Ed Balls pledges to raise taxes if Labour win election

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

I was never in the top 1%. I left the City because I didn't believe that the toil I was expected to do justified my income and stress level. Simple as that.
I've also been offered higher pay with the big consultancies and rejected the offers because they wanted me to work away from home 5 days a week.

Tancred wrote: »

????

I am not unemployed, so I'm not withholding any potential. I am doing the job I've always done - of course I would like to earn more, but with certain conditions in terms of lifestyle etc.

Economically you are witholding potential. You have the ability to earn more thus contribute in a greater way to benefit the country, or to pay the deficit.

You choose not to because you don't want to pay the other costs as you feel they are not worth it, So you recognise the costs of this type of labour are significant.

Yet when others are prepared to make these sacrifices you feel they should pay a greater burden of tax for making that chose as well as paying the costs you are not prepared to. Thus paying the cost two fold, in the higher tax level and the personal costs.


There is no reason why, some people in the one percent (people not turned over for what ever reason, people prepared to make those sacrifices or people who just do a different job) might not choose to do exactly the same as you have done and opt for a different work life balance.

Many do at a stage in their career anyway....they might do it in the way you have done, or in a slightly different way, working shorter contracts. Both put limits on progression in some careers, but both are options, as you discovered.

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

Economically you are witholding potential. You have the ability to earn more thus contribute in a greater way to benefit the country, or to pay the deficit. .

No, I'm not. Because ability does not ensure that you earn more. I could do the job of the CIO in the blue chip company I work for but that doesn't mean that I would get the job.

lostinrates wrote: »

You choose not to because you don't want to pay the other costs as you feel they are not worth it, So you recognise the costs of this type of labour are significant.

Yet when others are prepared to make these sacrifices you feel they should pay a greater burden of tax for making that chose as well as paying the costs you are not prepared to. Thus paying the cost two fold, in the higher tax level and the personal costs.

I accept that some people are willing to adopt a different lifestyle, i.e. come home at 10pm, employ a cleaner etc. That is up to them, but it does not detract from the fact that they have significantly more spare cash and should therefore shoulder a bigger share of the tax burden. I now work 35 hours a week for a yearly salary of £68-70k a year depending on bonus. If I worked in a City bank doing the same job as I do now I would get £100-110k a year for at least 50 hours a week, probably more like 70. And I would face extra commuting costs and a much longer commuting time from my Reading base. Therefore my hourly rate would not actually go up and I would face more commuting time, more commuting costs and less time with my wife. It's a no brainer - it wouldn't work!
What other people do is up to them - they exercise a choice, and with a choice you have consequences. One of these is extra tax for more income. If they do not want to pay extra tax then they can find a lower paid job.

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

No, I'm not. Because ability does not ensure that you earn more. I could do the job of the CIO in the blue chip company I work for but that doesn't mean that I would get the job.

but you have said you have left a better paying job and turn down better paying roles.

. If I worked in a City bank doing the same job as I do now I would get £100-110k a year for at least 50 hours a week, probably more like 70. And I would face extra commuting costs and a much longer commuting time from my Reading base. Therefore my hourly rate would not actually go up and I would face more commuting time, more commuting costs and less time with my wife. It's a no brainer - it wouldn't work!
What other people do is up to them - they exercise a choice, and with a choice you have consequences. One of these is extra tax for more income. If they do not want to pay extra tax then they can find a lower paid job.

Thank you for arguing my point for me tancred

vivatifosi

And for evidence of where all this may lead us, ladies and gentlemen, I give you France...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2549140/Foreign-investment-France-plunges-77-cent-Hollandes-socialist-policies-drive-businesses-away.html

Foreign investment in France plunges by 77 per cent as Hollande's socialist policies drive businesses away
Staggering fall came as foreign investment in the EU as a whole increased
Coincides with figures showing unemployment and poverty at new highs
Mr Hollande claims to be a radical left-winger who 'hates the rich'

Sorry to quote Mail, out of UK at moment so a lot of papers want to charge me for access.

BillJones

vivatifosi wrote: »

And for evidence of where all this may lead us, ladies and gentlemen, I give you France...

I've a fair few friends who've ended up working abroad rather than the UK over tax reasons, whose tax would have paid for a fair fraction of a new hospital had they stayed (and that's without even accounting for the rest of their colleagues who've also left).

None stood up one day and headed to the airport in protest at the 50% rate, but a couple were already working in asia, and turned down offers to come back to the UK because they'd have been worse off, and the others worked for a company where the big boss moved explicitly for tax reasons, and they were asked to go along as well.

Where people seem to miss the point in this is that there is a fair amount of moving between centres already, and it does not take a huge shift in taxation burden to heavily bias this flow one way or the other. These people will be doing the same job, in the same company, and with the same customers; they'll just be paying tax, and spending their income, in a different country in the future.

People like Tancred are perfectly free to throw their insults at them, but his personal issues have nothing to do with the economic question of how people will respond to difffering incentives.

lostinrates

BillJones wrote: »

I've a fair few friends who've ended up working abroad rather than the UK over tax reasons, whose tax would have paid for a fair fraction of a new hospital had they stayed (and that's without even accounting for the rest of their colleagues who've also left).

None stood up one day and headed to the airport in protest at the 50% rate, but a couple were already working in asia, and turned down offers to come back to the UK because they'd have been worse off, and the others worked for a company where the big boss moved explicitly for tax reasons, and they were asked to go along as well.

Where people seem to miss the point in this is that there is a fair amount of moving between centres already, and it does not take a huge shift in taxation burden to heavily bias this flow one way or the other. These people will be doing the same job, in the same company, and with the same customers; they'll just be paying tax, and spending their income, in a different country in the future.

People like Tancred are perfectly free to throw their insults at them, but his personal issues have nothing to do with the economic question of how people will respond to difffering incentives.

I think its very clear that often the truelY international nature of corps OR some of the wealth of the people who own 'big brands'. I gave the example of DH working here for a boss in Ireland whose boss in turn was on the continent. The eu ho of that company is here, but could be moved to Ireland very simply. The corp tax loss would be significant.

On a personal basis DH works with people who almost all have a connection elsewhere.....some of them have one British parent, some don't. Some have two British parents who themselves emigrated.....

People often talk about migrant workers being an issue in the minimum wage jobs, but top tier professional jobs too are full of people who could take money made here away from here. They actively choose uk because its great, we love it.n London is a a fabulous city.

You make it less great, less fabulous for them, it tips the scales.....

BillJones

lostinrates wrote: »

You make it less great, less fabulous for them, it tips the scales.....

I used to live and work in NYC, and it was great. I may well like to do so again, and the decision will be influenced, in part, by may after-tax salary.

One thing that I don't understand from those on the other side of this (those who argue that people will not, or should not, move based on salary) is that their arguments seem to start from the incorrect assumption that we are talking about UK citizens only. If an american can earn more money by going back home, why would he not?

If a Greek national is working in London and is offered a move to Geneva, why "ought" he turn it down based on someone else's opinion wbaout what is right?

It is as though some posters on here simply do not like the fact that some of us like to move aaround, and to see different cultures and places. One of the effects that pushes at the margins is the tax rate.

Fella

BillJones wrote: »

It is as though some posters on here simply do not like the fact that some of us like to move aaround, and to see different cultures and places. One of the effects that pushes at the margins is the tax rate.

True although probably that gives them too much credit. There are clearly people on here who have a 100% fixed mindset & simply disregard any logical argument that doesn't fit it. Ultimately you're talking about people who just want to see high earner's punished because they're jealous of them, nothing more to it that that really.

BillJones

Fella wrote: »

True although probably that gives them too much credit. There are clearly people on here who have a 100% fixed mindset & simply disregard any logical argument that doesn't fit it. Ultimately you're talking about people who just want to see high earner's punished because they're jealous of them, nothing more to it that that really.

Yes, it's dressed up in all kinds of faux moral indignation, but it strangely seems to come down to a demand that the punitive tax rate be set just a bit above where they see themselves earning in a few years.

The other side tends to be quite dishonest too, conflating the idea that the rich should pay more than the poor with the idea that the rich should pay more than they now do.

No-one's arguing against the former proposition on here, that I can see, yet posters are arguing as though they are.

Whenever I've asked someone in person (who demands "more tax on the rich") how much tax they believe I should pay, given my income, they invariably come up with a smaller number (in pounds) than I already pay. Quite humorously, when I give them the real number they'll likely tell me that I'm an idiot for not avoiding it "like all the others do".

lostinrates

BillJones wrote: »

I used to live and work in NYC, and it was great. I may well like to do so again, and the decision will be influenced, in part, by may after-tax salary.

One thing that I don't understand from those on the other side of this (those who argue that people will not, or should not, move based on salary) is that their arguments seem to start from the incorrect assumption that we are talking about UK citizens only. If an american can earn more money by going back home, why would he not?

If a Greek national is working in London and is offered a move to Geneva, why "ought" he turn it down based on someone else's opinion wbaout what is right?

It is as though some posters on here simply do not like the fact that some of us like to move aaround, and to see different cultures and places. One of the effects that pushes at the margins is the tax rate.

This is exactly the picture of the City and beyond I see. Our home is actually not in the city , it in rural England, so it would take us longer to move than others. But DH has lived in a mother country to me before and we've discusses it as a possibility for periods in the future too. Its not an easy decision but sometimes its too good an opportunity to pass up.

But, here in my rural community there are several businesses for who relocating really wouldn't be an issue, ...some are small, some are hedge fund managers owning household names..

And its not just confined to business. My in laws are academics
My fil did 'NYlon' for a while, one of my siblings in law is one European country while her fianc! is in another and heading off to America next academic year.


The thing with a more global market is that people can move for opportunity. We talk about the brain drain and business, but its MOT just business. It filters through.... Because business feeds other areas......i