How is robbing the wealth of others to pay for lower paid people 'fair'?

iltisman

Tax = theft

hermanmunster_3

kennyboy66 wrote: »

What's this ? people working for the NHS complaining about paying too much tax.

If you work a bit more, you can get your marginal tax rate back to 51%.

Yay!!! Another few nights working and it will be back down to 51% .... like 'eck, think I'll retired instead

hermanmunster_3

The current excess tax rate over 100k is stopping a lot of colleagues from working extra. I have just been texted (happens nearly every day) looking for GPs to work on the out of hours service this evening. We used to do it like a shot but when we are effectively getting less than 40% sitting at home seems preferable.

Pete111

kennyboy66 wrote: »

80% of total government spending is spent as follows (and in order of spending)

Pensions
Health
Welfare
Education
Defence
Police
Transport.

The removal of personal allowances between 100-113k is as you say a total !!!!, however what would you consider a fair top rate of tax ?

Like it or not, most OECD top rates (including local taxes) sit somewhere between 40 and 51%

With you on the allowances - what a total mess.

40% seemed to work as a top rate. I doubt the 50% rate will bring in more money than it loses the economy over the medium term but we shall see.

I suspect if labour or the lib dems get a proper crack at it that 50% band will drop to 100k within a year or so and then the proverbial will really hit the fan as regards a 'brain drain'

I certainly doubt my DH would bother working a 5 day (in reality 7 day) week for the pleasure....

twadge_face

iltisman wrote: »

Tax = theft

High House Prices = theft
Low Interest Rates = theft

BUT... it just depends on who the beneficiary is!

Blacklight

hermanmunster wrote: »

The current excess tax rate over 100k is stopping a lot of colleagues from working extra. I have just been texted (happens nearly every day) looking for GPs to work on the out of hours service this evening. We used to do it like a shot but when we are effectively getting less than 40% sitting at home seems preferable.

Do we have to employ agency workers at double the cost to the NHS to bridge the gap in these cases? Isn't it also true that most of those agency workers are NHS employees anyway, prevented for working overtime to save money?

JayScottGreenspan

Blacklight wrote: »

I've been hearing this a lot recently, increasingly from the Lib Dem camp but it's traditionally been a left wing Labour fundamental policy.

A 'fairer' society where we basically take money by force from the wealthier people and use this to lower taxes for poorer people so they contribute a disproportionately smaller amount for the services they use.

I'm not saying what's right or what's wrong. I just want to know how this is considered 'fair'. It doesn't seem very fair to the people that have to pay more.

Seems to me to be a carefully orchestrated plan to get the poor people to vote for you as there are more of them than there are wealthy people.

I think the best way to assess if something is fair is as follows:
Imagine in the next five minutes you will be magically and permanently put into the shoes of a random member of the population.
Without knowing which random person's life you will assume, how would you like the rules of the game to be fixed?

Personally, I'd rather get taxed a bit less if I'm unlucky enough to be on minimum wage, and be prepared to fork out a bit more if I'm lucky enough to be rich.

A lot of poor people in this country face the choice between scrounging on benefits, or getting a minimum wage job which earns then £5.80 an hour, of which they will get to keep about 58p per hour after tax and benefits withdrawal. Which would you choose? The Lib Dems are offering a way to remedy this ridiculous situation, by creating an incentive to work. If more people come off benefits onto minimum wage work, it will generate wealth.

twadge_face

Blacklight wrote: »

Do we have to employ agency workers at double the cost to the NHS to bridge the gap in these cases? Isn't it also true that most of those agency workers are NHS employees anyway, prevented for working overtime to save money?

Agency workers also attract VAT on top on their hourly rate in their invoice, payable by the client. Which I always find a bit ironic in the public sector.

StevieJ

hermanmunster wrote: »

The current excess tax rate over 100k is stopping a lot of colleagues from working extra. I have just been texted (happens nearly every day) looking for GPs to work on the out of hours service this evening. We used to do it like a shot but when we are effectively getting less than 40% sitting at home seems preferable.

I think this post explains a great deal about what is wrong (and it is not the tax rate)

kennyboy66_2

hermanmunster wrote: »

The current excess tax rate over 100k is stopping a lot of colleagues from working extra. I have just been texted (happens nearly every day) looking for GPs to work on the out of hours service this evening. We used to do it like a shot but when we are effectively getting less than 40% sitting at home seems preferable.

Didn't GP's contracts used to include out of hours cover ?

Didn't they get a huge increase to their contract and managed to not cover out of hours ?

Oh well, as long as someone else is paying for it.