The tax year is an arbitrary time frame. Before I retired I was self employed. Some years I earned £80k + and others as little as £5k (or on occasion, £nothing). No-one gave me back any of the 'good years' tax paid, when I had a 'bad year' (afterall...it was my money that I earned before the tax man laid his claim). So anyway...was I a high earner, or not?
Reality When it comes to annual income, a salary of £80,000 would put someone firmly in the top 5% of UK earners. According to HMRC taxpayer data from 2016-17, the 95th percentile of earnings began at £75,300. If this has gone up in line with other earnings growth, it will be just over £80,000 this year. https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ning-80000-or-more-top-5-of-uk-earners-labour The guy could be forgiven for not thinking £80K earnings is in the top 5%. He is delusional if he thinks that £80K puts him inside the bottom 50%.
FFS...He never said that. It was a typo in the article. Edit: Ooops .......Seems I may be wrong and he did say something about not even being in the top 50% My bad. Didn't catch that bit when watching.
I did go back to the clip on the twitter post. https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1197658552363560960 The chap did say he earned more than 80k, if you look where the presenter asks him at 1:00 does he earn over 80K, he replies yes. It seems to be that by corralling everyone over £80k into the same pen as the 151 billionaires labour claim exist in the U.K. he feels wrongly done by and I don't entirely blame him as the vast majority paying these extra taxes, will be closer to the 80k mark than the billionaire mark
yip, but in the mean time, he is in the top 5%. maybe your attempting to say that those in the top 5%, not all are high earners. am i right Mr Cummings?
So train drivers are now in the same 5% top bracket as local authority CEOs (town clerks....who would have thought it, eh?) and lawyers? There are thousands of people in the UK on £100K plus, but there are a helluva lot on £500K plus. Regardless of the make up of the top 5%, there aren't enough of them to tax to pay for what the Commies say they will implement, so the minions will get hit hard as well (I know, I have been there several years ago when the unions ran (ruined) the country). Plus, if the Commies do succeed, there will many people losing their jobs owing to businesses closing down and the top earners leaving the UK; so taxation will be even higher for the few that still have jobs......if they aren't all out on strike demanding higher wages (still, they will only have to be on strike 4 days a week). Free Broadband for all? Bollox...... McDonnell called it a necessary Utility these days...... So are Electricity and Water essential utilities.......I suppose they will become free to all too. Rail travel? Will it still be essential? Who will be able to afford it after higher taxation or will that be free? Who the hell the Commies are using to do their Maths (other than Abbott) must be a real effing genius.
To clear any confusion: Labour suggest that as people who earn over £80K are in the top 5% of earners in the country they should pay a higher tax than those earning less than £80K. The new rate would be 45% People earning over £125K a year would pay 50% income tax. These rates are significantly lower than tax rates in the 1980s under Maggie T. Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s. In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%.
My son in law works on the underground, he is a very highly skilled heavy electrics tech, something done over many years. He currently falls right at the top edge of the basic band Basic rate £11,851 to £46,350 20%. There have been many times where there has been an emergency or planned servicing need that he and some of his other colleagues have had to turn down over time because to do so would see him into the next band at 40% tax Higher rate £46,351 to £150,000 40%. It's these people approaching or just entering the higher band who are more likely to be impacted by labours plans than the billionaire with the world full of highly paid accountants to reduce their tax bill. It is not unreasonable to see by action, not words that this sems to attack those who make have worked hard to the top of their grade, have kept services going or even through being self employed and doing well, employing others. For this group, it seems as those they are by action, suppressing any from the lowest wages structure, breaking through to a reward for their own hard work and investment. The £80k people will never own a house in new york, london, paris, caribean, with private jets and ferraris and bugatti's. they are likely to be people who started with nothing and only through hard work built something up and are unlikely to go much more than just comfortable. If you really wanted to let the poorest see chances to advance beyond what they have, pursue their skills such as surgeons to their highest standard, then I don't feel it is unreasonable to have the basic rate of tax at 20% to apply to all wages upto £99,999. What's wrong with allowing the poorest a few steps up?
I agree with you on that, but it also acts as a barrier to keep those trying to start from low and go higher. It's as though labour want to keep the lower levels of incomes from achieving beyond expectation just so everyone at the lower level see's no way out
This whole area of "who pays the tax" is a minefield. However, HMG do publish detailed statistics, for example here: https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax The tables are not very easy to read, but I found this one which seems to say it all: https://assets.publishing.service.g...ads/attachment_data/file/812851/Table_2.4.pdf It's important to note that the statistics "only cover individuals who have some liability to income tax." This means that there must be a lot of people whose income falls within the now generous personal allowance (I'm ignoring the black economy) and who are not part of the 100% on which the 5% is based. It's clear that higher earners have been paying more and more of the income tax take over the past 20 years - the idea that from Cameron onwards they have got off lightly is absurd. It looks as if the top 5% (of income tax payers, not the adult population) already pay 50.1% of all income tax, so I don't see how the Labour party's plans can be funded only by taking more from them and not from the other 95% That proportion of tax paid by the 5% has risen inexorably since 1999 despite their total proportion of income having grown by much less than that (currently around 20%) and having risen by only a small amount in that same period (in fact that proportion of total income has fallen since Cameron came to power). I don't see how the billionaires can pay for it either - there aren't that many of them and taking Mike Ashley as an example (he seems popular), it appears that he is worth about £2bn. If McDonnell confiscated all Mike's money, which might be difficult, it would be a tiny fraction of what he has planned to spend, and he wouldn't be able to go back for more.
