How will you look to mitigate Labour’s tax hikes? (Part deux)

[EverythingAllatOnceAllTheTime]

How will you look to reduce the impact of Labour’s seemingly endless (imminent) tax hikes?

The op has paid several million in income tax alone during their working life. They are not on 40k-60k.

@Haroldwilson - you are forgetting that a lot of the very privileged may have an Irish passport too, some European ties etc via marriage as well, it’s a global world amongst many of the top tax payers. There was some research on this a while back.

Your first sentence is correct - earned income I would add.

And still they come for more. No, sorry - they’ve had sufficient. They need to get their own house in order first.

Absolutely this.

The squeezed middle are highly unlikely to be affected by any tax changes and will just carry on as they are. I do not believe that the people affected by any changes this autumn are people for whom this will be the difference between being ablue to afford their cleaners or not.

Utter nonsense, and plain wrong.

Let me explain - in this hostile environment, companies leave and professionals are laid off. I am in private wealth and I have attended many round tables etc.

The UK is much less attractive.

A lot of wealth in this country is not earned but inherited wealth largely due to the growth in property values.

But are we talking about wealthy people or the squeezed middle? You were talking about the government coming for “the middle”. Are we talking about those people or are we talking about the wealthy?

Using your earlier definition, yes, including the middle.

i.e. mid and back office staff.

And which demographic is the chief recipient please?

Well said. Brown and Blair did exactly that. They caused money to flow around faster giving an illusion of growth, but it wasn’t real growth as actual output of production and manufacture didn’t grow by the same amount, especially when our balance of trade deteriorated with all the imports sucked in due to the consumer spending.

The vast majority of them have a genuine reason for economic inactivity. SAHP, disabled people, carers, early retirees, etc; and many of these won’t be claiming benefits. Only 336,000 unemployed people in the UK have been unemployed for longer than the past 12 months. Although it’s still a big number, it’s nowhere near this idea that there are millions of career layabouts. I’m economically inactive myself. I retired early through ill health. I don’t claim benefits and I still pay tax on my savings and investments.

But all the people with huge private wealth dodge tax anyway. Does it actually make much difference?

Every single person in society weighs up their options and decides what works for them. They'll be altruistic to a point, but always balancing the cost to them versus the reward of what difference their altruism makes.

You are pissing in the wind if you think that will ever change. It's the result of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and it's appropriate adaptive behaviour.

It's why you haven't sold all your possessions and handed over the lot to charity in return for sleeping on their shop floor.

High earners are already giving away huge amounts above their fair share to help everyone else in society. Whilst more than 1 in 5 of the working age population aren't actually working. There comes a point when you say 'no more' and cut your losses.

Incidentally, for obvious adaptive reasons the point at which you say 'no more' does depend on whether you think society will return the favour if you need it. Calling high earners selfish, vilifying them in populist rhetoric, comments that their children should be taken down a peg or two: that all speeds up the point when higher earners cut their losses and opt out.

If you think you would never feel that way, then I'm willing to bet that you're below or not that far above the point where your tax contribution covers your per-person cost of running the country, which is about £40k income. So in that case, you're getting great value for your taxes.

I felt pretty proud to be paying more than my share too at one point. Not any more.

What bollocks.

Some do just as some ‘poor’ people do.

You ever paid someone cash in hand? Yep, thought you had.

People have taken steps to reduce and avoid tax for centuries.

Way back when there was a window tax, some people had some of their windows bricked up to reduce what they had to pay.

Taking steps to reduce tax is nothing new.

In fact there is a 1934 tax case where the judge says…

”Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes."

I work with a few people for whom the top end of their earnings goes into 40% and they sacrifice their bonuses to get 40% tax relief on their pension contributions. If that tax break goes that’s those people hit and a disincentive for them to work the hours they do as they go through the 50s.

those not quite there yet who might cheer now are forgetting that they won’t get the benefit of it anymore in a few years time

I think this is a really interesting post. It’s a bit like removing the WFA only to find that everyone suddenly claims pension credit.

All of the current speculation must be terrible for UK equity performance. I think any changes to IHT will make annuities a lot more attractive whilst interest rates remain high – Why take a risk of not having enough money to live on in order to be able to pass it down anymore? I’d rather have a bit less money now guaranteed.

That definitely is income lost to the equity sector as it will go straight into government bonds.

Imagine how much of a disincentive it is when the government starts taking 62% of the top slice of your income, leaving you only 38%

That happens between £100k and £120k.

On top of that, you lose childcare tax relief worth £2k per child. If you have 2 kids, you actually get less money if you earn £110k compared to a pound under £100k.

That's why people put it in their pension. If you take away that option, they just won't work.

£120k is apparently 75k net. You're saying people wouldn't work for 70 or whatever, but they would for 75?

People need to realise cause and effect. Many of the NHS issues are not money but utterly dreadful management and also contracts, for example NHS Consultant contracts. No other senior people ever work literally on piece rates!

Ask your MP how many clinical hours a consultant actually works for the NHS and you will be shocked.

And look at many other countries and what they spend on health v outcomes and money isn't the best all and end all!! Ambulances are tied up due to bed blocking which knocks all the way down the chain. Our local hospital has 30% of beds blocked due to lack of suitable discharge care packages.

We need people to work, especially the likes of professionals such as doctors, who seem to be going part time and taking early retirement as they can afford to.

Rather than increasing their taxes, we need to incentivise them to work more and not take early retirement.

At the other end, we need to make work pay so those on benefits see a tangible benefit of working.

It goes right up the scale. Punishing people by increasing taxes isn’t the answer, we need more workers, we need savers and investors.

We certainly don’t need any more politics of envy like vat on private school fees nor removing WFA.

This is a nonsense. People are free to move where they wish, unless you're looking for an autocratic state.

If people find the outcome less beneficial, ie the tax burden has shifted to those who stay then think about policies before introducing them.

Oh and to answer the question....I'm emigrating! I've had enough of the shit way this country has been run and being replaced by this mob

No I'm saying that they will choose to work 4 days a week for £70k instead of 5 days a week for £76k.

And so you'll have to wait even longer for a doctors appointment or an operation. (Or whatever that person provides)