Does anyone here pay 50p tax?

[Dr House]

Have you explained to him that isn't very logical?

Its not really for him, he retired 2 years ago at the age of 53 having worked stupid hours for 30+ years. He stated life as a lab technician and retired as SVP /Director in a big pharma company. He then travelled the world for a year, after returning home he found that he can't just sit at home and decided to go back to work.

With his pension if he took on a full time job paying via PAYE it would push him into the 50% band which considering how hard he worked psychologically just did not feel fair to him to pay 52% in tax.

So he had 2 choices, leave the uk which he really did consider taking a job in Germany or work as a contractor for 6 to 9 months per year which is what he does now.

I am 90% positive that if the 50% band was not there he would have just gone back to a normal job.

if you earn £500k P/A the tax doesn't cut it to £250k. i believe it works in increaments? my dad explained it to me when i was younger and said something like you'd only pay 50% on anything over a certain amount. ie if you're on £500k P/A you'd only get taxed @ 50% on anything over eg £300k so up until £300k you're being taxed @ 40% and down

Gross Pay £500,000.00

Total Deductions £241,381.04
Net Earnings £258,618.96
Employers NI £68,024.06

so really in total that 500k earner takes home 258k and the government get 309k

I think it's awful this country has different tax bands , yes I am a 40 % payer .

Bring in a flat rate of tax for all , higher earners pay more by definition of what they earn .

In czech we have a 15% flat tax rate, everyone pays the same

 

[mejinks]

Heres something to think about then:

An employee working for an agency through an enforced paye scheme is getting less than half the client is paying the agency. AMS have now told their contractors that any bonus due to them under the new rules will be taken by AMS. So think about that when you say that 50% is crushing. You are getting a better deal then the agency worker who answers you phone calls, cleans your office, drives a lorry to deliver goods etc and they are on minimum wage, only the greedy people here are not the government, but the contract agency.

 

[Bear]

Heres something to think about then:

An employee working for an agency through an enforced paye scheme is getting less than half the client is paying the agency. AMS have now told their contractors that any bonus due to them under the new rules will be taken by AMS. So think about that when you say that 50% is crushing. You are getting a better deal then the agency worker who answers you phone calls, cleans your office, drives a lorry to deliver goods etc and they are on minimum wage, only the greedy people here are not the government, but the contract agency.

Kind of irrelevant, the agency isnt taking half of your money it was never yours to begin with. You agreed to work for the rate they offered because they got you the job.

 

[G-MAN2004]

Gross Pay £500,000.00

Total Deductions £241,381.04
Net Earnings £258,618.96
Employers NI £68,024.06

so really in total that 500k earner takes home 258k and the government get 309k

Disgusting. Always makes me feel a bit sick when my dad reads out how much tax he has had to pay for the year. Makes me feel robbed and it's not even my money!

 

[elmarko]

Bear is right; what so many people don't seem to realise is just how damaging this tax can be. Having to pay the additional rate is financially crippling, forcing many to flee the country in order to survive. The most shameful part of the whole thing is how few people even acknowledge the severity of the problem. I'm sick and tired of people standing up for "the little guy"; isn't it about time somebody stood up for the highly affluent as well?!

I'd really like to see the evidence as to how damaging it is.

I earn well above the national average & I'd be happy to pay more tax to help the less fortunate in society - those with the biggest shoulders.

 

[Saundie]

I'd really like to see the evidence as to how damaging it is.

I earn well above the national average & I'd be happy to pay more tax to help the less fortunate in society - those with the biggest shoulders.

My post was dripping with sarcasm. I actually think it's absurd that anybody earning over £150k would consider leaving the country in order to avoid paying the higher tax rate. Apparently I would think differently if I earned over £150k and was subject to the higher tax rate myself.

 

[Jokester]

My post was dripping with sarcasm. I actually think it's absurd that anybody earning over £150k would consider leaving the country in order to avoid paying the higher tax rate. Apparently I would think differently if I earned over £150k and was subject to the higher tax rate myself.

The kind of work that pays over £150k a year doesn't necessarily have to be done here, indeed you tend to find that a lot of foreigners are here doing it and can easily move to other countries to do the same type of work. Also higher taxes makes it more attractive for UK nationals to do the same thing by moving to other countries.

You would be surprised just how mobile high earners can be if they choose to be.

 

[Saundie]

The kind of work that pays over £150k a year doesn't necessarily have to be done here, indeed you tend to find that a lot of foreigners are here doing it and can easily move to other countries to do the same type of work. Also higher taxes makes it more attractive for UK nationals to do the same thing by moving to other countries.

You would be surprised just how mobile high earners can be if they choose to be.

I don't disagree with the fact that they can choose to up and leave to do the same work in another country. What I'm having trouble understanding is why you would feel compelled to do so. I mean, if you're earning that sort of money then you're not going to be facing any sort of hardship as a result of the income tax, so what is the motivation to leave? If you didn't like living in the UK then your income wouldn't really come into it; people earning far less than £150k a year emigrate, after all. I'm asking that question purely from a financial perspective.

 

[Jokester]

I don't disagree with the fact that they can choose to up and leave to do the same work in another country. What I'm having trouble understanding is why you would feel compelled to do so. I mean, if you're earning that sort of money then you're not going to be facing any sort of hardship as a result of the income tax, so what is the motivation to leave?

Maintaining or improving their standard of living would be one major motivation.

 

[mejinks]

Kind of irrelevant, the agency isnt taking half of your money it was never yours to begin with. You agreed to work for the rate they offered because they got you the job.

My point is that there are people here who are moaning about paying over 50% of their wages to the government as tax, but nobody considers the small people who won't have a raise because the agency takes the money from them and the client doesn't have any incentive to give yet more money to an agency instead of it going into the back pocket of the worker. Yes, they could chose not to work , but that would create a larger social burden wouldn't you say?

 

[cm1179]

Disgusting. Always makes me feel a bit sick when my dad reads out how much tax he has had to pay for the year. Makes me feel robbed and it's not even my money!

why is it disgusting?

 

[Yas786]

Oh god another easyrider thread....

What's this got to do with the price of fuel at Tesco?

Does this thread have anything to do with your one man mission against Jeremy Clarkson as well??

 

[Bear]

My point is that there are people here who are moaning about paying over 50% of their wages to the government as tax, but nobody considers the small people who won't have a raise because the agency takes the money from them and the client doesn't have any incentive to give yet more money to an agency instead of it going into the back pocket of the worker. Yes, they could chose not to work , but that would create a larger social burden wouldn't you say?

But your point isnt correct. The agency doesnt take any money from the worker. The agency negotiates a rate with the client and then employs someone to do the work for them for a certain rate. The worker gets exactly what they have been told they would get from the agency. What the agency gets is irrelevant to the worker, in fact its none of their business.

I am a contractor so I know the agency gets money from my hard work so its not that I dont understand what you are talking about.

 

[Angilion]

I think it's awful this country has different tax bands , yes I am a 40 % payer .

Bring in a flat rate of tax for all , higher earners pay more by definition of what they earn .

How would you deal with all the corpses?

You're probably wondering what I'm talking about.

Your idea would make it impossible for poor people to survive. So they either die of starvation or revolt. Either way, there would be a lot of corpses.

So...how would you deal with all the corpses?


If you have massive disparity in income between a tiny elite and a mass of peasants, you're not going to get enough tax from levying massively disproportionate taxes on the peasants. And yes, they are massively disproportionate. x% tax on barely enough to survive on is not really the same as x% tax on 10 times as much.

 

[PMKeates]

How would you deal with all the corpses?

You're probably wondering what I'm talking about.

Your idea would make it impossible for poor people to survive. So they either die of starvation or revolt. Either way, there would be a lot of corpses.

Yes because people just die off when things are too expensive.

 

[Arthur Hucksake]

Diddums.

The fact that people in this bracket can pay off a mortgage within a few years that would take us less important peasants 25 years to do, make them pay it. When your talking money in that bracket, you've got more than enough left over to invest elsewhere to increase your earnings even more so. Usually abroad, as it happens.

The argument of encouraging further investment to create jobs is bogus too. If you were in the position to do that you would anyway to make more.

 

[realBabelfish]

I don't pay it and would have absolutely no problem if I did.

I find it laughable that people would worry about paying an extra 10p in the pound on their earnings over £150,000

wealthy people are often scum who avoid doing anything to help society. i would be happy to pay 50% tax as this would mean i was raking it in. people only pay the extra 10p on incomes over the threshold. they dont pay 50% on everything

some people are plain greedy and selfish i guess...

 

[MacRS4]

My post was dripping with sarcasm. I actually think it's absurd that anybody earning over £150k would consider leaving the country in order to avoid paying the higher tax rate. Apparently I would think differently if I earned over £150k and was subject to the higher tax rate myself.

You don't have to leave the country, you can just work through a company that isn't domiciled here, and get paid in different ways.

Avoiding the 50% tax rate is comically easy unless you're an employee under strict PAYE.

The downside with such high tax rates is that people who previously didn't readily engage with avoidance will start looking for avoidance techniques, and end up paying LESS than they did before the higher tax rate was implemented. One higher rate tax payer removes themselves from the system, how many basic rate payers does it take to replace that lost income?

That's precisely what a lot of IT Contractors did post IR35 for example.

 

[MacRS4]

wealthy people are often scum who avoid doing anything to help society. i would be happy to pay 50% tax as this would mean i was raking it in. people only pay the extra 10p on incomes over the threshold. they dont pay 50% on everything

some people are plain greedy and selfish i guess...

Wow, so I'm scum who avoids doing anything to help society because I avoid the 50% tax rate? Go figure.

As a side note, 150k a year on PAYE is roughly what, about 7.5k a month after tax? That person would be paying 5,000 *a month* in tax, or 60,000 quid a year. While it's hardly a bad place to be it's hardly super wealthy either.

 

[Cosimo]

What's this got to do with the price of fuel at Tesco?

Not a lot.