Should the rich pay more tax?

[mexico86]

Originally Posted by blahblah

Everyone has the same opportunities... If you don't like your job, then no-one is going to stop you moving, and/or retraining to do something else. The basic laws of supply and demand will soon balance out the lower salaries if no-one is prepared to do the work.

Thus, wouldn't you agree that salaries are not determined solely by the amount of hard work that is required? As you say, supply and demand are also important, as is the amount of profit the employee generates for the employer.

Punishing those who are succesful is a massive disincentive to work.

It depends on whether a worker's salary is a fair reflection of their 'success' or 'hard work'. Many of the high earners took advantages of opportunities in higher education to get into their careers. Their education was funded by taxpayers, which obviously includes people who chose not to go to uni, or people who are not academic enough, or people who are better at vocational things. Isn't it unfair for low earners to pay the education costs for others to get bumped up onto high salaries? What you are saying is almost equivalent to suggesting that funding the NHS through taxation is punishment for those who are not ill.

Just because someone "sits in a plush office and taps on a few keys" does not mean that they aren't working hard either. Some of the higher paid office jobs are very demanding and very stressful, having huge responsibility and huge pressures.

I agree; examples and counter-examples abound.

Selfishness is also someone who can't be arsed to work and expects the succesfull element of society to pay for them to have a house, car, satellite TV, free council tax and so on.

I can certainly agree with this, although not all people are unemployed because of lazyness. In many cases they are ill, or there are few jobs for their skills and experience locally.

[Zenith]

Originally Posted by blahblah

Everyone has the same opportunities

No they do not.

[Zenith]

Originally Posted by mexico86

Thus, wouldn't you agree that salaries are not determined solely by the amount of hard work that is required? As you say, supply and demand are also important, as is the amount of profit the employee generates for the employer.


It depends on whether a worker's salary is a fair reflection of their 'success' or 'hard work'. Many of the high earners took advantages of opportunities in higher education to get into their careers. Their education was funded by taxpayers, which obviously includes people who chose not to go to unu, or are not academic enough. Isn't it unfair for these low earners to pay for others to get bumped up onto high salaries? What you are saying is almost equivalent to suggesting that funding the NHS through taxation is punishment those who are not ill.


I agree; examples and counter-examples abound.


I can certainly agree with this.

Look at some extremes. If anyone does not think that a premiership footballers salary is not grossly digusting in it's lack of proportion to effort or talent is simply insane.

What is it Ashley 'dickhead' Cole said? 'the offer of £55,000 a week was insulting'. Tax Ashley Cole £55,000 a week please if it is so little to him and send it to those who one weeks pay would transform their lives.

[andysimo123]

No and it depends on what you class as rich. I've heard of many people with millions who are in massive debt. There has been a story on the news about a millionaire who took his own life and family's life's because he owned £850,000 to the tax man and another £1+ million in bills. I don't know how much this guy was earning but £850,000 even for a millionaire must be alot of money. Where that came from who knows but a good bet would be capital gains tax. There a number of cases where if your worth £2 Million via property and you sold the lot even if they had increased in value you could be paying alot more than you paid because of one thing. Tax.

[mexico86]

Originally Posted by Zenith

Look at some extremes. If anyone does not think that a premiership footballers salary is not grossly digusting in it's lack of proportion to effort or talent is simply insane.

What is it Ashley 'dickhead' Cole said? 'the offer of £55,000 a week was insulting'. Tax Ashley Cole £55,000 a week please if it is so little to him and send it to those who one weeks pay would transform their lives.

[Octoman]

Most of these arguments are not about whether the rich should pay more in tax but whether some jobs offer grossly inflated pay. Of course footballers are overpaid for what they do and of course nurses are underpaid. This is an argument about the inefficiencies of value discovery in our modern economy and not about how we raise tax.

[logosen]

The rich should pay more tax than the poor, but perhaps near enough everyone is paying too much? Consider the following agreeable income tax bands;

£0 - £20000 - 0%
£20000 - £40000 - 10%
£40000 - £60000 - 30%
£60000+ - 50%

Let National Insurance wholly fund health and social security, let a Land Value Tax fund local government, and let Income, Corporation and other taxes and duties fund national government. End VAT. Let the state own natural monopolies and not dabble in costly private financing, and let it work towards full employment and indigenous industry.

Who am I fooling?

[logosen]

Originally Posted by ill tonkso

I think people should be taxed equally, someone said back a few posts that people earning over 60k should pay 50%. That is ridiculous! I am working my arse off at uni, coming from a council estate to earn up to 70k in my chosen career, and I should pay £45,000 a year for doing this? Thats hardly fair is it, when the high earners already pay something like 30%/40%

You are a university student and have failed to understand tax bands, congratulations!

[ill tonkso]

I think people should be taxed equally, someone said back a few posts that people earning over 60k should pay 50%. That is ridiculous! I am working my arse off at uni, coming from a council estate to earn up to 70k in my chosen career, and I should pay £45,000 a year for doing this? Thats hardly fair is it, when the high earners already pay something like 30%/40%

[livin' hull]

no need to tax the rich more...

just close the loopholes and tax bonuses at 50%

and increase the basic threshold to help the low paid

[gothicform]

The rich already pay more tax both in terms of proportion of earnings and in absolute terms.

this is untrue and you know it. the richer people are the less tax they pay. 30,000 of them have private agreements with the inland revenue which involves them paying less than 40%. this was first revealed at mohammeds libel trial... once people start earning substantial amounts of money (we're talking more a million than a 100k) they are in a position to negotiate and do so. the amount of tax avoidance as a result is enormous. proportionately and in absolute terms the working poor pay more money than the rich because 1) they pay a greater percentage of their income in tax and 2) there's more of them. we dont actually need to introduce a new tax level for the rich, we just need to tax them what we are supposed to then they really would pay proportionately more than the poor.

Of course footballers are overpaid for what they do and of course nurses are underpaid. This is an argument about the inefficiencies of value discovery in our modern economy and not about how we raise tax.

more than this... a single member of upper management at say hsbc earns more than all the company's cleaning staff combined. the cleaning staff of the company are essential to its operations, he is not. without the cleaning staff the offices would soon become unhygienic, disease would break out and they would become unworkable spaces. clearly the value of the cleaning staff is more than the value of a director. people working in sanitation are some of the most underpaid in the country but they are above all other jobs, the most important in an urban society. another example is a banker working for merrill lynch who earns 60 million. is this person worth 2,400 nurses? clearly not.

meanwhile, the level of tax that non doms pay is such that if we taxed them at the rate britons are taxed at and 80% left the country we would STILL be ahead.

[wjfox]

Originally Posted by blahblah

And, WJFox - The way you've worded the poll - I thought you were better than that - I just lost a little bit of respect for you.

[JDRS]

Some sensible suggestions from Logosen there.

I definitely think tax needs some major reform so that those on the lowest incomes don't pay any income tax and those on the highest incomes pay 50%. At a time when everyone recognises that the gap between rich and poor is rising to ridiculous levels it's about time we reintroduced a 50% top level of tax on those that will still be very comfortable regardless of this.

I should add that there is a very high level of support throughout the country for higher tax on the very wealthy so it would also be democratic and might even help lift Brown's ratings.

[El_Greco]

I dont quite get why the rich dont want to pay more tax?I mean they will still be rich even if they pay considerably more tax....

[Octoman]

Originally Posted by gothicform

this is untrue and you know it. the richer people are the less tax they pay. 30,000 of them have private agreements with the inland revenue which involves them paying less than 40%. this was first revealed at mohammeds libel trial... once people start earning substantial amounts of money (we're talking more a million than a 100k) they are in a position to negotiate and do so. the amount of tax avoidance as a result is enormous. proportionately and in absolute terms the working poor pay more money than the rich because 1) they pay a greater percentage of their income in tax and 2) there's more of them. we dont actually need to introduce a new tax level for the rich, we just need to tax them what we are supposed to then they really would pay proportionately more than the poor.

I would say most people earning around 100k just pay their tax PAYE. I used to work for a private bank who speacialised in setting up offshore trusts to shelter weathy individuals from tax. It really is an expensive business and on the whole not worth the bother until you have around 500k to play with. If done legally, remember these people dont avoid paying tax, they just defer it to a later date.

I do have a problem with abusive trusts. They are illegal and can be structured in such a way to mitigate tax payment by 100%. I never understood why the revenue didnt clamp down on them because they were pretty easy to spot if you knew what to look for. The few cases I was involved in were for the benefit of the ultra rich (£50mln plus).

If people stay within the rules and the revenue doesnt turn a blind eye to abusive practices then the rich DO pay more than the poor as a percentage of income. We have a sliding tax scale.

[dom]

An utterly ridiculous poll and totally non-scientific with the loaded questions.

We already pay 40% top rate tax. Put on a supertax of 50% or more over £100k a year and see the most talented and hard working Britons leave.

Anyone read the road to serfdom? I thought we'd got over the politics of envy. What the government should be doing is building thousands of inner city grammar schools for ambitious hard working poorer kids and giving them the chance and the aspiration they deserve.

Social mobility is what it is all about.

[Mr Bricks]

Originally Posted by GrammarGrub

i say no, they worked their asses off to get that money! unless they win lotto

There seems to be some kind of myth among (rich) people that they´ve got no one to thank for all the money they´ve earned. To get rich you have to employ people to work for you. You´ve got an education, got to use public trasportation etc. I.e. you earn society a lot.

Here in Finland rich people pay more although the current right-wing government is trying to change this. The shocking thing is that a lot of millionaires over here are manipulating the taxation system so in reality many of them pay less taxes than middle-class citizens. These same people then blame poor people struggling to survive for living off the welfare system.

Originally Posted by El_Greco

I dont quite get why the rich dont want to pay more tax?I mean they will still be rich even if they pay considerably more tax....

One word.Greed.

[El_Greco]

Originally Posted by SuomiPoika

Here in Finland rich people pay more although the current right-wing government is trying to change this.

Arent the rich in Finland paying like 80%?

One word.Greed.

I guess so.
Its ridiculous to suggest rich people work hard because in most cases its simply not true they get rich because they are ruthless greedy bastards who are absolutelly fine with trampling a few people and/or destroying their lives in order to get rich.Are you really telling me people like Abramovich worked their arses off to earn their billions?

Bankers and the like dont work hard either Octoman himself said that he and his colleagues spend most of their work time posting shit on the internet shopping around town dining in the restaurants or just playing some silly snob game.

[ferge]

How about a MP Tax, they'd all soon start getting things done if they were lumbered with money worries.

[VaastuShastra]

Perhaps it is tax on goods and stuff that drives people away.

As opposed to income tax.