O/T Percentages and earning potential

Earning £80k per annum doesn't put you anywhere near being a millionaire, not once tax, national insurance, council tax etc have been taken off. I work with people earning over £80k and I can assure you that they are not millionaires or close to being millionaires.

For the benefit of doubt I'm not defending him. I'm giving my opinion on what I thought he was trying to say about the misleading top 5% statistic.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...er-cent-inequality-labour-plans-a9213781.html

for his 21 quid a month if Labour implemented their promises he would get free broadband access to fre dental check ups and not be paying for his kids to go to uni. Not bad for 21 quid.

 

I'm not discussing this to be converted JV, I'm not disputing how Labour are saying they will spend the money (their manifesto is a very different subject). All I was commenting on was my interpretation of what the guy on QT was trying to say, albeit in a hamfisted manner.

 

What he actually said was I’m not in the top 50% of earners. In reality he is in the top 3 %. He was making an economically illiterate argument beyond that even if you interpret it the way you have. He is better paid that Doctors. Lawyers, teachers and MPs. I’d happily pay extra tax if I thought it would be used to improve the country.

 

Yes he did extend his point to claim he wasn't even in the top 50%; like I said he made himself look a bit of a Joey. Maybe my benefit of the doubt is misplaced but I stand by my point that putting everyone earning £80k in the same category as billionaires is misleading and distorts the statistic.

I don't recall him saying he didn't want to pay more tax. This is why I think the point he was trying to make was specifically about the way the statistics are calculated rather than his willingness to pay tax. This is why he brought PAYE into the discussion.

 

Again a strange attitude when its plain to see that amazon and google etc are the biggest tax dodgers you know.

It’s not right of course anyone should avoid tax, evasion and avoidance is a fine line I believe for those in the know. I won’t ask if you’ve reported them to the relevant authorities of course

 

But even his point on that interpretation would be flawed as people on £80k aren't been lumped in with millionaires. That is simply the threshold where someone will pay a little bit more tax, whereas millionaires will pay a lot more. Fully appreciate you're not defending him too mate, and that you've pointed out he was wrong on his stats. I do think it shows how niave some people are to what others, particularly public servants, earn

 

I agree with all this except the 5% statistic isn’t ‘misleading’ it’s simple maths.

I can even understand that he probably knows more people earning similar amounts to him which makes him feel ‘average’. But he’s not average, he earns close to 3x the average.

earning £80k and getting angry about paying a few quid more in tax to pay nurses more than £22k is selfish no matter how you paint it.

 

If someone earning 80k is annoyed at paying a little more tax when real millionaires and billionaires know how to get away with it then surely they should be annoyed at them as they are partly the reason they have to pay more to fill the hole .

 

Absolutely, the threshold point is beyond question. Where it does become less clear is when people aren't being taxed through PAYE and without wanting to generalise I would guess that a decent % of the super rich aren't on PAYE.

 

My attitude towards this is very simple - I disagree with tax avoidance on all levels. The majority of us have to pay our fair share and this should extend to everyone from Chippies to multinational corporations. Where I agree with the guy on QT is the point he made about PAYE being an easy target.

 

Very true!

 

It's not hard to make £80k a year IT contracting.

I know people in software engineering that have made 6 figures in a week. It's certainly not the norm, but it happens.

The standard rate is normally about £500 a day for a software contractor. Roughly £130k a year.

I charge £650 a day for contracted work. I have a salaried position though on a good salary, so I don't take it often.

 

As someone who earns a decent (but not crazy) wage and is married to someone who used to be a nurse in the NHS but left because the hours and pressure just weren't sustainable I would happily pay an extra £1k a year tax if it went into improving the NHS and removing tuition fees.

The tories are fvcking scum. They will say they're not trying to privatise the NHS, but if you imagine the NHS as a patient on life support they're basically stepping on the oxygen line hoping no-one notices whilst saying "ooh ****, looks like the patient is fvcked, nothing we can do, may as well put them out of their misery"

 

Sorry, I did mean that it’s not a lot to earn!