What do you think of the 5% tax hike for those earning more than £150k - good or bad?

[soapbox]

????

How completely stupid do people sound when they claim the worldwide recession was personally caused by Gordon Brown?
Yup, he secretly organised the sub-prime mortgage market in the US

A free market economy normally goes hand in hand with democracy. I guess this tax hike will be voted on (amongst everything else) at the next general election.

Habbibu - The wealthy do value the police and nurses. In times of crisis the NHS beats any private hospital but as a society that is not how we value people.

We do not value people on their social standing, on their input into society. We value pretty much in economic terms - ability to make money is rewarded with money.

But that is how our society works - we support free market economy principles. This of course means that there are only a few who are wealthy.

If we wish to move to a society where everyone is valued the same and rewarded the same we need to go far left but in that respect we need to then recognise that our tax burden will be shared equally...

mabanaa - is that what people are saying or are they questioning Darling's handling of the situation and his pre-Budget annoucement.

Will be interesting to see how the Wednesday parliamentary debate goes.

No really, there are people so idiotic they really think that Gordon Brown is responsible for everything (including the current cold snap, I imagine).

Calling people who believe in a progressive tax system jealous, is just a personal insult designed to take the subject away from the arguments. As I said, JK Rowling believes in a progressive tax system and those arguing that the only reason people might believe that taxing the top 1% of the population more, appeared to miss the point.

George Osbourne was on the radio this morning saying that the conservatives would "ensure" that banks incresed their lending to businesses and families. Which sounds a bit interventionist to me.

Is the cold snap not Gordon's fault?

It is not the 150K-500K who will "get up and leave", but the real rich, who are paying a substantial chunk of total tax revenues.

+5% tax for those individuals will justify the cost of setting up a structure whereby they will be legally residents of Luxembourg or Monaco, but will continue to live in London.

My mum is a nurse, has been for 30 years. My dh is a high earner. Yes i think my mum deserves to earn more. But i don't think my dh should earn less. His job is entirely different. As i've said early, on call 24/7, spending prolonged time away from home. Because of his salary the company he works for basically 'owns' him. My dh and i have not come from wealthy backgrounds and know what it is to not be fortunately well off. I have no problem with the tax increase. Just with the sense that high earners are lazy greedy people who shouldn't necessarily earn more than those is 'caring' professions. It doesn't make them bad people just because they have a high paid job.

all the more reason for sorting out the non-dom cheats.

My mum is a nurse, has been for 30 years. My dh is a high earner. Yes i think my mum deserves to earn more. But i don't think my dh should earn less. His job is entirely different. As i've said early, on call 24/7, spending prolonged time away from home. Because of his salary the company he works for basically 'owns' him. My dh and i have not come from wealthy backgrounds and know what it is to not be fortunately well off. I have no problem with the tax increase. Just with the sense that high earners are lazy greedy people who shouldn't necessarily earn more than those is 'caring' professions. It doesn't make them bad people just because they have a high paid job.

No, but they are bad people if they resent paying a proportion of the fruits of their good fortune/hard work whatever to support he civilised society they benefit from - almost certainly disproportionately.

Sorry I can't do links but found this from the Evening Standard:

"At least 400 UK-based individuals earn, or are capable of making, £10m a year.

But only 65 paid income tax, according to the latest figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The rest use a battery of sophisticated but legal techniques to avoid paying.

It is not known exactly how much money is being lost to the taxpayer in this way but analysis by the Standard suggests it could be as much as £2bn a year"

Most very rich people should have a decent accountant and will wriggle out of paying any tax hikes. This whole argument seems rather hypothetical anyway.

It is a vote catcher for Gordon but won't raise any more revenue. And I can't see a lot of rich people high tailing out of the UK either.

free market? what free market? the one where taxpayers bail out banks? Oh yes, THAT free market. I expect those are the lazy freeloaders mummyp referred to earlier, with whom she doesn't want to share her pot.

thats completely selfish CrackFox. i just don't understand that attitude.

It is completely selfish but Gordon has turned a blind eye to it for so long that it would be hard to change.

I don't think anyone thinks high earners are Bad People per se.

I'm not sure if anyone has said that but I don't think they'd have got very far if they had because it's a silly argument.

Thecrackfox you are totally right. It's the stonkingly rich that are getting away without paying tax. And yes this whole exercise is pointless and just to win votes.

if you earn over 150,000 and you spend your money you will benefit from lower VAT rates. Increasing taxes will simply mean that you benefit less from a lower VAT rate. However you probably aren't going to pay the tax anyway.

I used to be paid a lot - and worked hard for it but whether I "earned" it was more debatable. I was glad to pay tax to help those who were less fortunate.

Some people have a lot of money and are happy to help others. Other people regard anyone who does not have a lot of money as an inferior person and almost a different species. IME those with most money are often intelligent - but morally bankrupt.

cbm - I was really just responding to mummyp's rather crass point about not wanting to hand over her hard earned cash to people who sit around waiting for handouts. I know that the market values wealth generation, and not social benefit per se. That's why it's not a perfect system - there isn't a system that's going to make everyone happy - I guess that's why we have to tweak the systems we choose to do the most good and the least harm.

I haven't said anywhere that I think the wealthy in general don't value lower paid workers - I have no reason to think they don't, and I trust - I hope - that mummyp isn't representative of the wealthy. Andrew Carnegie - mentioned earlier - indirectly funded my education!

Maybe not in so many words LB but they have said that high earners who object to massive tax rises are.

I do object to the suggestion that I am not as good a person as a nurse etc.

The way I see it is my tax bill pays the salaries of about 5 nurses a year. I may not be able to help look after people who are less well off than me directly because I chose a different career but I am damn well funding life threatening care for those who cannot afford to pay for it.

"I did start with nothing and I have worked damn hard. Why should I share my success with others who sit and wait for hand outs"

Well because that is how a civilised society should work.

The better off should help those in need.

I hope that one day if you need some help you will understand.

Politics is a devious game - the players use smoke and mirrors.

I have not complained about paying extra tax. But I do think that the tax increases on the "superrich" are a cynical ploy to make a majority of voters react like this:

1. They deserve to pay more tax because they are rich (politics of envy)
2. They deserve to pay more tax because they got us into this mess (they didn't btw, but that is incidental)
3. They deserve to pay more tax because public services need improving and they should foot the bill

This is all to distract voters from the real architects of our financial misfortune, which is THIS GOVERNMENT, which has:

1. Massively increased public spending WITHOUT linking it to improvements in productivity or services
2. Failed to take the necessary regulatory steps for financial markets and institutions (not ensuring that banks had to keep sufficient capital, allowing people to borrow ridiculous amounts of money with no means of repaying it etc).
3. Spent a fortune on an unnecessary war in Iraq

I disagree, wanaabe. I am not aware of an attitide on this thread that high-earners do not work hard for it. I assume that the large majority of them do work hard. So do people who are not high-earners so I find the argument that 'I work hard for it so I deserve it' completely redundant. It takes is nowhere, it just implies that lower-earners don;t work hard.