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 have a civil service pension. I get head hunter calls at least once a fortnight, so I know I could be earning £30-40k more in the private sector. I stay where I am for the pension only. Take away the pension and salaries will have to compete with the same role in the private sector. How do you think that would be paid for? I also have DH on over £100k and he has another passport/dual citizen children. We have ties here so he reduces his income to stay below the £100k hit. Yes, we could move abroad, but I agree that the unoheaval with family ties and children's education isn't always worth the risk.

You misunderstand the point. The 30k earners would be able to claim childcare, child benefit etc so you can’t just compare the tax they pay with the tax the 250k earner pays as they claim huge amounts of it back, in some cases more than 100% of it.

What sectors are you talking about? In finance they very often disappear: a particular niche migrates to a different jurisdiction, fewer roles are created because costs are higher or the talent is scarcer, a regional or global position is sited somewhere else, etc.

Fewer tech startups: people move to the US or don’t try.

When the non-dom regime ended many people moved. The richest of them are usually owners of businesses elsewhere in the world. When they leave the UK we swap some tax for no tax.

A lot of our highest earning sectors are very mobile and international.

In many cases they do. Where I work you can easily move overseas and retain your same job but get paid via payroll in another country.

There are also a significant number of non UK nationals working here who are extremely mobile and won’t hang around if taxes get too burdensome. They can easily do their jobs from pretty much anywhere globally.

It is not like the old days where UK companies were staffed by UK citizens all working in UK offices. Technology has made that business model redundant now. Location is almost irrelevant for huge swathes of senior execs.

This is always the argument that there’s a huge class of global nomads with no roots who will work in the uk and then move to a different jurisdiction as soon as tax goes up. This class is simply not as large as they’d have you believe and the research backs that up. In so far as these people aren’t willing to stay and contribute a bit more for the good of the country, then let them go! I should add that I fall firmly in the category of people you’re probably thinking of when you’re talking about high earning potentially mobile individuals. I’m not going anywhere and I don’t know anyone who is 🤷🏼‍♂️

It’s not a huge class. It’s a small class that we are very reliant on. The top 1% of payers pay 30% of UK income tax and around a quarter of them are foreign, from memory.

Some may feel fond enough of the UK to choose the extra tax for the good of the country. But fewer will come here.

I know many high paid foreigners who have said they won’t take a UK role becuase it’s too much of a financial hit. Often both lower salary and higher tax. The people who lose out are those who rely on UK public services.

I don’t believe the hit would be as large as the scaremongers claim, but even if it was I’d much rather live in a poorer society without these people.

You’d rather we had worse public services and more poverty, so long as we keep the wrong type of foreigners out?

It’s sadly a very common sentiment.

OK, let's run through the impact:

One-quarter of the top 1% of income-earners are foreign. Let's say that "all of them leave" (just the foreigners), maybe from natural non-replacement.

That now needs a 3p rise on income tax for everyone else. Or cuts equivalent to double the NHS's capital budget, or the entire policing bill, or the entire PiP bill, or fourteen times the winter fuel bill or seven times the two-child benefit cut.

Which are you choosing?

Who said anything about foreigners? It’s irrelevant whether they’re British or not. I’m simply not keen on having people here who threaten that they’ll leave every time they have to contribute a bit more. In the end you just have to say: “ok, if you don’t want to be here then leave”. Otherwise we’re just being held hostage. We as a society, via the democratic process, decide how much individuals must pay for the good of the nation as a whole.

I’ll just leave this here.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/524d6ba6-b394-47b6-b6f7-1e1a02c877b4

I had, in reply to your post immediately prior. Pointing out many of these people are foreigners who don't owe any special duty of loyalty to come to the UK to support our public services. The are the ones most likely to leave or not arrive. Even British people deciding where to move are just people making decisions about their career and family and finances.

It you think of them as horrible hostage-taking meanies who you will be pleased to see the back of, it may feel good but it's really bad for our country. Especially for those who rely on public services.

@BermudaRhombusa person on £200k pays over £82k a year in tax currently - do you honestly believe they’re a greedy bastard not contributing enough?

The IFS estimated previously that an increase to higher rate tax will only raise £400m and will lead to significant change in behaviour for higher earners. I don’t know if it’s worth it overall, given it may also drive higher earners and investment away

Good Garys!

Yes

Have you got a copy of that please (not a subscriber).

@BermudaRhombus you must living in a parallel universe or be unbelievably naive or ignorant

People need to wake up to the circumstances we’re in as a nation. We are in crisis and it will get worse. It is akin to a war situation. Everyone needs to quit with their self interest and start pulling hard and together. No more excuses, no more whining, especially from extremely privileged people earning vast salaries. I say this as one of those people!

Wow I’m surprised. So is it for genuine money raising reasons if it will only raise £400m, or is it ideology?

I guess I’m on the other side of believing we should lower taxes, raise the thresholds, and boost productivity

So based on your earlier comment, you're a greedy bastard who isn't contributing enough.

Can I ask why not?

Unfortunately, unless the huge number of net negative contributors are going to step up and start paying their fair share of tax, that's simply not an option and every government knows it.

That article makes no sense because anyone can pay the amount of additional tax they choose. It's as easy as logging on and making a payment any time. If they believed they should be contributing more, they would quietly have been making those extra payments to the HMRC for years instead of virtue signalling.

Totally agree. If they made the voluntary payments at the same time as telling everyone else to, it would make their case far more persuasive. At the moment, they're just annoying rich people telling other rich people what to do.

How do any of you know they haven’t made voluntary payments? You don’t.