The 50% Tax Rate

kabayiri

bendix wrote: »

I can trump that.

Having some of my income taxed at 50%, losing my personal allowance and the ever-increasing stealth tax that is National Insurance finally persuaded me to give up working in the UK entirely.

Sod it. I aint paying that sort of money - what do I get from it? Nothing.

So as a result of Labour's political gesturing (because it was no more than a political tax) the revenue has lost around 60,000 a year in tax and National Insurance revenue from me, and that's just in direct taxes alone.

I now work in Hong Kong where the maximum tax you can pay is a flat 15%, and where there is no national insurance, VAT, CGT etc.

Go figure.

On this forum you openly declared your intention to return back East, in the past.

Don't blame your career move on a tax increase.

If the rate dropped back to 40% you wouldn't be back.

A._Badger

zagubov wrote: »

And who pays to train and educate all the experts and graduates that work there? Ah yes, other countries' taxpayers. These tax havens are such a bargain to set up aren't they!

Not by the wildest stretch of a deranged imagination could Hong Kong be described as a 'tax haven'. And I think you'll find the Chinese government doesn't require other countries to pay its education bill.

Not unless you want to get into an esoteric discussion of the valuation of the Renminbi, at any rate.

bendix

pqrdef wrote: »

And that's the only consideration? 2500 years of moral philosophy wasted on you then.

Fine, if you don't mind being rich in a country full of poverty.

Personally, I pine for the days when the celebration of social inequality was considered to be in rather bad taste.

Rich in a country full of poverty? Hong Kong? Are you kidding?

As for pining for the days blah blah blah . yes, I'm sure you do, so long as it's not you paying for it, right?

As you're such a moral champion of social equality, I suggest you sod off to Scandinavia and pay even more tax. There's a good chap.

bendix

kabayiri wrote: »

On this forum you openly declared your intention to return back East, in the past.

Don't blame your career move on a tax increase.

If the rate dropped back to 40% you wouldn't be back.

True. I was using hyperbole to make the point. However, the essense of it is true. When I arrived in the UK in Jan 2009 I planned to be there for five years. A few months later, Labour announced the tax increases, limits on pension contributions etc. Overnight, the sole raison detre of being there disappeared and I hastened my plans to return back to Asia at the first opportunity.

Either way, the end result is the same. The exchequer is significantly worse off as a result.

bendix

zagubov wrote: »

And who pays to train and educate all the experts and graduates that work there? Ah yes, other countries' taxpayers. These tax havens are such a bargain to set up aren't they!

What's your point. Most expats return home eventually. US expats continue to pay US taxes, even on income earned in Hong Kong.

As for my personal situation, I have more than paid back the cost of my UK education, several times over thank you very much.

And as I have stated many times, I have no intention of taking any state pension from the UK government, even if I'm entitled to it.

Don't need it. Don't want it.

pqrdef

bendix wrote: »

As you're such a moral champion of social equality, I suggest you sod off to Scandinavia and pay even more tax. There's a good chap.

But I like it here. I'll like it even better when people like you have all left. Then we can forget "what's in it for me" and look after the less fortunate.

The 50% band starts at more than 6 times the average wage, and I'm pretty sure no human being is so superior to the rest of us as to be worth that much. The best way to abolish the 50% band would be just to have nobody making that kind of money.

property.advert

At higher income levels, there is often flexibility on whether to pay tax at all or at much lower rates than PAYE. Now the communists here, the apologists, the lazy, jealous, stupid and so forth may hate people who earn more than this theoretical average salary but the simple fact is that you cannot live on 25k and many people don't have to. What they object to is being forced to pay through the nose for those who refuse to contribute and all those who first action each day is to hold out their hand for government freebies and benefits.

40% as a maximum rate of tax is a limit some can live with though a 20/25% flat rate would be far better. CGT should be reduced as well. We cannot go on with this ludicrous 50% rate.

bendix

pqrdef wrote: »

The 50% band starts at more than 6 times the average wage, and I'm pretty sure no human being is so superior to the rest of us as to be worth that much. The best way to abolish the 50% band would be just to have nobody making that kind of money.

What a brilliant suggestion. You're an economic genius.

Are you suggesting a maximum income level, a la North Korea?

It's a great idea in this global marketplace. Well done. You're obviously thought this through very carefully.

Jeezus H Christ . . MSE surpasses itself again.

One point though . . when you have taken all these high earners out of the workforce (and, presumably, sent them over to other parts of the world where they will continue to create wealth for other nations) and when you have completely decimated the tax revenues of the UK (because it is those on above average wages who pay the bulk of the the UK's taxes), who exactly is going to pay for all the tax credits, family support, NHS, police, army, public sector etc?

Seriously . . how embarassing an argument you make!

bendix

property.advert wrote: »

At higher income levels, there is often flexibility on whether to pay tax at all or at much lower rates than PAYE. Now the communists here, the apologists, the lazy, jealous, stupid and so forth may hate people who earn more than this theoretical average salary but the simple fact is that you cannot live on 25k and many people don't have to. What they object to is being forced to pay through the nose for those who refuse to contribute and all those who first action each day is to hold out their hand for government freebies and benefits.

40% as a maximum rate of tax is a limit some can live with though a 20/25% flat rate would be far better. CGT should be reduced as well. We cannot go on with this ludicrous 50% rate.

You're wasting your time property, and to call them 'communists' besmirches the name of communism. At least communists put some intellectual rigour into their ideas, however misguided they were.

What motivates people like pqrdef is either envy at best, or at worst some kind of wooly-minded well-meaning nicey-niceness which - when thought through to logical conclusions - is fundamentally stupid.

property.advert

bendix wrote: »

You're wasting your time property, and to call them 'communists' besmirches the name of communism. At least communists put some intellectual rigour into their ideas, however misguided they were.

What motivates people like pqrdef is either envy at best, or at worst some kind of wooly-minded well-meaning nicey-niceness which - when thought through to logical conclusions - is fundamentally stupid.

Ah yes, envy. The one who hates the fact that you can shop in M&S and Waitrose, thus keeping their staff in jobs; that you don't have to fly economy, thus subsidising their cheap holidays; who forgets that your spending actually creates jobs and the fact that your very business may actually directly put food in their mouths.

As someone who has come back from previous setbacks, I realise I am fortunate but whilst I am prepared to pay some, I am not prepared to pay over the odds so that some lard !!!! can sit in front of his TV all day pretending to be too ill to work whilst claiming benefits for badly brought up children born to multiple women by random fathers.

Sod that for a game of soldiers.