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

[soapbox]

????

Why are you laughing at me WILFSell?

So he literally pisses it away...

well its not a massively long stretch of the imgaination I think to suggest that poorer people tend to be more community minded

1. They tend to use their communities more-local schools, local hospitals, etc. If these things are going down the pan, they are motivated to sort them out. They campaign.

1. there is a decent chance that they are working for the government/charity/teaching etc.

There are quite a few surveys showing that, contrary to the bodenly-rowing upstream to deliver xmas presents sterotyoe of the green campaigner, household income correlates negatively to environmental concern-ie poorer families tend to care more about the environment, though not always in a "oooh we must own only handmade wooden bunting" type way.

It was your less self motivated comment which you later modified so I retract my laughter.

And I applaud the Churchill quote though strictly speaking not an economist but a journo. One must suppose some grasp of economics ought to be a pre-requisite for running the country though...

Sorry missed the economist requirement.

QC-You can't measure their worth in monetary value alone- of course the three nurses have contributed the most to society as they have had a direct impact on peoples lives in a direct and personal way.

I know we did this to death last time the rich/poor debate came up but it's worth another read in any case: What the rich think...

WilfSell- Your 20:10 post is wonderful

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise we cannot eat money

Although I think there is a lot of sense in that article I would be surprised to hear that my wage last year was in the top 10% of the country. Although we were comfortable I never felt privelidged.

God, Wilf, I remember that article. That really does piss me off - not that some people earn more per se, but that SOME don't realise just how lucky - not just hard-working, talented, blah di fucking blah they are - but just plain bloody lucky - lucky that the job they are good at is one that the market happens to reward. If the market rewarded compassion they'd be fucked.

I'd like to see a pollution tax

We've already been through the facts on this TSAP - if you scroll down the thread you can see what centile your salary puts you in...

If you're earning up to about 20k, you're in the bottom 50% of salary earners...

If you're earning up to about 50k, you're in the bottom 90% of earners...

If you're over 50k, you're in the top 10%.

It's a fact. The govt says so.

The person being interviewed in the article is right to point out that teachers on the whole do not go into their jobs for money. And to be fair we are not poverty stricken either.

There are lots of teachers like me who would do our jobs for less money and were not temtped into the job by money. Kids need teachers motivated by their sense of vocation. I will be working tonight until about midnight, would be about 11 if I was not on here, I started at 7. I am not doing that because I will earn more money but because I want to do the best for my class. So if I am not motivated by money it is a waste of tax payers money to pay me more. I would rather see the money go on resources, more teachers etc.

But having said that I am a teacher who had to leave London as she could not afford to live there. So perhaps that is an argument to increase pay as there is a shortage of good experienced teachers on the capital and that has a real effect on standards and achievement.

Would the people earning their job still choose to work for £30K? Would anybody do the job for £30K? ( That is not a dig I don;t know) If not we need to pay the bigger wages.

I am not saying it is not a fact , I am saying I find the fact surprising and can understand why the people in the article did.

"QC-You can't measure their worth in monetary value alone- of course the three nurses have contributed the most to society as they have had a direct impact on peoples lives in a direct and personal way."

See, this is what I am getting at. The nursees are more highly valued by society notwithstanding the fact that their jobs would not exist were it not for the person who paid for their taxes.

This seems an emotional not a logical response to me.

The person paying the taxes might not be alive if not for the nurses and doctors, Quattro.

That argument is exactly the same as saying "if those women chose to work in advertising instead of nursing, then that rich taxpayer couldn't have paid them."

TSAP, you're right that the interesting point is that many people find it surprising to hear the reality of what people in the UK earn. It seems especially surprising to those who are in the upper ranges of earnings.

I was once in a car with a (wealthy) bloke who proclaimed 'surely no-one actually lives in council estates any more though...?' He was being deadly serious.

OK MummyPoppins fair enough - I see now that you're self employed so I understand a bit more where you're coming from with your argument. I?d assumed (not sure why exactly) that you were a limited company and that you could stash money in the company rather than pay yourself. As for you not getting help with childcare costs when on a middle income ? well as a family we?re below average with me full time and DH part time and we qualify for next to no help with childcare costs either. In fact after childcare we earn a big fat £20 a month more with DH working than if he didn?t. And that?s allowing for getting childcare vouchers ? without those we?d be worse off than if DH just stayed at home full time. Figure that one out!

As for this higher rate of tax business. Look, nobody will be worse off because they earn £160,000 instead of £140,000. Perhaps £20,000 of their earnings will now be taxed at 45%, but they?ll still get to keep £11,000 of them (simplified figure, not taking a/c of NI etc. etc.) ? that?s £11,000 that they wouldn?t have had if they didn?t earn the extra £20,000. So I fail to see the argument that this is a barrier to ambition.

WannaBe said ?But there is a lot of inference that people on higher wages are handed their money on a plate, and that is simply not the case.? In comparison to people on a low wage they are handed their money on a plate. £150k is more than 10 times the salary of a carer ? there is no way that any of you high earners work anything like 10 times harder than somebody like that. Probably not even twice as hard to be honest.

And to Fillyjonk who said ?GRRR generally at any idea that some people deserve to live on more than others because they have not chosen socially useful jobs.?. Hear hear! Couldn?t have put it better myself!

Isn't the nurses/rich taxpayer thing a bit of a circular argument? I mean, they wouldn't have been saving the life of the rich taxpayer if they weren't being paid for by said rich taxpayer. And so on.

ok ok.......but we cant all do socially useful jobs................who the f**k would pay all the taxes to fund everything discussed above ?

People doing socially useful jobs do pay tax, mummyp... And no-one is saying that everyone should do socially useful jobs, but that the tax system should support those who do.

Not all banks have been recapitalised/part-nationalised you know. For example, Barclays has stuck its neck out (to the financial detriment of its shareholders) in order to continue to operate in a free market.

and habbibu it does with in most cases the best pension system in the world...........