Poll: Poll: Prime Minister Theresa May calls General Election on June 8th

[Greebo]

I don't



AFAIK this affects the top 5% of earners - at least according to Labour, I'm not sure where your 2% is coming from?

regardless of what % it affects I thought I'd been clear before - I'm referring to the labour policy of increasing income tax for amounts above 80k (whether this is paid via PAYE or not isn't really relevant)

this also has little to do with your side points about some self employed people making use of dividends, entrepreneurs relief etc..etc..

if labour want to propose raising the rate of tax for dividends then great, I'd support that - but that isn't being proposed and that isn't what my post related to...

Sigh. Top 5% of earners does not mean top 5% of employees. It just means the the top 5% of earners in the country. Full stop. Looking at the stats, only one or two percent of EMPLOYEES earn over £80k per annum. They are not the majority of the "top earners" Labour are referring to here.

So increasing taxes on the top 5% of earners will affect more self employed than it does employees hence where my 2% of employees comes from.

 

[dowie]

Sigh. Top 5% of earners does not mean top 5% of employees. It just means the the top 5% of earners in the country. Full stop. Looking at the stats, only one or two percent of EMPLOYEES earn over £80k per annum. They are not the majority of the "top earners" Labour are referring to here.

So increasing taxes on the top 5% of earners will affect more self employed than it does employees.

Sigh. You keep trying to make points about PAYE, or self employed vs employed that have nothing to do with what I've posted. I've not made any points that exclusively referred to PAYE

Again I'm simply referring to the labour policy of increasing income tax for people earning over 80k per year - I'm not sure why you're having difficulty understanding that and seem to keep diverting from it.

like I said before I don't know where you're getting your 2% figure from anyway...

 

[Greebo]

Sigh. You keep trying to make points about PAYE, or self employed vs employed that have nothing to do with what I've posted. I've not made any points that exclusively referred to PAYE

Again I'm simply referring to the labour policy of increasing income tax for people earning over 80k per year - I'm not sure why you're having difficulty understanding that and seem to keep diverting from it.

like I said before I don't know where you're getting your 2% figure from anyway...

But you and others say this 5% pay high rates of tax already and my point is, a lot of them dont. Yes the employees on over £80k do but the self employed dont. You then keep saying over and over you arent talking about the the self employed yet Labour is saying the top 5% earners. They arent the employees in the main.

So why are you struggling with this basic fact? Its like banging my head against a brick wall. the top 5% earners in the UK is mainly the self employed. I am not diverting, its you that seems to be on a mission so show that labour is trying to tax the top 5% employees who already pay a massive amount of tax whereas they are in fact trying to tax the top 5% earners who are mainly self employed.

So why shouldn't they pay a little bit more to the benefit of the country?

the 2% is based on the fact that the top 5% EMPLOYEES you only need £58k to get into that section and the top 1% of employees earn over 122k. Therefore the number of employees earning over £80 must be between 1% and 5% and looking at the distrubiton it is going to eb closer to 1% than 5%.

 

[Six6siX]

Sigh. Top 5% of earners does not mean top 5% of employees. It just means the the top 5% of earners in the country. Full stop. Looking at the stats, only one or two percent of EMPLOYEES earn over £80k per annum. They are not the majority of the "top earners" Labour are referring to here.

So increasing taxes on the top 5% of earners will affect more self employed than it does employees hence where my 2% of employees comes from.

I might have missed it but is there a source that shows a breakdown of the £80k+ earners into PAYE and self employed?

I find myself agreeing with dowie on this one - the 'high earners' regardless of whether they are PAYE or self employed already pay a lot of tax proportionally. Anecdotal but for what it's worth to address the breakdown you mention, I know a lot of people in this bracket who are PAYE - more than I do who are self employed. Income tax needs to be simplified in general and a different approach to taxation - such as one that considers wealth or consumption, as suggested - needs to be looked into imo. Someone on £80k isn't necessarily wealthy and slapping a bit of extra tax raises a few quid but doesn't address the disparity.

 

[Greebo]

I might have missed it but is there a source that shows a breakdown of the £80k+ earners into PAYE and self employed?

I find myself agreeing with dowie on this one - the 'high earners' regardless of whether they are PAYE or self employed already pay a lot of tax proportionally. Anecdotal but for what it's worth to address the breakdown you mention, I know a lot of people in this bracket who are PAYE - more than I do who are self employed. Income tax needs to be simplified in general and a different approach to taxation - such as one that considers wealth or consumption, as suggested - needs to be looked into imo. Someone on £80k isn't necessarily wealthy and slapping a bit of extra tax raises a few quid but doesn't address the disparity.

No i cant find the exact stats splitting up earners between self employed and employees. Anecdotally I am the opposite and I suspect its to do with location. I dont know any PAYE earning over £80k per annum but I do know about 30 to 40 people all self employed that do. I suspect the biggest majority of employees earning over £80k will be London/south based.

And I do agree the PAYE employees are paying enough tax proportionally but conversely the self employed probably arent.

 

[dowie]

But you and others say this 5% pay high rates of tax already and my point is, a lot of them dont. Yes the employees on over £80k do but the self employed dont. You then keep saying over and over you arent talking about the the self employed yet Labour is saying the top 5% earners. They arent the employees in the main.

no I haven't - this is where you're getting confused a bit - I'm not talking about things like dividend income etc.. as this policy is unrelated to that. However I am talking about income tax and I'm not making a distinction between the employed and self employed there.

So why are you struggling with this basic fact? Its like banging my head against a brick wall. the top 5% earners in the UK is mainly the self employed. I am not diverting, its you that seems to be on a mission so show that labour is trying to tax the top 5% employees who already pay a massive amount of tax whereas they are in fact trying to tax the top 5% earners who are mainly self employed.

I'm not struggling, quite the opposite, I've been quite clear about what I've referred to whereas you seem to have got things a bit muddled with things like dividends etc... Not that this employed vs self employed diversion you insist on bringing up is relevant to my previous point but what exactly are you basing that claim above on re: "the top 5% earners in the UK is mainly the self employed"?

So why shouldn't they pay a little bit more to the benefit of the country?

high earners already pay disproportionately more in income tax and frankly increasing taxation doesn't necessarily result in the projected gains expected as it encourages avoidance, relocation and simply not taking on extra work - say a GP that was going to provide a Saturday morning clinic but doesn't now think it is worth it etc..

If tax increases are required then I'm in favour of increasing tax on wealth and consumption rather than income.

 

[wildman]

The trade simply moved to other exchanges, so not only does a robin hood tax fail to bring the expected revenue, it damages tax take and gdp indirectly as well.

It's economic lunacy.

as is quitting the single market, but no one seems to be batting an eyelid at that one now do they

 

[Christmas themed thank]

as is quitting the single market, but no one seems to be batting an eyelid at that one now do they

Because it's not what the people voted for...

 

[Christmas themed thank]

Well yes, that's generally what happens why a country is in deficit, you have to borrow each year to pay the bills and so debt rises due to additional debt plus interest on existing debt.

And Corbyn has the gall to whine at the Tories about his partys debt >.>

It's the growth of the debt that has slowed under the Tories. When you cut a deficit (which they've done), the growth slows down but it won't cease to increase until there is no deficit at all.

 

[ubersonic]

It's the growth of the debt that has slowed under the Tories. When you cut a deficit (which they've done), the growth slows down but it won't cease to increase until there is no deficit at all.

I know that was my point.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Speaking as a chartered tax advisor, it seems like there's a lot of cobblers being talked in here about tax.

I'm not sure why you think self employed people have the means to reduce their income tax bill so much more than employed people. The scenarios are totally different.

 

[dowie]

Speaking as a chartered tax advisor, it seems like there's a lot of cobblers being talked in here about tax.

I'm not sure why you think self employed people have the means to reduce their income tax bill so much more than employed people. The scenarios are totally different.

I assume that is in reference to claims like these?

So you have perhaps a situation where somebody earns £200k a year but pays tax on £100k per year, most of it at 40%. It then gets increased to 45% lets say so they have another 5k to pay. My point is they were perhaps only paying 20% on all their earnings so even with another £5k to pay, their overall rate of tax will still be much less than a PAYE employee on £70k per annum.

Al fayed earnt £10m one year and his tax bill was only £1m, an effective rate of 10%. Top footballers might only pay tens of thouasands of tax on millions of earnings. The list goes on and on. In general the more you earn the less percentage of tax you you pay. Its people on £50k per annum who pay the largest proportion of tax as a percentage.

 

[Vonhelmet]

That and others.

The fact he's citing ICTA '88, which is basically defunct, rather gives the game away. It's all about ITEPA '03, ITTOIA '05 and ITA '07 now.

 

[Greebo]

That and others.

The fact he's citing ICTA '88, which is basically defunct, rather gives the game away. It's all about ITEPA '03, ITTOIA '05 and ITA '07 now.

Meh I went for a quick link just show what is classified as "income".

But answer me this then. Do two people, one an employee on PAYE on 200k per annum pay the total same amount of tax as a self employed person earning £200k assuming he has done everything legal to reduce his taxable income?

If they do what do we even need tax advisors for?

 

[Six6siX]

No i cant find the exact stats splitting up earners between self employed and employees. Anecdotally I am the opposite and I suspect its to do with location. I dont know any PAYE earning over £80k per annum but I do know about 30 to 40 people all self employed that do. I suspect the biggest majority of employees earning over £80k will be London/south based.

And I do agree the PAYE employees are paying enough tax already but conversely the self employed probably arent.

I think you are right about location purely because of living costs. So I'm not sure that an increase in income tax for a particular wage bracket alone is the answer because differing circumstances contribute towards and impact their standard of living disproportionately - which is unfair.

Going purely on our anecdotal evidence, it stands to reason that an increase in tax for self employed over a particular threshold would be more suitable. But then what about the self employed people in high living cost areas? You just can't win with income tax alone. Which logically to me, seems like we need to start looking at taxation on wealth and consumption rather than income.

 

[McBain]

Diane Abbott, the gift that just keeps giving.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...et-IRA-General-Election-2017-Early-Day-Motion

Yeah, those worthless pesky MI5, what have they done for us in the past 30 years.

 

[Rroff]

I honestly have no idea how anyone can look at what Labour or the Tories are saying in this election campaign and think that it is a rationally good idea to vote for either granted most of the other alternative parties aren't a great vote either but still.

 

[Greebo]

I think you are right about location purely because of living costs. So I'm not sure that an increase in income tax for a particular wage bracket alone is the answer because differing circumstances contribute towards and impact their standard of living disproportionately - which is unfair.

Going purely on our anecdotal evidence, it stands to reason that an increase in tax for self employed over a particular threshold would be more suitable. But then what about the self employed people in high living cost areas? You just can't win with income tax alone. Which logically to me, seems like we need to start looking at taxation on wealth and consumption rather than income.

Agreed. I have always been in favour of a simplified tax system where the direct tax rates are low and the VAT (on none essential items) and other indirect rates are high. So if you dont spend it, the amount of tax you pay is less. Has its own issues though

 

[DrToffnar]

I honestly have no idea how anyone can look at what Labour or the Tories are saying in this election campaign and think that it is a rationally good idea to vote for either granted most of the other alternative parties aren't a great vote either but still.

Yep, it's a total mess. Though tbf, I'd like to meet the person who's voted in absolute confidence the last 2 decades or so...

 

[Vonhelmet]

Meh I went for a quick link just show what is classified as "income".

But answer me this then. Do two people, one an employee on PAYE on 200k per annum pay the total same amount of tax as a self employed person earning £200k assuming he has done everything legal to reduce his taxable income?

If they do what do we even need tax advisors for?

Yes, they will pay the same amount of tax, if their net taxable income is the same.

A self employed person may have legitimate business expenses which they can deduct from their top line revenue, but revenue is not the same as net taxable income. A tax adviser could tell you what your legitimate expenses are, but that's not exactly egregious.