Income tax- Burnam

[Niftywigglesheep899]

Does anyone know if Andy Burnam is planning to raise income tax , so we have less money coming in each month?

Im quite concerned - stretched as it is and can’t cope with anymore.

I think whatever he does, someones not going to be happy. I fear this will be the fate of the next government too. Theres so much to fix and not much to fix it with.

Quite a few of our friends and family have gone already in the last couple of years. It’s not so hard. They’ve gone to various places - US, Europe, Asia, Australia. They have children. Nearly all earned six figures but could not afford London living costs plus childcare, plus afford to do much after that, so have gone

No - the massive pension bill is crippling the UK.
UK Welfare Spending Breakdown
(2025–26 (Billions).

State Pension £146.1 - 45.3%

Universal Credit £60–65 - 18–20%

Housing Benefit £37.3 - 11.6%

PIP £24–26 - 7.5–8.0%

Child Benefit £15–16 - 4.8–5.0%

ESA £14–16 - 4–5%

Attendance Allowance £7–8 - 2–2.5%

Pension Credit £6–7 - 2%

Carer's Allowance £4–5 - 1.2–1.5%

Winter Fuel Payment £1.5–2.0- 0.5–0.6%

Came here to say this! We have already moved but we still have friends and family in the UK and worry what happens next. And I agree with you that the tax system needs such an overhaul but honestly so does everything else. I feel sad and worried when I think about the UK situation.

This attitude is so hypocritical and annoying- Drs want pay rises (rightly), but they don't want to have to pay the taxes everyone else has to pay to fund the NHS and support those pay rises??

I agree that we can't keep squeezing the middle- the comfortable but not mega rich are rapidly becoming less comfortable, which means less money flowing into the economy- eating out less, not getting house decorated, not hiring a cleaner/gardener. All of that has knock on effects on the wider economy. But doctors can't demand special treatment.

Hi - it’s not that hard, albeit it does depend on what sector you work in. We have just moved (well 2 years ago). Husband is in financial sector. 3 kids. Plenty of schools around the world that offer the UK curriculum, Dubai, Singapore amongst others. Canada is another place where UK universities accept their curriculum with ease. The US if you can discount the politics. And these are the places I can think top of my head that friends/acquaintances have moved to.
We have plenty of friends who have done this and my husband was “poached” by a friend who has done the same move a few years prior.

Emigrating is not too hard if you are already an international household. 24% of top-1% earners are foreign and it rises from there. The other effect is that high-earning people just don’t move here and the teams get located elsewhere.

What do you propose to do with the state pension. Removing the triple lock will save around £5 billion per year. That will barely touch the sides.

Reforming welfare properly could save ten times that.

You’d have to do away with the state pension altogether to save any real money. Is that what you’re proposing, your post wasn’t clear?

I would like everyone to have a personal allowance, to reintroduce the 10% rate, and increase the thresholds. I’d also remove pensions from classification as a benefit as it just skews everything (and am sick of the pensioner bashing). Pensions are meant more as an earnings replacement, that’s why, unlike say PIP, it is taxable income.

If pensions are earnings replacement, do you support them being increased in line with average earnings (ie a single lock, not a triple one)?

My daughter works in finance ( has a first from a solid red brick ) and when qualified she already have the opportunity of working in the US or Australia. The issue is the crazy cost pf living in London and the additional London weighting don’t match up. Salaries are at least x 2 or more even if the cost of living is higher. So there are a lot of young graduates who will move abroad if he keeps clobbering the bracket 100,000 more. They won’t be sitting ducks.

At the end of the day, you spend years studying, go without and take exams for even more years post degree for a reward. If that reward is nit here you take your education abroad.

My friends kids - 1 in in Australia (Masters) 1 in Dubai, I moving to New Zealand ( has a 1st) the other working in Ukraine ( has a first ) Kids are really mobile and each generation more so. In my DH family, sister in Washington (PHD ) and brother in NZ (MBA MSC) niece in Canada. People can be extraordinarily mobile and we are losing the brightest and best. As an example my SIL made one of the Covid vaccines. I lost track of how many people in our circle have moved.

So if he moves to left it will be an even greater wealth and brain drain.

I’d support anything that provided a decent level of state pension. Which is why the triple lock was brought in originally as the uk pension was so very poor. So no, I’m not welded to the triple lock, it’s the state pension level that I think is important. It’s also taxable income (no issue with that). If suddenly the state pension was closer to the living wage there’d be no need for a triple lock. Then a single lock or whatever.

I hope he axes the ridiculous ISA changes

And I really hope he doesn’t increase income tax we have a good income on paper but a large family to feed and no government support (fair
enough)

snd reduce the welfare bill, give that money to schools instead of feckless parents if they really want the children to benefit

It seems kier and Rachel only made financial policy decisions based on ideology and it was appalling. I want my big fan. I don’t know where it is in the. I mean the VAT cut on theme parks FSS 🙄🙄

The question has to b3 why do we have one of the worst pensions in Europe yet pay one of the highest amounts of tax?

In Europe if you pay in more you get a huge pension. Here not so. I feel that th3 higher income earners in this country are unfairly clobbered. The issue is the companies not paying corporation tax and the the individual using CGT devices for income.

So companies employ labour on low wages made up with UC funded by the tax payer. They fill the company with overseas debts or franchise agreements to offset against any income and thus make no profit. The debt or franchise agreement is owned by the sister or mother company in some tax haven and lo and behold they have got their costs part funded by the tax payer and extracted profit with little tax. And when they buy a company they refinance ( fill it with debt) and take money off shore via dividends.

If he increases income tax it will be the push I need to either retire early or reduce my hours to pay less tax. Many friends I know in their late 50s/early 60s are also planning to do this or to move abroad.

It’s crazy that the state pension is taxable but other benefits aren’t yet there are people getting more on benefits than the state pension. They should be taxed.

A lot of younger people are doing this too. Me included

Firstly - congratulations on your daughter’s first you must be proud!! 😊

I agree with kids being mobile but what I would say not just kids are. My husband and I are in our late 30s and our friends groups the same (late 30s and early 40s) and moving across the world on the search of better opportunities. Yes the majority of the group I know that are moving are high earners but that doesn’t have to be the case. And I also agree with the brain drain possibility as more and more people consider leaving the UK as they are tired of their circumstances. And honestly not just people with firsts are in high demand (as I think that’s more relevant as graduates that further down the line). We are currently hiring and offering amazing packages

Quite a lot are not from the UK, work for multinational companies, have children at international private schools that have branches in most major European cities. London is a popular place to live but a lot of the higher earners are quite mobile.

That was the original logic. The problem is the triple lock is politically so hard to remove.

I disagree that state pension should try to get to NLW though (I know that’s not quite what you said).

The fairness benchmark for me is “how much money is there available without pulling from other generations?”. On that measure I think state pensions are unaffordable at this level.

My analogy is: if we’ve packed water for a hill climb, and the hill is higher than we thought, then we need to each drink less water. Not take the water of the group below. If people are dangerously short of water we can address that separately, not by increasing everyone’s rations to the amount we wish we had packed.

But why should the state pension be closer to the living wage?

Most pensioners have little to zero housing costs, no work related costs, no prescription costs, no eye test costs, no clothing for work costs, bus pass and cheap trains, most have winter fuel payment and no childcare costs.

Pensioners are the wealthiest cohort in the UK. They also benefited from cheap housing and so will have a large asset they could cash in.

Also the logic for prioritising pensioners is often that they don’t have other ways to supplement income. That’s true, but they are also the group who has had longest to prepare and save.

And that’s a big problem.

I should add that I don’t have an issue with paying tax. I have an issue with how it’s being spent. We’re constantly being asked to pay more for less. I know a lot of people feel the same.

Haven't fact checked but if this is true its actually PIP that stands out to me. Being non means tested it's the least progressive of all the working-age benefits. Will it be looked at like the universal winter fuel allowance?

The housing benefit bill stands out to me, most of that will be paid to private landlords. It’s a shame most of the social housing was sold off and not replaced.

Well his first big policy announcement makes no material impact on the COL and turns out it’s completely unfunded. He really is hapless.