As often alluded to, are the UK’s rich paying less tax nowadays?

[TheaSaurass]

Generally speaking one of the quickest ways to reduce inequality, is a severe recession when the wealthiest in society with larger homes, and other assets such as collectables and stocks (in or out of a pension), fall more in value, and so significantly reducing their net worth.

But as we’ve found out, few of us are immune from the wider effects of a recession, so a perpetual recession might be some great 'leveller', but it would be most unwelcome by most of us.

How about those tricksy top 1% of the UK population, where if we could somehow tie them down, never mind ‘put them up against the wall’, we are led to think that confiscation will again settle all the wrongs in society and perpetually pay for everything the poorest in society need?

Well in the meantime, this nearly 300,000 citizens currently pay over 27% of all UK income tax raised – and in theory via VAT and other asset purchase e.g. 10% Property Tax on homes just below £1 million to £1.5 million - so they nowadays pay a lot of additional tax, on top of Income and National Insurance.

If more than one property is ‘wealth’, those buying properties to let, nowadays also pay an additional Property Tax surcharge – that may not just discourage new BTL investment, but get many who need capital growth should ever rents be fixed below future funding costs to sell up – but whether the UK is ready to lose a large amount of private sector rental housing supply at this moment, is another debate.

Companies that have been able to both move around, and hide taxable income from September this year, will find this dodgy practice a problem as the OECD measures to create ‘information exchanges’ a few years back to increase international transparency, go live, which is probably why many large corporations are moving/settling in low tax countries, as some big American corporations are doing here.

So there is pretty good evidence up to last year, that the rich are actually paying MORE tax,(with more to come via transparency) and at the other end of the scale, its more easily evident that the poorest workers are paying LESS tax._

“Nearly half of Britons pay no income tax as burden on rich increases”

“Almost half of Britons pay no income tax while the richest are now shouldering the biggest burden on record, a new analysis has found.”

“The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the proportion of working-age adults who do not pay income tax has risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 30million people.”

So arguably while the rich might shoulder more taxes, isn’t there the age old problem of ‘diminishing returns’ as they are pushed into taking (legal) tax avoidance measures?

Squishy

You say; ”Thea You are referring to public sector jobs as "government jobs", which is deliberately misleading. Teachers, nurses, midwives, bin men, police officers, etc are not an unnecessary luxury. We need them!”

When pointing out a larger tax take in the recent past meant a “larger government” I specifically mentioned government “quango employees”, so WHO is looking to mislead????

“Labour spend £167 billion a year on their expanding army of quangos”

Yet apparently the way out of reducing what was the largest annual budget deficit in Europe, or so called ‘austerity’, is to;

• Hire 1 million more unspecified public sector workers on “decent” pay.

• Form a government Investment Bank with yet more government employees using their vast expertise (not) to spend £250 billion of newly borrowed money via the government bond market.

• Nationalise rail, mail, electricity and gas, at an unspecified cost to buy and annually support with tax payers money, with all those new heavily unionised workers then working for the government.

Now from the £100 billion old school fees debacle we can assume Diane Abbott is currently doing Labour’s math on what the UK can afford, but when is our Diane going to total up all of the above, before promising “the many” not working for the government, what pennies will be left for them.

Or as I previously alluded to is bound to happen when McDonnell’s ‘government in waiting’ then in government finds they cannot pay for their aspirations by just attacking businesses and the top 5% - everyone in the UK will be bribed with their own money as end up paying far more tax to fund their ‘vision’ of an economic model – that unless much has changed, used to be on the Venezuelan model.

QuentinSummers

On UK wage growth, that in the main required labour force 'tightening' to push up pay rates.

When in an EU with Freedom of Movement for over 500 million citizens, and several new members in the wings waiting to qualify - when would YOU have envisage a lack of EU workers enabling the UK labour situation to both tighten, and drive up UK pay rates?

I suppose it is too much to ask for any evidence that Labour wants to hire 1 million extra public sector Quango workers?

"Evidence"?

Maybe we will get the full details AFTER the next election when they fill in how a Government Investment Bank will work, what their investment criteria for £250 billion over a parliament will be, and who and how many new staff will run it - and similar for all those nationalised industries all currently working (relatively) fine without the fat hand of government..

But we know when Labour increased the public sector employment from 5.2 million in 1997 to 6.1 million by 2010, despite a previous general election promise to have 'a bonfire' of quangos, the staff and cost went up - is that whats called a can't help themselves 'smoking gun'?

I think thats a no squishy

It was a nice short post but still really long for a no

Income tax is just one tax

which parts of the population pay the most in VAT as a proportion of their earnings ?
What about fuel duty?
What about alcohol duty?
Or tobacco duty?

Then compare the vale of council tax against house value between a house worth £100,000 and one worth £10 million

Oh and do not forget national insurance ....

THe tax system has many facets, several of which are deeply regressive