Should we tax the rich more?

princeofpounds

Many good points there but slightly disingeunous on the property comparison given that's a 3 bed. Until recently I rented out a very nice 2 bed garden flat in Wimbledon for £1300 p/m, which would only be a quarter of take home pay in your example.

Sure, it's hardly a comprehensive survey, I was only using it to illustrate a point, which is that a salary people think of as 'rich' doesn't even get you a lifestyle people think of as normal middle class sometimes, especially depending on location. Don't lose sight of that in the specifics.

It wasn't meant to be disingenuous though - I picked a three-bed because it's about the minimum size to raise a 2 child family, assuming that brothers and sisters don't share a room.

I also specifically upped the budget to 50% of takehome precisely to try to obtain a relatively nice flat. Of course most people wouldn't feel comfortable spending that much and you'd get something much worse for the traditional 1/3rd.

You are getting a very good deal on that flat, unless by Wimbledon you really mean South Wimbledon, Merton or Southfields.

Think of it another way - almost every basic family 4 bed semi north of the railway tracks & station in wimbledon rents for at least £2500pcm. That means you need that £100k pa salary minimum simply to live in a basic 4 bed terrace, in the least interesting part of an otherwise fairly pleasant area. The people living on those streets aren't 'truly' rich. They might own a BMW and have a holiday every year, but they are hardly drinking Cristal at the Met Bar every night.

kabayiri

Yes.

Impose a mansion tax on properties over £5m. People who can afford properties in One Hyde Park corner, for example, are not constrained by normal budgets.

In fact, moaning about being caught by the mansion tax will become a badge of honour in the high society dinner party circles

We'd be doing them a social status favour

dave4545454

i'd class earning over £25,000 as rich, that's a sort of salary most people could only ever dream of

photogeek

Why do we think it is right to tax work (=income)? Shouldn't we rather tax pollution? Consumption? Charge for the use of limited resources?

Petrol prices are up, government plans to build more roads, for which most of the money has to come from income tax. That won't lead to a sustainable economy.

treliac

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

So who are "the rich"?

Impossible to answer.... just look at the variety of responses. And that's just in relation to monetary wealth.

It also depends greatly on where in the country you live (as someone who lives close to the capital!)

lostinrates

One of the best threads I ever started was on ''who are the rich''. It was fascinating, to me any way. If I were able to tonight I'd link it for people to read.

Answer: seriously....DH is one step from hopping on a plane and I don't want to leave UK, so if the answer is yes please make the bracket above our income.:)

treliac

lostinrates wrote: »

Answer: seriously....DH is one step from hopping on a plane and I don't want to leave UK, so if the answer is yes please make the bracket above our income.:)

Ooh, that's tricky then. At least you can keep posting from wherever, can't you? Generali manages it.

ILW

Anyone who has more than me is rich and should be subject to higher taxes.

Sorted.

lostinrates

treliac wrote: »

Ooh, that's tricky then. At least you can keep posting from wherever, can't you? Generali manages it.

Will you be here then?

ATM plan A is here, but only because I pointed out we'd have to sell give away the birds and hile we could ship special girl horse anywhere, Old girl really is too old and spens days dodging me making ''the phone call'' the the vet as is. I don't want to go and come back (animals really are a PITA for this), so if we go I want to go somewhere we would stay really, get the wreck habitable and let it for a while. Or I'd stay here for a year til sure.

esuhl

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

So who are "the rich"?

The concepts of "being rich" or of having "a lot" of money are inherently ambiguous and are only intelligible in relative terms.

Someone with £1000 might be rich to someone who has 10p and had been unable to afford food for several days; whilst someone with £100M might consider the person with £1000 to be poor.

So, is the person with £1000 objectively rich? There's no way of saying as the concept is meaningless.

Government definitions of poverty are often defined in terms of being in the lowest X percentage (e.g. you are officially "poor" if you are less wealthy than 90% of the population). So if a massive government programme quadruples everyone's wealth overnight so the poorest people are now better off than the richest were before the programme... then officially the (relative) poverty figures would be unchanged even though (absolute) poverty has been virtually eliminated.