Budget 2018

That's a nice story. Even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with our tax system or the way the real world works.
 
You earn more you pay more tax, it really is that simple. You do not get a tax break due to your wealth its beyond stupid.

We all know a nurse/carer is far more important than a bloody banker to society, yet the banker gets paid 20fold more for farting around with excel spreadsheets and creating a good old fashioned lie on a power-point slide. The entire system is utterly out of balance and the only way to address it is a seed change of policy and how we measure success.

I for one am looking forward to general strikes if the next governments do nothing to address it.
 
Electoral reform is a must if we ever want meaningful change. It's just a shame that it'll never happen, since neither Labour nor the Tories will allow it. Ie, won't even allow it to be voted on. Ever. (unless something absurd like the AV vote that was guaranteed to be rejected since nobody ever asked for AV).
 
Mate, aren't you a 40 year old bloke who lives with your mum still? What do you know about the real world?
I'd post some statistics about the prevalence of my own circumstances at a national level, but I suspect you mostly just posted to attack me, rather than wanting to debate any specific issue. Should I bother in that case?

Question: would my opinions or viewpoints be any more or less valid if I handed over 50% of my income to rent a dingy 1-bedroom flat? I know for a certainty that I would be financially crippled in so doing, and therefore have elected not to harm myself in such a way.

I really do fail to see how my personal circumstances prevent me from gaining an understanding of the world. Perhaps you might explain.

Or you might just carry on with the ad-hominems. Is that your level? Is that all you've got?

On a related note, >25% of house purchases now are part funded by parents (such as paying 100% of the deposit). Are such people also not living in the real world? Or are you specifically aggrieved by the idea that a person might get along with his parents well enough to live with them? :p
 
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That's a nice story. Even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with our tax system or the way the real world works.

It was an illustration of why your complaint re: "Over £50k earners will get a tax break more than 600% of those on the average UK wage." was possibly a bit misplaced.
 
It was an illustration of why your complaint re: "Over £50k earners will get a tax break more than 600% of those on the average UK wage." was possibly a bit misplaced.
Those earning £50k won't be paying 6x the tax that avg wage earners do. Since you only pay higher tax rates on the sum exceeding the higher tax threshold.

According to the IFS: £50k earners will get a tax break amounting to £152 or more; avg wage earners will save ~£25; NMW earners will get about £10.

So... explain that, please. Higher rate kicks in at £46k. Are the IFS wrong?

Additionally a report quote (via BBC) from the IFS stated that "these measures will primarily benefit the higher paid".

Tories gonna Tory.
 
I never said the IFS are wrong, I'm talking about your complaint being a bit misplaced and being put into context, the other posted gave a simple illustration, this post sums it up nicely too.

1.7 million are no longer paying any tax at all. How are they meant to give further tax breaks than paying zero tax?

The 40% band has not followed inflation and this is them correcting it. It's only giving a larger hard number tax reduction for higher tax payers because they pay 40% of their income in tax. The top 10% of the population has increased in their income tax contribution from 55% in 2008 to 60% in 2016 (source). The ongoing direction is the top 10% continue to pay more and more of the overall income tax burden.

In fact, when you look at public spending and tax credits vs tax paid, the only people actually contributing is the top 3 decile.
 
Tories gonna Tory.

Sigh.

You can't give tax breaks to earners that barely pay any tax in the first place. You eventually just end up giving them other peoples money, and it builds resentment.

When I was on minimum wage I looked at my tax contributions for the year and it was no more than £500 and I even had tax credit coming in that pretty much offest that. I was paying NOTHING to the tax man pretty much. What more can the government do other than continue to raise the PTA and raise the NMW? When you pay more tax any tax cuts ARE ALWAYS going to be more substantial the more you earn. Like above posters have said, the only way to address this would be flat tax rates and I feel that would harm lower earners more than the current system, there would even still be whinging then because of course 2% of 50k is more £s than 2% of 15k.

So, the Tories gonna Tory? Of course they are, why would they not incentivise their target voters? Labour did for over a decade with the ****ing tax credit system that effectively screwed (broke even) the low end labour market by subsidising companies and keeping workers trapped in low pay as employers expected them to make it up through TC claims, and I believe this is what UC is eventually going to correct. I HATE POLITICS and the way it makes me realise how they just play off sectors of the populace against each other.

I was a low earner under both Labour and Tory governments, and it was much better for me since 2010 (PTA increases, improving employment figures, more jobs going around and NMW rises) prior to that I was a mixture of unemployed, in work but low hours and generally felt trapped between work and benefits and felt like that was exactly where the government wanted me.

Some people just hate the Tories for the absolute joy of it.
 
You earn more you pay more tax, it really is that simple. You do not get a tax break due to your wealth its beyond stupid.

I disagree. Generally the whole thing ticks like a pendulum. When Labour come in they tend to tax more to help the poor and when the Tories come in the wealthy get tax breaks and the poor get less and thus it gets repeated over time like a pendulum from one side to the other.

It is right the wealthy pay more to help the poor, but it is also right the poor appreciates where that money comes from, something too many take for granted. A tax break shows the people that already pay for virtually everything they arent a cash cow to be milked constantly, and when another government comes in and increases taxes, it tells the wealthy that they have to give more to help for the greater good.

On the otherside a tax break for the wealthy shows the poor that they cant take for granted that someone else is always going to pay for the things they want thus a feeling of entitlement and when another government comes in and increases taxes on the wealthy it shows the poor that the wealthy are having to pay more to help give them some breathing space and help improve the services they rely on.
 
Giving a tax break to the rich is nothing but a slap in the face to the poor who helped put them their in the first place. Sure you might have worked hard to get a well paid job, but the person who is cleaning your toilet is also working just as hard, same as as a nurse benefiting society more than a banker (gambler)

A general strike is needed to stop the pendulum swinging as you put it and try something new for the benefit of everyone not the few. Hell the pendulum is not even swinging anymore its stuck in the I am rich and screw you position.

I guess we see this from different sides of the coin, finding the edge so it balances requires significant changes in how everything is done.
 
Giving a tax break to the rich is nothing but a slap in the face to the poor who helped put them their in the first place.

You may like to convince yourself this is true but it's utter BS. We are talking about raising the higher rate, not the top limit for the really wealthy
 
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We all know a nurse/carer is far more important than a bloody banker to society, yet the banker gets paid 20fold more for farting around with excel spreadsheets and creating a good old fashioned lie on a power-point slide.

Yes a nurse/carer is far more important than a banker, but the obvious point when it comes to private/public sector is that private sector pays much better because they exist to make a profit, if the company does well then generally the employees are rewarded with pay-rises and such. How exactly do you do that in a public sector such as the NHS when they are only given a pool of money to function from? The only way you increase that pool is either greater taxation, or by turning health care private and making people pay for it (not that i'm advocating that BTW!). Same principle applies to teaching, if people want teachers to earn more, then either they need to pay more tax, or be expected to fund it privately.

People need to remove this stigma of how a job benefits society versus how much they get paid. I like to believe that most nurses/carers don't choose the job because of how little it's paid, but because of the job satisfaction they get from helping other people.

You can't give tax breaks to earners that barely pay any tax in the first place. You eventually just end up giving them other peoples money, and it builds resentment.

As you've already alluded to, technically low earners have been given massive tax breaks. A couple between them will now be able to earn 25k tax free!

With NLW set to £8.21 that means a typical 40hr week FT will earn 17k, and only pay tax on 4.5k. At the end of the last labour government they would have had to have paid tax on 11k of that.

Labour might pledge to increase that NLW much higher, but you can almost guarantee the PTA would drop significantly and then cancel out any increases that a higher NLW would bring.

I do find it astounding when people claim tories are gonna tory, when their policies incentivise those who actually work.
 
but it is also right the poor appreciates where that money comes from, something too many take for granted.

You make good points, but personally i don't believe for a second that the poorer end of society appreciates where money comes from. Part of the problem is that schools don't teach anything to do with the taxation system, and how much money is required to run all public services.

Similar to @Stumble Bum example with the 10 men going for a beer. Schools should demonstrate that if they break down the costs of running things like the NHS, providing education, defence, and running street lights down to each individual person, the majority of the population wouldn't be able to pay for their fair share. But rather than denying people the use of the services that they can't pay for, we rely on those who can more than afford it, to pay for other peoples share.
 
personally i don't believe for a second that the poorer end of society appreciates where money comes from.

Oh absolutely, in fact I dont think any one gives a damn that someone else is paying for the services they want and use. They just want to scream and shout at how such and such a service is on its knees while contributing nothing to the running of such a service. Its the old "we want great services so long as someone else is paying for it"
 
Giving a tax break to the rich is nothing but a slap in the face to the poor who helped put them their in the first place. Sure you might have worked hard to get a well paid job, but the person who is cleaning your toilet is also working just as hard, same as as a nurse benefiting society more than a banker (gambler)

This is just silliness, as per the previous posts the poor actually benefit more from this budget. With regards to tax breaks you can't exactly give much of a tax break to people who don't pay any tax in the first place (or pay relatively little) so of course the people who pay disproportionate amounts of tax will get a disproportionate tax break when the government is able to reduce taxation - which they ought to be aiming to do when they're able to.

It makes no sense that changes to taxation should only go in one direction, inevitably when you reduce taxation you'll be giving the rich tax breaks.
 
We all know a nurse/carer is far more important than a bloody banker to society, yet the banker gets paid 20fold more for farting around with excel spreadsheets and creating a good old fashioned lie on a power-point slide. The entire system is utterly out of balance and the only way to address it is a seed change of policy and how we measure success.

Without the banking system you wouldn't have nurses.

Seems a lot of people here don't have a clue how much banking / financial sector effects the rest of society.
 
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