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!!!!

Posters like @Iamthewombat are so trigger happy jumping on people like me with the ‘well if you’re not happy living on DH’s high wage and your PT one why don’t you work FT that’s your choice obviously’.

Once more, I don’t care whether you work full time, part time or not at all. I was responding to your complaint that because your husband earns the lion’s share of the money in your family, he is taxed more than you would be if, as a couple, you earned the same amount in aggregate. Remember? I think this is the third time that I’ve explained it to you.

The answer was, because personal income tax allowances are not transferable and if you don’t use yours, that’s your choice. Don’t blame the tax system for the consequences of your choices.

Have you got that? I don’t care whether you work part time, full time or not at all. Use your personal tax allowance or don’t use it. Up to you. Don’t criticise the tax system if you don’t.

I really enjoyed that ‘you posted right next to those poor people earning 12k per year you grabby cow’ shaming I got earlier!

Who called you a ‘grabby cow’? Not me, or anybody else. You were complaining bitterly about how you had to struggle by on £65k a year and couldn’t possibly pay any more tax. In fact, you told us that your husband currently paid more tax than somebody on the same salary because ‘no account was taken of student loan repayments’. I still can’t understand how you draw this conclusion, unless you have confused student loan repayments with tax.

I noted that your post was cheek by jowl with one from a different poster - Jux - whose household income was £12k and yet didn’t complain anywhere near as much as you, with a household income of £65k, did, despite having more reason to do so.

I’m going to suggest that you grow up and stop embarrassing yourself with these attempts at personal attacks on posters who disagree with you. You persist in making arguments that fall flat because they are ill-conceived, founded as they are on a misunderstanding of how tax works, a belief that nobody struggles as much as you do, a conviction that you and your husband are somehow special and a tendency to invent insults that other posters have supposedly levelled at you (‘grabby cow’ being a good example). You lose every time.

You informed us, upthread in your ‘going out to dinner with a friend’ metaphor for taxation, that anybody who expected you to pay for them was a CF. Old people whose pensions are paid for by taxation. Poor families. People who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. CFs to a man, or woman, according to you. If anybody were to ‘shame’ you, I suggest that it would be for this rather than for your choice of working pattern, which nobody cares about, or your incessant complaints about how you can’t possibly survive on £65k a year.

@Pumpertrumper it's a bit ironic you saying that "juggling childcare" isn't a excuse when you've said you only work part time because of childcare.

Also I find it slightly ironic that some of the people on here moaning about higher taxes don't actually earn the money themselves, their DH does. If you are looking down on people earning less and saying it's through "choice" when you don't earn a high wage yourself, you just happen to be married to a man who does, you're a hypocrite.

Without local grandparents (or a nanny) many careers are difficult to work full time around. Anything involving short notice nights away, 24/7 shifts, overnight on calls or even just the late hours culture in the city means one person needs to be available to collect from childcare by 6/6.30 (if you live somewhere with decent childcare options and get lucky enough to get the school that has childminders collecting or robust wraparound clubs.

If your only childcare option that allows you to keep both careers is a nanny or going part time, it is unsurprising that the balance starts to fall on these side of a parent staying at home mostly. And of course the nanny choice is expensive... and you get maligned for being a "high earner" even if you have a tiny surplus after paying the nanny do you can keep your career/pension!

And of course the nanny choice is expensive... and you get maligned for being a "high earner

Nobody has been maligned on this thread for being a high earner.

In fact, most of the maligning has come from people on good salaries (or whose husbands and partners are on good salaries: thanks to @Waxonwaxoff0 for pointing that one out) who react furiously to suggestions that they might have to pay more tax to get the country back on its feet.

There are no easy answers to raising more money via tax. I agree with a progressive tax system but to raise serious money via income tax, it needs to hit far enough down the income scale to hit a reasonable number of people. Taxing a few billionaires won’t make a difference.

Also for all those thinking there is some easy answers re taxing companies who operate in “tax havens” or Amazon (who pay tax on the UK like other businesses) you’re 20 years out of date. There are lots of HMRC rules preventing tax avoidance or evasion from international groups of companies already. There are no “loopholes” that the government won’t close because they are in the thrall of some faceless rich people. To raise more money from tax, many of us are going to pay more and others will be able to claim less.

DH and I studied hard and now have stressful and busy jobs - if the balance tips so my family are not benefiting from my hours, I’ll change careers/ reduce hours.

You're obviously unhappy about the work/tax aspect of your life so why don't you change to a low paid job? There's a real crisis in social care, you could work as a care worker. I think they earn around minimum wage so you'd pay little in tax and be doing a hugely valuable job. If you don't fancy care work you could work in a supermarket. Serious suggestion. Life is too short to be angry about the injustice you feel about your situation, if you think low paid workers get a better deal, do a low paid job. Somebody else could do your high paid job, they'd probably be getting a big pay rise and be very happy.

Also @KenDodd suggestion if higher earners don’t like paying taxes then they can quit and someone else can do their job is a bit silly. Most higher earners are highly skilled, experienced and educated (of course not all). They are not easy to replace hence why they are highly paid in the first place.

Yes it’s hard work being a home carer but it’s not highly skilled in the same way as an orthopedic surgeon or an accountancy partner. The two are not interchangeable.

@KenDodd - it’s not a realistic suggestion and you obviously don’t understand the situation that poster is talking about.

I work in corporate finance. I used to work crazy hours and has to pay nannies and cleaners just to keep going as a single parent. It was hugely stressful, I earned a lot but so much of it went in tax and childcare, etc.

I now work in the same area but in a much lower stress job. I earn about half but have less time at work. I also pay way less tax (which is not why I did it). I still do work full time but not such long hours.

I suspect if many higher earners were taxed a lot more some would go for lower earning jobs. I think there is a balance to be struck tho. We need to raise money so higher tax rates could be higher without being prohibitive.