Oh, I love Caitlin Moran

[Bleh]

and her view on paying tax. It does kind of put it in perspective.

If you are a regular full time employee, you contribute automatically through PAYE. You

that doesn't mean you can't submit a return and claim the allowables - which can significantly reduce the tax bill (e.g. travel expenses for out-of-office work) there are plenty of legal ways to reduce your tax bill - and journalists are particularly well placed to take advantageof them.

accountants aren't billed out at extortionate hourly rates for nothing.

CM ..well she's a good read when on form. she does change her mind about things quite alot (ie, is a hypocrite)

but then she's a journalist. the point is: they write stuff that is entertaining to read, so that the paper can sell advertising space near it. she has written a piece which i expect to be inacurate in many ways (i mena, she may have started on melody maker aged 16, but she'd surely have been paid Paye and not received a written tax demand - just an annoying emergency tax docking from not having submitted the correct form.)

but then, she is my age, has two kids, and has a job i'd kill to do. no jealousy here.

At the end of the day, it is an opinion piece. Caitlin Moran writes opinion pieces, as that's what she's paid to do - this was not in the economics or business section.

SomeGit: you still haven't answered whether or not you still stand by the opinions you have at 19.

At the end of the day, it is an opinion piece. Caitlin Moran writes opinion pieces, as that's what she's paid to do - this was not in the economics or business section.

SomeGit: you still haven't answered whether or not you still stand by the opinions you have at 19.

Excellent point Riven. Children too.

I think it's a funny piece - I do like her stuff.
As for the tax...well...I'm happy to pay 40%, would even grin and bare up tp 49% but giving over half seems a tipping point to me.
I feel as though it was my sweat and tears that earned it so I shouldn't have to give more than half away.

And don't get me started on payments on account.

i meant 'hypocritical' in a light-hearted and not heavily critical way (though this is the tinterweb, and you couldn't have read my tone of voice)...but yes i've read plenty of her stuff and you do find contradictions between currently held belief & status quo. for instance she wrote a piece about being famous young and how damaging it is, whilst omitting to mention she'd been a big-league journo since age 16. cow.

as for pay - if you are an employee it is down to demand for that job. if you are someone that owns part or all of the business, then you get to choose for yourself....if i ran my own business, i might draw a fat salary from it too, and why not? I would also arrange that salary to give myself maximum benefit under current tax legislation also. but that's all playing the game - i don't think i'd be complaining about my earnings then either! Emins comments show her to be a greatly worse hypocrite than Moran ever has been!

some of the things done during the days of 90% Top rate tax do cme to mind when that 50% gets mentioned such as David Bowie marrying Angie to uptake Swiss nationality....though i expect there are ways round it other than becoming non-resident.

"being famous young and how damaging it is, whilst omitting to mention she'd been a big-league journo since age 16. cow."

she was hardly famous, though, was she? she did a shitey channel four thing for a while that tanked when she was about that age, but she wasn't exactly suri cruise.

a fuckload more famous than I.

she did sunday times/melody maker back then too.

SCARYspicemonster your second link re "In fact, the marginal top rate in most countries rises substantially when considering the all-in rate of taxes on income, to 61% in France and Turkey, 62% in Denmark and Sweden, 65% in Japan and 66% in Belgium. The highest all-in rates for taxpayers in the United States fall in the 40?48% range, depending on the State where they are resident."

refers to 1998 and things have changed a lot since then.

The 39.6% rate referred to there is now 35% (and only applies above $373k - on the £40k on which you'd pay 40% tax in the UK, you'd pay 25%), and I think a better picture of taxation is tax as a percentage of GDP, as there are many ways for the government to tax people, not all of which are income tax.

I haven't seen many people claiming taxes are lower in Europe - Tracey Emin perhaps did, but she is clearly an idiot anyway.

Our tax take is slightly below average European levels (but above Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece), but it is significantly higher than pretty much every Westernised non-European countries - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Japan, Korea all have sharply lower tax burdens.

nah, writing in newspapers is not the same as being famous imo. [else i'd be famous]

She's no Julie Birchill either, is she?

Burchill even

Morningpaper!

i don't think all journalism has to be serious to have value though -
Cm gets much flack on Timesnline for being lightweight. but that's her main strength.

i think she's great, very funny and not afraid to make a dick of herself.

"Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Australia, USA, Japan, Korea all have sharply lower tax burdens."

Not true, in the case of Canada. It may be true out in the Wild West (ie Alberta) but in Ontario the marginal tax rates for the top 5% earners are higher than here, plus 15% sales tax on almost everything, and compulsory state health insurance at higher rates than the NHS.

NHS - sorry, meant National Insurance.

pyjamalama, the amount of tax in a country is best measured by the tax a proportion of GDP. That is 33.4% in Canada, to 39.0% in the UK. Obviously there are differences within that, but as a whole Canada is lower tax.

I don't have a problem with CM being lightweight. I have a problem with her generally, though.

I did say that link was out of date someguy.

What is the point of comparing the tax of a small European country versus a number of random bigger countries that you can't move to very easily?

I am aware that we don't have the lowest rate of tax in the world thank you but we aren't too badly off compared to most of developed Europe.

Not sure what bigger has got to do with it? We are bigger than Korea and the same size as New Zealand.

I do agree that Europe has got high taxes, generally higher than iurs, but I don't think that the logical conclusion of that is that we have low taxes.

Scarey, we now have one of the highest rates of tax in the world, and also in Europe - think only Sweden and Denmark are higher. Most of the databases available at work are proprietary so can't link but did google and found this

I just don't see the point of saying there are countries with lower rates of tax. What's the point? Our tax (even when the top band rises to 50%) is pretty much in line with most of Europe so it's not this screaming waving your hands in the air drama that's being made of it. It's a total non-story as far as I can see.

Quattro from that link the first five EU countries with higher/equivalent levels of income tax to the UK's top proposed 50% rate are (alpha order, can't be arsed to list any other way): Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway.