Diesel

Nail on the head compadre! If the results of me (and millions of others) paying a four figure tax/NI amount every month for the past 15 years (excl VAT & import duty and then taxed on anything I saved after tax) is the society and services we have, then we have a bottomless black hole of a cash void somewhere...

Been working in Norway a lot recently and the social system of this tiny population is fantastic. I would even get paternity leave at 90% pay - not the £100 a week here (pay a SE Mortgage on that Diesel...). Education is in a different class there as is the health service - you dont need BUPA... Its true there is little point in earning over 100k there (wich is an absurd disincentive...) but there are work arounds for that - and you dont need other opt out or any other 'top-up' insurance paid out of your hard earned. At least you see and use and feel what you pay for - clean, punctual, cheap train anyone...???

Bottom line is I LOATHE paying disproportionately more tax to fund ropey services and to subsidise dossers and 'career' welfare scammers - however it is probably better to have this than the situation in the South Africa of old where you need a few rifles and high tech security & guards in any 'compound' of a 'rich' home...

I would love to se a better return for my investement in this country...

Andy Gough

Marko, your'e damn right i'm tight and pious. I'm training to be scottish. Oh, and by the way, i'm speaking from experience.

Welshman

MarkO,
You say that "if everyone took your attitude we would live in a cr@p society"

It would appear that a lot of people share this view BECAUSE we live in a cr@p society, and still get fleeced which ever way we turn.

Cheers
WM

Welshman

Tiggers, you comment on My attitude, in light of your comments I am sure that you contribute a vast proportion of your net income to those less wealthy than yourself.
I agree that "greed is good" it's what makes me work harder to provide for me and mine. What's wrong with that?
Lots of people like to discredit the "Thatcher" years. Personally I think she turned this country into the "modern" country that Tony Blair has tried to claim as his own

carl

The issue is whether income tax should be progressive. Personally, I think not. You could argue "what's a million to Bernie Ecclestone" but then you could argue "what's a pound to someone earning £7k a year". Bernie already contributes far more to the Treasury at 40% tax than any of us ever will.

I'm in favour of flat rate across the range. I'm also in favour of public sector workers paying no tax, as it just creates administrative overheads when one government department pays another

Chip

Talking of tax. Why do MPs have all their drinks tax free in the commons.

Read yesterday about these fat cat bosses. They dont pay as much as they should as theyve got people to advise them on tax evasion.



Chip.

Chip

And another thing.Blair is robbing the slightly better off in the South to finance the slightly poorer North of the UK. Afaik the north can **** off and provide for itself. After all arent houses up there only 2 a penny therefore leaving them with smaller motgages so they can **** even more of their income up against the wall.

Chip.

south-star

Some of us dont even drink,but at least the ones that do drink real beer, unlike you shandy drinking southerners...

Chip

South Star,
In case you hadnt noticed Wales is not in the south.Its Westor left on the map to you.

Chip.

Welshman

As mentioned earlier "greed is good" why else do any of us work ?
My proposal to abolish the top rate of tax will reduce the revenue to the exchequer, so we will have to make sacrifices. Here's one, feel free to add more.
1. If someone is elected as a councillor they must be able to speak English. If not then they, or their party, shall pay for a translator

WM

Chip

Stop wasting money on things like asylum seekers,the dome,wembley stadium,painted roads everywhere,nhs administrators,legal aid to the rich etc.Just these alone will save a fortune.

Chip.

south-star

Correction..the poor will have to make sacrifices,the rich will just be better off.If you want a more unequal society thats the way to go.

tiggers

Leaving politics and how are taxes are spent aside for one minute lets look at this logically.

If a society needs £n million pounds worth of taxation to function then is it right that everyone should be taxed at the same rate regardless of their income?

I think not as the sliding scale allows those at the bottom of the income scale to have more money than they would under the flat rate whereas those on a higher income will have slightly less, but not that much less that it will make their lives that different.

It's called living in a civilised society.

Regards,

tiggers.

carl

You don't make the Sunday Times Rich List by being a tax exile. AFAIK when they say "earnings for the year" they mean "earnings for the year, that are subject to UK tax".

south-star

Carl....you may be right on that.My point is that the rich have ways of avoiding tax that are not practical for ordinary folk.Sometimes they can end up paying less tax than the average guy in the street.Lets put away the violins.

ProperCharlie

If you look at tax and duty paid as a % of income, you will probably find that someone earning 15k a year pays a higher % than someone earning 50k a year. Abolishing the NI cap has gone some way to change this, but the idea that low earners get away without paying much tax is wrong. It's much easier for a millionaire to avoid tax than it is for a supermarket worker.

Stevie

This is a fantastic thread.

For the record, IMHO, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with living abroad to drop a big years income out of UK taxation.

To tell the truth, I would love to have an income for 1 year that justified living abroad for the year. I also think anyone else reading this thread would love to have that decision to make too.

tiggers

Welshman,

In answer to your question yes I pay my taxes (including the higher rate) and I'm more than happy to do so - like all of us I have issues with how they're spent, but fundamenatally I believe in paying into the system.

So you think "greed is good" is a good attitude and Thatcher was a good thing. For some this maybe true, but for many others that was not the case, but of course as long as you're part of the former then that's OK isn't it?

It's funny as I remember her's and the Major governments as responsible for the highest unemployment in my lifetime, the highest lending/mortgage rates in my lifetime and superbly executed ideas such as the poll tax or pumping half the country's reserves into propping up the ERM when everyone knew we would have to pull out sooner or later due to the fact our economy was in the doldrums due to - let me see - oh yes - the Tory government.

Going back to "greed is good" let me give you a hypothetical and idealistic situation for you to chew on. I am English and if I and my fellow countrymen decide to be greedy we might come to the conclusion that a country such as Wales is an awful burden on our economy/society.

Therefore we might decide to cut that country off altogether and repatriate all the Welsh working in England back to their homeland - Oh look England now has no unemployment - that's better isn't it? Well yes, if you're English and living in the new England it probably is - if your Welsh and stuck back in Wales it's no good at all.

I know this is a totally hypothetical and simplistic argument, but it clearly illustrates that "ME ME ME" is only good as long as you are not on the receiving end.

OK I'm done,

tiggers.

Stevie

Yep,that was a simplistic (simple?) arguement

We are discussing income tax, to which the residents of the UK are liable. When did the Welsh last have their own income tax regime?

camk

You've got to laugh, The UK has some of the lowest taxes in Europe. You guys need to wake up and look at some of the positives of living in the UK, a 40% upper tax rate is one of the lowest in Europe for major countries.
I'm paying 48% top rate tax in Germany plus 400quid a month for my family(3 of us)(AFTER TAX) on health insurance.
The health service I get is infinately better than what I get in the UK but I'm paying plenty for it, a good deal more than I'd pay for Private Healthcare in the UK.

towzer

What about a banding approach that goes along the lines of you pay more tax up to a certain level, but then drops down again providing you demonstrate a value/contribution to society in some way.

For example, I've recently sold a masive contract and got paid for it. However I lost a stupid amount in tax, so why should I bother spending 12 months earning nothing before getting the big bucks next time around. There was no consideration from the IR in relaion to the jobs that have been created on the back of this deal or the significant competitive advantage that this particular UK customer now has over their global competition - ie more revenue captured for the UK.

Phil

tiggers

Stevie,

You miss my point - I'm simply illustrating on a larger scale how in a civilised society those who are more fortunate should support those less who are less fortunate which is what happens with the UK as a whole.

Sorry if I've moved this beyond income tax, but many of the other posts have illustrated that discussing this topic requires us to look at the "bigger picture".

tiggers.

Mungo

The tax system has become too complex as successive governments look for stealthy methods to increase total taxation revenues for the government. My recommendations:
1. Employees' NI should be abolished - employers contributions should continue.
2. The 10% tax band should be abolished, and the personal allowance should be greatly increased. Increases in the personal allowance have not be indexed properly since the 50s. This would seriously help low earners.
3. All of the extra taxes - insurance premium tax, road tax (or whatever it's called now), etc should be scrapped. Administering these isn't worth it, and the funds from these taxes are no longer ring-fenced for the purposes which they were originally intended (like NI too).
4. The standard rate should be increased to compensate for all of the above, when it will be more transparent as to how much we're actually being taxed. Sorry Gordon, that's what people want to know.

AFAIK, higher rate tax payers don't actually contribute all that much to the overall tax revenue - it's the masses paying into the standard band that actually make the lion's share of the contribution.

Stevie

Tiggers,

I agree, the thread has developed into a bigger picture read.

I also agree that the more you earn, the more you should pay in tax. I just disagree totally with the "sod the big earners, they should pay for the less fortunate" attitude.

Mungo,

you appear to have totally overlooked that higher rate taxpayers have paid tax with the masses, and then pay 40% on the rest. ie HRT payers ARE within the masses!! If higher rate payers dont contribute that much overall, then why doesn't one of the political party's include the abolition of HRT? It would get my vote

Diesel

There are a couple of altruistic opinions on paying taxes here which I think are very 'grown up' and impressive. However I have trouble balancing a continued financial clobbering on the more you earn/spend/work/achieve and with doing your duty to form a civilised society.

We are all individuals and are born alone and will die alone, we've also been given a self preservation gene and selfishness/survival attributes. Since I know society will watch me lose my house and so my life if I'm unemployed for more than 6 months (and cant contribute my thousands a month to support others/society for a bloody change) I will do everything I can to avoid paying taxes.

I get sheer joy from buying duty free Vodka or smuggling in a tax and duty free camcorder from Singapore (sad!). I even carried a mountain bike home from Miami to save £500 in UK taxes and import duty... It is all because this wholly one sided take take take approach kills any tax altruism for me as the 'favour' is never returned... I also work in a very volatile industry which is why this issue is maybe closer to my heart than most...

As I mentioned earlier when you pay your loads of tax in Norway (prob about 10% more?) at least they will be there for you when you need them, and it all works...

Stevie

I'll second that.

Mungo

My point about higher rate taxpayers is that the suggestion to have a further "top rate" band won't actually raise a whole lot more tax as the masses (whether standard or higher rate tax) are contributing the lion's share.

Freak

Nicely put.

Diesel

Tiggers I think me in the southeast subsidisng any of our neighbours to the left is a duty. After all we steamed in there, laid the law down and completely took over a few centuries ago! They didnt need our dosh ot interference for millenia before that did they?

And look at all that historical revenue back to the UK from Welsh oil (or was it coal or something twee like that...)
D

Gordo

I was going to be quiet until Tiggers posted:

"It's funny as I remember her's and the Major governments as responsible for the highest unemployment in my lifetime, the highest lending/mortgage rates in my lifetime and superbly executed ideas such as the poll tax or pumping half the country's reserves into propping up the ERM when everyone knew we would have to pull out sooner or later due to the fact our economy was in the doldrums due to - let me see - oh yes - the Tory government. "

TBH I think all political parties are nonsense, but it's as unfair to pick on the Tories for high lending rates etc as it is to applaud Brown for having done well for the last few years. It's driven by the global economy, for the most part, not individual governments. I'm sure Blair would love to take credit for the low interest rates elsewhere in world but in reality it's a factor fo market forces, not local governement interventions - evidence the fact that Brown's figures are all going badly wrong now the global economy's on a down.

The poll tax was, IMO, an excellent idea. I fail to see why I should pay a different level of council tax because of where I live in the country - and certainly don't see why council tax should be means based. I don't use local services any more than everyone else in my locale (and probably less, as we don't have kids). I live in Glasgow and pay more than double what I used to pay in a 'posh' area of Manchester because Glasgow has more unemployed and an older population - there is a strong argument for these being paid out of central taxes. Nobody ever argued that there should be massively differential pricing on utilies, why should council tax be any different? Same price across the country and paid per person makes eminent sense - the Tories messed this up because they didn't make it a national price and failed to establish the discounts properly.

Great points made already but to reinforce:

- get rid of NI, it's a joke
- simplify taxes, i.e. get rid of some of the hidden taxes
- However you look at it, the maths only work for the level of tax required to support the country if higher earners pay differential rates. I do object to the leftie attitude of 'tax the rich', however, which leads to rediculous suggestions such as taxing housing to alleviate supply problems. WTF?
- reduce the powers (and therefore the overheads) of local authorities. We have central policies on e.g. roads, why should all the local fiefdoms be allowed to make up their own rules?

I'll stop now

Gordo