103 replies to this topic

[Ethel]

I don't think thats quite true, I'm sure there are different levels of income tax, and above a certain amount of earnings you get taxed more.

Taxable Bands Allowances 2007-08 (£)

Starting rate 10%
£0 - £2,230

Basic rate 22%
£2,231 - £34,600

Higher rate 40%
over £34,600

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/it.htm

Means tested benefit claimants earning more than their applicable amount: 65% + income tax. Is it surprising they don't want to work for the minimum wage?







'n Sheree did say bring it on
She is also one of the hardest working and nicest (does stuff for charity) TMF'ers.

[Juju]

So people earning £3000 or less are now paying the same amount of tax as someone on the average wage!

Really? I thought that if you were earning within a certain amount, there would be no tax or you could claim back any tax that had been taken. I was talking to Pie about this earlier and he said that sum is now £5220.

The figure of £5220 is your personal allowance, i.e. income tax free. About this level of income are the different tax brackets.
So someone with an income of £7,455 per year would only pay £223 in tax, as they pay nothing from their tax allowance (up to £5225 a year) and ten per-cent from the next £2,230 of income.

Wiki explains it quite well.........

UK tax

[Ethel]

Britain has always excelled in all things

except car insurance

The UK is actually the centre of the worldwide insurance industry and is worth billions (prolly because they don't want to pay you any of it ). Since feckless scroungers are featuring so highly in this thread find out about 'Lloyds Names' and underwriters who take a percentage of an underwriting and then underwrite that underwriting to take another cut.

[Pie]

As someone who has easily used up hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of resources through health care over the past 27 years, I, and my whole family, know that part of the taxes we pay are going towards something immeasurably important- the NHS....

You can't tar everyone with the same brush, and unfortunately the Government will try weeding out the bad ones with their new 'back to work' policies, but will end up stripping hundreds of deserving people of their benefits in the process.

Well said Amy

So people earning £3000 or less are now paying the same amount of tax as someone on the average wage!

Really? I thought that if you were earning within a certain amount, there would be no tax or you could claim back any tax that had been taken. I was talking to Pie about this earlier and he said that sum is now £5220.

The figure of £5220 is your personal allowance, i.e. income tax free. About this level of income are the different tax brackets.
So someone with an income of £7,455 per year would only pay £223 in tax, as they pay nothing from their tax allowance (up to £5225 a year) and ten per-cent from the next £2,230 of income.

Wiki explains it quite well.........

UK tax

Thats it lol, thougth it was something like 8-10% after it was pointed out that i had MADE A MISTAKE. Obviously that peson has never done such a thing.

[yorkshirechris]

I agree with the first post on most points and find myself neutral on others.

I don't have any kids to send to school, so I'd like some of my taxes refunded for that.
Last time I went to the doctors was over a year ago, and then I was greeted with arrogance by some doctor who just didn't seem to care about patients at all, yet other people go see the doctor all the time "I've got a cough" etc.
I don't use hospitals, but when a close elderly relative was in hospital with cancer a couple of years back the ward couldn't even provide her with an extra pillow to support her sore back. Luckily she had her family to support her.
The dentist I use is also a pillock, but I do go every 6 months to keep my name on the register, because I know if I didn't, I'd be completely without a dentist because no surgeries nearby are taking on NHS patients.
The roads I use are increasingly potholed.
The Police Farce (deliberate mis-spelling) have done me absolutely no favours when we experienced awful anti-social behaviour. They hardly ever managed to attend (even when stones were bieng thrown at the windows and fireworks being fired towards moving traffic) and when they did decide to turn up, they said "keep reporting it". I logged approximately 40 incident numbers before we finally moved out of the place, it was making our lives a misery.
The Armed Forces contain the best people this country has produced - those willing to fight for their country - but unfortunately we've wasted billions of pounds invading Iraq when we didn't need to, killing Iraquis when we didn't need to, then they don't have the proper equipment they need to do the job that they are gradually being put off because of the pointless wars we are waging.

Yes some semi-arrogant people will say "don't believe everything you hear in the news". And I don't. Unlike a lot of people I actually meet and talk to the general public on a day-to-day basis and the general consensus is the same - in the working-class community it is, anyway. Working Class people like myself don't expect everything to be given on a plate, but at the same time don't expect the cost of living to be above us. What does annoy us (more than the middle classes) is, as sheree put it, dole scroungers living next door who get everything paid for. The whole benefits system is a písspot. I worked in a guys house the other month. Very rough area. He had to quit his job on the orders of his doctors, as he has cancer. He can work fine, but he's had a medical and they've said he cannot work. But he wants to work! He now has to sit at home, on benefits, think he said he gets £180 a fortnight, and out of that has to come rent, bills, etc. He can't even afford to go to the local WMC anymore, he can only just afford a 4 pack of Guinness a week - his little "luxury". He lives next door to some druggies, but due to the expanding "ghettos" we have in the city can't find a decent, quiet place to live in peace, so has to put up with it. Yet someone else over the road is on disability, doesn't want to work, has a MPV paid for by the social. Gets his walking sticks out and has a practice before he goes for the yearly "means testing"!! How is that fair?

It's so easy for well-off people to look down and say "stop moaning and get over it" but you try living on the minimum wage! It's so easy for the middle classes to say "get a better job" - I know of people earning 30-40k a year (the average salary is 27k) who still struggle due to the high cost of housing.

One "benefit swindle" that I really can't get my head around is that Polish immigrants who work here can claim child benefit for their children that live at home in Poland! Speechless is the best word to use here.

Also it's so easy for people to say "well in other countries they don't have an NHS or a good fire brigade" thats because they're lesser-developed or have suffered economic problems due to the previous/current governments. We are a developed country with, as we keep being told, a fantastic economy. So why are a lot of services in a state of collapse?

[Holly]

I think you alot better off here than in other countries!

[Pie]

Also it's so easy for people to say "well in other countries they don't have an NHS or a good fire brigade" thats because they're lesser-developed or have suffered economic problems due to the previous/current governments. We are a developed country with, as we keep being told, a fantastic economy. So why are a lot of services in a state of collapse?

America isnt a lesser-devloped country, or in a economic problem.

They just have indepentant doctors fees, and jobs are paid less than over here unless you can work for the government.

[yorkshirechris]

But relate that to the cost of living (in terms of housing and taxes) and then try tell me we're better off? If it's that much worse why increasing numbers of Brits emigrating to places like America and Spain?

[Pie]

But relate that to the cost of living (in terms of housing and taxes) and then try tell me we're better off? If it's that much worse why increasing numbers of Brits emigrating to places like America and Spain?

Weather

[MiNi FiZ]

people on the average wage in UK can have "comfortable" living, yet for the same wage in the US you can have luxuries like a swimming pool, big house etc.

Edited by MiNi FiZ, 07 February 2008 - 07:14 PM.

[imabitnaughtyxx]

Ive been contemplating my response here,....
As a woman who has worked since the age of 11, full time since 16 and had the very minimal time off to have my children, I wholeheartedly agree with the first post.
For example...Sometimes when I get home from work after a 12 hour shift, only to find my drive is blocked by the moron (next door)'s clapped out volvo with a serious oil leak bald tyres and doubtful insurance and am greeted at the window, by him, jobless, legless and on his 50th bottle of becks and his stunning (not) live in lover, littlewoods catalogue in one hand, £350 blackberry in the other ... I wonder whats the point?
I live in a street where 50% of the homes are still housing association, the bought homes are lovely, the owners working all hours, the rented homes are doss holes and out of all of them only one family actually has a job, shes a single mum and nurse.
My neighbour says he cant get a job, but ive got him an interview where I work, he says the hours are to much, my husband got him an interview where he works, he says theres to much walking??????

This is just one example of the lazyitous damn culture breeding out there. None of my single mother friends have a job, not one. all of their children are at school. Both my husband ex's live off us as we pay ridiculous maintenance meaning that we never were able to afford more children ourselves. They both have one child with my husband and 3 further children each, ( 4 kids each) they have never worked in their lives and manage to cream 40% of my husbands wages (over £400 a month) and then theres the other 3 absent fathers in each case paying as well.

Its absolutely disgusting the way some people can doss all day watching jeremy kyle and such while im out there grafting 60 odd hours a week to live remotely comfortably, not to mention paying masses in tax and saving with a pension scheme to ensure we can retire at 70!
Rant over! for now!

[insamoufonyx]

I completely agree, fair enough if theres a real reason why you cant work, disabiltys and illnesses ect but people that cant be arsed to work should get bananas all, why should part of my wages cover some lazy sat watching tv while i work my ass off

[mini93]

in america its alot to do with land...look at what we have to squeeze into what is an INCREADIBLY!!! small country, then look at america, we have just about the same powers world wide as them and yet it come from a country which is 10X's smaller
there for money in america can go further with land, labour and all that other jazz...for someone like me, it would probably be benificial to pay for medicle services as im far to damn stuborn to go hospital "oh cr*p i think my ankles broken...aah ill see in a few days what its like " then a few days later " ah cr*p....meh ill watch TV"

oh yeah one thing...grr having to pay for TV but oh well, its a minor price to pay about £100 a year aarently but thats not what i ment

[dave20046]

I totally agree i work 50-80 hours a week doing two jobs earning less than 16k a year and i get taxed more than a millionaire
I love this country (sarcasm) I'm also fed up with jobless wonders who take take take but i look at the bigger picture when the tories get back in goverment then they'll be pooing themselves hehe can't wait by the way the tax for a millionaire is 40% and i get taxed about 42% work that out?!?!

Note- you actually get taxed more than 42% there's hidden tax in everything petrol etc. Also have you ever had anyone check your tax? I was unsure about mine and just rang up the tax orifice and it was sorted
On first reading your post I couldn't understand how you can only get 16k a year with upto 80hours work a week it seemed illogical what with minimum wage etc. but after a quick calculation it is sadly very possible
I'm with sheree on this one yes some of her ranting doesn't make sense but lets face it who's does? I can understand fully why she's p*ssed. We all work so hard then we see all the chavs with their gyros ,BMWs, fags, drugs, booze, houses and other luxuries that we can't afford! And we work! sometimes it just make me so angry. Good on ya for letting it all out

[yorkshirechris]

I missed out the stealth tax that is the BBC TV License Fee yeah , it's around £125 a year, and if you don't have a TV, you can invite the nice people at TV Licensing into your home, allow them to confirm you definately don't have a TV, but then a year later they start with the threatening letters, implying you are a criminal. You can't escape them!

Saying that, we lived in a city centre apartment for 6 months without a TV license (no TV in use, naturally ) and didn't recieve one letter - perhaps they don't bother, knowing that from the outside of a multi-occupancy building it's impossible to tell who's using which TV signal?

There's a whole website dedicated to not paying the TV license, it's really interesting, some of the example "customer" letters responding to the licensing letters are hilarious! www.tvlicensing.biz, I think.