i don't think the argument is about earnings or ability its about paying tax. i don't like paying fuel duty but i don't want to live in the town ether. between me and the wife we are about a ton a week on fuel a small price to pay in my honest opinion.
My landlord is a consultant surgeon who retired more than twenty years ago, but he still gets called out on almost a weekly basis.
Yes Nuttynick but you don't argue against paying tax on the money that you do earn. My argument isn't that one shouldn't be able to earn more, but that to argue that paying a higher rate of tax over the base rate means that one is 'suffering' or less capable of living a comfortable life. The idea of 'comfortable' is subjective and at the root of this issue. A comfortable life to me right now, considering I sleep in an ISO container and eat the same s***** food day in and day out, only wear one set of clothes and sleep in a sleeping bag on a wooden pallet is that I have an internet connection, an aircon unit and a gym to use. Another persons standard of comfortable might be a brand new merc every other year and a holiday to Thailand every six months. I don't need an air con unit or a gym to use but they make me happy and content. When I am at home my 'comfortable' standards adjust and scale up slightly. It is this adjustability of standards that means that those earning more money become accustomed to a certain lifestyle and begin to believe that it is necessary to survive. One is, of course, entitled to anything one wishes to get out of life and you clearly work hard to achieve the things that you want but you haven't said that you don't feel like you should pay tax and while I am not suggesting that you should have anything less out of life than you want, I am suggesting that the things you expect are not necessarily the things that you need. Home ownership is another issue that bugs me. One is not obliged to buy a house in order to live. Especially when it costs such an inflated amount to buy one. Like I said previously, a roof over your head is a basic necessity of life and yet I am obliged to pay 250k for a tiny 2 bed house (which we could easily occupy; this is my own expected standards getting in the way) because of market demands, rather than because it costs x amount for bricks and mortar and x amount for labour. The only way to comply with the ever increasing demands of society is to already be rich otherwise the dwindling number of rich people pile on the social pressure that one is a failure or unsuccessful at life because you haven't assisted in making them slightly richer. This is capitalism and it blows. I think Maggie Thatcher said some time ago that if a 26 year old man finds himself taking the bus then he can consider himself a failure. [Because car ownership at 26 was an indicator of success!?!?!] How about, Maggie, you absolute Tory woman, you, on the day I die; if my children have good morals, behave decently and are happy with their lives and have beautiful, healthy children of their own, how about then I decide if my life has been a success or not rather than if I have managed to put pennies in to the coffers of another global manufacturing conglomerate. Bastards. I hate tories, I hate capitalism and I hate all this crap that people just wonder around blind to the invisible hand that guides them.
Fig I get what you are saying. But the OP seems, to me, to be saying that because he is a doctor, and therefor critical to society that he should be offered tax breaks to work more hours than he otherwise would. By saying this he is suggesting that doctors and other emergency services are critical to the running of the country in a way that other professions are not. My point is that all professions are critical and thus his argument that the doctor should have a tax break so that there is a doc available on weekends is equal to giving a tax break to dustbin men so that there is someone to empty my bin when I put it out on wednesday morning. My second point is that the amount earned before the higher tax limit is enough to live a healthy, comfortable life for a given amount of comfort in a way that 12k is probably not enough to avoid going to bed hungry every night.
I am really struggling to understand what point you are trying to make here. You seem to be saying that you would rather be paid £40 per hour with a special tax exemption than £80 per hour with 50% tax. But why? Like most people you would like to end up with more pay in your pocket: OK that is easy to understand. But why would you prefer to have it as an exemption from the taxes which everybody else has to pay? What is your objection to simply being offered a higher gross figure?
My Brother's a consultant surgeon and only gets called in on emergencies when he's on call. My wife's a community nurse and can't get a doctor to come to a patient out of hours for love nor money. Plumbers offer an emergency call out service, so too the RAC, perhaps they shouldn't pay tax either?
I like the use of 'so too' there. I'm going to try and fit that in to a conversation tomorrow. Would the comma before 'perhaps' be a prime opportunity for a semi-colon instead?
Try this: Plumbers offer an emergency call out service; so too the RAC. Perhaps they shouldn't pay tax either.
Ah, the old game of trying to slip a pre-determined word or phrase into your next conversation, regardless of what that conversation is about. If the person you are talking to doesn't notice anything odd, that's a bonus point.
I speak 2 languages all day long and quite often respond in the wrong one, so hearing odd stuff come out of my mouth is nothing new for my team.
Amd those people who answer your emergency breakdown calls in the Middle of the night should be in as well, right?!
Are people not getting bees in their bonnet about different professions? I understood (quite possibly misunderstood) the original question as pertaining to paying tax on additional work you do in your free time, once you have already contributed tax on your normal job. I can easily see the current system will never change, as it opens up far too many opportunities for abuse. But the principle remains for me: all things being equal, once you have done your civic duty by paying a fair amount of tax on your full-time job, then I don't see why the government should also get a cut from your weekends and evenings. Irrespective of your profession.
