The I cant believe it’s not politics thread.

[Zear0]

I'm curious as to what proportion of £150k+ workers are paid through PAYE rather than company owners, sole traders etc. who get away with a meagre salary and pull money out of dividents or draw at lower rates than PAYE workers do already?  I'm making a huge assumption that I imagine the PAYE group are surely the minority and the majority of people on £150k+ wouldn't have been affected anyway.

 

This always seemed like a hand out to The City.

Edited 3 October 2022 by Zear0

[Dahnsouff]

21 minutes ago, ozleicester said:

lol, let me hold back on that opinion... from an admittedly far too brief read... Im not sure about the Finnish system after all

Sounds like I need to deepen my understanding too. 

[Houdini Logic]

18 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

I'm curious as to what proportion of £150k+ workers are paid through PAYE rather than company owners, sole traders etc. who get away with a meagre salary and pull money out of dividents or draw at lower rates than PAYE workers do already?  I'm making a huge assumption that I imagine the PAYE group are surely the minority and the majority of people on £150k+ wouldn't have been affected anyway.

 

This always seemed like a hand out to The City.

The government has slowly been ramping up dividend tax rates over the last few years, so there isn't the difference there once was 

[Captain...]

5 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

The government has slowly been ramping up dividend tax rates over the last few years, so there isn't the difference there once was 

That's true and IR35 legislation has pushed a number of contractors into PAYE, although they've just scrapped that so that's another bonus for the over paid.

[Houdini Logic]

3 minutes ago, Captain... said:

That's true and IR35 legislation has pushed a number of contractors into PAYE, although they've just scrapped that so that's another bonus for the over paid.

Yes indeed, many went PAYE or umbrella due to recent IR35 changes. To be clear they haven't scrapped it, they've just put the determination back on the contractor rather than the end client.

 

"Over paid" is a particularly interesting choice of words...

[urban.spaceman]

GoNads wants a general election

 

Not sure who asked for the C4 sale though

[hackneyfox]

4 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

 

 

"Over paid" is a particularly interesting choice of words...

Does "under-taxed" work for you?

[Captain...]

9 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

Yes indeed, many went PAYE or umbrella due to recent IR35 changes. To be clear they haven't scrapped it, they've just put the determination back on the contractor rather than the end client.

 

"Over paid" is a particularly interesting choice of words...

I'm an over paid contractor, now on fixed term contract, but still favourable terms. So I can say that. 😁 

[Captain...]

7 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

GoNads wants a general election

 

Not sure who asked for the C4 sale though

It was also not in the manifesto so there is no mandate for it.

[Foxdiamond]

1 hour ago, Fazzer 7 said:

What gets me on this general issue is that we’re football supporters and fans. We support players and managers,ok maybe not Rodgers, who earn obscene amounts of money, more in a week than most of us earn in a year. Sky tv and football are beneficiaries of capitalism, that we’re happy to support. But somehow anyone else who makes large amounts are demonised by the left. 

I don't demonise the wealthy. If they can earn good money then fine. What was not acceptable was that at a time of less well off and poor struggling Truss thought one of the first measures was to help the wealthy. The Tories and their allies in the press do a good job of demonising the poor. 

[Houdini Logic]

18 minutes ago, hackneyfox said:

Does "under-taxed" work for you?

Not really. Because unlike the people who throw around terms like "under-taxed" and "over payed", I tend to think it's a more complex subject than that.

 

But you do you 

[Dunge]

41 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

GoNads wants a general election

 

Not sure who asked for the C4 sale though

I know little to nothing of the online safety bill, but if the C4 sale and the BBC licence fee review are being stopped then for me that’s a very good thing.

[urban.spaceman]

 

 

[urban.spaceman]

2 hours ago, Fazzer 7 said:

What gets me on this general issue is that we’re football supporters and fans. We support players and managers,ok maybe not Rodgers, who earn obscene amounts of money, more in a week than most of us earn in a year. Sky tv and football are beneficiaries of capitalism, that we’re happy to support. But somehow anyone else who makes large amounts are demonised by the left. 

The current state of football is extremely corrupt and screws over the "little guy" AND consumers so it's a pretty good analogy for the Tory party.

[Dames]

2 hours ago, Fazzer 7 said:

What gets me on this general issue is that we’re football supporters and fans. We support players and managers,ok maybe not Rodgers, who earn obscene amounts of money, more in a week than most of us earn in a year. Sky tv and football are beneficiaries of capitalism, that we’re happy to support. But somehow anyone else who makes large amounts are demonised by the left. 

I say i'm firmly left leaning but I don't demonise anyone that makes large amounts of money. What I do demonise is those that do make large amounts of money but have a system that is designed in their favour to avoid paying their fair share of tax. 

 

It's also those tax dodgers that seem to have the greatest influence in the media, business and highest levels of government with well placed 'donations'. 

[urban.spaceman]

This makes me feel better about the time I turned up to a theatre on the day after my tickets were booked for and had to pay another £37 to see the show I'd already paid for

 

 

 

[hackneyfox]

57 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

Not really. Because unlike the people who throw around terms like "under-taxed" and "over payed", I tend to think it's a more complex subject than that.

 

But you do you 

I've been staff, then contract, I'm staff again.

I've seen both sides but could never relly understand why contractor's got the tax breaks they did outside of IR35, and to pay £19 per month to NI when staff are paying at 12% is taking the piss. I also got paid lunches and cycle mileage for two years, something permanent staff ddon't get. On top iof that corporation tax isn't going up.

[cityfanlee23]

On 02/10/2022 at 12:10, Sampson said:

Said it before, but our democracy was built for the 1700s when it took days or weeks to get to London on horseback from northern Scotland or western Ireland and has never been updated - that's why we have this weird FPTP consistuency "local election" model that the rest of the western world abandoned about a century ago. The idea was, in the days before mass communication, you'd nominate someone in your local consistuency to send to London every year to tell them how it was going in your area (a job which no one wanted and everyone hated back in the day btw) and that's why the model exists. 

 

It's quite clearly ridiculously unfit for purpose in the 21st century. We have just about the least democratic voting system in the west.

You’re completely right. Unfortunately we are stuck with it. We were given an option to change this system back in 2012 was it? But the proposal wasn’t much better than what we have now, but that would have atleast paved the way for future change. 
Unfortunately people seem content with this system usually because they don’t understand it or they support the party it benefits the most, at the Labour Party conference again this year the members voted overwhelmingly in support of Labour adopting Proportional Representation, they will most likely ignore the membership on this because they look on course for a wacking great majority. 
 

We are at a point now where the 2 party system is so engrained neither of them want to change it and the public have no say without one of those 2 adopting it. Hopefully Labour prove me wrong on this and adopt the policy as it’s desperately needed, I can’t think of any PR system that is worse than our FPTP system, even if we adopted the worst PR system imaginable it’s still very likely more representative, fair and less corrupt than our present system. 

[Sampson]

11 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

You’re completely right. Unfortunately we are stuck with it. We were given an option to change this system back in 2012 was it? But the proposal wasn’t much better than what we have now, but that would have atleast paved the way for future change. 
Unfortunately people seem content with this system usually because they don’t understand it or they support the party it benefits the most, at the Labour Party conference again this year the members voted overwhelmingly in support of Labour adopting Proportional Representation, they will most likely ignore the membership on this because they look on course for a wacking great majority. 
 

We are at a point now where the 2 party system is so engrained neither of them want to change it and the public have no say without one of those 2 adopting it. Hopefully Labour prove me wrong on this and adopt the policy as it’s desperately needed, I can’t think of any PR system that is worse than our FPTP system, even if we adopted the worst PR system imaginable it’s still very likely more representative, fair and less corrupt than our present system. 

Mostly agree, but I will say that AV absolutely was much better than we have now. Not that AV isn't flawed, but every flaw it has also applied to FPTP either equally as much or even moreso.

 

Cameron won the referendum with the argument "AV is too confusing, FPTP is easy to understand" when AV is not really confusing to understand, it's a pretty simple concept to understand actually, but he deliberately made it confusing, I don't think there is a genuine argument that FPTP was better than AV (other than it favours the 2 big parties ofc) but the AV side were really bad at expressing how simple it is and why it's objectively better and the FPTP just shouted down the opposition with a depressingly easy "it's too confusing, we don't understand it" line,

 

Furthermore, it also helped give Cameron, along with the Scottish referendum, the confidence to call the EU referendum, because he thought he could win referendums easily and in his mind it helped put issues to bed,

Edited 3 October 2022 by Sampson

[rachhere]

32 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

This makes me feel better about the time I turned up to a theatre on the day after my tickets were booked for and had to pay another £37 to see the show I'd already paid for

 

 

 

They really are on a mission to make as many enemies as possible. 

[Captain...]

10 minutes ago, hackneyfox said:

I've been staff, then contract, I'm staff again.

I've seen both sides but could never relly understand why contractor's got the tax breaks they did outside of IR35, and to pay £19 per month to NI when staff are paying at 12% is taking the piss. I also got paid lunches and cycle mileage for two years, something permanent staff ddon't get. On top iof that corporation tax isn't going up.

As a director of a limited company of 1 whilst taking a salary and dividends you pay corp tax, income tax on dividends and salary, NI as employer and employee and VAT. As a contractor I paid more in tax + NI per annum than now on a fixed term contract. Not in small part due to the reduction in my earnings. 

 

The advantages of being an "honest" limited company have been chipped away at and I wouldn't go back to it. However there are still plenty of loopholes you can exploit if you wanted, such as "employing" a family member or creative expense accounting. 

[Daggers]

2 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

GoNads wants a general election

 

Not sure who asked for the C4 sale though

Question: apart from the lying, grifting, poncing, drinking and shagging, wtf did Johnson “stand for”?

[urban.spaceman]

30 minutes ago, Daggers said:

Question: apart from the lying, grifting, poncing, drinking and shagging, wtf did Johnson “stand for”?

The aqueduct?

[hackneyfox]

1 hour ago, Captain... said:

As a director of a limited company of 1 whilst taking a salary and dividends you pay corp tax, income tax on dividends and salary, NI as employer and employee and VAT. As a contractor I paid more in tax + NI per annum than now on a fixed term contract. Not in small part due to the reduction in my earnings. 

 

The advantages of being an "honest" limited company have been chipped away at and I wouldn't go back to it. However there are still plenty of loopholes you can exploit if you wanted, such as "employing" a family member or creative expense accounting. 

Umbrella company like Brookson.

I could be  earning £42 an hour and paying a much smller percentage in stoppages than I pay now I'm permanent and on the equivalent of £27 an hour. They also seem happy to lay of permanent staff as quickly as contract staff.

 

Edited 3 October 2022 by hackneyfox

[Captain...]

4 minutes ago, hackneyfox said:

Umbrella company like Brookson.

I could be  earning £42 an hour and paying a much smller percentage in stoppages than I pay now I'm permanent and on the equivalent of £27 an hour. They also seem happy to lay of permanent staff as quickly as contract staff.

 

For sure you would end up paying a smaller percentage in tax, but a greater amount in terms of actual value of tax paid.