blonde poker forum

What is a fair share of tax to pay from your annual income –

I think the first £20,000 should be tax free after this I would introduce the following bands

£20,001 - £40,000 = 20%
£40,001 - £60,000 = 30%
£60,001 - £80,000 = 40%
£80,001 - £100,000 = 50%
£100,001 ++  = 60%

Define 'tax' please.  Income tax?  NI?  Any other form of tax you pay on consumption such as VAT amongst numerous others?  Stamp duty?  Capital gains tax?  Duty on petrol, alcohol and fags? Airline/insurance tax among numerous other smaller taxes i have probably forgot. Most people are already paying more than you suggest on those types of incomes as it stands if you include all forms of tax.

I would abolish all other forms of tax except VAT - which would ladder up on a sliding scale.

We are a very rich nation but the wealth distribution is not fair - the fact is there will always be people who can not work for what ever reason - should they be consigned to living on a meager income - even the middle classes are feeling squeezed.

Less taxation equals or should do more spending thus better wages thus a better standard of living

An extremely complex & emotive subject. Are we being altruistic, or are we taking into consideration that the government’s margins for error are very tight at the low end and high at the top? ie the cost of what you give to the masses at the bottom end is huge since everyone qualifies, whilst the top earners are both significantly fewer and adept at sheltering or deferring income or taking other benefits (eg share options) to avoid tax. I think it’s been proven already that net tax revenues increase when the top marginal tax rates are lower than 55%

Putting all that aside, and assuming that you are referring purely to Income Tax (& excluding NI, which as arb says, is simply another tax), once someone has reached the £100k mark, they’re then going to cap their “honesty”. Employers will help their valued employees to avoid income tax through one scheme or another. No-one’s going to be happy working for the taxman beyond that amount, so I wouldn’t have a rate higher than 50%, and I’d probably widen the bands with 50% applying to income over £150k.

And what would you do about taxing professional gamblers & poker players? Or do you think it’s fine for them to be exempt?

And what do you do about the >50% of people who pay tradesmen cash in hand in order to avoid paying VAT? btw, these same tradesmen/women will also be avoiding tax on all the cash that goes straight into their pockets rather than the business bank account.

If everyone in all democracies paid their taxes without avoidance, we’d be able to balance the books & provide all those public services that we take for granted. And more.

Assuming all other taxes remain equal let's see how 'fair' your tax rates are:

I've used an income tax calculator off MSE that separates tax and NI so we can include NI in your new regime.

The figures below are total salary, take home pay at current rates and then take home pay at Mikey rates:

£10000 - £9780 - £9780 (no change)
£20000 - £16881 - £18580 (+10.1%)
£30000 - £23681 - £25380 (+7.1%)
£40000 - £30481 - £32180 (+5.6%)
£50000 - £36780 - £38476 ((+4.6%)
£60000 - £42580 - £45276 (+6.3%)
£70000 - £48380 - £51076 (+5.6%
£80000 - £54180 - £56876 (+5.0%)
£90000 - £59980 - £61676 (+2.8%)
£100000 - £65780 - £66476 (+1%)

I think this is going to cost you a fortune. Not sure if the extra 15% you're getting from the £100k and over club is going to cover all the extra money you've given to everyone else.

I kind of like the thought of increasing the 0% band to £20k, I think it's going up to £15k over the next few years anyway. Your other bands need some work, I can't see how it's fair giving nothing extra to someone struggling along earning £10k per year (I'm assuming you're not addressing benefits as part of this) whilst giving a guy on £60k a 6.3% boost to his take home?

Trying to come up with a fair tax system is pretty much impossible but keep working at it.

My politics is somewhere right of Genghis Khan.

However, I do believe that we have become too unequal – in this country aspiration and making money is still regarded as something to be put down – the green eyed monster –

There has always and there always will be a black economy – and in general I do not see a problem with this (a slight contradiction).

However in general I think high earning people would not mind paying additional tax providing they knew it was been dispersed correctly. In the eighties we were happy to be in the 40% bracket it meant that we were doing well.

There are countries that tax poker players earnings those players don’t stop playing poker.

I would like to see the introduction of private health insurance for those with the means to pay for it.

I would just like to see a more favourable distribution of the wealth – a pensioner who gets £600 a month state pension but owns their own house – still has to pay council tax – utilities – we should be looking after these people.

We tend to now be a nation of I’m alright Jack – this will not bode well for future generations.
 

'Dispersed correctly' add fairly to that and I'd pay a bit more. Right now I dont trust any govt, especially any leftish govt to do that, they would just piss money away.

A friend of mines dad is a taxi driver, the majority of his approx £50kish income comes from taking kids to school paid for by the tax payer. They are basically kids that have been excluded from school for behaving like arseholes and need to go to another school further away, the parents either cant take them or dont have the means to pay for them to travel futher away. Thats a simple fuck off for me, I dont see why my taxes should be used for things like this just because you are an arsehole.  ;tracet;

The current tax rate on £100k to £120k is 62%. And your premise that those on £100k+ are all paying 54pence in tax via offshore accounts is pretty wide of the mark. It's a fairly normal salary in a number of industries and the corporates paying it aree going to do straight PAYE for 99% of their employees. Contractors and business owners have many more avoidance options.

Where are you getting 62% from? I can only see a 40% band on this:

https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates

Think he is talking about the marginal rate of tax on the additional income from £100k to £120k.  You effectively get taxed on the additional £20k at 62%.

The withdrawal taper on tax credits and universal credit is 63%. I know who I have more sympathy for

The problem with tax is so much of it is unfair.  The have nots blame the haves because they think they earn too much.  

There are far too many people free loading who have a sense of entitlement.  

Council Tax is one of the most unfair taxes in the country.  

We can be too far away from further privatisation with the way the economy is run.  

Dismantling the current tax system and making something that is more user friendly would be a good start.   Go after those who purposely evade paying what they are supposed to and maybe we will snuff out the small fish.

You can learn so much about somebody by asking them what they think fair tax distribution is, and why.

No judgement there, I've heard good and bad arguments on all sides, it's often the ferocity with which people argue, and whom they choose to single out as being the problem, that is interesting.

Business owners have easy ways of avoiding NI but not tax.

New dividend tax rules have brought thing much closer as well so going down the straight forward route there isn't much you can do.

If we're talking about more complex offshore type avoidance schemes you need to earning well above £100k to make it worth the fees and that was before HMRC started to give a shit about it.

Impossible discussion really.

Of course we must look after people who need and deserve the help, we must. At the same time how is it fair to take £90,000 from someone who earns £200,000 a year? It's not fair at all and it tilts me when people say it is, the guys earning big money they aren't stealing it from low income people, they are out earning it. We should live in a society where you can go out, work hard and if you have the skills and good fortune to earn this big money you can actually keep some of it.

When people say stuff like it's a disgrace the gap in earnings, I agree the gap is too big for a fair world, but the answer isn't to put the minimum wage up and take more money from the high earners and give to the low earners, the answer is to level the playing field by working hard and spending the money to make sure people who are born into circumstances where they have far fewer opportunities to be successful than others - that is the real disgrace. If everyone had the same chances in life then the most determined, most hard-working and most talented would make the money and the less motivated people would earn less. People priorities are different too, some people care more about having a family etc and less motivated by money, then you got the young guy who sacks off a nice girlfriend to try climb the ladder - he might get to 50 and regret that approach but at least let him keep his bloody money.

That's a fair system. Everyone gets the same chances, education and opportunity whoever does the best gets the money. The governments are so inefficient, waste so much money and now stuck in this routine where they ust need more and more money and the high earners are the only people to take it from... System not that fair on people on the lowest wages, system not that fair o the people on the highest wages, the guys in the middle aren't exactly getting the cream... gotta be fair for someone, somewhere surely?! 

What % of UK population earn over £200k per year ?

Just under 1% [1]. The 1% earn 12% of the total income and pay 27% of the total income tax take [2].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/shares-of-total-income-before-and-after-tax-and-income-tax-for-percentile-groups

Said this many times before but new economic policy needs to really promote small businesses and enterprise, SME's employ 60% of the employment market and contribute 47% to gross turnover, it should be brutally obvious to any politician that this is where economic growth is gonna come from, tax the big boys properly, and make sure they pay what they should (not easy i know) and then spend the money promoting this section of the economy.

Encouraging enterprise in young people is the way forward, promote aspiration, start in the most typically under privileged areas, get the guys believing that you can do what you want. Free education and free childcare/support for people of all ages who genuinely want to get something going.

Or we could just continue to tell everyone how unfair it is that X person can make £1m a year when Y person only makes £20k.

Agree with this. Tax the big boys properly and when they threaten to take their business elsewhere just tell them to gtfo then. If they leave it opens up opportunities to smaller entrepreneurs to fill the gaps, think lots of coffee shops with different names rather than every one of them being a Costa/Starbucks.

Yes it will push prices up for consumers but there should be more tax coming in meaning that lower tax bands can drift upwards meaning that you have a better distribution of wealth and people can afford the increased prices.

It's never going to happen but wouldn't It be nice :)

Agree, can we add to that to give the moany woe is me bunch who will ignore any notion of aspiration a hefty boot up the arse? We need to get them them to pull their fingers out and achieve something in life and contribute also  :)up

I think the way to do that Woodsey is to have a large budget to spend on training and education of work age adults not in unemployment. You might not agree but that cost will have a long term benefit to all of us if it is effective.

I don’t mind if it means they get out and actually contribute/contribute more after.. For all their faults one quality I admire about Americans is their aspiration to succeed, You don’t hear much jealousy or whining about people people being successful there, it’s mostly the attitude of ‘I want to be successful like that guy and I’m gonna do it’. Sadly we have too many in the Uk that are the opposite that and just don’t get off their arses and think the world owes them a living. I have zero time for that.