Tax - Wheres the incentive to earn more

Man of Honour
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it just feels so demotivating to try to work harder when you get less than half of it in return.
Au contraire mon ami, au contraire. If you worked REALLY hard then you would pay it off and no longer see 9/10% or whatever of take home going to student loan. You should be MORE motivated to earn more money, not less.

Although I look forward to the thread when you hit six figures and realise your marginal tax rate goes up another 20% due the personal allowance being clawed back... :)
 
Associate
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I can't agree with the idea that Scotlands finances are in any way sound or a model to follow.

Scotland has the most spent per citizen in the whole union and spends £15B more than Scotland collects in taxes.

And in glorious hypocrisy the SNP shot down a £191M package from the UK government to support Scottish universities suffering recent financial problems because it doesn't suit the Scottish independence image.

Scotland isn't capable of paying its own bills and the SNP is full of **** about how they'd fix the deficit with independence.

Shoving the entire burden of higher education on those who succeed has its downsides but someone has to balance the books eventually and it's not going to be the poor.

Ok, disregarding Scotland, what about: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, CZ, Germany, Iceland, Austria.

The 'books' will be balanced by the higher taxes that those highly educated people bring in. It's an investment in the future of the country, just as education from 4-18 is. I'm actually not even arguing for totally free tuition, that'll never happen with the amount of regressive people in our country. But our current system is a total mess.
 
Soldato
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Ok, disregarding Scotland, what about: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, CZ, Germany, Iceland, Austria.

The 'books' will be balanced by the higher taxes that those highly educated people bring in. It's an investment in the future of the country, just as education from 4-18 is. I'm actually not even arguing for totally free tuition, that'll never happen with the amount of regressive people in our country. But our current system is a total mess.

I knew a little about Scotland but why don't you explain why the next 9 countries have a higher education funding scheme that could be copied into the UK.

Can't say for sure but that next one on your list, Norway, has a sovereign wealth fund of ~ 1 trillion euros from oil and a population of ~ 5 million. It might as well be a lottery winner in a housing estate and I don't think the UK can copy its financial strategy.

It's not magic. Around 2014/15 the UK received 514B, spent 743B and would have needed to increase the 3B to universities by 14.6B to cover that years tuition fees, less if you don't cover foreigners tuition fees. You would have to gamble that you'd get a 3% increase in tax revenue to cover that and since people are already going through university on student loans to pay higher rate taxes I'm not seeing what the optimism of a 3% spike in taxes would be based on.
 
Soldato
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You're only deferring your tax liability to when you retire.

But you'll be avoiding the 9% student loan repayment. Assuming you don't pay off the loan and it simply expires after 30 years, dumping money in to your pension would be one way to reduce the amount you repay.
 
Associate
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I knew a little about Scotland but why don't you explain why the next 9 countries have a higher education funding scheme that could be copied into the UK.

Can't say for sure but that next one on your list, Norway, has a sovereign wealth fund of ~ 1 trillion euros from oil and a population of ~ 5 million. It might as well be a lottery winner in a housing estate and I don't think the UK can copy its financial strategy.

Broadly they pay for all of their public services by having a higher tax rate - for which they generally receive much better services, possibly indicating why they're mostly at or near the top of the world happiness index year after year. How much of that higher rate in % terms goes specifically to fund universities who knows, probably not that much.

Perhaps instead you could explain why a system where people are leaving university with £40-50k of debt at an interest rate of >5% is appropriate for a rich first world country when so many of our peers on the world stage can do it for much cheaper and in some cases free? Or why tuition needed to be tripled in the first place back in ~2012? (hint: it was because the gov at the time pursued a misguided austerity program which caused untold misery, lost economic growth, wage stagflation, ended the LDs as a political force (lol) etc)

It's not magic. Around 2014/15 the UK received 514B, spent 743B and would have needed to increase the 3B to universities by 14.6B to cover that years tuition fees, less if you don't cover foreigners tuition fees. You would have to gamble that you'd get a 3% increase in tax revenue to cover that and since people are already going through university on student loans to pay higher rate taxes I'm not seeing what the optimism of a 3% spike in taxes would be based on.

You wouldn't have to 'gamble' anything. Simply balancing tax take vs expenditure is a bit pointless and simplistic. A country is not a household and running at a deficit isn't necessarily a problem if your economy is growing. Unsure why you'd include international students in the figures, clearly they would be charged differently - although some of those countries even offer free tuition to other EU citizens :eek:.

Please note that I specifically said I wasn't arguing for zero tuition fees, rather that the current system is unfair. The previous iteration of student loans were 'ok' if only because virtually all of what was paid back was capital from the loan rather than interest. Meaning people on relatively average salaries had a hope of clearing them well before the 30 year write off. Apparently 3/4 of people will not pay the current style loans off despite paying them for 30 years. If that's not an indication the system is broken then I don't know what is.
 
Man of Honour
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Just wait until the OP realises what the effective rate of tax is over the 100k threshold because of what happends to your personal allowance.
 
Soldato
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Yes I realise I may be coming across in a bad light..

Maybe i should feel better about my position but I don't seem to think like that.. I always want more for myself.

Worst I get paid a lot of money and want to pay less tax thread I've seen.

So you graduated, within 4 years you own a house and a flat. I imagine mummy and daddy didn't help at all ;)

I'm going to laugh when/if you have kids and you realise the nursery costs.
 
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OP
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Broadly they pay for all of their public services by having a higher tax rate - for which they generally receive much better services, possibly indicating why they're mostly at or near the top of the world happiness index year after year. How much of that higher rate in % terms goes specifically to fund universities who knows, probably not that much.

Perhaps instead you could explain why a system where people are leaving university with £40-50k of debt at an interest rate of >5% is appropriate for a rich first world country when so many of our peers on the world stage can do it for much cheaper and in some cases free? Or why tuition needed to be tripled in the first place back in ~2012? (hint: it was because the gov at the time pursued a misguided austerity program which caused untold misery, lost economic growth, wage stagflation, ended the LDs as a political force (lol) etc)



You wouldn't have to 'gamble' anything. Simply balancing tax take vs expenditure is a bit pointless and simplistic. A country is not a household and running at a deficit isn't necessarily a problem if your economy is growing. Unsure why you'd include international students in the figures, clearly they would be charged differently - although some of those countries even offer free tuition to other EU citizens :eek:.

Please note that I specifically said I wasn't arguing for zero tuition fees, rather that the current system is unfair. The previous iteration of student loans were 'ok' if only because virtually all of what was paid back was capital from the loan rather than interest. Meaning people on relatively average salaries had a hope of clearing them well before the 30 year write off. Apparently 3/4 of people will not pay the current style loans off despite paying them for 30 years. If that's not an indication the system is broken then I don't know what is.

Totally agree.

The difference in the amount you pay for tuition between plan 1 and plan 2 is ridiculous. Not sure why I'm getting so much hate, my main argument is just the interest rate of the student loan, which is causing me to pay additional tax for probably 10-20 years longer than if the rate was reasonable.
 
Soldato
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The difference in the amount you pay for tuition between plan 1 and plan 2 is ridiculous. Not sure why I'm getting so much hate, my main argument is just the interest rate of the student loan, which is causing me to pay additional tax for probably 10-20 years longer than if the rate was reasonable.
Don't listen. People project their insecurities on to others, that's not on you.
 
Soldato
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The difference in the amount you pay for tuition between plan 1 and plan 2 is ridiculous. Not sure why I'm getting so much hate, my main argument is just the interest rate of the student loan, which is causing me to pay additional tax for probably 10-20 years longer than if the rate was reasonable.

3% over RPI isn't an unreasonable interest rate. You're young and have probably only ever been aware of interest rates while they've been zero, so I guess thinking it is unfair is understandable.

As has been said a few times now though. If you don't want to keep paying interest for 10-20 years, then just pay it off, there are no early repayment penalties. Be thankful you're earning enough to be able to pay it off easily.
 
Soldato
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I do sympathise with the OP. A guy I sit next to at work is the exact same age as me. I went to university in 2011, he took a gap year and went in 2012. I'm on plan 1, he's on plan 2. We earn similar money (good for our age), I will have my loan paid off in <4 years probably, his loan capital is getting bigger. I joke and ask him if that gap year was worth it :D.


Just logged on to my SLC account to check
Your interest
1.1%

It's completely unfair that I start Uni on the last year of the old plan. And people who happen to be born 1 year after me who earned the same as me would not be any closer to paying off their loan and yet I am.
 
Permabanned
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I paid my student loan off a month ago (30 y/o), I didn't really care as it just felt like another deduction. Nice to have a bit of extra cash though, its a pretty large chunk per month. When I got to 6 figures I literally paid it off in no time (plan 1)
 
Associate
OP
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I do sympathise with the OP. A guy I sit next to at work is the exact same age as me. I went to university in 2011, he took a gap year and went in 2012. I'm on plan 1, he's on plan 2. We earn similar money (good for our age), I will have my loan paid off in <4 years probably, his loan capital is getting bigger. I joke and ask him if that gap year was worth it :D.


Just logged on to my SLC account to check


It's completely unfair that I start Uni on the last year of the old plan. And people who happen to be born 1 year after me who earned the same as me would not be any closer to paying off their loan and yet I am.

Cheers. Yep yours is 1.1 and 3k per year and mine is currently 5.6% and 9k per year. Massive difference. Funny thing is the only reason why I'm on plan 2 is because I missed 5 years of school (managed to catch up 4 of the years) due to being sexually assaulted. Otherwise I'd be on plan 1. Yeah that's life. Maybe TMI buts it's true!
 
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