This is a forum. People from many differing backgrounds and personal experience debate (in most cases in a well reasoned way) opinions on a variety of subjects. Just because someone disagrees with you, does not mean they are a "retard". That is a more disgraceful comment than any made by others. The members of this forum are a variety of ages, so may or may not be old, but I'm sure all of us fart (sorry Ducbird, Char et al). If you think we are all idiots and retards, stop wasting our time by posting on here. If you want to enter into debate without abuse, please carry on. I have no problem with honest, hard working folks making lots of money and paying their taxes. In my opinion, no one on here thinks wealth is evil. What we don't like is lazyness, dishonesty, abusive and criminal behaviour. If you read some of my previous posts on this thread, you will see what I do have a problem with. Whether you agree or not, I value my opinion, your opinion and those of others, whether I agree with them or not. I echo Pete's sentiment and hope your business is a success. What bike do you ride?
Pete - no, afraid not sir, this isn't correct. Once you get above 100k p.a. you lose your personal allowances, which this year are almost 10k p.a. on which most people pay no tax, in a 1/2 ratio for every marginal pound earned. So anyone earning over 100k p.a. starts paying tax from the start, not from 10k and upwards. So, not only do they pay 20% from the start, but they hit 40% earlier as well by 10k. Quite an increase in the marginal rate compared to someone earning 40k p.a.! They also lose their other allowances, child bens etc. So the marginal rates climb quite quickly actually, and once at 150k p.a. and above it all gets to be quite high on the margin. The only thing that caps out is NI at a level I can't remember.
Thank you, I bow to your more detailed and up to date knowledge. The point - which was Lightning's - holds good up to the £100K level though, right?
I honestly don't have a problem with people making a lot of money, even fairly obscene amounts of money. I particularly don't mind if they've built something up themselves. Good luck to them. I do think they should pay quite a lot of tax, because they can afford it and don't actually need to have a few hundred grand come into their bank accounts yearly so they can afford to give some away. A very close friend of mine is an M&A lawyer in the City. He works extremely hard, but then he loves his job and doesn't grudge the time. His tax bill was a few times my entire annual salary. I think he resents this a bit, but I just think of how much he must be getting paid in order to have such a large tax liability. My issue has always been with people who are given massive amounts of money to play with, and can then take a cut (a bonus) on the % of profit they make with it. It's pretty much a no-lose situation. The worst that can happen to them is that they lose their job - which is what happens to loads of people through re-orgs all the time, often through no fault whatsoever of their own. The best that can happen to them is that their bets come off, they make millions for the bank or fund and are allowed to keep some of them. Nice position to be in. Even that isn't really a problem. After all, life isn't fair and you can't expect it to be. The only real problem is when the system encourages this casino culture (and how could it not?), and that when it goes wrong, people who haven't been dealt a hand in this game suddenly get added to the mix to fork out. It is now estimated that 80% of daily business on the markets is now computer driven. Stuff is bought and sold many times in the same day according to small price fluctuations. This is just idle speculation - it's not even investment. How does this activity really contribute to anything useful? I can't see that it does but that the people playing this game should be rewarded so much more than people actually creating real wealth or contributing to society is bound to rankle.
You don't lose your personal allowance at 100k or at any other income point. Age related personal allowances, which start off higher, are progressively reduced down to the level of the personal allowance, above a certain income level. By all means tell me that reducing age related personal allowances based upon income is unfair - I might agree with you - but your statement above was factually inaccurate. Edit: Oops, I'm wrong. Apologies to all.
ar, expansion and digression. The allowances make a huge difference to those sub 25k too, which explains why I have mates who earn a third what I earn, similar homes etc yet more cash to burn in the pub ;-) whether its child credits, additional support with rent or council tax it all adds up to more bottom line income without affecting top line...ie its in the pocket
Loz, actually you do. If you earn over £100k, the personal allowance is reduced by £1 for every £2 earned. So if the standard personal allowance is £6K, if your gross earnings are £112K, your personal allowance would be reduced to zero.
Wow, when did that come in? I completely missed that! I guess because it doesn't affect me and never will :frown: Thanks, Stressed and apologies to ChamMTB for my error.
Thanks Pete, year one was 280,000 sales with just over 50% margins - so thanks for the good wishes. It should be a multiple of that for 13/14 and we are hiring a few people a week on average, a very real and practical contribution to society and the economy. Let me know what point I ignored and I'll tackle it. Lightning 650 - I never thought I'd get such a kick out of hiring people, biggest surprise since starting things. Now I've had a bit of experience, I hire the best guys and pay the best wages. It's not a well paid industry, but all my guys get the London living wage and job creation makes me as happy as getting a decent dividend, so I can see partly what you're referring to. I think the only way you get successful in the majority of businesses is by offering a better service or price - I'm trying for the first and it's getting traction. BTW I saw your profile pic has super sports on it - I take it you ride one? An option for a weekend fun bike?
So just to show the difference, if you earn: 25k p.a. you pay 5.5k tax (inc NI) which is a 22% tax rate 40k p.a. you pay 10k tax (inc NI) which is a 25% tax rate 125k p.a. you pay 50k tax (inc NI) which is a 40% tax rate 250k p.a. you pay 112k tax (inc NI) which is a 45% tax rate etc...... The only way to reduce these (other than tax dodging in one way or another) is to make capital gains, which are taxed as income if they do not involve you putting real money at risk (so same rates as above) or they are legitimate capital gains where you risk material amounts of your own capital, in which case you pay 28% on that, but risk losing it all. Which hurts, and there are no one-way bets no matter what is represented externally. And yes, I know lots of structural possibilities exist which are an improvement on this above, but that applies to very few people, most actually just pay a lot of tax if they earn a lot. The mega wealthy obviously can play the tax arbitrage/residency game etc, but this is a very small group indeed..... Most higher earners just get hammered.
Right.Lets nail this bollocks once and for all. Government borrowing as a percentage of GDP,and it's relationship with the growth in population. Debt as a percentage of GDP fell from 215% in 1945 to 25% in 1991,with a few bumps in between. In the same period,the population rose from 49 to 57 million people. And from 1991 to 2010,UK debt has risen from 25% to a whopping 54% of GDP ,while the population "only",rose from 57 million to 64 million... Of course the total amount of debt has risen ,GDP has expanded from £10 billion to £1458 billion..... Times are not so tough as the media would have you believe Go here to see the true story.... http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/d...e=m&color=c&title=UK National Debt As Pct GDP
I've got a 750 for the lanes,but tbh I'm a tad tall and lardy for it so it's up for sale.Having said that,I've got a 900SS with 944 kit that I'm a tad tall and lardy for,but oooooh it's lurvely to ride. If you haven't got one,buy one:they are literally the bargain of the century at the minute
Then there are all of the indirect taxes, and taxes on taxes which significantly increase the total tax take.
Interesting link from ukpublicspending Lightning although I don't think the end of WW2 is neccessarily a good baseline but it does illustrate the point, I wonder what the taxpayersalliance would have to say on the subject. The graph also finishes at 2010 with the highest figure since the early 70's and rising steeply.
I guess what people would say is that: 25k p.a. you pay 5.5k tax and have 19.5k to spend 40k p.a. you pay 10k tax and have 30k to spend 125k p.a. you pay 50k tax and have 75k to spend 250k p.a. you pay 112k tax and have 138k to spend So you might get "hammered on tax" but life has surely got to be considerably more comfortable, with 6 times the "discretionary spend" (I know there are all the other things that have to come out of this) if you earn 250k rather than 25k. In fact, you might argue (and I'm going to, for the hell of it), that your 19.5k left after tax will all go on rent, food and utility bills, leaving you with an arbitrary 1k. Having spent the same amount on the same things, the guy who is earning 250k has still got about 120k left to spend on whatever he likes, so he is in effect, 120 times better off, although he earns 10 times as much. The figures may vary (massively) but the logic still holds true, and is patently obvious. While some are on the bus, others are changing their Ferrari. I just can't have a whole lot of tears for their being "hammered on tax", though I am delighted that they are enjoying life so much.
I went for 1945 because it nails two myths for the price of one: If you choose 1955-1964 as the "Baby Boom",era,then it shows that,(assuming that most started work in their teens between 1970-1979),then these workers reduced Government debt as a percentage of GDP to it's lowest level since the war The second point is that as a percentage of GDP,Government debt has more than doubled in the last 20 years.Look back to 1991 and look at what Governments started to spend an awful lot more money on...
