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

[soapbox]

????

Who are the selfish ones, pray? The ones who feel aggrieved at paying yet more tax or the ones who feel aggrieved at being begrudged more money for no work?

You seem to persist with this crackpot theory that rich people work hard and poor people don't.

It's very hard to feel sorry for wealthy people being taxed a wee bit more at a time when others are struggling to pay the mortgage and heat their homes.

You'll all just have to get used to spending just the one month in Barbados over Winter and perhaps buying designer off the peg for a bit.

My heart bleeds

For the record, DH and I earn far less than £150,000. Would we be happy to be taxed more on our relatively meagre salaries if it was for the good of society? Yes, without hesitation.

Twinkie - how do you know I'm not richer than you?

Actually I'm not - but I am lucky, I have what I need (almost) and while working under a lot of pressure for many hours I do a job I love and chose that over things requiring similiar levels of education, competitive edge, multi-skill etc - and I am happy with the life I have.

I earn a lot less than your family and I pay my cleaner more than you do.

And you know what? Unless you are paying your cleaners NI, and paid holiday and a pension contribution, £10 an hour is shit money. I'm NOT impressed by your 'philanthropy' at all. You don't make dulluse of the NHS? WEll, unless you pay your cleaner (and other staff...) enough money to acces private provision themselves, you are benefitting from the NHS in other ways. Because without it you would have to pay your staff more monmey to make their lives tenable. Society is inter-connected.

If you are young and fit, and you have enough money in the bank to last your whole lives, I am sorry - I consider it greed to want more more more - for doing a job that does not involve life or death deciskions - like a surgeon - or extreme personal risk - like a firefighter.
I have NOTHING against people being rich, earning lots - and do realise that the 'city' has fuelled Britains wealth in recent years. But it was a bubble, and now that it is burst i would expecyt those who n=have benefitted most from it - and made I work for their own ends - to suck up a high rate of the rescue tax, just as they gathered in a disproportionate yeilds in the good years.

It isn't your money I question, it's our attitude.

And this comes hard on the heels of dinner with someone who earned so much money working fo Goldmans that he is now turning to a carer running a charity, not whinging and bleating about moving to Switzerland.

Quattrocentro there were a few posters who were saying that they felt that anyone who was required to pay a high proportion of their income to the taxman would feel aggrieved.

My simple point is that paying a high proportion of a very high income that supports a high standard of living cannot, with any intelligence, be compared to paying a high percentage of a low income where very penny counts.

For me this is just more evidence that the well off have lost their sense of reality and have no clue about how the majority of the UK population actually live.

What makes this even worse to my mind is that even the poor in the UK are relatively well off when compared to the poor on a global level.

Don't want to go too far down this line of thinking as it makes me too disgusted with the greedy bleeting and threats of fucking off to tax havens that we have witnessed on this thread.

How much is enough for these folk FGS?

'your' attitude, that would be.

hands up who knows where taxes go?!
you'd think from some of the posts on here that the taxes go straight from the (hard working under appreciated extremely intelligent generally all round fantastic) rich people straight to the (lazy, lard arse, unemployed, benefit cheating, horror child raising) poor people.

Actually we all benefit from them - roads, traffic lights, ambulances, police, fire engines, etc etc etc, even less directly - having things like youth offending teams, probation workers, rehabiltation centres - these are not purely altruistic facilities, we all benefit. The only problem is that they are underfunded as no gvt has had the balls to put up taxes on very high earners to the point where they need to be.

Anyone been to Sweden? High taxes, fantastic health and education system, social housing everyone can access, capped rents in the private sector so no one can exploit tenants, free university places for anyone who wants them, along with accommodation and equipment GRANTS not loans, for students, even if they are studying overseas. MAternity AND patenrity leave, both paid, both reasonably long to enable bot parents to bond with the child if they wish. not a lot of people flooding out of that country to go and live in low tax havens. Wonder why.

the key thing for me is that in paying higher taxes and suporting others to become educated and empowered individuals, you help them to become better able to contribute themselves financially and socially, and enable their children to do the same. If you just leave people who don't have the capacity to sort themselves out to just sink, well they will have children who will also inherit that lack of capacity and there you have an underclass, generations of people with no aspirations etc etc etc - those people are MUCH more expensive for the tax payer!

I agree with Anna8888 :"If taxation is too high, people can't be bothered to work because the rewards for their labours become insufficient."

Then the middle income group will have to pick up the tab

I also agree with scaryteacher's post on wanting value for money from government

QC: ""Do you not see that being highly taxed when you are rich and can afford to pay those taxes whilst maintaining a very nice quality of life cannot in any way be compared to paying high taxes when you only just get by."

I think this means:

If you earn £24k and pay £25% tax you have £18k to live on - a BIG struggle.

If you earn £200k and pay 60% tax you have £80k to live on. Easy peasy...

That's exactly it Blu.

More, more, more.

Me, me, me.

Money, money, money.

Yup. I don't mind a big tax hike. I won't enjoy it but I don't mind the principle. What I really object to is lazy-arse piss-poor economic management. I WANT A GOVERNMENT TO DELIVER VALUE FOR MONEY!!!

Blu - surely on the £24k you get money back from tax credits too so you end up with more than 18k left over?

while we enjoying a class war on this thread, did anyone see rich kid poor kid? did anyone think the 'poor kid' was completely amazing?!
(and the rick kid was terifying?!)

rich kid poor kid

A round of applause to PSCMUM.

God the UK is so behind the times and parochial.

Quite right Quattro...the politicians are too incompetent to spend our tax money properly. Before New Labour came to power I was not averse to paying more in taxes for better public services (although I certainly didn't vote Labour).

However, I don't think public services have improved much considering all the extra taxation since New Labour came to power. One of the worst things they have brought in is tuition fees and encouraging everyone to go to university meaning all degrees have become devalued.. The maternity services and health visitor services have gone down in my area...I do wonder where all the money has gone?

PCSmum's post on Sweden is interesting..maybe we need to employ some Swedish politicians to run our country!

Blu - totally agree! society is inter connected, that is exactaly my point - if you don't feel like sharing for the sake of caring about your fellow human beings ,mthen fine, look at how it works out for you - i doubt when you're in the old people's home as your rich children are a bit too busy having been brought up to value money over people, will you be that grateful if none of your nurses can read or write having been denied a decent state education by everyone not wanting to pay enough tax, or in fact will you be grateful if you are in an old people's home with no staff as all the poor people are dead, having not been able to access the NHS treatment they needed as people didn't want to pay enough tax, nor will you be overwhelmed if you are in a fire one day and the firemen don't show up as the fire engine has run out of petrol.

But Blu, can't you see that 60% tax is a disincentive? I would not put in the work to earn that sort of salary if I instantly lost £120k in contributions. Why would I? Why would anyone?

If people keep more of their earnings, they will spend more, and the exchequer will gain from the increase in VAT receipts; as people will buy VAT rated as opposed to non-VAT rated goods; luxuries as opposed to necessities if you will. There are more ways of filling the hole in the Governments finances than using the politics of envy to blind people to the mistakes that NuLab have made with the economy.

QC - I think that is completely fair enough!

TheBlonde - actually, I don't know! But in any case, that doesn't affect the prinicple of the way percentages afect people because of the 'ratio' effect.

And LOL at the imagined straight division in Anna's model! No-one inbetween, at all - as PCSMUM says.

Look, I don't know what I think about the 5% increase, or even how much cash it will raise and whether it wil be worth it. Actually, i suspect that one of the effects of higher taxes is that the employers pay higher salaties to comepnsate...and gues who funds that - the consumer! So - I don't feel strongly about the 5% one way or another, but I feel strongly about the attitudes that spometimes go with it.

Class war? Well, I'm very very middle class - who should I be at war with on this thread?

The trouble is Blu/Beachy is that you are looking at the problem from your own perspective.

If you earn £24k and pay £25% tax you have £18k to live on - a BIG struggle. WELL YES BUT MAYBE YOU ARE LIVING CLOSE TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND GET FREE CHILDCARE. YOU WILL ALSO GET TAX CREDITS AND MAYBE YOU LIVE OUT OF LONDON WHERE THE AVERAGE HOUSEPRICE IS £150K RATHER THAN £450K. MAYBE YOU ARE A PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEE AND GET A VIRTUALLY FREE PENSION ...

If you earn £200k and pay 60% tax you have £80k to live on. Easy peasy... WELL LET'S THINK ABOUT LIVING ON £80K IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN LONDON WITH CHILDCARE COSTS. YOUR MORTGAGE OF £450K WILL COST APPROXIMATELY £42K A YEAR. YOUR CHILDCARE WILL COST APPROXIMATELY £20K A YEAR. YOUR PENSION - WELL YOU SHOULD THEORETICALLY CONTRIBUTE 20% SO THAT SHOULD BE ANOTHER £40K. OOPS, I ALREADY OVERSPENT, CAN'T AFFORD A PENSION. S'NOT EASY PEASY. TRUST ME. I KNOW ...

what is really interesting is that I know a bunch lof labour politicians, who went to sweden just after 1997 when they were first elected. a tax payer funded trip 'to see how they do it'. They came back with the revelation that 'they do it with higher taxes'. They then decided they wouldn't be raising taxes as it wouldn't be popular with the electorate. We don't need Swedish politicians, we need brave ones.

But Quattro we all want better value for money from the government.

Those who are rich want better value because they want their cash to be well spent.

Those in the middle want better value because they want to have access to good schools and healthcare and they want their cash to be well spent.

Those at the bottom want good value because otherwise they are fucked.

Are any of you tax whingers rich kid's mum, btw?

Blu - you should be at war with the government and vote for someone else next time...surely even the monster raving loony party would be better than the current govt!

Blu class war was a joke.
dear dear

and quattorcento - i hear you. I earn £70k, husband earns £40k, we feel like we don't have enough money and I often run out before payday. But then I look around me, I look back to years ago when i was a student parent with literally nought pence, and i think to myself 'shut up!' - i own a big house with a lovely garden, my kids go to a great school, we go on holiday at least twice and usually thre times a year, my kids have music lessons, ballet classes and drama lessons, I can have new shoes when I want them and my husband can go on nights out and get a taxi home without worrying. We don't have to NEVER think about money, but really, we have more than enough and I would much rather pay higher taxes than we currently do at the moment, and live in a swedish type system, than have my extra cash to splash and have the kind of social destruction I see now all around me here. I'm not emgrating though. Can't speak swedish!!!