The OP is wrong, the poor may pay a higher *PERCENTAGE* of tax but the amount of tax paid is absolutely lower than the richer. Which is a fairly natural outcome when there are things like council tax and poor people spend more money on taxable luxuries than on savings as a percentage relative to richer people. A big TV and sky subsriction is a lot more tax percentage for someone on min wage vs 6figure salary.
British public wrongly believe rich pay most in tax
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lol
The OP isn't wrong he didn't qualify how he was measuring it. (in fact he later did by using the word percentage which I am guessing you missed)
Bit of warped view on reality. Not everyone in the city can afford 10k bottles of champagne. Yes some do, it's the same in every city world wide.
You can only get paid what someone thinks you a worth. So if you can command a six figure salary and live it up then why not? You've earnt it.
There are homeless people in the city to... it's not all champagne here. But quite a few homeless people are homeless because of choices they made in life. Ideally no one would be homeless, but this is reality.
Would your solution be stop people earning 6 figure salaries until everyone has a job and no one is homeless?
People who are richer consume more per capita than people who are poorer. That should be obvious. The poor don't save as much because they haven't got it to save. That's a result, not a cause.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Soldato
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Amended that for you.
Did I say everyone in the city? Oh no I didn't. Feel free to carry on though as if I did if you wish to say something.
Well I wouldn't say I read it wrong. I just understand that the poor have more of their wage sacrificed to tax as a percentage compared to the rich.
Dunno, maybe changes for rental properties vs owned properties?
Put some emphasis on landlors paying a percentage of it for their rental properties.
Yes landlords could just pass this on but I'm sure there could be a way to protect tenants from that happening.
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Indeed, but saved money earns interest and that interest is taxed lightly, whereas consumption is taxed heavily.
So the richer get taxed less proportionally.
Also, as you go into the very-rich status, the bulk of your income stops going through PAYE at all, as its all dividends from investments. Which is taxed much less than PAYE again.
That aside, I asked a question on how we reform council tax. One nightmare at a time eh.
'when people in the city' but meh. I'm not here to pull apart grammatical issues.
I would be interested in hearing how you would get homeless people off the street?
The title is wrong and misleading, percentage gives absolutely no meaning to words like "most" tax. The truth is the poor pay the least tax, quite substantially, but that happens to be a higher percentage which is natural because they have a lower total.
The funny thing is replacing council tax with thatcher's Poll tax would reduce the poor's tax percentage due to lower rates for low income households but the poor rejected that and got a system where they have to pay more council tax!. Better still would be local income tax.
[TW]Fox;26463441 said:
I don't see why that's of any relevance to the discussion. Presumably you'd agree it'd be pretty dumb to introduce a taxation system that required everyone, irregardless of income or wealth, to pay the same amount of tax in actual rather than percentage terms i.e. say everyone has to pay £50k a year in tax.
Loving that Elizabeth Warren quote
I would consider using income tax instead. What is the point of an ongoing tax for not being homeless?
However, in reality if I was a politician I would probably continue with the status quo. There's not much point in a politician going against the status quo because that will probably result in them having no position in politics and thus no power to make any changes even if they wanted to.
You perceive it to be wrong and misleading because of the paradigm you view this through. However, it is quite different from mine and I therefore believe it to not be wrong and misleading. I think the poor more tax, quite substantially.
But the OP is also about the perception and how that is used to drive policy.
Person A on £12k gross a year.
£1k a month gross wage.
£600 of that goes towards taxes. (income/Council/VAT/Duty, etc.)
60% of wage has gone to tax.
Person B on £120k gross a year.
£10k a month gross wage
£5k of that goes on same taxes.
50% of wage has gone on tax.
Yes the poorer person pays more as a percentage. But monetary the richer person pays ~8x more tax.
£1k a month gross wage.
£600 of that goes towards taxes. (income/Council/VAT/Duty, etc.)
60% of wage has gone to tax.
Person B on £120k gross a year.
£10k a month gross wage
£5k of that goes on same taxes.
50% of wage has gone on tax.
Yes the poorer person pays more as a percentage. But monetary the richer person pays ~8x more tax.
Exactly, its a poorly written piece and amounts to the left wing version of the Daily Mail. Theres too much interchanging of the rich pay less tax (which is obviously untrue) to the rich pay less proportion of their income in taxes, something which the Op has done too.
The bottom 10% apparently earn on average £11,070 before tax a year. So they pay income tax on £1070. My preference would be to make the tax free limit at minimum wage, so people on minimum wage are taken out of income tax all together and slowly increase minimum wage to something thats liveable on.
I don't see why that's of any relevance to the discussion. Presumably you'd agree it'd be pretty dumb to introduce a taxation system that required everyone, irregardless of income or wealth, to pay the same amount of tax in actual rather than percentage terms i.e. say everyone has to pay £50k a year in tax.
Loving that Elizabeth Warren quote
Figures with absolute values would actually allow you to state things like "who pays the most tax". Percentages don't tell you anything without knowing the totals. The graph doesn't show what your title suggests.
Poor people have a lower total income so their tax percentage is higher. A poor person buys a £1000 net TV paying £200 VAT which will be 17% of the bottom wage jobs. Someone on 6 figures does the same and that is only 0.2%.
Council tax aside, which desperately need making more progressive, What is the solution? Ban poor people from buying luxuries and force them to put money into savings accounts instead? Force poor people to buy fruit and vegetable and cook homemade meals tax free vs buying frozen pizzas, sunnyD and fast food?
The primary tax, IT is very progressive at low salaries so that isn't the problem.