More than half of households get more in benefits than they pay in tax

FTBFun

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

In the USA the threshold before you pay any income tax is a lot higher.

For a single person: $3,600 exemption plus $5,800 standard deduction = $9,400
@ 1.6 = £5,875 which is actually considerably less.

JimmyTheWig

Graham_Devon wrote: »

More than half of households get more in benefits than they pay in tax

That's not true!!!
The linked article tells us that it is "benefit payments _and_ services" that outweigh the tax paid.

So in total, it should average out to zero - i.e. total tax paid should balance total government money spent.

If weath was a straight line graph then you would expect 50% to pay in less than they received and 50% to pay in more than they received.
But given that a large amount of wealth is received by a relatively few people the graph is curved. And so more than 50% of people are below the mean average wealth and less than 50% of people are above the mean average wealth. So you would expect more people to be "taking out" on net than "putting in" on net.

The fact that it is only 53% suggests to me that the wealthy are not properly paying their fair share.

Gracchus_Babeuf

FTBFun wrote: »

For a single person: $3,600 exemption plus $5,800 standard deduction = $9,400
@ 1.6 = £5,875 which is actually considerably less.

This is the personal exemption only. You forget to mention that there are loads of tax deductible expenses that would not qualify in the UK.

Horses for courses.

FTBFun

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

This is the personal exemption only. You forget to mention that there are loads of tax deductible expenses that would not qualify in the UK.

Horses for courses.

These are generally allowable though where they exceed 2% of adjusted gross income - hence why I included the standard deduction amount.

I should probably point out I'm a US tax adviser.