Who's considered emmigrating because of tax?

duchy

Randvegeta wrote: »

HK is definitely among the top contenders of my list due to the favourable tax system and quality of life. And once you get past housing and food, cost of living too!

.

Which is fine if you don't need a place to live or to eat-however for most people that is a major part of their expenditure regardless of where they live !:rotfl::rotfl:

agrinnall

We might be losing a few key members of society like Bendix but I don't see any great rush of people to leave, and to be honest I doubt very much if we'll miss them if they do decide to go.

FTBFun

I'm against the 50% tax rate as coupled with 2% NI that means more than half of your pay goes into tax, a situation I don't agree with. Although it'll be gone in a couple years I suspect.

BTW I'm a tax adviser for international bankers (pretty much....) and there hasn't really been a shift for people to emigrate or return to their country of origin. It actually doesn't make that much difference in some cases - even going back to the US you might still have a 45% tax rate + high property taxes dependent upon the state you're in.

zfrl

FTBFun wrote: »

I'm against the 50% tax rate as coupled with 2% NI that means more than half of your pay goes into tax, a situation I don't agree with.

Please explain how more than 50% of your pay goes in tax? Do you have no tax free allowance? Does none of your money get taxed at the lower rate?

John_Pierpoint

People make decisions at the margin.
The allowances (if they still exist) and the standard rate of tax is accounted for by expenditure like the mortgage and council tax not to mention food and fuels and a means of transport.
Then we get the "optional" expenditure, that cannot easily be changed within weeks - such as the kids' school fees.

The decisions are made how to earn and spend the top 10 or 20 K.

When one is working harder for the government than for oneself - why bother to go the extra mile or take the extra risk?

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2009/additional-rate-examples.pdf

[When you have understood how HMRC got their own example wrong twice, have a go at explaining it to me]

Pennywise

I've had quite a few IT contractor clients who've emigrated over the past decade. These have been people working for the multi-national firms who have offices/branches in most large countries. They're basically doing the same job, working for the same organisation, but in a different jurisdiction, usually Australia or Canada, and they've all said they have a better standard of living, part of which is tax liabilities. It's telling that none of them have returned. So that's quite a huge loss to the Treasury, not only of their tax/NIC but also the VAT, stamp duty, fuel duty, etc that they'd have paid on their spending.

It's just as easy for, say, an Amazon web site designer to live and work in Canada, or Switzerland, or Dubai, or wherever they have a local office/branch and basically be doing the same job as if he'd stayed in the UK. This is the kind of thing that people don't realise. We're now in a global economy and its easier to move abroad than ever before and that's what people are doing - especially the higher earners, and those jobs are lost to the UK, they aren't being filled by UK workers. You can't legislate against this either - you can't stop them moving abroad and can't force them to pay UK tax if they're resident elsewhere.

dtsazza

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

When one is working harder for the government than for oneself - why bother to go the extra mile or take the extra risk?

For me the critical element isn't so much working for the government, but the transitive relationship of just what it is you're working for.

I wouldn't have a problem with paying 50% marginal tax if I felt that it was being well-invested into the nation and the community, such that it was "worth it" for me. (E.g. a robust and efficient justice & policing sector, ubiquitous and inexpensive public transport, limited waste on dubious "wars" etc.)

On the other hand, if tax revenues are squandered on things of seemingly little benefit to the individual taxpayer, that taxpayer has every reason to be resentful of the government's use of his money, and likewise every reason to move to a different jurisdiction where tax revenues are used more thoughtfully.

gadgetmind

bendix wrote: »

Given the fact that I also lost my personal allowance and the changes to the pensions law limiting tax free contributions

It's all this crap that's making me look at early retirement. Dear HMG, please learn that even a large %age of nothing is nothing. We will not work more hours for you than we do for ourselves. We will either stop working or work elsewhere. End of!

gadgetmind

agrinnall wrote: »

I doubt very much if we'll miss them if they do decide to go.

Yes, who needs skilled surgeons, entrepreneurs, and business leaders! Let's get rid of them all, and let them go and run their businesses and pay their taxes elsewhere.

Oh, wait ...

Voyager2002

Yes, tax rates are ridiculous. They are far too LOW to raise sufficient revenue to support the infrastructure and services that a modern economy requires. Those people who think it is clever to find ways to avoid paying tax (legal or otherwise) should look at Greece, which is the classic example of a country that attempts to join the modern world yet whose citizens are unable to pay the necessary taxes.

And yes: I would like to live in a society where public services are properly funded and so performed efficiently. One example: in the UK the wealthy feel that it is necessary to pay school fees so that their children can be properly educated. In France, the fee-paying schools are regarded as second-rate, and are filled with children of very limited ability. The wealthy in France do not feel the need to pay school fees, and so despite the higher marginal rates of tax that they pay, their disposable incomes are generally higher.