Are you a good citizen?

Conrad

Mistermeaner wrote: »

does anyone have data on the tax paid by whom; e.g. how many people are paying no tax, low rate, high rate, even higher rate etc

I'm sure I saw something somewhere about 5% odd of the population paying something like 90% of the taxes

Through 25 years of business dealings I can say with certainty that for the great mass of takeaway and fast-food outlet owners, as well as plenty of other self employed people, tax paying is very much a last resort.


It's one reason there are so many Bankruptcies - simply people engineering tax avoidance and setting up a new firm / in spouses / Daughters name next day


Accountant contact of mine had a classic the other week, a new wealthy working class client enquiry who said, "now I don't pay tax", the Accountant winced and the bloke said " no seriously, I don't pay it, never have never will, so are we on the same hymn sheet here"


I've met many such characters - they set-up a coffee shop for the missus, a beauty salon for the Daughter, they own horses, have a place in Marbella, drive big black Range Rovers, but no tax ever paid. One even moaned that the authorities / Banks ask him for an NI number these days but he's not got one. Totally under the radar, one of Corbyns 'poor'

chucknorris

Conrad wrote: »

Through 25 years of business dealings I can say with certainty that for the great mass of takeaway and fast-food outlet owners, as well as plenty of other self employed people, tax paying is very much a last resort.


It's one reason there are so many Bankruptcies - simply people engineering tax avoidance and setting up a new firm / in spouses / Daughters name next day

Paying tax is certainly a last resort with me, but nothing illegal, just SIPP's, ISA's and looking at tax havens (although other criteria come first when it comes to where I choose to live). I draw the line though at VCT's and EIS's, too much risk for the tax advantage IMO.

Moby

Conrad wrote: »

I've met many such characters - they set-up a coffee shop for the missus, a beauty salon for the Daughter, they own horses, have a place in Marbella, drive big black Range Rovers, but no tax ever paid. One even moaned that the authorities / Banks ask him for an NI number these days but he's not got one. Totally under the radar, one of Corbyns 'poor'

....more like one of Osborne's tax dodgers!;)

Conrad

Moby wrote: »

....more like one of Osborne's tax dodgers!;)

No, these people will show -up in income stats as poor, one of the many Corbyn's efforts would benefit - apparently poor people qualify for more state aid

Moby

Conrad wrote: »

No, these people will show -up in income stats as poor, one of the many Corbyn's efforts would benefit - apparently poor people qualify for more state aid

Sorry I don't get the Corbyn point.....are you saying that Corbyn wants us all to avoid paying tax like these people you are characterising above? Or are you saying that we have a tax system which certain people can abuse ...........something which I whole heartedly agree about!

N1AK

Conrad wrote: »

'I do not, however, have any inclination to help other higher earners by paying more tax when they don't have to when they will share equally in the benefits'.

Why, given your sincerely held compassionate world view would you not want to lead by example, do the right thing regardless of what others do? Ghandi said 'be the change you want' he did not say 'talk about stuff and whinge'

I believe doing the right thing can be voting for changes to our tax system, and I'm not remotely concerned that this is somehow a hypocritical position. Just like I don't feel the need to wander the streets as a vigilante even though I believe people should be protected from crime. It really is quite a puerile attempt to play the player rather than the ball to try and claim you can't care about the poor or try and help them if you aren't somehow reasonably poor yourself.

I also take the time to know enough about people to know what they have or haven't said before I claim to quote them. What Ghandi did say, and that this paraphrasing widely misrepresents, wouldn't be useful to support either position in this discussion; but it might bring you some wisdom.

N1AK

Dird wrote: »

My point is an £11k average doesn't mean people are net takers unless you show where the £11k is going.
No hospital in 15 years, no kids to win the CTC rebate, no income/disability/whatever support

You don't get off the hook for government spending in hindsight if you don't use it. If you explicitly opted out of the possibility of using the NHS 15 years ago then maybe you'd be able to claim credit, but for having the good fortune not to get cancer or be in a serious accident? Oh please...

You might like to delude yourself otherwise but you reside in the country, you have the capacity to vote, and you're responsible for your share of your government's spending.

kinger101

cells wrote: »

its £748 billion in spending = about £11,500 per capita or more than a million quid if you live to be 87 years old

Amazingly huge sum of money clearly most of us get more spent on us than we pay in taxes. An individual would probably need a lifetime income of £3-4 million in real terms to be somewhere around break even

There's more than the taxes taken off your pay.

Last year, HMRC collected £515B. £145B was income tax, and £110B was NI (roughly half of that employee).

VAT = £111B
Corporation Tax = £43B
Fuel Duties = £27B
SDLT = £11B
Tobacco = £10B

Then a dozen or so other duties make up the rest.

It's pretty interesting that VAT and NI are both close, considering between LEL and UEL, NI = 25.8 % of salary.

I think the net contribution point is typically around £37,000 household income (not individual), though that of course varies between households;



From here.

Generali

Mistermeaner wrote: »

does anyone have data on the tax paid by whom; e.g. how many people are paying no tax, low rate, high rate, even higher rate etc

I'm sure I saw something somewhere about 5% odd of the population paying something like 90% of the taxes

HMRC prepares these data.

My head hurts.

N1AK

kinger101 wrote: »

I think the net contribution point is typically around £37,000 household income (not individual), though that of course varies between households;

I think it pretty obviously isn't, and isn't even close. You need to pay nearly £12,000 in tax per person per year to pay your proportion of tax (this ignores the fact that many people including the heavily disabled can't earn enough to pay there's thus everyone else needs to pay more).

If you can be expected to live to 80 on average, and pay very little tax before 20 then you'd need to pay ~£16,000 in tax each year per person including in retirement. Assume you don't both go straight into high paid jobs, and that you aren't going to be pulling a £40k pa pension in retirement and you need to reach a peak income of at least £45k EACH to have much chance of getting near to paying your share.

People massively underestimate just how much you need to earn, and just how much tax you need to pay in order to be a net contributor. There's no way a couple on an income below £40k pa are coming close to paying enough tax to be cost neutral.