Tax break imminent for those on high earnings?

[I1L2T3]

Have you ever paid a bit extra because the country needs it, our do you just party what you should?

That's all anyone else does as long as they work within the rules the government creates.

 

Touchingly naive. Like I said earlier there is a whole industry built around tax avoidance always trying to bend and stretch the rules to create new avoidance schemes. There are disclosure rules, i.e. that require any scheme that creates tax advantages to be disclosed to HMRC and a whole section at HMRC to manage disclosure and detect non-disclosure.

 

In your simple IT contractor world there probably isn't a lot to consider and your tax affairs are unlikely to be vastly more complicated than the average joe. You are simply not up there with the big boys so why try to defend people who are paying expert accountants tens of thousands of punds for their advice?

[truman]

You might yet need expensive hospital treatment when you are in the last years of your life.

 

And the people treating him/her will be other people's children...some people don't see the big picture...

[truman]

Touchingly naive. Like I said earlier there is a whole industry built around tax avoidance always trying to bend and stretch the rules to create new avoidance schemes. There are disclosure rules, i.e. that require any scheme that creates tax advantages to be disclosed to HMRC and a whole section at HMRC to manage disclosure and detect non-disclosure.

 

In your simple IT contractor world there probably isn't a lot to consider and your tax affairs are unlikely to be vastly more complicated than the average joe. You are simply not up there with the big boys so why try to defend people who are paying expert accountants tens of thousands of punds for their advice?

 

Genuine question...do you pay more tax than you're legally obliged to?

[truman]

But I could have taken out private health insurance to cover than and have been quids in.

 

Does private health insurance cover chronic sickness usually found in the elderly?

[andyofborg]

The real question is how and why on earth did these loopholes ever get into the tax legislation in the first place. It must have been purely down to politicians sneaking them in to help their wealthy friends and patrons.

 

It's quite hard to write loophole free legislation

 

many of these avoidances aren't income tax avoidances but are ni avoidances, it seems to have become something of a sacrosanct that the basic rate of income tax is unchangeable.

 

and so revenue which would have been raised by adjusting tax rates has instead been raised by fiddling with the tax bands and increasing ni rates.

 

ni is calculated in a different way to income tax so things which would count as income for income tax purposes escapes from being included in ni calculations

[truman]

The point that I am making really is so obvious that it is self evident. The ones who pay tax must pay in more than they get out to keep the ones who never put anything in. Otherwise where does the money come from? Governments do not have money.

Economics 101 ... they borrow it...haven't you read the papers lately...

[truman]

Yes.............

 

At what cost?

[muddycoffee]

Yes.............

 

 

Even private hospitals in this country have staff that were trained by the NHS

[I1L2T3]

Genuine question...do you pay more tax than you're legally obliged to?

 

Nobody would volunteer to pay additional tax - that is not how it works.

 

Most people do however believe in paying their fair share of tax. It's quite simple to understand.

 

I believe we should have a highly progressive personal taxation system with very restricted opportunities for people at higher income levels to narrow their tax base. Basically, a simple and fair system that has low adminsitration costs and low compliance costs. The problem is you could reset the tax system now and introduce something like what I describe and within one parliament it would be tweaked around with (e.g. to encourage certain types of economic activity) and within a few parliaments it would be festooned with politically-driven and economically-driven tweaks and additions, many of which would have unintented consequences (e.g. the effect of being a loophole).

 

IMO we have a broken taxation framework that favours people with higher earnings and allows them to avoid proportionately more of their tax. In the current economic climate that isn't good.

[truman]

Nobody would volunteer to pay additional tax - that is not how it works.

 

Most people do however believe in paying their fair share of tax. It's quite simple to understand.

 

 

So the people on higher incomes are no different to anyone else,they pay what they have to legally...people's idea of "fair" is quite wide ranging depending on whereabouts in the spectrum you are I suppose...