your mind about how effective a measure it would be?

With the amount of chips on shoulders on this thread you could open a chippy.

Translation: “you bastards aren’t getting your hands on an extra penny of MY money, and just to show it I’ll throw this pathetic insult at you”

iamthewombat

Your behavior on this thread is deeply unpleasant and aggressive. You are dismissing anyone who disagrees with you and applying narrative you’ve made up to people and behaving as if it is a fact.

You are deliberately misrepresenting opposing opinions as posters throwing poor children out onto the streets while clutching your pearls dramatically.

It is impossible to have a reasonable conversation with someone who doesn’t communicate in a reasonable manner.

I always thought this was a good analogy

I was reminded of the 10 beer drinkers who gathered every week in a pub where they settled their £100 weekly bar bill in roughly the same way we pay our taxes, so that the richest among them paid £59 of the total. When the barman gave them a £20 discount for being good customers, they decided to pay the new £80 bill in the same progressive way. This meant the wealthiest man received a £10 saving but the poorest, who were paying nothing to begin with, got nothing. “The system exploits the poor,” they said. “The wealthy get all the breaks!”

So they surrounded the wealthy man and beat him up. The next week he didn’t show for drinks; so the nine ordered their beers without him. But when they came to pay, they didn’t have enough money between them to cover even half the bill

Here is the point: most income tax is paid by a small number of high earners. Without them there would be less money for the public services, like the NHS, Schools, Police ect

We don’t need taxing anymore.

We are a higher income family, and there's no issue in paying extra tax.

However, it does stick in my craw a bit when multi-millionaires and their businesses are able to avoid paying their fair share and in some cases put the begging bowl out for the public purse to bail out or prop up the company.

@Pertella I agree with that, particularly Virgin. That really made me mad.

Your behavior on this thread is deeply unpleasant and aggressive. You are dismissing anyone who disagrees with you and applying narrative you’ve made up to people and behaving as if it is a fact.

No, I think you’ll find that I’ve dismissed stupid, self-serving arguments by people who think that they themselves shouldn’t pay more tax but that somebody else should. Or people seeking to defend the selfishness of wealthy groups who believe that they should be a special case. You’re one of those, I suppose?

You are deliberately misrepresenting opposing opinions

You flatter me. I didn’t need to. Most of the people arguing the opposite position condemned themselves with no help from me.

...as posters throwing poor children out onto the streets while clutching your pearls dramatically.

When did I suggest that? Upthread I challenged somebody who said that being asked to pay for other people ‘doesn’t sit well’ with her and that such people would be condemned on this site as cheeky feckers. That’s right: anybody who benefited from her being made to share her relative wealth through taxation was a CF. Nice.

This particular poster stated that she needed her money as much as, or more than, poorer people would. I pointed out that paying for other people is the basis of taxation, and that the alternative to taxation was poor people dying on the streets. Which is what would happen.

It is impossible to have a reasonable conversation with someone who doesn’t communicate in a reasonable manner.

You can say that again. Keep the insults and bile coming. They make me laugh. In the meantime, what are your proposals for raising more revenue through taxes? Let me guess: “everyone grumble about Amazon bu don’t ask me for a penny more.”

@Iamthewombat

Do you have any suggestions as to which set of taxpayers should be paying the coronavirus bill

Yes. I’ve already alluded to it several times on this thread. I’d increase higher rate income tax by 2p in the pound to start with. Maybe more.

Yes, that would affect me, before anybody asks.

I’d also get rid of the extra inheritance tax exemption that applies when a main residence is left to a family member, which would bring more estates into IHT. That would effectively transfer wealth, which @Fanthorpe (above) is quite right about.

Don’t ask me how much these measures would raise, because I don’t have access to the Treasury models.

Apologies, I had missed your earlier suggestions.

Effectively your view is that higher rate tax, which applies to every pound earned over £50,001 should increase from 40% to 42%. I imagine that would go down like a bowl of cold sick with the electorate.

I agree with the IHT suggestions though, all that wealth is being transferred around, and the taxman isn't seeing a penny, when if extracted correctly could raise more revenue to spend on our public services, and pay the coronavirus bill!

Surely one of the issues here is the amount people are saving? I think I saw something on this thread about somebody ‘only’ managing to save £500 a month. Higher earners tend to (not always!) save more - and once money is in savings, it’s basically dead. It’s not contributing to economic growth. So perhaps either taxing savings or even having negative interest rates would be a way of avoiding some tax hikes. At least then the wealthy still get to use their money to buy whatever they like, while stimulating the economy and therefore ensuring other people’s jobs. It still gets their money, just not in the form of higher taxes.

The trouble with unilateral tax increases is that the lower incomes just have nothing left to give. They’ve been squeezed and squeezed over the last decade, and there comes a point where there’s just no slack. You can’t get blood out of a stone. Surely a higher-rate tax payer having to forgo one meal out is preferable to a lower income family starving?

@Evelefteden

I always thought this was a good analogy

I was reminded of the 10 beer drinkers who gathered every week in a pub where they settled their £100 weekly bar bill in roughly the same way we pay our taxes, so that the richest among them paid £59 of the total. When the barman gave them a £20 discount for being good customers, they decided to pay the new £80 bill in the same progressive way. This meant the wealthiest man received a £10 saving but the poorest, who were paying nothing to begin with, got nothing. “The system exploits the poor,” they said. “The wealthy get all the breaks!”

So they surrounded the wealthy man and beat him up. The next week he didn’t show for drinks; so the nine ordered their beers without him. But when they came to pay, they didn’t have enough money between them to cover even half the bill

Here is the point: most income tax is paid by a small number of high earners. Without them there would be less money for the public services, like the NHS, Schools, Police ect

We don’t need taxing anymore.

Brilliant!

once money is in savings, it’s basically dead. It’s not contributing to economic growth

Not true, it depends how it’s saved and what it’s saved for. If it is saved in pensions or stock ISAs then it will be contributing to the economy through capital, and also to taxes through dividends (depending on the level). If it’s in the bank and someone is saving up for a car, renovation, holiday etc then it will be spent at some point. The problem we have is that the older population is hugely underspending relative to their overall wealth, they don’t need to conserve as much as they do (yes yes averages distort reality etc) so they are the people who need to start spending more and they mostly can also afford to pay more. Younger people need to be encouraged to save for their retirement otherwise we are storing up huge problems for the future.

every pound earned over £50,001 should increase from 40% to 42%. I imagine that would go down like a bowl of cold sick with the electorate

Why?

No one has answered my question yet of why people who received the help shouldn’t have to contribute to the costs (inferring that costs should all be picked up by high earners).

Higher earners already pay an eye watering amount of tax

Higher earners already get an eye watering amount of money

There you go fixed

Higher earners already get an eye watering amount of money

Higher earners already get an eye watering amount of abuse.

There you go, fixed

Higher earners already get an eye watering amount of abuse.

Do they? Judging by this thread, the posters most prone to being insulting are higher earners who are determined that they shouldn’t pay any more tax. No, somebody else should pay. Not them. God forbid. They aren’t really wealthy at all, see?

I’m a higher earner. I haven’t had any abuse on this thread from people who earn less. I have had some from wealthier posters who are in a froth over the idea of having to pay more. Because they are special, and need their money more than anybody else, and should be given special tax concessions because they work harder than everyone else and that’s why they have more money etc etc.

Well, i ve done very well in the last 20 years, paid off my mortgage, bought a place in France, good amount of savings.

oh and purchased some land which has planning potential (so CGT will be paid) so more tax boo fucking hoo!

All whilst paying this so called eye watering amount of tax... what a load of rubbish!
Anyone with a joint income of 100k plus (way above what i earn) who can't afford a small extra amount of tax, doesn't know how to manage their money or is (mostly likely) selfish.

Try living on min wage for a month or UC and then say you are struggling.

The only people being aggressive on here appear to be the higher earners who oppose progressive taxation. Some of the arguments being used are pretty eye opening in their crassness.

I'm a higher earner myself, as is my DH. Our household income is well in excess of £100k, but I'm happy to pay my share of taxes. I also acknowledge that my share is more than someone on a lower salary should pay. Progressive taxation is the only fair way of funding essential services. Me putting a bit less in savings or having a bit less to spend on luxuries is nothing compared to someone who has to budget hard in order to afford food for the week.

And, according to some on this thread, this means I have a chip on my shoulder?

@Rainbow12e maybe he should be grateful that he has a well paid job that allows him to WFH. About half of those furloughed workers that he is "frustrated" at will be losing their jobs, many already are. Unbelievable. Your DP isn't a victim.

I do agree that wealth should be taxed more heavily than it is. In my ideal world, IHT would be at a higher rate, with a lower nil rate band, and the loopholes around using trusts would be removed.

However, whenever increases to IHT are proposed, lots of people complain that it's unfair to target them as the £1m house they've just inherited is just an ordinary house where they live. Probably exactly the same people as are complaining on here!

I think there is another angle which could be considered, that the costs should also be more heavily borne by businesses who benefited from financial support.

Whether that’s taxation of a proportion of profits for example or other method, I can’t see why that approach shouldn’t be taken. Companies who have made excess profit over the period like supermarkets should also be considered, particularly as they also benefited hugely from business rate relief

that the costs should also be more heavily borne by businesses who benefited from financial support

Economics isn't your strong point, is it? The business that furloughed lots of people and took government loans did so because (on the whole) they are in worse affected industries. The exact industries that will struggle in the coming recession as they will struggle to return to previous activity levels for quite some time. A tax on those businesses would mean condemning certain industries in the UK to death.

Do we not want an aviation industry, for example? Those are good, well paid jobs usually. Do we not want opportunities in that industry to be available to workers in the UK?

Yes, failing businesses should totally prop up successful ones so it’s ‘fair’

Plenty of those on furlough may not have a job to return to Rainbow.
Your husband should stop being 'frustrated' about them and thank his lucky stars.

As for your "tax the workers who benefited" proposal....

Has is not occurred to you that highly paid workers were furloughed too? I know some who were. To give an example from th aviation industry again - airline pilots were furloughed, for obvious reasons.

Many of the low paid jobs in our economy carried on as normal throughout lockdown. Many highly paid workers were furloughed. Why on earth should tax rises be directed at low paid workers just because of your belief in stereotypes?

Iamthewombat has really got under people’s skin hasn’t she? She would do well to remember people don’t like their hypocrisy laid bare by an articulate advocate. 😁 go Wombat!