Life is hard living on £120k a year.

Nothing personal footflaps but I find that attitude a bit trite. Maybe with two young kids my life has changed over the last few years from a disposable income perspective, or that I attribute the gain to more things I can do for them, but it means enough to me to have made a 20 minute phone call to sort it out.

If your happy to give some excess away I’m happy to email you my kids junior savings account details, it’ll mean more to them in several years and I’m sure they send Uncle Footflaps a thank you card sometime. Failing that I’m riding for charity soon, care to donate?

Well my largest monthly DD is charitable donations so I’m quite happy to give my money to worthy causes 😉

But then I’ve chosen a lifestyle where I live well within my means, no kids, no massive house, no massive car etc. Personally it works for me as I don’t have to worry about money, or in fact many things…

You and Teasel should have a get together. Do you like Tiramisu?

It’s all well and good old Footaps coming on here lecturing us all about how to live our lives, but if we all took his route the world we live in would only last another 50 yrs tops!

I’d like to see your google evidence to back that up….

Sorry Pal, it’s Friday night and the red wine is going down nicely. No time for mr Google.

@footflaps – as I and others have said it is not clear that any extra tax taken will result in a fairer society, ie one where the less well off have more relative to the rich. If you give more money to the government the first thing you’ll have is more civil servants earning more money. Also @footflaps you say you don’t care about money so I suppose we should be surprised that you want to take it away from others who you assume don’t want or need it because you as a person with no kids etc doesn’t want or need it.

The discussion re the civil servant “managing” the government pension pot what I think you’ll find is that the moe y is actually mananged by professional money mangers being paid a fee and earning more than the civil servant.

@molgrios if we had a 75% tax rate we’d have very few jobs paying £1m gross, the reason is that the businesses would rather hire someone for £600k who lived in a 40% tax jurisdiction than a someone living in the UK, in fact what you’d find is the person in the £1m job begging to be transferred to another country.

The tax burden in the UK is already very high for every £1 a high earner makes you have 45p tax 16p NI (2p employee, 14p employer) then if you spend the 39p you have left on a VATable item that’s another 14p – so total tax take from £1 earnt is 75p or 75%

Wealth inequality is very heavily skewed by the very top (if you like the Abramovich’s or Zuckerbergs) as I posted elsewhere someone on £200k is in the top 1% along with the billionaires and when people speak of the 1% they think only of the B’s. I believe the focus on inequality is a red herring. The focus should be on the wealth and lifestyle of the population overall, in various quartiles if you like. What will be seen is that everyone including the working class are much much better off.

Still only a couple of weeks now until tax freedom day in the UK…..

Tax freedom day seems late this year…..are the Tories back in government ?

The party doesnt matter Ernie – we know that. Overall tax take (in aggregate) is remarkably stable over time and different governments (I wont mention time periods though!!). Its the make-up that changes.

Tories tax too much too.

molgrios if we had a 75% tax rate we’d have very few jobs paying £1m gross

Yes I know, I’m not advocating a 75% tax band. I imagine very few people are on £1m PAYE now tbh. It’ll be bonuses.

PS your sums are wrong.

What will be seen is that everyone including the working class are much much better off.

This seems to be completely the opposite of what’s observed isn’t it? There is more to economics than simple economics, I suspect. Ask yourself WHY some countries have higher tax and higher public spending…..

@molgrips bonuses are subject to PAYE too. I’ll check my maths 😳 (yes VAT calc wrong only 8p so total tax take is 68p for every £1 earnt)

Not sure why you disagree that the working class aren’t enormously better off than they where 10, 25, 50 years ago ? Seems pretty evident to me. I think over shorter term like 10 it’s harder to call for all income bands

Tax burden is going to get greater as the population ages and fattens…

@molgrips some countries have higher tax and spending because that’s what their governments have put in place, that’s why. What is note in that in two I am familiar with, France and Germany, tax rates inc social security taxes are greater accross the whole spectrum especially the middle classes.

some countries have higher tax and spending because that’s what their governments have put in place

Yeah but why? Because the electorate voted for social governments. So the question is, why do some countries vote left and some right?

Not sure why you disagree that the working class aren’t enormously better off than they where 10, 25, 50 years ago ?

I don’t!

PS your sums are still wrong. You took employer’s NI out of the £1 earned by the employee, but it doesn’t come out of that. Plus your sums only apply to those £s over the 40% threshold. No-one pays that on ALL their salary.

@molgrips I was trying to demonstrate total tax burden, employer and employee and yes of course it’s only on the amount over the 45% threshold which is £150k but as we where discussing top rates of tax I was focused on the marginal rate tax burden.

As to why some countries vote left or right I couldn’t tell you. Why do we in the UK alternate between periods of left and right ? One side screws up so loses power. I think in the UK in my memory power has been lost not won.

Why do we in the UK alternate between periods of left and right ?

That’s one of the most bizarre comments on this thread. When was the last time that the Left were in government in the UK ?

And unless one political party is permanently in government, without ever relinquishing power, then by definition it means that those in government must constantly alternate.

Why does it constantly alternate ? Well primarily because the electorate are never satisfied with whoever is in government. It’s no great mystery imo.