Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

lostinrates

misskool wrote: »

omg, i'm in love with lir today. what a great idea.

tomorrow is chain shopping day and bowl shopping day.

I keep meaning to get one..a good long twisted gold chain. I use a cheapy chain sometimes when I'm out and swell, but more often than not they go in my handbag then . the chain is short and, really nicely, its not just my fingers that swell....but all of me including my neck. Necklaces feel yuck even when quite long when you have a big neck!:o:o

lostinrates

this forum has felt close to real life sevral times this weekend so far. Friend and partner have decided to move out of uk because of 50% tax rate. Lower wage, but still bloody good, but better work life balance mean for them its a good choice. Then called my mother, who said she and ''the girls'' met up ..a rare occasion as two of them already are permantly domiciled outside uk...another couple are ''tax avoiding expats''. After this weekend sshe learned two more couples are off.

tomterm8

The 50% tax rate is a bit of a faux herring. If you can't avoid it, you aren't trying hard enough.

It's the bloody VAT that gets my goat.... How the heck do you avoid it if you want to conspicuously consume?

You look at that, and then look at some of the other countries and wonder...

Edit: I am not impressed with the swear filter... thought it would get that one, for sure.

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

The 50% tax rate is a bit of a faux herring. If you can't avoid it, you aren't trying hard enough.
.

not much we can do (that we know of anyway)....employers don't have any saving schemes, e.g. if dh sacrifices to pension...etc. Its just not possible with them. some of those friends of my mother will be oin uk as much as they are now, own property etc...they just won't be taxpayers here. I think it stinks personally, but......I also sort of understand why. It makes sense for them.

zagubov

tomterm8 wrote: »

The 50% tax rate is a bit of a faux herring. If you can't avoid it, you aren't trying hard enough.

It's the bloody VAT that gets my goat.... How the heck do you avoid it if you want to conspicuously consume?

You look at that, and then look at some of the other countries and wonder...

.

People often say different things to what they mean. I suspect they don't really move because of tax rates. They'd have flooded into stalinist Albania or Pol Pot's Cambodia (0% income tax rate) and nobody wanted to immigrate there. All the communist countries had very modest income tax rates.

Moving for a better work-life balance? I can believe that very much. Lots of countries have that. This one is abandoning that at an accelerating rate.

I often think that people that quote a crude tax rate just can't be bothered or maybe aren't eloquent enough to describe their reasons. Or they're trying to spread an anti-tax sentiment as they jump ship for other reasons

lostinrates

zagubov wrote: »

I often think that people that quote a crude tax rate just can't be bothered or maybe aren't eloquent enough to describe their reasons. Or they're trying to spread an anti-tax movement as they jump ship for other resasons

To be clear I don't think any one said verbatim ''we're off because of the fifty percent tax rate''. probably more like...''we're being txed the hell out of and we don't have to be, so we're off, and the money is why.

One couple are the least likey of that set t have moved abroad but they are off, to about the lest likey place in the med I could have picked for them too. They really are the poster people of ''boomers'' to, to me. LOTs of money,though hard work but also right place/right time. did extra ordinarily well out of property excellent pensions with household name and then for a long time were involved with soe charitable things.....but now they just feel ''disengaged'' and no reason to stay...a bit like well funded daily mail readers...the irony of ''not ikeing he changes '' here so going somewhere different for tax purposes (they are keeping a house here, she can't leave her hairdresser) is lost on them I think.

lostinrates

this is mainly for Generali.

we were talking about ld recipes recently and I was reading soe earlier and thought of you in the excellent and modern ..well 1971..book on English food history.

To make an appelmoise
Take a dosyn apples and either rost or boyle then and drawe them through a strayner and the yolkes of three or foure egges withall and as ye straine them, temper them with three or foure sponefull of damaske water, if ye will, and then take and season it with sugar and halfe dish of swete butter and boyle them upon a chafing dish in a pater and cast biskets or cinnamon and Ginger upon them, and so serue them forth.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

lostinrates wrote: »

moved abroad but they are off.

We lived overseas for many years and will do so again, but the UK has done very nicely for us this time around, even in the recession.

The first time was purely for financial gain thanks to a tax free country and a full expat package. The next time will be strictly for the weather and a more relaxed lifestyle, in a higher tax country than the UK.

I don't see that moving to a slightly lower tax country in Europe is all that financially advantageous for most people. Not by the time you factor in all the moving and travelling costs. It's more about the lifestyle, and they use taxation as an excuse.

PasturesNew

Us poor bugg4hs are stuck here, forking out. No swanning off elsewhere for us...

Years ago I met somebody who worked in Qatar and they were loaded .... and I thought it sounded interesting. Then I found out that single females couldn't go there and work anyway. More recently (1998) I worked for a company that had a client in some hot/Arab country and I was told at interview that I'd not be sent to that client's because they wouldn't take orders from women (apart from the fact that the work involved being picked up from the runway by an armed guard and being kept in a secure compound for the client visits as it was so dangerous).

Hot = nice. Scarey = not going to happen.

lostinrates

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I don't see that moving to a slightly lower tax country in Europe is all that financially advantageous for most people. Not by the time you factor in all the moving and travelling costs. It's more about the lifestyle, and they use taxation as an excuse.

Specifically for the couple that amazed me tax at 20/30 % of what is earned there....they won't be earning there. No moving costs.....they are keeping a house here and reduced tavel costs (used to work for an airline), but in any case, for a lot of people i the sort of income bracket you are used to travel on a cheap airline is nothing...it was cheaper for dh to commute home from mian than it is for him to come home from London. Long term rental or purchase of one house is cheaper than holdays for that length of time, and when you ar retired but healthy and fit and like the sun, thats a big part of the to do list for many!

For my friend, moving costs are covered by employers.....I don't think they'll be coming back often. Few family ties. More the sort of move I can imagine for us really....if we moved somewhere we'dreally move there.

For most people, I agree, its not gonna work out good....but its not ''mostpeople'' that pay ''most tax'' for the country. We would benefit a lot from those tax payers resient here. And life style is a vital part of it I agree...butthese people I'm fairly sure woul not hve gone for lifestyle alone. I think its shoddy when they o it, and shoddy when musicians an actors and people in the house of lord do it. still leaes me a little envious though!

DH an I both actively chose uk for lifestyle. The work life balance isn't good, but other things are. But taking he fact that we don't want to move again..I'd consider going elsewhere, as woud he, but the places we'd each list second to UK are different. The chances are he'll be doing another europe stint in the future, but we'd not move for somewhere reasonably easily plane commuteable now. We'd do what we do now, but with plane not train.