What is a FAIR MAXIMUM annual salary for ANYONE in the UK?

[watforddude]

I would love to see if pay for footballers was cut, but were paid enough so they could live the life style of the average person how many would continue playing football.

[nibbler]

It's more important that the salary is fair in proportion to what they are doing IMO.

[robtbear]

No Limit at all I should get paid loads more lol

[kellyharding]

I can't see a reason to cap a persons salery, if they can get the pay good luck to them. Sure we'd all like money, but someone else saying 'hey you can't have that much' cos others get less would be a bit unfair perhaps.

Besides, higher earners get taxed more, so in theory they pay more % wise towards NHS and so on.

[schmunk]

If you think simply living outside the country for 6 months is sufficient to avoid a UK tax liability, you're in cloud-cuckoo land. It is a LOT more complicated that that.

Brucelles doesn't live in the UK, though, and in a lot of countries it is that simple.

Spend 183 days per tax year in the UK and you are "resident". Period. And pay UK tax. Spend less than that and you still might be, because even if you are based abroad, have property (and family, etc) abroad and not here, you can end up classified as resident but not ordinarily resident, and that can be established by activity over a pattern of years and "intent".

I would modify the first sentence to read "Spend 183 days in a tax year in the UK and you are "resident" for that tax year.

People who are considered UK tax resident due to frequent visits (91 days or more on average per tax year), or those who leave the UK but haven't 'left' the UK (due to continued ties) would generally be resident and ordinarily resident. Not ordinarily resident status is usually reserved for people coming into the UK for periods of less than 3 years.

And be careful. It is quite possible to end up defined as resident in the UK for tax purposes and subject to UK tax, and resident in another country and subject to their tax laws too. And, while double taxation treaties may protect you in some countries, if they don't, then having paid tax on income abroad will not mean you aren't subject to paying tax on it twice.

True Dat. Although, HMRC sometimes will allow unilateral relief (e.g. for Hong Kong).

Anyway, spending 6 months abroad is not enough to exclude UK tax liability, and even if you are a foreign national domiciled and resident abroad, spending 6 months a year here may well leave you liable to UK tax.

While it's certainly possible to arrange things so as to not pay UK tax, it's very hard indeed to (legally) arrange them so as to not pay here here or somewhere else, and if you get it wrong, you can end up paying tax twice rather than not at all.

+1

[peterb]

The rough cost of emplying someone is about twice their gross salary (by the time you take employers NI, provision of HR, allowances for sick pay, holidays, training, etc) so if you earn £30K/year, your vaue to the company has to be about £60K/year. (That is a gneralisation - and that may not be a true statement for all trades or professions)

So if you are earning your company £2,000,000, it seems entirey reasonable that you should be paid a sum commensurate with that, and if you are running a successful company, providig employment for others, I can see no justification for your rewards to be artificially capped.

[Barrichello]

There should be no limit.

[oolon]

So if you are earning your company £2,000,000, it seems entirey reasonable that you should be paid a sum commensurate with that, and if you are running a successful company, providig employment for others, I can see no justification for your rewards to be artificially capped.

It would seem that way however if you get a bonus of 50% of the profits you get, if presented with a gamble with your companies money of double or nothing, making the bank 1,000,000 or losing them a million what would you do? If you don't take the gamble your not get a bonus, if you lose the gamble your not get a bonus, if you win the gamble you get 500,000. That is the problem with some of these peoples pay, it does not reflect the risk they have taken only the results.

[TheAnimus]

Okay, who voted Up to £12k?

You're entitled to your opinion, but........muppet.

Actually.

Out of the people who voted for a limit, they are the only ones who can form any kind of moral argument in my mind.

How can you suggest capping it any higher if your going to have a cap, than the lowest option on the poll. It is, after all more than enough to feed + cloath oneself, ensure access to clean running water too.

Given that these are luxuries the VAST majority of the world is denied, if your going to forcefully re-allocate wealth that would be the only argument worth pushing for.

Anyone who voted for any of the higher caps, obviously this excludes unlimited.

Well I can not fathom any rational behind it, other than jealousy or a lack of intelligent thought of consequences, or maybe is just good old fashioned racism?

[Zak33]

going to tell us what you think Zak? or are you waiting to see how the poll pans out before picking sides?

rightyo... well it's simple.

At 18 years old I was into my first long term job, which was on a basic salary of £3500 per annum and the rest was commission. I've moved into jobs throughout a 20 year plus career and with the exception of this last 4 years.. I've been on commission for in excess of 75% of my salary the whole time.

I earned as much as I was capable of, and therefore worth, in my chosen career, and with the exception of the mammoth time drain that is HEXUS forums, I put in my whole effort. This means that WITHOUT HEXUS I'd be wealthier, though prolly not as wise.

If I were given a chance to earn some kind of commission or bonus and forsake some of my salary I'd do it like a shot, providing the risk of lower pay was offset by greater pay with exceptional results... and like a rat up a drain pipe, I'd be back into that kind of environment.

As you get older, you need a larger basic salary, as your stability on mortgages and kids and stuff increases... but the HIGHEST basic salary I have ever been paid on a job with commission is just over £12k per year. The rest was commission.

I work side jobs too, and in all seriousness, make a few quid out of late hours on other work too, mainly selling my own personal stuff on ebay.It's long and slow but it's worth the extra.

( DR once asked why I spent so long on a Sat evening listing my Opteron CPU to sell for about £15.... its money.. I'm tight.. it's what I do)

So... as far as I'm concerned most of the world should be allowed to earn what they can.

I think the Prime Minister of the UK, being a total nobber or otherwise.. is under paid. However..it turns out the pension aint all bad and the follow on jobs are pretty good, but none the less, he/she should earn more.

I think more people should be on stricter profit and performance related pay, as there is a lot of wasted time in offices all around the UK. Look at us.. all on HEXUS for hours per day. You don't see Nick on here much anymore.. he's slogging away at HEXUS labs and studios.

My missus.. she works hard. Left the house by 8am having taken the boy to nursery, no lunch breaks, no stop all day, does the job of 2 or 3 people who sit chatting to her while she blocks them out.. and does the extra hours after work too, when it all needs sorting late into the night, smacks her car up in the snow cos she leaves too late to get home safely... and collapses into the sofa quite late in the evening while I cook. But she's self employed.. she charges for the effort, much more daily rate than I earn. She really does slog it out. And she makes differences. I am, as I should be, immensely proud of what she's achieved through mammoth skill and raw effort in her two years of sef employment.

0iD's missus.. a nurse, out on the road a lot, visiting god only knows what old dears, nutters and sick people.. looking after them, tending to them. Proper worker. Grafter. She should have no pay limit.. if she's good she deserves some kinda bonus for being good.

These people deserver to earn as much money as is put in front of them, and then bwe inentivised to earn MORE. I'm under utilised in a big way right now (not here.. else where) so I'm working on other stuff too. Some will MAKE money... some will save money. Never stop though... never stop. Power savings, bill savings, investment calculations and study. Some wealth is measurable in income... some in cost saving. I do a bit/lot of both.

I believe that grafters, clever people and the inspired should earn up to and through the clouds.... and I don't believe than ANY cap is sensible. But I DO believe that occassionally you gotta pass it forward. I took a salary cut of £1000 not too many years ago that one of my staff could get the pay rise I thought he was due but the boss wouldn't pay for. Best £1000 I ever spent. He worked like a trooper... knew he was valued by me, didn't know I'd paid for it mind you.. that's not for him to know. And ... within 18 months.. his increased sales were paying me bigger bonuses and I got my £1000 back and more easily.

Bonus.. commission... it's NOT a rude word people. Bankers Bonusus.. its' NOT a rude phrase.. they're not exterminating kittens with a cattle prod.. they're TRYING TO MAKE MONEY GROW at the expense of other people.... it's FAIR.. if you're good...you earn MORE. Someone HAS to be poor for someone else to be rich. We cant ALL be rich. Communism doesn't work properly at everyone being equal... so put up a fight.

And then some people's pension pot INCREASES,... and suddenly bonus is not a rude word to those people, is it?

I said, in Jan 09, that it was a year to make money. ... I told people like DR and my missus.. I knew there would be possibilities. These did arise for many people who were looking.... we grabbed a few ourselves.

Some is luck.. some is effort.. some is total fluke and big balls..... but I tell you all... if you WANT it.. go find it, and don't sh1t on anyone on the way if you can avoid it.

[Zak33]

/\bloody hell... I started that with the sentence.. "Its Simple"

fool... ignore me

[scaryjim]

I'm not voting on the poll, because tbh I'm not actually interested in capping people's wages. I think there are potential merits to both wage and profit capping (think about it, if wages and profits were capped then a lot of companies would have to make less revenue to cover their wage bill and so the cost of living would actually fall) but they are not workable in current UK society.

I also don't begrudge people who work hard a beter salary than those who slack off, and people who do a decent job actually helping others (nurses, teachers, etc) a better salary still. I'd rather see bankers - who was far as I can make out are motivated entirely by greed - taxed heavily to pay much higher wages for genuine public servants. I can pretty much guarantee you that no one goes into nursing or teaching for the money.

The only point I've made in any of these threads is that I personally think £100k is an obscene amount of money for *anyone* to earn. There are still places in this country where your take home from £100k a year would buy a house. If I earned £100k a year with my current expenses my disposable income after all expenditure would be twice my current take-home pay. And frankly, I think my wages are pretty high for what I do. I simply do not see the need for anyone to earn that much money, and it actually worries me that I live in a society that sees wages that high as desirable. Also, in my experience the majority of people on those very high wages actually do very little work. They organise other people to do the actual, which takes a different set of skills and is in itself valuable, but I certainly wouldn't agree that the majority of people on > £100k work harder than the majority on < £20k.

My problem, perhaps, is not so much with the actual amount, but the disparity in perceived "worth". And that comes from a particular culture and mindset - one that considers absolute monetary income as 'the' indicator of worth or status - that I'm not in a position to change. Bear in mind that 50% of the population earns no more than £25k: that's the baseline from which I'm working. It's against that figure that I consider earnings of > £100k obscene. It has nothing to do with the worth, hard-working nature or personal opinions and / or motivations of the individual earning that money. It's the fact that we live in a society that values people (and in which people value themselves) based on what they earn, *not* what they do / who they are.

So, in our current society, a fair maximum salary is, as other people have pointed out, whatever you can persuade some other mug to pay you. But I'd like to live in a society where that was self-regulating to a sensible level, and companies / individuals spent more time investing in society than hoarding to themselves. So I will continue to consider the obsession with financial accumulation obscene.


I do have one question on your "simple" thesis though:

... they're TRYING TO MAKE MONEY GROW at the expense of other people.... it's FAIR..

... and don't sh1t on anyone on the way if you can avoid it. ...

How do you reconcile these two statements? How is it fair to gain at the expense of others if you're not meant to "sh1t" on them?

[Saracen]

.....

I would modify the first sentence to read "Spend 183 days in a tax year in the UK and you are "resident" for that tax year.

We're going to get into semantics if we're not careful, and I was trying to give a general flavour rather than write a tax manual, so while I wouldn't disagree that your version is correct (because it is) it isn't quite what I was getting at.

How about this one ....

- for any given tax year, if you spend (i.e. are physically present) 183 days or more in the UK, you're classed as resident. Period. No exceptions.

- your status in a given year may be determinant, but it may be down to a pattern over several years

- if present for >91 days and <183 days, in a given tax year, then you need to look at the average of the tax years during which you are "visiting"

- you can spend less than 183 days and still be classed as resident.

- you can be resident but not "ordinarily resident"

- you can be not resident, but "ordinarily resident"

- you can add "domicile" to the list of complications

- whether you are liable to tax at all, and if you are, whether you get to select accrual or remittance basis, depends on the matrix of classifications

- where you have an option, the best option depends on the types and sources of income

- if resident, then "ordinarily or not" only really matters if you have foreign income

- your "ordinary" status is dependent on far more than physical presence, so is a matter for argument and negotiation, because it depends on "intent", and whether that's changes over a period, and on your "settled" status, the nature of accommodation and whether you bought or leased, and if leased, whether long or short-term lease, and so on.

- it's all changed recently, because the Finance Act 2008 kicked in last year and significantly changed the situation


If you want to go into it any more than that, suffice it to say that this type of stuff is one of the main reasons I gave up Chartered Accountancy.



All I was really trying to get at was to say that working in one country for 6 months and another for 6 months is no guarantee of not paying tax, and in most countries (though I won't say all because there may well be exceptions) it simply won't work and can backfire badly if you aren't very careful .... and many governments are actively cracking down on this anyway, changing rules and tightening up loopholes.

[Kata]

STUFF

Enjoy your time in ... whatever communist country hasn't miserably failed yet...

[oolon]

they're TRYING TO MAKE MONEY GROW at the expense of other people.... it's FAIR.. if you're good...you earn MORE.

The market is not trying to make money grow at the expense of others, for every buyer there has to be a willing seller and vice-versa, people who are trading and simply buying/sell something that other people under/over value and then dispose of it when other people work that fact out and keep the difference, I see no problem with that.

[Zak33]

I think that to make money.. someone has to loe out somewhere.

And therefore trying to make aprofit in any industry has to involve taking more money for a product than it cost you to make.. even a financial product.

When I say don't dump on anyone on the way, I mean don't make any enemies..

I for one don't mind ANYONE making a profit from me.. Scan for example are not the cheapest web site for hardware.. but they look after me really well. I therefore am allowing myself to pay slightly over other places prices... for a feel good factor.

But if they screwed me on a deal.. really scrwed me... I'd walk. Common sense really.

I myself have really screwed over innoent people... I'm a sales person.. I have done some terrible things in my 20 years selling. There literealyl is one born everyminute... but it DOES come back and bite you on the arse sometimes.