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

[soapbox]

????

Thanks for the insight Bling and chocolate.

Are we coming round to a fairly simple some people chase the money and some people don't type thing here?

Just I know lots of people who get up really early and put in at least 10 hours a day. I accept that many of these people will not be in jobs that generate big sums for their employers but lots of them do their jobs for significantly lower salaries than the sums we are talking about here. They are not only motivated by money.

Is working in the city so godawful that money is the only incentive to do it?

What with all this talk of job insecurity and so on I'm nearly feeling sorry for them all.

yes working in the city is pretty awful..........long hours , great responsibility , discrimination is rife , equal pay often never addressed , holidays and sickness even if you are dying absolutely frowned upon and the thought of maternity leave or any sort of work life balance just never enters the heads of most bosses.

On top of that there is massive job insecurity.

Dont feel sorry but dont city bash. We do need them for the taxes they pay and for managing the financial system that will now facilitate the borrowings that this government needs.

Too good for too long as someone said above. Lets get back to the real world.

The other thing to remember is that only a tiny minority of people working in the city earn big bucks. You'd be pretty unlikely to earn a huge amount if you only did 10 hours a day. My standard working hours were 11 -12 hours a hour (starting at 7am) excluding busy times and travel etc.

I just wanted to give a bit of background to why it is true that for some of us higher earnings are somewhat associated with higher outgoings and other associated risks.

First, when I say higher, my husband and I have a combined income of 90k which is earned 50/50.

• I went to uni at 18 and never lived at home again. I've paid rent or a mortgage ever since.
• I took further loans to pursue post grad education - these I only completed paying this year.
• our first mortgage was 100% as loans and uni fees meant saving a deposit wasn't possible
• I still have a large mortgage. My salary is not huge but house prices in this area are.
• For professional reasons we don't live near family therefore incur travel expenses to visit them.
• working as a contractor DH has to travel to where the work is - high transport costs
• DH doesn't get sick or holiday pay
• Nurseries are 20% more expensive in my area than 1 hours drive north of here.
• we have to look presentable in our workplaces so clothes come from mid range not budget shops

These are choices we have made but I think it's important to understand that the figure of someone's current income doesn't really tell you anything about how much cash they have at the end of the day. What a higher income does give you is choice, and when I lament that I can't buy the skiphop changing bag because my budget won't stretch to it, I am just grateful I had the money that enabled me to buy the book on conception that got us this far.

I frequently work an 11-12 hour day. Most evenings when I am posting on MN it is because I am also working writing lectures, marking, doing research, reading policy documents about the latest changes to the University structure, reading academic material.

As people have said over and over again, long hours and low job security are not in themselves enough to necessitate higher pay.

Nor are any of the claims made about where people choose to live and work or what kind of house people buy.

I'm much more persuaded by those who argue that higher pay is simply a result of market forces and profit driven, however much I dislike the idea.

Any sense of entitlement culture is repulsive, surely, whether it is at the lower OR higher end of the economic spectrum...?

I wasn't suggesting that I'm entitled to the higher pay because my house is expensive. What I'm saying is that although I do earn a good salary (and I believe I'm entitled to it because I'm good at my job and market forces mean the salary is what the salary is and I know a man would be getting paid 50% more) people should not assume that disposable income is also high.

Yes 10 hours a day is very little (for me as would be £150k earnings)

What about Jonathan Woss then, with his 2 day a week/ £6 million a year gravy train? Does he defy classification in utility economics. I mean, is there really that much of a need for a Woss?

Not reading any of the other posts - just come in to say GOOD!

Some people are paid horrendous sums for pushing paper or kicking a bloody football whereas other very hardworking people, who slog away all day, who work overtime, get paid a pittance and have to save up just to afford a weekend away.

So yes, tax the bastards! And spend it on the poor!

But wilfself you have seen that most of us in the really quite high bracket have been arguing that it is a case of market forces and profit driven. I get paid what I do because I part own a law firm that makes that profit.

Market forces allow me to charge what I do and because presumably we are quite good then there is plenty of work out there for us.

But does that mean that I should pay a higher proprtion of my income in tax when I contribute to the economy massively already with the tax I pay , use private schools and healthcare and personally ( ie at home ) employ 3 staff on an income of about £30k a year between them.

My own view is that access to public services should be means tested both on income and capital. take my parents in law for instance.............stash every penny they have ( and they are pretty well off ) and yet when it came to hip replacements for my MIL she had both done privately paid for by the NHS because she made such a fuss about blood transfusions and she went over the 12 month waiting list criteria.

Outrageous for a woman who has had 4 children ( ie expense on education ) and never ever had a days paid employment in her life nor done any charity work either.

her sense of entitlement culture is spot on.........she is just entitled and thats it!

msbossy- I would say that actually you are earning a good mid-range salary. Not mega bucks, but enough to be comfortable. I think that pple are a lot less happy about the 6 figure + salary and its tenuous relationanship with hours worked/ academic level required/ degree of discomfort endured.

Fwiw I would NEVER want to belong to work for a city institution. Been there, seen the inside, discovered it stank, left after a year. I do think it's a whole other issue, if were discussing just how far a person is prepared to surrender themselves for their employer. There are people out there willing to kill people for money. That doesn't make it a good or valid way to spend your life.

This raises a good point - I don't earn 150k and I work on average about 55 hours a week (excluding travel, busy times etc so sometimes more but seldom less ). But... I have also made a very conscious decision that while I'll work for a bank, I won't be banker because I don't want Xenia or Chocolate's lives (or ex lives). And therefore I've never resented the money the bankers I work for get.

Having said that, I still earn significantly more than most of my friends in my industry and/or age bracket because I do work for a bank and so I do take on more risk, I do more hours and I mostly do it in a less pleasant environment. I have a friend who works for a pr agency and who definitely does more actual hours than I do, but I also know that she has more flexibility and control over her day and her work than I will ever have because of the area in which she works. I also know that having done that, I wouldn't do it again as I prefer the banking environment where you're "on" all the time at the office and taking more than 20 minutes for lunch is frowned upon, than an environment like hers where she wakes up on a Sunday morning not knowing what the papers might be saying about one of her many clients.

These are choices I make. Combined with the fact that I have the skills that allow me to do what I do for a bank and that it's technical enough that I'm relatively well paid for it.

£150k isn't that much IMVHO. Neither is 45% tax (I lived in Germany and Scandinavia before). What shite Gordon is smoking I don't know. Labour has done sweet FA for the middle class what with rising taxes (council), increasing fees and penalties for trash sorting, etc. etc. in general.

'course he's so afraid of taking on the really rich or the ones reaping the benefits of living in the UK yet paying nothing: Non-Doms, etc.

I really don't like the ferocity and harsh words from both sides, the ones that have more and the ones that have less. Just why does Gordon always fuel a slanging match between the two sides? It's quite sad really. Can't wait for him to be gone. Useless person.

Quotations for WillS:

An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.
Alfred A. Knopf

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
Laurence J. Peter

There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little - and it's always somebody else.
Cullen Hightower

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'
Don Marquis

It is partly to avoid consciousness of greed that we prefer to associate with those who are at least as greedy as we ourselves. Those who consume much less are a reproach.
Charles Horton Cooley

rhubarb were you Robin Hood in a previous age ???

......oh yes you were..........LOL

I hate the way it is seen as worthy to work 10-12 hours a day in a bank. I'm sure most people are more productive if they work 8 or so hours a day, and then do something completely different to unwind like going to the gym.

well, I also hate the way that it's seen as normal to spend every minute of your waking, and a large part of your unwaking, time with a small child or baby - surely you'd be more productive, more patient, more pleasant to be around if you did 8 hours and then went to the gym?

I'm being facetious, but the point is that it's not about worthiness or normality, it just is. Sometimes these things can be changed. Sometimes they can't.

yes it is the same being a SAHM for too many hours of the day! - I am less productive by the end of the day and inclined to turn to mumsnet!

Market forces allow me to charge what I do and because presumably we are quite good then there is plenty of work out there for us.

But does that mean that I should pay a higher proprtion of my income in tax when I contribute to the economy massively already with the tax I pay , use private schools and healthcare and personally ( ie at home ) employ 3 staff on an income of about £30k a year between them.

YES- YOU SHOULD PAY MORE TAX. HOPE YOUR STAFF AT HOME AREN"T WORKING A FULL TIME WEEK OR YOU ARE NOT PAYING THEM THE MINIMUM WAGE.

right thats me off. rich poeple don't want to pay more tax to the society they live in. thought thats how it was.

twinkle, what a strange post, who are the "most of us" you mention?

I hope I never have to use the NHS too much, God willing, but thank God its there when me and my family need it