Soldato
I know that. My point was “see how you feel about income tax when it and NI contributions when 40% of your gross pay is taken by the state”.
Tax.... what is everyone’s problem with it?
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I know that. My point was “see how you feel about income tax when it and NI contributions when 40% of your gross pay is taken by the state”.
Soldato
They can't, but that isn't the point.
Some people don't realise is that you are supposed to earn more over time. You cannot expect luxuries such as a new car on low wages.
Educated or not, you could be working for 18k per year full time age 21. You aren't supposed to stay on that forever! Just the most basic form of ownership and initiative allows you to progress over time to the bigger dollah.
Not sure I’ll ever earn that much! Current effective tax rate is 30% of what I earn.
@OpenToSuggestions I agree public money is often spent poorly, but that’s a different debate. There’s always people who will pay more tax than they benefit, and benefit more than they pay (you never split a restaurant bill!)
@Deus Ex agree to an extent, but given the right environment there’s no reason that those kids couldn’t be your dr/nurse/carer when your elderly, and if that’s impossible isn’t that the problem? Not that they were born?
Completely agree with the inequality of tax though, only have to look at people running single employee limited companies
Well yes, most people buy new cars using financing. My point was more around luxuries. Tax only works when it is fair. It depends on your definition of what basic needs are. You shouldn't get taxed on the amount you need to earn to cover your basic needs. You could argue this is the living wage level. Deciding how much to tax after that is the difficult bit!
I think my biggest issue is council tax. I've never been in trouble with the police or had a fire etc, so I'm effectively paying about a grand per year to have my bins emptied and the vast majority of that goes to the pen-pushers.
National insurance is becoming less value for money too because I've not been able to get a GP appointment since 2016. Secondary care is still good (hospital appts), but primary care no longer exists because all of the appointments are gone when I try to book first thing by phone or online
No you're not.
If you've not been poisoned by your local takeaway then you've used council services, if you've not bought fake goods, you've used their services. They do far more than empty bins.
Soldato
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It's not the tax that's really the problem, it's the incompetent people wasting the money
I'd feel pretty ****ing happy, seeing as you only pay 35% on a £100,000 a year and don't hit that 40% mark until around 130k. That puts you in the top 1% of earners in the UK, and you want to contribute less?
Where are you getting those rates from? Effective tax rate? They’re certainly not the marginal rates.
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On an income of £130,000 with a pension contribution of 3% your take-home is £76,596 under current tax levels. Which is an effective tax rate of 41.8% including NI. Using the same metrics with a pre-tax income of £120,000 the take-home is £72,699, a contribution of 39.4%.
So that 40% mark falls somewhere between £120,000 and £130,000. The average pension contribution is between 2-3%, so I went with 3. Although I think this has increased to 4% recently.
I haven't included VAT or council tax etc. as they're independent of your earnings and Terminal Boy hadn't mentioned them.
It's generous to include pension contributions. You can always opt out, and that is still your money when you contribute (not taken by the state).
Average tax is 40% only when you are earning close to £160k currently.
So if we took the fire and police services away from your area, do you think you'd have the same quality of life?I think my biggest issue is council tax. I've never been in trouble with the police or had a fire etc, so I'm effectively paying about a grand per year to have my bins emptied and the vast majority of that goes to the pen-pushers.
National insurance is becoming less value for money too because I've not been able to get a GP appointment since 2016. Secondary care is still good (hospital appts), but primary care no longer exists because all of the appointments are gone when I try to book first thing by phone or online
Just because you've not talked to the police, doesn't mean they haven't benefited you.
Permabanned
Nobody likes taxes because ultimately we are all selfish and dont want to see people freeloading. We dont want a society, we want our own little castles/countries and everyone else be damned. (but retain the rights to all the services we consume of course)
I’m pretty sure anyone hitting 6 figure salaries will be paying more than 3% and not opting out, so I hardly find that figure generous
Probably the unfortunate truth, but I would love it if people bragged about how much tax they paid rather than what crap car they have financed
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Not generous, but fair... can't be applying different rules for different people, right?
My point still stands though, had I been paying 40% of my earnings into tax and NI I'd be in the top 1% of earners and would have no qualms with that amount.
I like taxes. Taxes pay for a lot of services, admittedly very few that I have personally used but I have certainly benefited from them through third parties. The only time I seem to hear complaints about tax it's from two camps, those that don't understand marginal tax rates and those that earn multiple times more than the average person.
Caporegime
13.5% for me in the NHS.
Why is that a problem?
40% tax isn't unreasonable. You take home most of what you earn.
Would you rather take 100% and not have an automatic right to use roads, schools, the NHS, the police, etc.
In which case sure, take 100%. It's up to you to protect that 100% and all your possessions from others, and to provide for yourself all the services you need. Society won't lift a finger to help you unless you get your wallet out. Have fun.
Also better make sure you have sufficient funds to cover yourself in case you get sick and are unable to work. Otherwise when your savings run out we'll just leave you to starve in a pool of your own ****. No money, no help. No protection from society.
You know what - taking home 60% of what you earn is actually really great deal. Unless you're blowing all your earnings on crack every weekend, you should be living very comfortably indeed.
Lol. And they say entitlement is a problem of the poor. Nope. We can all be entitled, as this post ably demonstrates.
The attitude towards tax intrigues me. Certainly as far as PAYE goes at least, it may as well be made up. You never get that money, you never see it and it baffles me that people get so upset at the fact their pay slip says 2000 minus 500, you get 1500.
I wonder if people would be as upset if they were just told their salary was 1500 and their employer was paying the 500 behind the scenes.
Psychologically I don't register it as someone taking my money away - I just don't register having it in the first place.
I wonder if people would be as upset if they were just told their salary was 1500 and their employer was paying the 500 behind the scenes.
Psychologically I don't register it as someone taking my money away - I just don't register having it in the first place.
It's not tax though. If you are contributing to your own pension you can't class that as tax, and use it as some kind of high taxation argument.
Caporegime
Until you get an AA bill. Bonus tax, on money that doesn’t really exist.