Question to people due to pay the new 50% tax rate

[Twinklemegan]

Why do I keep reading about people (like Michael Caine) who seem to think they are giving the Government 50% of all their earnings? Doesn't anyone read their pay slips? I have to question such amounts of money being paid to people who can't do basic arithmetic.

Although admittedly if you're earning millions then that first £150,000 at the previous rates must seem like pin money.

I read your OP and didn't scroll down far enough to see your last paragraph. That was what I was going to say. So, I agree with you that to Michael Caine,who probably gets millions per film, it is more or less like paying 50% on the whole lot. If I had a calculator I would work out the marginal rate of tax but its late and I'm lazy.

I think you have to add in the National Insurance contributions which take the marginal rate of tax to over 60%.

Stupid government.

I'd like to see Michael Cain's payslip!
The jury is still out on this one for me and I think once again the Govt has handled this badly.

Well it is a phenomenally high tax rate - one of the highest rates in the world now. And according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies likely to result in a decrease in the tax take. A last desperate populist measure - won't work though - they've buggered up the economy too comprehensively to get re-elected.

Though if Michael Cain chooses to be taxed under UK tax rules fair play to him as there are plenty of others who take their earnings offshore. Am I right to include Bono and Sean Connery in that category?

Its just a publicity stunt anyway. If the government were serious about getting tax off the rich they would close the tax loopholes that they pay their accountants to find for them. They are just doing it to make middle income earners feel a bit better, even though we will still bear the brunt of the huge government debt.

Well actually, given the reductions in personal allowance, the NI hike and the fact that pensions contributions will also not attract higher rate tax relief, it is getting pretty close to 50% on everything. Also as a one-off change the fact that personal allowances and pension relief are cut at the same time equates to an overall tax rate of 50% on everything had those 2 changes not also come in - for our household anyway.

I think that I'm more annoyed by the fact that even the Government admits that there will be leakage of about 70% anyway ie 70% of people who would have to pay this tax if it was say applied retrospectively, won't pay it next year because they will either reduce their income, or go abroad or find an avoidance scheme. So it is done purely for political reasons, to give the Conservatives a hard time when they get elected, not to actually raise tax. I'm fairly sure that someone like Quattro will have already indicated that more tax will be raised by the fuel escalator which of course affects the poorer households far more disproportionately than the richer ones.

Did anyone see question time last night? Frank Skinner said (I paraphrase)
"I am happy to pay 50% of my money as long as I am right that the government are getting me to do so for the right reasons. If it turned out I am going to need to do so just as a part-political thing because it looks good for them to announce it, I'll be really annoyed."

Hasn't he read the research that they rest of us have, saying that tax revenues INCREASED when Thatcher DECREASED taxes (from 60%) in the 80's?!
p.s. The biggest laugh of the night was had when he added "But I do think people paying 50% should have first dibs on the antivirals"!