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!!!!

Secondly if you shouldn’t, why not?

If you should, in what way do you think it could most effectively be achieved?

We seem very preoccupied by income tax, forgetting that there are many other ways of raising money including against the value of property, estates etc which then only needs to be paid upon sale / redemption / death.

DH is an intensive care DR and you would be shocked at how many of his profession (pre covid) were shipping off to other counties like rats off a sinking ship- fed up of abusive patients, unsociable shifts, dwindling resources and being villainized by society for earning a wage somewhat representative of the skills they have.

Do you see no irony in the ‘rats off a sinking ship’ comparison?

Who has ‘villainized’ doctors for earning a good salary? I can’t bring myself to cry over the plight of people with £1m defined benefit pension pots, I’m afraid, but that is a world away from resenting somebody else’s salary and skills. I earn as much as a hospital consultant, but if the value of my lifetime pension savings breaks through £1m I won’t be sulking or refusing to go to work because I don’t think it’s fair that I’ll be taxed more. Which is exactly what some hospital consultants have done.

So fed up of the type of attitudes on this thread they sod off to Australia or Newzealand and take with them the hundreds of thousands the NHS has invested in training them grin

Sulking so hard that they flounce off to the antipodes! Are you expecting that we should exempt doctors from income tax so that they don’t get upset and go to Australia? How well do you think that would go down with the people doing poorly paid jobs in those hospitals, who will be funding the special treatment of this highly-paid group? Thank goodness that not all doctors behave in such a petulant way.

This country needs Dr’s and Nurses more than they need this country, maybe people should stop slagging them off.

Who has ‘slagged off’ nurses? If I were a nurse, would I be pleased that somebody earning several times more than my salary was getting special tax treatment? I don’t think so. Also, the medical schools are full so I don’t foresee any shortage in the supply of doctors. Don’t let that stop you trying to argue for special treatment of a group of well-paid, generously-pensioned professional, though.

“A better plan would be to properly tax the sports personalities, pop stars, formula 1 drivers, and other "slebs" who use tax avoidance/evasion schemes or move abroad to tax havens to avoid UK taxes.”

How naive is this comment? Don't you think every government has tried to do this incessantly...even paying whistleblowers and the leaked Columbia files

Agreed. Too many armchair tax experts on this thread. Do you honestly think that no measures are in place to prevent wealthy people dodging tax? Don’t you read newspapers or watch the news? Dodgy tax avoidance schemes are closed down every day. The government employs loads of very clever people, experts in tax and economics, to stay on top of avoidance and evasion. Do you think that you know better than them?

Often, when an avoidance scheme is shut down, the public reaction is the opposite of what you’d expect. Some people feel sorry for the greedy bar stewards who have been caught. When Gary Barlow and other Take That members had to pay tax, interest and penalties after a scheme they got involved in was closed down, there were no end of idiots saying that it wasn’t fair, that they earned a lot and paid enough tax already etc etc. The same people complaining that their granny can’t have a new hip, or that the pavements need fixing, or that there aren’t enough police on the beat. Where do they think the money for those things comes from?

As for “people who earn more work harder”: give me strength. I earn far more than a hospital porter, or somebody who builds roads, or a care worker, or somebody who stocks shelves in Aldi. I don’t kid myself that I work harder than those people, because I absolutely do not.

I’m a bit late to this thread, but we’ll said Hermano

Most of the "work harder" type comments have been personal as in - I could go for promotion/ work an extra day/ week (assuming children older/starting school) but the difference in take home pay would not make it worth my while.

Especially when balancing childcare costs or switching from paid hours/overtime to a salary with no overtime...

Current consultants will have spent a decent amount of time working for effectively less than the current minimum wage, given salary, compulsory memberships and exams and 70+ hour weeks before the rules changed. Plus unpaid work as students!

Current consultants will have spent a decent amount of time working for effectively less than the current minimum wage, given salary, compulsory memberships and exams and 70+ hour weeks before the rules changed. Plus unpaid work as students!

So will nurses, and teachers, and academics, and people who start their own businesses, and people in all kinds of careers. Explain why senior, well-paid medics should be given special treatment.

I have now just landed back in the job market due to redundancy and I hate it. It is very ageist and I have even seen occasional adverts for young and dynamic individual for some roles.

This is illegal. Also it’s opposite, mature.

Oh sorry! Wrong thread

The issue with wealthy people not realising they are wealthy is because often in the circles they move in their wage is 'normal'.

I remember when the CB cap came in (which I don't agree with) a friend who lost CB could not understand who would still be getting it as she saw their high household income as pretty much the minimum a family would need. She saw many things as necessities that really weren't. Nails and hair done regularly, personal trainer sessions, foreign holidays and uk breaks every year, lots of meals out etc. Of course not all wealthy people are in that 'bubble' but some definitely are.

@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?!!!

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 too

Our household income on a good year is just shy of £12K. Yes, twelve. When lockdown happened, dh's income stopped dead. He's a musician, a guitarist who plays in pubs and clubs. He was not eligible for any of the nice little schemes Boris and friends came up with.

You'd think we'd have starved wouldn't you? We haven't because I can cook and I know how to use cheaper ingredients. There are many things we would have liked to have, which we would usually buy to make our impoverished lives a bit more pleasant, eg, Private Eye, but no I haven't had a copy for months now. We have had more meals of beans on toast in the last 3 months than either of us have in our lives probably!

Anyone can pull in their horns a bit when needed and if my family can then anyone earning over 50K can, let alone people who earn over 100K.

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. 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.

Taxation policy is a balancing act and it is very difficult politically to switch from a relatively low tax low level of state service society like the UK to a more socialist/high tax society like Norway/Sweden, especially when there is a necessarily a gap between the increase in tax and the visible improvement in services.

Jux on 12k a year, do you live rent/ mortgage free?

especially when there is a necessarily a gap between the increase in tax and the visible improvement in services.

This. I'm not against some income tax rises but I'm in my 30s. I'm unlikely to see any state pension & no chance of a 1m public sector one plus I doubt the NHS will be "free" as it is now in 30 yrs time.

Imagine saying you're strapped when your household income is £100k a year. Serious spending issues. MN blows my mind at times

The best part of this thread is the reintroduction of the word dowdy

SE housing costs and childcare costs will help with that. Take a couple of senior junior doctors on 55k/year each. Lucky enough to be assigned to same deanery but it's in Surrey and they need to be central to the deanery as could be required to work anywhere until they reach consultant level. Vagaries of shift scheduling mean you are either never guaranteed opposite shifts, so you need a live in Nanny, so if you have any DC you need a 3 bed house if you are both going to keep working. You have to pay tax/NI for the nanny so that will probably take a decent chunk of 1 salary.

Add in professional exams (way more expensive than accountancy and not paid by your employer), professional memberships (again unlike law/accountancy).

That would be an easy way for a 100k earning couple to be tight without making any bad spending choices. In fact they'd probably be less "tight" even comfortable if one of them gave up their career in the short term, but it's better in the long term if they both continue to work in their chosen specialties!

In my "Surrey" example I'd assume 2 cars would be essential at least some of the time because more rural area, shifts etc doesn't really allow public transport!

Let’s take away free school meals and housing benefit and throw hungry children onto the streets. Anything to save those unfortunate souls on 100k a year!

High earners who are taxed more then they won’t spend as much so the economy suffers more. Swings and roundabouts

I like the idea that all jobs pay the same. If there is a vacancy it is a job that the company needs to have done, doesn't matter whether it's a loo cleaner or a CEO.

Citizen's wage is a good idea too. With a bit of tweaking we can make that work sensibly.

I like the idea that all jobs pay the same. If there is a vacancy it is a job that the company needs to have done, doesn't matter whether it's a loo cleaner or a CEO

Let me guess, you’re either a loo cleaner or you’re joking, I’m not sure which?

More of a Socialist, actually. I have held this view even when I was a higher paid worker before I became disabled and unable to work. You won't believe that but I don't much care.

People are selfish. It shows on this thread.

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. It would also need all capitalist societies to follow suit otherwise we’d just be left with unqualified and inexperienced workers and loo cleaners running the economy (note I didn’t say govt!)

@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.