British public wrongly believe rich pay most in tax

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http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/16/british-public-wrong-rich-poor-tax-research

The British public dramatically underestimate what the poorest pay in tax and wrongly believe the richest face the biggest tax burden, according to new research that calls for a more progressive system.

The poorest 10% of households pay eight percentage points more of their income in all taxes than the richest – 43% compared to 35%, according to a report from the Equality Trust.
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Tax-distribution.svg


Change anyone's perception here? I bet if you look at the richest 3%, 1%, 0.5% then the proportion of income as tax drops even further.

The report recommends looking again at Council Tax, which is a particularly regressive tax. Something I've been advocating for a while.
 
They'd never do anything about council tax other than put the price up.

AlecR said:
If poor people think the rich pay the most tax, then frankly, they're idiots.
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Well that depends if poor people think, oh Mr. Millionaire pays 10% of his money in tax equating to £100,000 in tax whereas I pay 10% of my money (£100) in tax, so he pays more.
 
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Wrongly believe and perceive are not the same argument.

Whilst I am not a huge fan of poster #2, he is less boring than the OP so perhaps there should be a punitive tax on Graph-Wrong-Users.
 
Interesting that they are quoting figures as % of income what is the total amount in pounds paid by the richest compared to the total amount in pounds paid by the poorest as I suspect that is the question the public are answering as most are to dim to catch the 'as a percentage of income' question.

I agree council tax is hideously regressive as it fails completely to take into account and the bandings etc are frankly laughable.
 
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balky12 said:
Breaking News - Rich have more disposable income than the poor.

Atleast that is how I am reading it?
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That's how I read it too. If you take in to account every tax paid and not just income tax, then yes, poor people probabley do pay a higher PERCENTAGE of tax from thier income, but not monetarily.
 
And because of UK Tax Law being so convoluted (18,000 pages of A4), those that can afford to hire a good accountant can take advantage of the system's loopholes and avoid paying a good chunk of their tax liability.
 
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

If you earn only £15,000 You are paying 12.3% tax + NI total

If you earn £30,000 you are paying 22.1%

If you earn £60,000 you are paying 30%

If you earn £150,000 you are paying 39.9%

If you earn £500,000 you are paying 44.8%

"the bottom 10% of households pay roughly 23% of their gross household income in indirect taxes on consumption "

According to the guardian in march 2014 the bottom 10% earn £8600, which means no tax or NI

VAT is 20%, food is not taxed, council tax, rent, etc does not count for consumption.

How is 23% possible? Chain smoking and binge drinking?
 
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Reading the actual data, it seems that its because of consumption - the poor don't save as much - and council tax, which is a hideous tax that no government has a plan to improve.
 
a1ex2001 said:
Interesting that they are quoting figures as % of income what is the total amount in pounds paid by the richest compared to the total amount in pounds paid by the poorest as I suspect that is the question the public are answering as most are to dim to catch the 'as a percentage of income' question.

I agree council tax is hideously regressive as it fails completely to take into account and the bandings etc are frankly laughable.
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Warren-LARGE.jpg
 
I have not done any reading on this so happy to be corrected but what I believe is meant is that the poorest 10% pay a higher percentage of their income in tax than the top 10%. With things like VAT and council tax I find this completely believable but very sad.

The realist in me is not surprised, the rich always generally get richer after all. I would love to see,some real reform and simplification of,the tax system in the UK to fix this.

-edit- That Elizabeth Warren quote nicely sums up my thoughts actually.
 
Mucky_Pup said:
That's how I read it too. If you take in to account every tax paid and not just income tax, then yes, poor people probabley do pay a higher PERCENTAGE of tax from thier income, but not monetarily.
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Exactly. If you are 'poor' and most of your wage is eaten up my income tax, council tax, fueling your car and couple luxuary items (beer and fags) then you will pay more as a % than someone who is on an obscene wage but most of it is disposable...

Rich still pay more tax in monetary terms.
 
No shock at all. Won't be a popular view with many on here and I am sure they will pop along to defend it. Rather than actually discuss measures to actually reduce the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor I am sure they'll be more than happy to sidetrack it into a debate on the semantics of measurement.

balky12 said:
Rich still pay more tax in monetary terms.
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Only because they are afforded to at everyone else's expense. If one individual were to take every single asset in this country and keep it for themselves then I would wager they would contribute more than everyone else if we were to look at things that way. But for me when people in the city are living it up with 10k bottles of champagne when outside there are people sleeping on the streets (or not if their are little spikes everywhere) then there is something drastically wrong with that society and how it priorities the values of human life and imaginary monetary value.
 
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balky12 said:
Breaking News - Rich have more disposable income than the poor.

Atleast that is how I am reading it?
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Then you're reading it wrong (assuming you didn't mean to ask that question).

The blatantly obvious point, explicitly stated, is about public perception of taxation and relative wealth and poverty and how that perception differs dramatically from reality.

A widespread perception usually leads to widespread support or demand for socio-political policies based on that perception. If the perception is extremely inaccurate, the policies will be unfair.

A widespread perception about a group of people leads to widespread beliefs about that group based on that perception. If the perception is extremely inaccurate, the beliefs will be irrational prejudices.

Given the ongoing propaganda campaign against the poor, it's probably worse now than it was when this survey was done.
 
Which is an argument for evidence based policy not appeal to the majority with false promises and appeasement. Especially when that majority actually have their worldview shaped into quite a narrow and inaccurate focus by a few select individuals.
 
hurfdurf said:
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No idea why that's pointed at me! I was just pointing out that the majority of people being asked the question probably didn't understand the statistical measure being used so answered incorrectly and that they probably believed correctly that in terms of total pounds paid the rich contribute more?

I agree with everything in you post and would happily vote fora party that committed to a sensible and fare council tax reform but unfortunately current party politics are dominated by the smoke and mirrors that is Immigration, extremism and Europe.
 
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