Fair dues is 20%, as everyone who pays tax should pay a flat rate.

Personally, we'd be so much better off. No more taxes on company profits :banana:

Then again, flat tax is so complicated and destructive, especially to the welfare system; I couldn't wish it on anyone.

Why do you think a flat rate would be good and how do you think it could work without being destructive to our economy?

It would be fair, because everyone who pays tax would pay the same proportion. Explain why you think it would be destructive?

Says the May/Tory bashing ****rag. The far-left equivalent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-audience.html

God I love Corbyn
Source: me

Because unfortunately its not that simple. I'm sure you would love to read through this massive document about how flat tax would work.

1. Lower earners would lose their tax allowance
2. It strongly defends tax havens.
3. It means local authorities will have to depend on 50% of their income from local tax. Fine if your a council for Chelsea but not good for a Barnsley council.
4. It wants to make cuts in healthcare and no longer invest in schooling so the money average earners think they are going to save is going to be more than swallowed up in paying for services that are presently free.
5. It wants to abolish benefits and depress wages because the government assumes that the market will always produce jobs if wages are low enough!

The TPA is callous. Its a con and it relies on lower paid workers believing they will be better off. They won't, they really won't. The last thing its got anything to do with is equality.

You link doesn't work.

How's that?
As long as everyone's paying the same percentage, that doesn't matter.
So local councils will have to spend money gotten from the area? Sacre Bleu.
It who? What's that got to do with a flat tax rate?
It who? What's that got to do with a flat tax rate?
Who?

Try looking up 'The Single Income Tax final report of 2020 Tax Commison"

I can assure you everything I said has everything to do with this report.

TPA = Tax Payers Allience

I don't see whats wrong with expecting those on very high salaries to pay more to support those who need supporting tbh. If I was earning 200k I would much rather be paying even 50%, than be paying no tax on 15k. I don't see why so many people think its so unfair to expect the more well off to support the less well off. If we were taking like 90% of their entire earnings I would understand the concerns and agree it was unfair./ But even with the higher rates for higher earners, its only what they earn above a certain amount that is taxed at the higher percentage. Like, I will try to explain though don't know the exact percentages or anything tbh

X earns 15k a year. This 15k is taxed at 15%
Y earns 50k a year. Their wages up to 40k are taxed at 15%. Anything they earn above 40k is taxed at 30%
Z earns 150k a year. Their wages up to 40k are taxed at 15%. Up to 80k is 30%. And above 90k is 40%

This IS how it works right? Obviously with tax free allowances and such worked into it, and different percentages? As whenever taxes are discussed, there are usually higher earners kicking off saying 'well I will just cut my hours so I earn less money so I don't have to pay the higher tax rate' which would be a bit...cutting off their own nose to spite their faces as it is not the entire wage thats taxed at the higher rate,. its only what they earn ABOVE the threshold? I have never earned above 30k a year tbh, so don't fully understand, but this is my basic understanding of how it all works. My dad explained it to me when I was fairly young, he had a very decent wage and had to pay the higher rate, so I expect he did actually understand it all :laugh: He used to laugh about colleagues whinging about paying the higher tax rate, as they were only like 2k above the threshold, so really they were being taxed a little bit more, on a very small chunk of their earnings.

Though I do think classing 70k as a very high earner is a bit silly. When I speak of high earners I would mean about 150k+...the kinds of salaries that can afford to use tax havens and such to get away with paying taxes at all.

I do not get the unwillingness of ANY party to deal with tax evasion. The country would have so much more money,. and a few would be pissed off that they can no longer squirrel away ridiculous amounts of money to avoid helping out with the general running of the country and such...I know many people claim these high earners would just bugger off and live somewhere else...but really, when they are avoiding their taxes anyway, its not big loss to us is it? If they own businesses and **** off, someone else willing to actually pay their way will buy the business. So yeah, I generally would prefer all these tight rich people to piss off if they really think its that bad to be expected to pay tax :shrug:

I'm more in the thought of "if you want something, you should earn it; if you earn something, you should get to keep it"

If higher earners want to give money to charities alongside their taxes, that should be up to them.

Edited to fix, to the best of my offhand knowledge.

Well, exactly. While £70k isn't exactly nothing, it's a bit silly to call them super rich, and certainly not what you think of when you hear "top 5%"

If everyone paid the same percentage, I'd be more upset about it. People like Jimmy Carr and Adel paying tiny percentages through clever tricks, that tiny percentage is still probably more than most of our families pay in tax in a decade, so I find it hard to care, in fact I say good on 'em. But I would be annoyed if their percentage was the same as our families, and they were dodging it.

I don't care about what the Tax Payers' Alliance want, I have affiliation with them; I just think there should be a flat rate. I don't have to agree with anything else they want, to want that.

I'm inclined to agree with that. Higher earners have usually studied for years and worked hard to get to that point. What encouragement is there for those people if there are not sufficient rewards for their efforts?

I don't see why those that worked hard at school and went on to higher education and well paid jobs should support those that pissed about and couldn't be bothered and hence ended up in low paid jobs. They are not their keepers.

Are you basing this on anything? Is there any country in the world that taxes the rich and the poor equally? Or you just assuming that this could/would work well for any (this?) country?

Except thats not quite what happens. though is it..jesus christ. hard work does not always equal high wages, and infact a hell of a lot of being 'rich' is down to pure luck. People who end up being doctors, for example...they clearly worked very hear to get to where they are. But earn less than people who did a lot less work and were just lucky, or were born into money.

What do we do about disabled people?

What do we do about those who lose jobs through no fault of their own?

How could we run the NHS if higher earners weren't taxed more? Hows about these schools and such...we could hardly afford to do these things if everyone was taxed a flat 20%.

Its hardly as if taxes only go to 'feckless scroungers on JSA who drink their 70 quid benefit money' or anything :S

In any society you will have those who earn more than others, for a variety of reasons. Do you not think that its fair for those earning more to contribute more? If you don't, do you have ANY ideas for how we could run the country when tax income drops even further?

Well yes, but its just not feasible for a lot of people, for many reasons to be ABLE to work themselves up to these ridiculously high paid jobs. As I just said to brillo, its not just a case of education and hard work = high wages.

Yes, high earners can also give to charity. Are you equating paying taxes with giving to charity here? Thats how its coming across :laugh:

I can't argue against this, as I don't actually know besides what my father told me years back. So not sure which is right :p

I actually find it fairly sad that the 'top 5%' of earners in this country many of them earn like 70k ish. When the companies profits all seem to be astronomical...I do think many more people should be on wages such as 70k. The cost of living is enormous these days...either the cost of living needs to go down, or wages need to go up.

Luckily the increases to the living wage proposed will change the averages and such. Even someone who works in a care home (presently paid as low as possible and made to work a lot of hours, much harder than many people on 70k+ I would bet...and obviously a much needed job) will be on well...lets guess they do 60 hours a week which is not too much of a stretch from carers I know...600 per week before tax. 2400 per month 25k or so. For a job thats presently paid a stupidly low amount and is often looked down on


How would a flat tax rate actually work in reality though? The income from tax would drop horrendously if flat rate was like 20%, OR the rate for everyone would need to be set at like 45%, and then lower earners receive money back in the form of benefits to survive/pay rent. Which I expect would still be an issue for people as 'more people claiming benefits' and such :S And if the benefits received back were set too high, people would have a huge issue, even though the people in receipt of them are actually working. I can see there being hell on if the amounts are set to anything about basic sustenance too.

It often is. I don't think luck has much to do with it. At the end of the day if you have a goal and do what is needed to get there, you will likely get there.

Too many get side tracked and have other priorities, which is fine, but they shouldn't then complain if their financial circumstances are not as good as others who were more focused.

If they were born into it, then it was earned by someone, and if they chose to let it stay in their family, that's their prerogative. As for luck, if they beat the odds, they should get to keep it.

You'd have to look pretty hard to find someone who thinks we should let the disabled or people who lose their jobs stave. No-one here said that.

People who earn more do pay more tax - that's how percentages work.

Anyone who thinks that's where taxes go to is an idiot.

But again, its not just about focus. For example, someone who studied business or something and got qualified, can then progress to fairly high wages with hard work, I understand that. Though a depressing amount of progressing in the business world comes down to...are you willing to sleep your way up. For females at least. This was my issue. My highest paid job was in the business sector. I was actually passed over for a promotion which would have netted me an extra 10k a year, because I wouldn't sleep with the boss. Left the company fairly soon after that as my life was made hell tbh and I felt fairly unsafe if I was one of the last people in the office :S

People who train in healthcare (which we need, badly) are paid less than someone like me (not now, but back when I was there). And my job was definitely not what I would call 'hard', at all. Complicated at times, and long hours sometimes, but I didn't go home exhausted having spent the entire day running about. The hardest job I ever had was working in bloody burger king! Obviously I am not insinuating that those working in burger king should be paid more as the work is harder though. But back to healthcare...even GPs who have trained for a lot longer, don't earn as much as someone fairly high up in business. Nurses do not earn as much as someone who is just starting out in a business job..

So yeah, its not always hard work + study = better pay. And if everyone decided to just go into high paid sectors, we would be totally screwed as the jobs that are most needed to us are low paid in comparison. This is one of the main reasons I do support taxing higher earners more tbh.

Then some things just aren't to be. As long as people have warm houses and food, any luxuries they want should be earned.

Haha, no I'm not. I meant, if people want more of their money to go to good causes, they should pay for it themselves rather than forcing everyone who earns the same amount of money as them to pay more taxes.

Maybe it was true once, tax rates change!

We'll see on that one. I can't argue about rates of pay going up, I just hope the big companies don't lay off staff so their managers don't get hit in the pocket.

The top rate of tax in the 1950s was 91%, I'm sure people rang the chimes of doom when that was lowered. People would be less likely to evade tax if they were taxed fairly.

Did you see the quote that I was replying to? This was heavily insinuated. That those who cannot earn very high wages just pissed about and can't be arsed.

Also its a depressingly common view that we should let people who lose their jobs starve. hence the support for sanctions for JSA claimants :S

Many think that the disabled just aren't their problem. Not many will say that, but the lack of response from many (not just on here, in general) when the disabled are treat like garbage is astounding. The widespread support for 'ATOS" and their ilk who are actively removing benefits from severely disabled people...and all as the daily mail tells everyone that there are sooo many people falsely claiming benefit. I would be absolutely amazed if more than a handful of people managed to do this, given the huge amounts of proof that are required to be awarded disability benefits in the first place. And even if you have these huge amounts of evidence that you actually are ill, a lot of the time the evidence is ignored and the say so of someone who has done a weeks 'disability awareness' training is taken above the word of numerous qualified doctors, physios, and so on. The hundreds and hundreds of people who have actually died within days/weeks of being told they are fit for work...its ignored. The stories in the press that come out about people who have the mental age of children being told they should be working and benefits removed, are written off as 'one time errors' and such, when they aren't, this is what ATOS is PAID to do. To get people off disability, regardless of if they actually need it or not.

So yeah, I may be hard pushed to find someone who would openly admit to thinking the disabled should starve and so on. However, people who support the WCA in its current form and support the government with things such as cuts to disability allowance, bedroom tax in its current form* (disproportionately affects disabled people who have no option to move as their homes are adapted)...do think this, though they would never say it out loud as they would be outed as the horrible bastards that they are.


*Not in general. Its obviously different if there are places for people to move to, which many think that there are. it IS shocking to penalize people for something they cannot change.

Tax rates change but I don't think that the way taxes are actually collected has changed.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/tax-rates

Seems I had the right idea? Unless I am understanding this wrong too :laugh:

Yeah the collection methods are pretty much the same.

You mean like footballers or YouTube stars, winners of the property boom and the inheritors? Is it right that there is a massive social cleansing going on in London? Houses are regularly demolished and redeveloped for the wealthy with multi-million-pound redevelopment. You really do have to be a millionaire to live a comfortable life in a half decent part of London and believe me, many scholars chosen profession does not and never will make them millionaires.

Most of the London Nouveau rich are Russians and Saudis who don't even pay income tax over here but can afford to buy half a street in leafy Islington and leave those houses sitting empty whilst they increase in value. Do you feel the same way about them? Is there something more deserving in your mind between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'?

Britain's poorest households pay a greater proportion of their income in taxes than the richest, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The poorest 10% of households paid on average 42% of their income in tax in 2015/16.
The richest 10% of households, however, paid on average just 34.3% of their income in tax.
Council tax and VAT hit the poorest particularly hard, with the poorest 10% of households paying 7% of their gross income in council tax, compared to just 1.5% for the richest, and 12.5% of gross income paid in VAT (5% for rich)
Despite paying far less of their income in tax, the richest 10% have on average a gross income of £110,632, 10 times that of the poorest (£10,992)
Post tax (including direct and indirect taxes and cash benefits) the poorest 10% have on average £6,370 and the richest 10% have £72,746
https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/bri...me-tax-richest

:clap1: I honestly think some people live in Narnia or Atlantis.

OMG you sound like someone I know!

So when my kids come to me and say they don’t know how to find 100k deposit for a one bedroom flat, should I give them a substantial dollop of their own financial failings? Will they be expected to listen to their nan as she tells them it was just as hard in her day when she and grandad could only afford their three-bed starter home in Richmond because they were willing to sacrifice going to the cinema?