Should NHS workers pay income tax?

georgelmitchell

Should NHS workers and care home workers pay income tax this year?
They are all working in dangerous and life threatening conditions. 
So why should they be paying income tax? 

Socajam

Of course they should be paying income tax
What should happen is for them to be given a decent pay raise - nothing less than 10% - 15% because they deserves it.
Also all those foreign health care workers (and their spouses/children)  should be given automatic citizenship - FREE of charge.
Yes, I can hear all of your asking where will the money come from?   It should come from this:

"In 2019, the public sector expenditure on defense in the United Kingdom was 40.2 billion British pounds, a 1.5 billion increase from 2017/18. Compared with 2000/01 when the UK spent approximately 25.7 billion pounds, there has been a net increase of 14.5 billion pounds".

15 - 20% of this should be used to invest into the NHS (nothing less than this).  Why are we investing so much money into war, whilst the health, education and housing of our citizens are being neglected?  Whilst we are at it, pay the teachers a decent salary as well.
We should be preparing for the future through instead of investing in war machines for the sole purpose of killing.

JJ_Egan

NHS workers a large % of the UK workforce .No pay tax then Mr OP you are going to pay a lot extra .

Silvertabby

We are not investing in war - we are investing in our defence. 

Lynnie789

Most Care home staff are having pay cuts. Hours cut due to losing residents to covid

Boa21

Of course they should, but also of course they should have reasonable salaries and pay rises. Apparently 4 or 5 years of pay freeze was a price worth paying for austerity, doesn't seem so fair now does it?

All care workers should be paid appropriately, not 'off the clock' when travelling between clients for home care for example. Migrant NHS/Care workers shouldn't have to pay the NHS precept, visa fees should be abolished. The NHS pays a lot of this anyway as in my experience most doctors at least get these fees reimbursed by their hospitals.

There have always been some risks in healthcare, I scrubbed for the first 'AIDS' patient operation at a major London teaching hospital in the early 80's. We were terrified as no one then knew much about the new disease or how it was spread. BUT, I had plenty of PPE (hard to mount a needle holder when wearing 3 pairs of sterile gloves). The big difference now is that we are sending people into the front line with what we know is inadequate protection. You just would not expect a fire fighter to enter a smoke filled building without the appropriate breathing apparatus, why expect a healthcare worker to carry out an aerosol generating procedure on a Covid 19 patient without full PPE?

The outpouring of support for key workers has been magnificent and generous, but better to ensure fair pay, safe working conditions and perhaps direct our charity to those who have lost their incomes or are struggling.

The_Waiter

If the government want to stick to their pre-covid pay plan for all public workers, they should at least, also give the NHS workers an ex-gratia tax free reward for all their exceptional work during the pandemic.

Grumpy_chap

georgelmitchell said:

Should NHS workers and care home workers pay income tax this year?
They are all working in dangerous and life threatening conditions. 
So why should they be paying income tax? 

If we are to consider "working in dangerous and life threatening conditions" as a criteria for exemption to income tax, should we also extend the exemption to the following groups, just to give some examples?

• Police officers
• Armed forces
• Fire fighters
• Sewage operatives
• Refuse collectors
• Politicians
• Nuclear power plant operatives
• The list goes on...

MattMattMattUK

georgelmitchell said:

Should NHS workers and care home workers pay income tax this year?
They are all working in dangerous and life threatening conditions. 
So why should they be paying income tax? 

Yes they should we should all be subject to the same tax regime, no exceptions. 

I do hold the opinion that nurses and junior doctors should be paid more for what they do, they work long hours, for what would be regarded as relatively low pay and by the standards of other developed nations we pay our nurses very badly. However I also realise that to fund that would require an increase in general taxation, I am prepared to pay more tax, I think I personally should pay more tax, so long as we all do. Unfortunately though the bottom two thirds of earners have the lowest level of income taxation in the EU (I know we have left), whilst the top third have the sixth highest. We have the largest tax free allowance (many countries have nothing, or a few thousand at most), we have the lowest percentage of net contributors in the EU both on an annual and a lifetime basis. Whilst people in the UK regularly report that they would like taxes to rise (70-80%), only 16% report that they would be prepared to pay more tax themselves, their preference is for other people to pay. This is the problem in the UK, people seem to want the services provided from a high tax economy, whilst the vast majority make no net contribution.