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

[soapbox]

????

My DP is a high earner and he doesn't work very hard at all. I have been a high earner in the past and I didn't work long hours or exceptionally hard most of the time.

Xenia - perhaps you are terribly inefficient?

highest earning job i ever had i spent an awful lot of time on mumsnet.

o i see thanks for the warnng. it seem sshe has gone now anyway - probably having 15 minute power nap efore waking up at mighnight to do yoga, surf stock exchange, hire/fire staff, then take kids to dawn choral society, and attend breakfast meeting, all in the same amount of time normal people have slept and woken up and realised there is no milk.

isn't Xenia the lady who was taking business calls less than 12 hours after her twins were born? I seem to remember something about that as well.

I would like to know what would happen if Xenia didn't do her job - would people die? would the economy collapse? (I mean more than it already has). Is her job really that important?

at Swedes

hilarious,
how old fashioned.
i wonder if she gave birht in shoulder pads with her filofax in her hand as well just incase a big deal came in at a crucial moment.
for fucks sake.
even the prime minister took paternity leave!!!!

I don't think that paternity leave was on the agenda when Xenia had her kids, just as it wasn't when I had mine. I think rather than Xenia being old fashioned, paternity leave is a new fangled notion; not everyone is always in a position to take it, nor will their employers facilitate it.

blimey, where is that world's smallest violin link when you need it? I am sobbing about poor Quattro not being able to afford to put £40K a year into her pension

LOL, I suppose I deserved that.

Don't let the violins distract you from my serious point in that post, which is that it is all too easy to want to tax the allegedly superrich. I'd really really like to see more focus on efficient government as well as a kneejerk response of taxing the rich.

On this emigration stuff, I do have portable skills but there isn't a hope of me emigrating. Bulgaria, despite the siren call of a 10% tax rate, is not especially attractive. Anyway I'd miss the lovely English weather.

here y'are mabanana

We all want efficient government - especially local government. I personally think the Olympics is the most shocking waste of money for a start.

Thank you thumbwitch!

Ah yes, everyone wants efficient local government. Many residents appear shocked and surprised that we get to have paid annual leave - how very dare we?! Apparently our leave should be unpaid so the council can replace us while we're not there.

I don't understand what you mean Twinkle. I'm sorry that someone has suggested that you are not entitled to holidays, but obviously that is absurd.

The waste in government that I have seen includes:

1. MPs fiddling expenses and paying family members. Peanuts in cash terms but how squalid and what appalling behaviour.
2. War in Iraq
3. Inefficient delivery of services in the NHS, schools, courts, tax and governance sectors
4. Lack of regulation of the financial services sector

I could go on and on. I would argue about the merits of a 2.5% decrease in VAT which is an inducement to people to spend more on consumer rubbish.

Sorry Quattro, I was being flippant. It's something that comes up time and time again when colleagues are on leave. Some people eh?

I agree with all of those in your list, and there's a fair old amount of waste in local government for sure - usually associated with end of year spending rounds. I'm sure that's the same in central government too.

If I was earning that much money I wouldn't begrudge an increase in tax as a short term solution. Society should pull round in times of a crisis, but it is not fair in the long term.
Of all the people I know that are in high earning brackets, they are all hardworking, dedicated people who have sacrificed a lot to achieve what they have, and I salute them for it.

Ah Quattro - no. 3 on your list - well yes, I would agree with inefficient use of resources in the NHS - like, for e.g., the refurbishment of management offices and the hospital foyers when they achieved Trust status - because they saw themselves as being more of a business and therefore had to demonstrate to the customers how well they were doing (genuine reason given by NHS management) - rather than putting the money into something trivial like, oh I dunno, a few extra nurses/ essential hospital equipment/ keeping wards open/ extra beds/ better cleaning staff etc. etc.

I don't know for sure that this still happens but it certainly did happen a few years ago.

Just one post on the idea that wealth is the product of hard work.

I work in the private sector. As I posted previously, I have never worked less than a 60 hour week in 20 years since university. Every single holiday has involved taking a laptop and doing two/three hours a day before the children wake up. I have worked and worked and worked.

My DH works in the public sector. He has just the same qualifications as I do (both solicitors). He is dedicated and committed to the greater good. We have just spent the last hour dissecting a case of his and the conduct of his barrister. He too has worked and worked and worked.

I earn exactly three times what he earns. It is entirely unfair to say that a higher income is solely the product of having worked harder.

I completely agree Quattro, but certainly the people that I know are more than worthy of the money that they earn. Not that it is a reflection of society as a whole. Of course the imbalance between such cases as you and your husband are a sad indictement of the many things that are fundamentally wrong with the west.
However I think it also needs to be recognised that there are people who do put in the extra work and deserve their just rewards.

I do not begrudge the people that I know, the position that they are in...maybe I am lucky to be associated with such people.

I did not say that in general the higher income is solely the product of having worked harder.

I am one of the lower working classes, earning a modest hourly rate, and I would claim to work hard.
But No, I would re-iterate that in the long term, people in higher earning brackets, should not be used by the government to bail out a floundering economy.

But on average people who work harder earn more. He probably works harder than the council office cleaners and secretaries.

As for paid holidays, what are those> If I don't work we starve. no sick pay, no holiday pay, no pension etc etc. Not everyone by any means has paid holiday leave.

None of this really matters because nothing much will change. Labour are unlikely even if they get re-elected to go back to those 35% - 80% + 1977 tax rates (and 35% was basic rate! plus national insurance) but the Tories won't reverse this tax rise, that's the trouble so it removes the simplicity of a 20% and 40% rate when in fact tax is much better when it's simpler without distortions. I can't remember the labour chancellor 20 years ago who said he'd "tax the rich until the pips squeak" (Dennis healey?) but it was quite popular then and will be just as popular now as the thread largely shows. But whether that's good for the country (and whether it actually raises much more tax) is another matter.

Iorek, I'll happily provide the evidence but I'm off at a conference today so will do it tomorrow. It's all very well documented as it was a key Clinton policy in the early years.

I have read the whole thread with interest.
I would have no problem with this rate if it was to make a significant difference, and if the money raised was to be used wisely. However, the money raised will be a fraction of the cost of the vat cut so seems pointless. The vat cut to me is ridiculous: I would be much happier if the tax free allowance was raised for example.

I really don't think the harder you work the more you earn

After having kids I stayed at home for a few years, working a few different part time jobs around my dh's work patterns.

Now I'm in the clasic position of not being able to afford the childcare to enable me to go back to a "normal" (to me) job and earn a decent wage.

So I'm working in a kitchen with hours that fit around the school gates.

I can honestly say in the 5 hours I work I work harder than when I was in management in my previous retail job, even though I worked 10 hours a day in retail.

And I earn minimum wage for the slog.

Its all been my choice, I'm not complaining of where I am on the job ladder now, I'm just reflecting on my own work experience