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!!!!

@jasjas1973

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.

Get stealth boast JasJas but maybe you should give you land up or your second home in France to people that need rehousing? Millions of people that need housing in the U.K. I’m sure it’s the same in France? How selfish of you to have a second home that no one lives in ...

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

The issue is some ‘high earning’ families are budgeting hard to afford a pretty basic lifestyle and therefore get pretty annoyed when sweeping statements about them being ‘selfish, greedy and grabby’ are made.

100k salary, low deductions post tax, living in the midlands, no kids. They probably can afford to pay MUCH more tax and be fine.

65k salary, high post tax deductions, expensive area (tied to for work), couple of kids, they can’t afford to pay more tax than they already do!

It’s like saying ‘let’s cut UC to anyone of working age who doesn’t have a job’ well that’s ridiculous because there are lots of unique situations that lead to being unemployed. Sure some people could ‘get a job’ but others can’t for legitimate reasons. It’s not black and white and neither is ‘high earners should pay more tax’ - they already do pay more tax whilst getting absolutely no financial help/support. Some high earners could afford to pay even more but others can’t!

For context we live in a average house, with one average car and shop weekly from Asda on a careful budget. We have one baby and basically no savings... but according to this thread we should be ashamed of ourselves for not wanting to hand over more of our non existent spare cash?

I’m fed up of MN communist propaganda. I grew up in poverty wishing I could have a comfortable (able to afford food) kind of life, I never realised how much shame and abuse would be thrown at us for achieving that. If we had loads of extra money, if we didn’t have to budget and be careful, I would be happy to pay more.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable and your qualifications are? Certainly not reading or critical thinking it would appear.

I said a tax on the profits of companies who benefited. That means, you know - paying when they can and not when they can’t. A bit like, oh, higher earners with disposable income. I also said an additional tax on the companies who profited, so that means sharing the load.

Or are you suggesting we just carry on asking individuals to pick up the bill for companies?

As for those on furlough, no one has ever suggested that higher earners weren’t furloughed so please don’t make things up. It’s not a good look.

No you didn't. You said "the costs should also be more heavily borne by businesses who benefited from financial support"

That's a direct quote.

Those are the business who were using the furlough scheme, accessing government loans in order to ease financial distress, and entering into deferred payments arrangements for VAT etc. Not the ones having a boom time.

And are you claiming you didn't post this?

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?

What exactly were you arguing, if not that the workers who benefited from furlough should be the ones taxed to pay for it?

(Which any intelligent person can see is ridiculous because a large proportion of those furloughed are or will be made redundant. Many of them won't be paying any income tax in the near future.)

Basically all of these arguments come down to "tax anyone but me". But that's not how life works. Corporation tax and IHT should go up, yes, but income tax amd NI contribute a larger percentage of the treasury's tax take than either of those.

If we are going to fund essential services income tax must go up, and the fairest way to do so is through progressive taxation. That means that those most able to pay will be taxed more. The only question is what % the increase should be.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable Stop twisting peoples posts to suit your own sodding agenda.

I said in the next sentence Whether that’s taxation of a proportion of profits for example or other method

And as for the second quote, lower earners ARE disproportionately furloughed and nowhere in that sentence does it exclude higher earners at all. If you can’t be bothered to read things properly and think beyond your own opinion please don’t bother attempting to engage, you’ve undermined your own argument and awarded yourself zero credibility.

The point that a lot of people seem to be missing from here is that it’s just not possible to raise all the funds we need from one source. The most effective way to is to levy incremental changes progressively across different groups in different ways. If people fall into more than one of those groups it’s probably fair to classify them as privileged, but frankly we have enough division in this country so this should be about what everyone can afford, not what only some people can afford.

I said in the next sentence"Whether that’s taxation of a proportion of profits for example or other method"

And? It doesn't change the meaning. By 'some other method' I assume you mean something divorced from profits. So a business that was struggling due to COVID, accessed the furlough scheme, and made losses, would be taxed despite not making profits because they'd used the furlough scheme?

It makes no sense at all. And that is exactly what you wrote. Those business that benefited from financial support are the ones who are struggling. The business having a boom time weren't furloughing workers.

Society has never been more unequal then it is now. Im all for higher taxes. It’s obscene how much money individuals can make and horde these days.

To assume makes an ass of u and me. Ever heard of that? You might want to think about it before you twist people’s words to suit your agenda.

And please spare me the tears for companies like Virgin, like Wetherspoons, like supermarkets who saved millions in business rate relief then put their food prices up, for companies who exploited the system and didn’t need to furlough. They’re not all the poor little struggling SMEs you’d have us believe as you ask workers to pick up the bill. You’re naive if you think they are.

The example I gave was actually the aviation industry. Not SMEs.

So what method of taxation is this 'something else' that isn't a proportion of profits, but isn't divorced from profits either? We're all ears, tell us.

There simply aren’t enough PAYE high earners to bring in a big increase in tax revenue. The truly rich won’t be deriving the bulk of their income as an employee!

Historically, taxing over 50% of incomes has proven to be a disincentive (hardly surprising!) and tax revenues go down, not up from this very small demographic. People simply elect to work less - not dissimilar to high paid public sector staff (e.g drs) impacted by pension tax relief penalty.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable no please, over to you, you clearly think you’re the expert.

Let’s discuss you’re example, the aviation industry. Tell us, how did you feel when multi-billionaire British non-dom Richard Branson went begging to the UK taxpayer for the opportunity of a COVID bailout package to prop up a failing company that is almost half owned by a US airline? We are all ears.

*your

I've lived both lives

I grew up poor. We didn't have a house. Didn't have electricity. Didn't have heating. Didn't have a car a tv. Some weeks we didn't even have food and had to beg on the streets for bread. I was lucky though. I had a wonderful mother. I remember someone saying if you have love. You have everything and whilst I was hungry a LOT of the time. I didn't mind my life.

We're now rich. By most people standards. I live in a multi million pound house. We work with our own business. We can afford holidays by private jet.

My husband has never grown up poor. He's never ever lost his home. His food. He panics at the slightest thought of losing it all. Whilst me. I know I can survive. I can live on nothing.

I work for homeless charities with my children in my spare time. I work for 4 actually. So I guess I keep it real.

These people were close to the breadline usually to start with. Then something came out of the blue and tipped the balance

I feel that people have enough immense pressure to 'keep up with the joneses'. Some often live so close to the edge. Like all the companies who shut down as soon as lockdown started. Oasis. Etc. They must of been living on such a fine line

But I feel rather than the person. It places like amazon. Virgin. The tax dodgers who should be penalised by paying off the amounts of money. The ones who've been caught.

I don't know. Sheesh. But I feel it shouldn't be the small families who suffer. The mega rich maybe. The mega rich who try to keep it. Definitely

We will all need to pay more, high earners who were furloughed and won't lose their jobs should pay more. Maybe there could be a sliding scale with people earring minimum wage not paying anything additional.

However, some people work PT hours/choose a certain career as a lifestyle choice, it's really not fair for people who work FT as no ability to be PT or who work in a difficult job should pay more than someone who chooses not to work more hours.

If someone lives frugally and managed to buy a house how is this balanced against someone who enjoyed holidays/material processions and doesn't need to contribute to this debt? Thinking about the suggestion in the guardian yesterday which really targeted people who own homes/have savings.
There will be no incentive to study, work, save or buy a house.

We'd be happy to pay more, but we'd then stop contributing to our regular charities, the same people can't keep on giving more and more.

You consistently dodge the questions, don't you?

Well I'll answer yours. I hate Branson and have no great love for Virgin Atlantic as a specific company, and it pissed me off. But Branson/Virgin is not the whole UK aviation industry. And I think that having a thriving aviation industry, with the other industries that go alongside it, is good for the UK as a whole. I therefore support economic measures necessary to ensure that when Covid has passed, we still have an aviation industry.

I feel the same about many other industries. I despise Tim Martin, but I have no objection to pubs being able to furlough workers during a time when they had zero income but ongoing costs to pay. Because I would like pubs to still exist when this is all over.

@Pomegranatepompom your point about charities is very valid, they would suffer hugely after already having suffered extensively from being unable to fund raise

£100k a year isn't that much in London tbh.

Yeah, I mean it's only 2.5 x the average London salary.

Plenty of Londoners live on MW.

But don’t you see how companies like Virgin and Wetherspoons, who claimed they couldn’t find the money they needed to keep going, magically found it when there was a public backlash? Do you really think they’re the only ones who did that? Of course not.

The majority of claims will have been genuine, many other well documented beneficiaries less so. That’s why I think that they should be part of the process of paying back costs.

As for other ways to raise tax, I’ve given a perfectly rational example. Since you’re specifically asking me to try to offer solutions to the world’s problems that you can then come and pick apart to try and look clever - I’ll play. But I’ve never professed to be any kind of corporate tax expert, I’m just answering your questions. They could raise contributions through other mechanisms like capping dividends, taxing dividends, capping pay (these are all relevant to your aviation example since they’re listed companies), needless to say they’re less relevant to SMEs but that’s where corporation tax rates or thresholds can be changed.

I don’t want to engage anymore with you so won’t be replying to whatever chippy reply you’re probably going to write. Please have the last word, my gift to you.

We will all need to pay more, high earners who were furloughed and won't lose their jobs should pay more. Maybe there could be a sliding scale with people earring minimum wage not paying anything additional.

However, some people work PT hours/choose a certain career as a lifestyle choice, it's really not fair for people who work FT as no ability to be PT or who work in a difficult job should pay more than someone who chooses not to work more hours.

I can't tell if this is a joke or not..... Do you think this would somehow be 'fair'? (The concept of anything being truly 'fair' in relation to a universal taxation system is pretty ridiculous tbh.)

Person 1 - high earner - worked throughout lockdown -- no reduction in income - no extra tax afterwards
Person 2 - high earner - furloughed during lockdown due to the nature of the industry they work in - furlough was capped at £2.5k per month, so given that so many £100k workers are apparently 'strapped' they had to take a mortgage holiday (incurring extra interest), use savings etc - restarts work and gets taxed extra

By the same logic, those bastards who get cancer should pay a special surcharge for costing the NHS a lot of money.

The furlough scheme and other bits of government assistance were put in place to stop the economy collapsing, mass redundancies, repossessions etc. WE ALL BENEFITED FROM THIS. Having a functioning economy, with a population which is mostly not bankrupt and homeless, is good for everyone. Not just those who got furlough. Not just the companies who accessed the scheme. Not just people on low wages.

Every single person and company in the UK benefits, whether directly or indirectly, from the government's decision to intervene in order to try to save jobs and save industries. We all owe this debt. Not just 'that lazy person over there who can't be bothered to work longer hours' or 'that tax dodging company'. All of us.

Not a joke - as you well knew, you are trying to belittle anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Thankfully no one on mumsnet is likely to be writing fiscal policy.

I wouldn’t welcome paying more tax, as I don’t think there’s good value for what we pay already, which we supplement by using private health and education etc.

When the Conservatives introduced the reduction of the personal tax allowance for those earning over £100k, I cut back my hours to keep my gross salary at £99k per year (and the excess goes into pension), because a marginal tax rate of 60% makes no sense to me and I think that the same tax free allowance should apply to all workers.

If the tax rate is increased further, there’s always a knock-on effect. If I reduce my hours further, I’d be able to cut the hours of our nanny, cleaners, gardener. Doing this would also impact the tax bill of the other people I pay (plus the employers NI and pension contributions I cover). I’d also make other value judgements, such as changing my car every 5 years, instead of every 3 years, which reduces the money being paid into the car industry and so on.

So taxing the “wealthiest” (as defined here) would probably reduce the tax receipt. If I pay more income tax, I spend less money on a discretionary basis.