£100k + earners in for a shafting next year?

[TooNice]

I did make note of that in post 51 when I talked about investors. It's easy to dislike the people who are only looking at profit when they invest. Yet without their cash, it may not be possible to bring a (potentially) helpful products on a large scale. Would Joe public be willing to get together and donate for projects they believe in and take the risk that comes with it? Would the world be better off if every company has to stay private (I reckon probably not)?

Ultimately those people are usually getting paid for what their employer think they are worth (and probably as little as they can get away with). Though I do have issues on certain bank getting bailed out via taxpayers money and getting and still ask for bonuses. Price of failure in an industry which is largely all about money and where one stands to make a lot of money perhaps ought to be a tad higher.

@Saracen post 99: That's a great post and you raised a couple of points that didn't cross my mind or at least wouldn't expect, notably national health care being more suitable to train surgeons than private health care. I'll take it as fact for the time being given that you not make things up, but are doctors/nurses etc. really better trained here than in countries without a national health care (say, the US)?

I realise, and I am sure everyone realise that what you pay in through taxes, and what you get back in return is going to vary for everyone. But ultimately part of the equation is whether the wealthy consider that they are getting a poorer deal staying around than if they were to go elsewhere. The UK may not have the highest tax, but it does have pretty high tax, so national service ought to be pretty good compared to other developed countries with lower tax (whether it is not isn't up for me to say).

A moan is pretty harmless, those who benefit more from national services ought to be happy if all the wealthy does is moan about tax raise. What we do not want to do though is to push enough of them out of the country effectively reducing total tax revenue.

[Saracen]

....

@Saracen post 99: That's a great post and you raised a couple of points that didn't cross my mind or at least wouldn't expect, notably national health care being more suitable to train surgeons than private health care. I'll take it as fact for the time being given that you not make things up, but are doctors/nurses etc. really better trained here than in countries without a national health care (say, the US)?

.... I wasn't suggesting that the NHS trains staff better than other countries, be they private or state health systems, but that private health providers in the UK don't do much in the way of training, and certainly not of basic training.

Can we and do we want to import all our health professionals? Goodness knows we seem to import enough anyway .... including out-of-hours Doctor cover when they end up killing a patient with a huge overdose.

To make the point more bluntly, the private health system exists in tandem with the NHS not just instead of it, and that those that use it certainly lighten the load of basic provision, but they are still benefiting from NHS provision, so it isn't as simple assaying that IF you opt for private health care (say, BUPA) you opt out of the NHS and so should contribute to paying for it. It's never that simple.

As for not making things up, well no, and I used to be pretty familiar with the operations of BUPA having done the audit for some years, but it was an aeon or two ago and I'm not up to date. The comment about training was,therefore, a reflection of belief and the impression I get from friends in the medical profession, not a statement of absolute fact. I stand to be corrected if I'm out of date.

[Zak33]

I think I have worded some of my posts wrong, because maybe I think of tax in another way to most, if not Jim.. cos I like paying tax too. It pays for when things need doing... for soldiers to get better body armour, for schools and the NHS....

I've said before, if I thought paying more NI or TAX would give a better hospital in my town, I'd pay. Between us, my missus, my boy and I, we've been there a few times.. so we've had use of it.

But I think tax Can be fair... it CAN be motivational. A motivator is something that you can see, work to and reah and pass.... ok..it smore tax.. but at least you knew it was there....What I don't like is when the goal posts are moved and it effects people that I don't think deserve the strike in their wallet. I think 40% tax is enough... I think the tax band needs to a lot higher than 100k.

Now.. I thought the abolishment of the 10% tax band was... frankly the most ill conceived judgement for along time.. I would happily not have taken the £80 odd quid tax rebate that I got at the end of the 08 09 tax yea... I didn't need it.... so I gave it away.

But for someone one lower wages than myself, it was a right kick in the knickers.

But what I am getting too here, and I believe it, is that
A) 100k is not obscene
B) it SHOULD be earnable and within grasp of anyone in the right job

and finally
C) why take away their tax free allowance? It's just wrong.

Is it Tax Free or not? Well...no.. not any more... we've decided not to let YOU have it... cos you've worked too hard. So neerrrrr

[Kata]

I'd be happy with the UK tax levels IF (and it's a big if) it was:

a) appreciated, and not seen as some kind of pound of flesh that the evil successful people have to pay to support the losers, sorry less successful people

b) used in any meaningful way. As it is, if I was to pay more tax, what tanglible improvement would be seen? Sod all. The money, it seems, is squandered in no meaningul way, so why should I throw more money into the bottomless pit of government ineptitude?

Taxation needs to be a two way thing. You want me to throw half my money in the pot, I better be seeing some decent services coming back; and in the UK, I really don't. Assuming I hadn't already escaped the nest, what would I be getting back for my money? I have private health insurance, my kids (when they arrive!) will go to private schools, the police have been worthless on both occasions I have dealt with them, my house has never caught fire, I pay enough in fuel tax alone to cover my share of the roads....there's not much left to see for the tens of thousands of pounds I've had ripped off of me.

In summary, I fully understand why the 100k+ band are pissed off. An already shocking deal is getting even worse.

[Zak33]

I'd be happy with the UK tax levels IF (and it's a big if) it was:

a) appreciated, and not seen as some kind of pound of flesh that the evil successful people have to pay to support the losers, sorry less successful people

b) used in any meaningful way. As it is, if I was to pay more tax, what tanglible improvement would be seen? Sod all. The money, it seems, is squandered in no meaningul way, so why should I throw more money into the bottomless pit of government ineptitude?

Taxation needs to be a two way thing. You want me to throw half my money in the pot, I better be seeing some decent services coming back; and in the UK, I really don't. Assuming I hadn't already escaped the nest, what would I be getting back for my money? I have private health insurance, my kids (when they arrive!) will go to private schools, the police have been worthless on both occasions I have dealt with them, my house has never caught fire, I pay enough in fuel tax alone to cover my share of the roads....there's not much left to see for the tens of thousands of pounds I've had ripped off of me.

In summary, I fully understand why the 100k+ band are pissed off. An already shocking deal is getting even worse.

fair play lass... good photo's AND a good poster

[Kata]

I am glad someone appreciates my rants

[pp05]

I'd be happy with the UK tax levels IF (and it's a big if) it was:

a) appreciated, and not seen as some kind of pound of flesh that the evil successful people have to pay to support the losers, sorry less successful people

b) used in any meaningful way. As it is, if I was to pay more tax, what tanglible improvement would be seen? Sod all. The money, it seems, is squandered in no meaningul way, so why should I throw more money into the bottomless pit of government ineptitude?

Taxation needs to be a two way thing. You want me to throw half my money in the pot, I better be seeing some decent services coming back; and in the UK, I really don't. Assuming I hadn't already escaped the nest, what would I be getting back for my money? I have private health insurance, my kids (when they arrive!) will go to private schools, the police have been worthless on both occasions I have dealt with them, my house has never caught fire, I pay enough in fuel tax alone to cover my share of the roads....there's not much left to see for the tens of thousands of pounds I've had ripped off of me.

In summary, I fully understand why the 100k+ band are pissed off. An already shocking deal is getting even worse.

Kata I think that is the biggest gripe from those who fit into 40% / 50% tax band. That they will pay more but where is the money going? I totally get that. Tax has to be fair but also deliver social programs that are 'EFFECTIVE' not 'EFFICENT'.

Interesting fact I read recently was that when the financial times in 2004 looked into the top 20 major non-oil british operations with a turnover of almost £100billion. They found these same corporations managed to organise losses of 700million, and paid taxes of 350million. So jack squat.

This is not just happening in the UK, but all over western Europe. Germany has lost 20billion in lost taxes as money is shifted to those rigimes/places with lower tax. Local subsidiaries are run on debt. This is not the kind situation that will bolster UK leadership to act decisively but rather weakens them.

[badass]

I didn't read that in anything j1979 said!?!

He didn't say it in this thread.

You make a vast oversight when you talk of people "dithering around in menial jobs".... not everyone has the aptitude/psychological makeup/personality traits required to do anything other than a menial job. In my opinon that doesn't mean they should be destined to a bleak existence though, surely we are at a level of civilisation where "law of the jungle" attitudes are a thing of the past?

I never said that. Just that people in jobs with next to no responsibility that anyone can do should get paid less than more difficult jobs with more responsibility. Everyone that works for a living should be able to afford more than just the bare necessities.

[GSte]

I never said that. Just that people in jobs with next to no responsibility that anyone can do should get paid less than more difficult jobs with more responsibility. Everyone that works for a living should be able to afford more than just the bare necessities.

It sounded to me like you were saying that people who do menial jobs don't deserve any kind of comfortable life.... perhaps I've misunderstood, in which case what were the "benefits" you were speaking of? And what did you mean by "a living"?

[SeriousSam]

I was going to wait until I replied to this thread, to avoid going off on a massive rant, but in the end I thought “sometimes you just have let rip… and then blame it on the dog”. Anyway;

I am truly sickened by the puerile "you've got more than me so should have to suffer for it" attitude that seems to be pervading some sections of this thread. Still I shouldn’t be surprised as this is a country that celebrates mediocrity and vilifies excellence unless it involves kicking a ball in a net or prostituting your self image. It beggars belief that anyone could believe that it is logical and fair that just because you earn more that you should contribute proportionally more through direct taxes. Next you will be suggesting that people who earn more should pay more for what that they buy, because that is the logical extension of your viewpoint.

To be truly fair by the “to each his means” principle then we should all contribute the same percentage of our salary / wage as tax, using the initial non-taxable allowance to ensure a basic standard of living at the lower end of the scale. The problem is that because we have had a banded system for so long the salary structure has become distorted above the upper limit as you have to pay proportionally more in order to give the same amount of increase as below. Of course such a simple and obvious system will never be put in place as it would take several generations to phase out the distortion and move to a single band system. Plus selling it politically would be impossible as “perception” is everything, and the vast majority of people in this country couldn’t perceive truth even if it ran up and punched them in the face.

Now I’m not going to suggest that some of the salaries people “earn” are actually anything other than greedy and excessive, they are in a sense the inevitable consequence of a pseudo-capitalist system*. However, it is not as though greed isn’t pervasive throughout the whole of the system, from benefit fraud upwards. I suspect though that the recent events involving bankers and MP’s have made people even more “anti-rich” (as opposed to anti-leach) than before, even though a salary of £100K isn’t that much when balanced against the total range of salary amounts earned. Added to which a sizeable proportion of jobs that pay in the £100-£200K range involve a lot of work, travel and stress. Again perception rather than reality being the determining factor here.

*True capitalism just like true socialism or communism cannot exist in the real world, as human beings are by their very nature logically inconsistent, especially in large groups.

I can see one way in which paying proportionally more tax would be fair and that is if you got proportionally more of a vote in elections, similar to the way that shares in companies work. However, that would only work if people voted on the basis of assessing what was best for the community as a whole, which pretty much never happens. So we are left with the current system whereby the government is relatively free to abuse the tax system based on public opinion and their own socio-political agenda. In this case with the Labour party, the word is definitely abuse, as they vainly try to scrabble money together to pay for their wanton profligacy. Were we not in our current financial mess, which they are just as culpable for as the banking industry, this would never have been proposed as they were blindly spending away believing the good times would keep on rolling.

What is really galling however is the fact that if this comes to pass all that will happen is that the money will be wasted like the rest of our tax, and the country will spiral further into debt until our credit rating is devalued and we end up in the same situation as the Greeks. Some of you may laugh at that, but it is a very real possibility. At some point we as a nation are going to have to face the fact that we cannot afford our public sector systems as they are currently (no matter how much tax you raise), let alone how they should be if you take into account the fact that amenities such as water and power should never have been fully privatised. The main reason for this unfortunately is the one we have little chance of dealing with, and that is the population of the UK. Essentially there are too many of us and the age distribution is skewed such that we have to support increasing numbers of the older generations. [Basically, as a society grows so the cost of maintaining it rises, but at a non-linear rate as the cost of one extra person is more than the one before them. This is then exacerbated as the number of net contributor’s declines due to people living longer.]

The only way to ameliorate this situation, short of culling the socially unfit from the population, is to ensure that your public services are not weighed down by unnecessary cost and waste. This includes eliminating bloated “management” systems, a total rethink on what is actually ours as a right, e.g. benefits irrespective of contribution, and re-nationalising some industries to use them as a source of investment income for the future. Unfortunately none of the current political parties have the will to take these measures, as it would be political suicide. So we just have to accept the fact that our standard of living has reached its zenith and from here on in it’s a downhill slide. Not that anyone will really accept it as acceptance is one of the things our society is becoming increasingly incapable of both on an individual and a group level. Oh and I don’t just mean in terms of other people, but also in terms of the cold hard facts of reality. Still it’s hardly surprising when we have had a succession of delusional Prime Ministers… Brown believes he can spend his way out of trouble like an inveterate gambler, Blair believed his own lies, Major thought Edwina Currie was attractive and Thatcher thought that privatisation was the panacea to all Britain’s economic woes.

Still it would be interesting to see what the reaction would be to proposals relating to assessing peoples benefits based on their contribution to the country / society. Is it fair that some people who don’t contribute (or in fact have never contributed) but actually could, gain more from the current system than those that actually do. Moreover how much assistance do we give to those that aren’t able to contribute? You may think the latter a harsh question but at some point in future we are going to have to consider how much “dead weight” we can carry, not just financially but from a resource perspective… as “the needs of the many outweigh those of the few”

[Barrichello]

Still it would be interesting to see what the reaction would be to proposals relating to assessing peoples benefits based on their contribution to the country / society. Is it fair that some people who don’t contribute (or in fact have never contributed) but actually could, gain more from the current system than those that actually do.

Sounds like a great proposal to me!

[badass]

It sounded to me like you were saying that people who do menial jobs don't deserve any kind of comfortable life.... perhaps I've misunderstood, in which case what were the "benefits" you were speaking of? And what did you mean by "a living"?

I wasn't talking about benefits as in government handouts. Benefits as in what I can buy with money. Life a new sofa, large TV and a thirsty powerful car.
Those in menial jobs deserve less of those kind of benefits that those of us in high stress jobs with a lot of responsibility and difficult work that those in menial jobs are simply incapable of.
However they certainly do deserve reward for their work and enough to live a comfortable life.
And I'm not getting involved in a discussion about the definition of "a living" Don't be pedantic.

[badass]

Sounds like a great proposal to me!

One problem with that. What about the disabled that cannot be a benefit to society as a whole? They need to be looked after.
That said, if they get caught deliberately fiddling the system, **** them. They can starve.

[SeriousSam]

One problem with that. What about the disabled that cannot be a benefit to society as a whole? They need to be looked after.
That said, if they get caught deliberately fiddling the system, **** them. They can starve.

Currently we can sustain them, but what about when they harm society due to consumption of valuable resources?

[Saracen]

...

I am truly sickened by the puerile "you've got more than me so should have to suffer for it" attitude that seems to be pervading some sections of this thread. Still I shouldn’t be surprised as this is a country that celebrates mediocrity and vilifies excellence unless it involves kicking a ball in a net or prostituting your self image. It beggars belief that anyone could believe that it is logical and fair that just because you earn more that you should contribute proportionally more through direct taxes. Next you will be suggesting that people who earn more should pay more for what that they buy, because that is the logical extension of your viewpoint......

I should point out that not everyone that thinks the higher paid should be taxed more heavily takes that viewpoint. Some maybe, but not all.

And it doesn't beggar belief that people believe those with high earners should pay proportionately more. It's a simple principle .... they can afford to do so without suffering in the way the lower earners would suffer. The point is how much more, when it starts and by what mechanism?

And what people pay for goods has nothing to do with what they pay in taxes. Firstly, buying goods is, for the large part, entirely discretionary. With the obvious exceptions (food, clothing, etc) you don't have to buy much of anything. Having a TV (let alone a big widescreen one), or an expensive car, or an iPhone or a new computer, it a big house is discretionary. And even in food and clothing, you can choose to shop in Aldi or Waitrose, and you can get clothes from Asda or from a Saville Row tailor, but it's discretionary.

But taxes direct taxes aren't discretionary. And they are a tool of social policy.

...

To be truly fair by the “to each his means” principle then we should all contribute the same percentage of our salary / wage as tax, using the initial non-taxable allowance to ensure a basic standard of living at the lower end of the scale.

That depends on how you define "fair". That's one definition, but not the only conceivable one. Another is that if you can afford a private jet and to spend £100,000 on a watch because you fancy it, then there's nothing unfair in paying £100 a year more in tax because you've already got a lifestyle that the vast majority can only dream off if they win the lottery .... several times. And besides, they'll never notice the impact of the loss of that £100 on their lifestyle anyway. So, by that criteria, it's entirely fair that they pay more tax because they can afford it without noticing it.

Again, the question becomes at what point you start to tax the wealthier more heavily, rather than whether it is or isn't fair.

....

I can see one way in which paying proportionally more tax would be fair and that is if you got proportionally more of a vote in elections, similar to the way that shares in companies work. .....

Oh, heaven help us. You think going back to some kind of feudal rule by the wealthy would be "fair"? We'd end up with bankers and footballers running the country .... not that some people don't think they pretty much do anyway, if not quite overtly. I haven't yet fled the country because of tax rules, but if that ever came in .... last one out, turn out the lights. And don't forget the cat.

[Phage]

Equity ?
Lot's of assumptions there. How do you know what they notice and what they don't.

It's correct that tax is a tool of social policy, but it is incorrect to say that the policy is inherently fair. If we accept that the most relevant meaning of the word 'fair' in this instance would be something along the lines of "without favoring one party, in a fair evenhanded manner". The a flat tax would be 'fairer' than a progressive one.

/Dons flame suit - the marxists will be here shortly.