Yes, the top 1% pay 27% of tax. No, they're not paying their share

A single 30% rate of income tax is needed in order to boost growth in the UK, a report by lobbying groups says.

The 2020 Tax Commission's report also calls for the abolition of national insurance, and for the basic personal allowance to be raised to £10,000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18137548

This 'commission' made up of the Taxpayers' Alliance and Institute of Directors also wants to see further spending cuts.

It claims that in reducing the tax rate to 30% it will save a working couple on £28K a year £3400...

But it fails to give the tax saving to those currently on the 40% tax bracket..

Included in the recommendations are cuts to Stamp Duty, Inheritance Tax, Air Passenger Duty and a 5p cut in fuel duty. It would also replace Capital Gains Tax and Corporation Tax with a 30% tax on Dividends, Interest and Rents....

With, as I see it, only the 5p cut in fuel duty being the only item from which those under the 40% tax bracket benefiting, do you think you would be better off or is it just another tax change to benefit the rich?

Flat rate taxation always penalises the lower-paid, who have to spend everything they earn on essentials. The rich will always have more money left-over.

I am not saying I agree with a 30% flat rate.....but I would interested to see how people see how our economy can grow without entreprenuers and wealthier people starting or risking their own funds to grow businesses and create jobs.
I would be very pleased to hear some answers

blueturando wrote:I am not saying I agree with a 30% flat rate.....but I would interested to see how people see how our economy can grow without entreprenuers and wealthier people starting or risking their own funds to grow businesses and create jobs.
I would be very pleased to hear some answers

Try the list of Bankruptcy Petitions in the London Gazette. Always a reliable source of inspiration.

blueturando wrote:I am not saying I agree with a 30% flat rate.....but I would interested to see how people see how our economy can grow without entreprenuers and wealthier people starting or risking their own funds to grow businesses and create jobs.
I would be very pleased to hear some answers

Hi Blue
Can I just ask you one small question? do you really believe that entreprenuers as you call them really risk there own money? as I do enjoy this myth? as all the ones I have come across just love to brag in private how they cover all there so-called investments with other peoples money? but in pubic is of cores its always there very own money? so maybe you will be so kind and show me some very hard fact and figures that show this euteprenuers backing there very investment out of the very own pocket without laying this money off first ? what's more please do not show me the TV show. but the last so-called eutrepenuer i come across has a brand new business investment with 95% backing from city institution with his own out lay at just 5%. The bottom line Blue is all this sound so good until you know the very people. then it just turns out to be one more Tory myth and no more than that.

What is however true is some people take a gamble when they start out. but even then most have others who will invest with them. so at best this is no more than a one off gamble for most of them. as very few people will gamble with all there own money. but the higher you get the less risk they take. its just how it works.

astradt1 wrote:

A single 30% rate of income tax is needed in order to boost growth in the UK, a report by lobbying groups says.

The 2020 Tax Commission's report also calls for the abolition of national insurance, and for the basic personal allowance to be raised to £10,000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18137548

This 'commission' made up of the Taxpayers' Alliance and Institute of Directors also wants to see further spending cuts.

It claims that in reducing the tax rate to 30% it will save a working couple on £28K a year £3400...

But it fails to give the tax saving to those currently on the 40% tax bracket..

Included in the recommendations are cuts to Stamp Duty, Inheritance Tax, Air Passenger Duty and a 5p cut in fuel duty. It would also replace Capital Gains Tax and Corporation Tax with a 30% tax on Dividends, Interest and Rents....

With, as I see it, only the 5p cut in fuel duty being the only item from which those under the 40% tax bracket benefiting, do you think you would be better off or is it just another tax change to benefit the rich?

You know, this sort of thing always sound so great till you sit down and do the math. then its sound like Greek baring Gifts and you know the story of that my friend. its not a very happy one at all.

The big problem is that all those who are wealthy are not 'eutrepenuers' just look at football players, look at 'pop'stars they all have 'loads of momey' but very few seem to spend it on creating jobs, unless of course the purchase of a nice shiny new BMW, Mercades or Farrari means creating jobs in Britain....

These are the ones who would gain the most from a 30% flat tax, but does anyone really believe that this group don't use tax dodges either illegal or legal......

The real 'eutrepuers' are the ones who start up small businesses employing no more than 10 people who are unlikely to be effected by this....

One of the 'sweeteners' is the getting rid of National Insurance but then again that is, what say 9 to 12% so the low paid will see a possible increase in their payment of 1 or 2%......compared to the wealthies cut in tax........

blueturando wrote:I am not saying I agree with a 30% flat rate.....but I would interested to see how people see how our economy can grow without entreprenuers and wealthier people starting or risking their own funds to grow businesses and create jobs.
I would be very pleased to hear some answers

Here's one answer then. The implementation of the Companies Act 2006 was fully completed on 1 October 2009. http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/companiesAct.shtml

The people who run a Limited Company are legally separate from the Company itself. This allows the entrepreneurial (and occasionally also the criminally-inclined) to set up a trading company with absolutely no risk to their personal assets. When e.g. a company selling Christmas Hampers takes money from the Public but does not actually provide any hampers, the COMPANY can go bankrupt but the people who were running it live to fight another day.

Many people might like a slice of that, blue.

If the tax rate was 30% across the board, NI contributions binned and included in that figure, then everybody gains, somebody who pays himself from his own company (Livingstone and lots of NHS and Public Employee Directors) and gets away with a lower rate get stopped, tax forms and systems become simpler and would allow the taxman to properly monitor the tax evaders (who probably wouldn't bother moving money around), the idea works for me!

If the tax rate was 30% across the board,

Base rate tax 20% + 9% NI = 29% V Flat Rate tax of 30% = Everyone a winner???????

Surely an extra 1% means some one, and we know at which levels of pay that will be, must be a loser......

Tlttf do you really think that those who have arrange their tax affairs and are now paying less that the base rate of 20% are going to pay 30%......?????

Fair point asradt1, however moving the tax threshold to £10,000, more of the lower paid pay less tax. As for those arranging their affairs to pay less, I thought I'd already covered that by making the tax equal across the board irrespective of how you pay yourself.

In any discussion of Economics there will be as many opinions as there are people in the room.

Unfortunately there are always fewer qualified economists.

astradt1 wrote:The big problem is that all those who are wealthy are not 'eutrepenuers' just look at football players, look at 'pop'stars they all have 'loads of momey' but very few seem to spend it on creating jobs, unless of course the purchase of a nice shiny new BMW, Mercades or Farrari means creating jobs in Britain....

These are the ones who would gain the most from a 30% flat tax, but does anyone really believe that this group don't use tax dodges either illegal or legal......

The real 'eutrepuers' are the ones who start up small businesses employing no more than 10 people who are unlikely to be effected by this....

One of the 'sweeteners' is the getting rid of National Insurance but then again that is, what say 9 to 12% so the low paid will see a possible increase in their payment of 1 or 2%......compared to the wealthies cut in tax........

i Cannot agree more with you Astradt1. it seems to me this is just one more Tory way of helping the very few at the top while all of us who are either at the middle or low incomes pay the majority of there bankers debt. hell at this rate why do we just not ask this rich if they wish to pay anything at all? as this is where the Tories are taking us anyway. I agree with Stox, this eutrepuers argument is wheeled out by the Tory Party far to much. as when you look at it. it just does not hold water at all. maybe it time this whole Myth was sorted out once and for all? what do you think?

oftenwrong wrote:

blueturando wrote:I am not saying I agree with a 30% flat rate.....but I would interested to see how people see how our economy can grow without entreprenuers and wealthier people starting or risking their own funds to grow businesses and create jobs.
I would be very pleased to hear some answers

Here's one answer then. The implementation of the Companies Act 2006 was fully completed on 1 October 2009. http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/companiesAct/companiesAct.shtml

The people who run a Limited Company are legally separate from the Company itself. This allows the entrepreneurial (and occasionally also the criminally-inclined) to set up a trading company with absolutely no risk to their personal assets. When e.g. a company selling Christmas Hampers takes money from the Public but does not actually provide any hampers, the COMPANY can go bankrupt but the people who were running it live to fight another day.



Many people might like a slice of that, blue.

Says it all OW

I agree with Stox, this eutrepuers argument is wheeled out by the Tory Party far to much. as when you look at it. it just does not hold water at all. maybe it time this whole Myth was sorted out once and for all? what do you think? .

Red Cat and Stox.........What Myth??? Please tell me where you think all these new companies and jobs will come from then when many larger organisation have made thousands of redundancies......Will you employ them and pay them a fair wage? Put your money where mouth is and start a business or 2......In other words your moaning is not part of the solution, but there are ways you can help.

When I started my company (Limited Company) I didn't take a salary for the first 6 months and just lived very carefully off the money I sold my car for. Who do you think pays for an office to rent, office equipment, phones, advertising, Energy bills, staff all the licences and insurances you have to take out? Certainly no help from the Banks these days, so yes we do risk a lot to start and build a business

If it were that simple, everybody would be doing it, but "taking risks" all too often means exploiting members of staff. Time after time companies fail owing wages and/or pensions, but the Directors have wisely insured their own retirement funds.

When I started my company (Limited Company) I didn't take a salary for the first 6 months and just lived very carefully off the money I sold my car for.

So you were not one of those high tax paying eutrepuers which this government feels must be given a tax break to 'help' them creat jobs....Which is more or less what I was saying.....

Many of the jobs being created are in small firms where the owner is not on the higher rate tax.........

Well at least they weren't until Gideon brought it down to £34K in the last budget........

Original with links is at: http://wp.me/p2sftc-3AS

Yes, the top 1% pay 27% of tax. No, they're not paying their share

I’ve used these figures before, in a post I wrote a few months ago in response to some claims by Tory MP and apologist for the rich, Jacob Rees-Mogg. However, the claims have surfaced again in the last few days as defenders of the poor, oppressed wealthy have rushed to rubbish Labour’s idea of a ‘jobs guarantee’ for the long-term unemployed. So it seemed appropriate to write a new article highlighting the figures – and the fallacy they’re used to support.

Think what you will about Labour’s idea (and my own thoughts are tending toward the ‘worthy effort but try again’ variety), it’s at least an attempt to do something for people who are on the employment scrapheap through no fault of their own.

But it has drawn the predictable response from the Tories, with the ludicrous Grant Shapps/Michael Green saying that it would mean Labour ‘spending the same money twice‘, even though Labour have been very clear that if the idea went ahead it would be funded by an additional £1 billion of revenue generated by reducing tax relief currently enjoyed by the richest on money that they put into their pension pots.

A slightly more logically coherent, but still wholly incorrect, response came from George Bull, Senior Tax Partner at tax and accountancy firm Baker Tilly, on the BBC News channel yesterday. It’s one which I have seen echoed around the web since, which is why I’m re-blogging these figures – whose logic is, I believe, incontestible.

Mr Bull said:

Why has [Ed Balls] produced..all the noise..by explaining that there will be an extra tax charge to pay for it? He could simply pay for this out of normal taxation.

In other words, ‘Why tax the rich to pay for this when you could tax the less well-off for it?’ Mr Bull went on to accuse the Shadow Chancellor of being ‘socially divisive‘ and ‘corrosive‘ by targeting the rich as the source of funds for the proposed new scheme. He then trotted out the old favourite:

The top 1% of earners pay 27% of tax revenues. They already pay their share.

It’s a very convincing argument, on the face of it. It just happens to be wholly false. Let’s see why.

In Rees-Mogg’s contribution to Newsnight back in September, he put forward much the same argument. He stated that the richest 1% earn 13% of the country’s total income, but pay 26% of total tax revenue. He added that, because the rich paid 21% of tax revenues in 1997 and 26% now (not 27% as Mr Bull claimed, but we won’t quibble over 1% now), they were definitely paying their fair share. Or, as David Cameron might put it, 'we are all in it together'.

The big problem with his logic is exposed by looking – as he did – at the situation in 1997 compared to now. Except not just at the contributions to tax revenue, but also at earnings.

A BBC website article at the beginning of 2012 analysed the increase in UK income inequality from 1997 to 2007. It showed that the average income of the top 1% of UK earners increased from £187,989 to £301,325 – an increase of just over 60% (income of the top 0.1% almost doubled).

Since the top 1% have continued to increase their wealth since 2007, we can safely assume that the difference is greater now. During the same 1997-2007 period, average incomes for the bottom 90% increased by only 17.6% – and for the lowest earners by far less.

The increase in the tax contribution by the top 1%, from 21% in 1997 to 26% now, means that their contribution is around 23% higher (or 28.5% if you go with the 27% current figure), relative to what they were paying in 1997. Either figure is far less than the increase of at least 60% (and probably considerably more) in their incomes.

This means that the wealthiest are now paying substantially less toward our national upkeep than they were 15 years ago, relative to their wealth.



Rees-Mogg made another point which bears on the issue of the last few days, too – though not in the way he intended. He talked about historical tax revenues, pointing out (more or less correctly) that tax revenues have rarely exceeded 38% of GDP. Of course, the fact that it has been the case in the past doesn’t prove it can’t be different in the future – just as those investment ads say: ‘Past returns do not guarantee future performance‘.

But he was a lot more off-target than that. Here’s what he gave away without meaning to:

Projected tax revenue for the current financial year is only 35.5% of expected GDP. Since that’s an expected figure rather than a definite one, let’s look at the 2011/12 year instead: in the last fiscal year, government revenues from income tax were £550.6 billion, or 35.7% of GDP of £1.542 trillion.

The difference between 38% and 35.7% might not seem like so much. But if the government had taxed in order to achieve the ‘magic’ 38% figure, it would have generated an additional tax take of £35.47 billion.

Or, to put that into terms that make concrete sense: enough to make the welfare cuts so far of £10bn AND the targeted NHS cuts of £20bn completely unnecessary – AND to cover the appr. £4bn shortfall in public sector pensions.

In spite of the protestations of those trying to protect their own huge wealth and that of their clients/donors, one thing is clear:

Whatever you think of Labour’s ‘job guarantee’ scheme, the richest are not paying their share – and there is plenty of room for additional taxes on them in order to fund good ideas to help those most in need. We are not ‘all in it together’. Not by a long, long way.

Fairness? Pull the other one.

Long ago, the clever people acknowledged that you can't spend what can only be spent by selling something. Physical assets do not necessarily equate with spending power, because owning a valuable house does not buy the groceries anymore than do Gold Bars in the cellar. Generally speaking, Governments too make no attempt to tax the really wealthy on what they possess, only on what they accumulate in earnings.

Which puts the Rich on an equal footing with the Poor. TAX is relevant only to income.

Many people find that they can't live on their income. Those are not all by any means people we might regard as "Poor". Living within one's income is an acquired skill, and some people who possess such a skill will describe themselves as "content" even though they are not at all wealthy. The unfortunates who have not learned to live within their parameters are condemned to eternal dis-satisfaction, and it is precisely such people who will always be envious of the wealthy. They should not be surprised when the wealthy decline to make a gift of that wealth to people who have not learned to live within their means.

With respect, isn't there a bit of difference between being unable to live within one's means (disorganised, careless, cavalier) and not having enough to live on (starving, destitute, in want)?
And isn't one of the things we want from governement is the fair distribution of resources )possibly through taxation) to ensure no-one falls into the latter category?
I know that's an oversimplification, but maybe it's a bit of a starting point for considering who we should choose to govern us

Yes of course, and I have to plead guilty to oversimplification of a complicated problem. However I suspect that more than just a few of those people who complain about not having "enough to live on" really refer to not being able to keep up with the Jones's next door who always seem to have a new car and a 50-inch plasma screen Telly as well as two holidays a year in exotic locations. Not even the most rabid Tory-hater will be able to identify significant areas where there is actual starving and destitution in contemporary Britain.

Taxation is of course the primary route to equality, but in any group of sixty million humans there will inevitably be some who are better at managing their money than others. If by some Divine Intervention, the entire wealth of the Nation were to be re-distributed in equal shares one day, within a couple of years it would once again be in the hands of the original owners in roughly the same proportion.

Yes, much poverty is comparative, as opposed to people actually being in want, but, in a society where we can see people whose (unearned ) wealth or whose (debatable) talents enable them to have so much more than they need, while some others either can't afford the necessities or have to make sacrifices for a bit of pleasure, it's easy to see where the aspirational consumption comes from.
If it were clear
1) that people with 'more' have earned it by making an exceptional contribution to society and
2) that we all have the opportunity to have our own contribution similarly rewarded and
3) that everybody has equal access to the essentials of civilised life, by which I mean education, health care, housing, food, access to communications and transportation
Maybe people would begin to feel able to compete in a meaningful way for what they, as individuals want and need, which will be more for some than for others.
Equality doesn't mean everyone having the same - it means everyone having a chance to achieve their goals (I think) - and in a society where it's clearly understood that private education and private health care can passport you to better life experiences and the chance of political power, I don't think we have a fair system.
That's just what I think, and I have been reading Marx, so maybe a bit idealistic

oftenwrong wrote:Yes of course, and I have to plead guilty to oversimplification of a complicated problem. However I suspect that more than just a few of those people who complain about not having "enough to live on" really refer to not being able to keep up with the Jones's next door who always seem to have a new car and a 50-inch plasma screen Telly as well as two holidays a year in exotic locations. Not even the most rabid Tory-hater will be able to identify significant areas where there is actual starving and destitution in contemporary Britain.

Taxation is of course the primary route to equality, but in any group of sixty million humans there will inevitably be some who are better at managing their money than others. If by some Divine Intervention, the entire wealth of the Nation were to be re-distributed in equal shares one day, within a couple of years it would once again be in the hands of the original owners in roughly the same proportion.

We set up a Foodbank here in September. In less than 4 months we have provided food for over 400 families who literally had nothing to eat, either because their benefits had been stopped or because of administrative issues. These families were assessed and referred to us, not just unvetted 'walk-ins'.

New Foodbanks are being set up at 3 a week to meet the burgeoning need, and there are already hundreds. There is plenty of real poverty in this country.

I would like to think that people who are afforded the facility of food-banks are also offered consultation with a Debt Advisory Service which can show them how to claim their RIGHTS under the Welfare system including the right of Appeal, while at the same time giving advice on practical economics and simple housekeeping.

oftenwrong wrote:I would like to think that people who are afforded the facility of food-banks are also offered consultation with a Debt Advisory Service which can show them how to claim their RIGHTS under the Welfare system including the right of Appeal, while at the same time giving advice on practical economics and simple housekeeping.

It's often DAS, CAB etc referring them to us. The issue is usually either that their appeal has been refused, or else that the lack of provision during the appeal process leaves them with no income at all for an unsustainable period.

OK, I have become convinced by the cogent arguments on these pages and elsewhere that the current "austerity" programme is an invention of the Nasty Party to cloak their real intention, which is to dismantle the Welfare State during this Parliament.

The rude health of the London Stock Exchange combined with figures showing surprisingly full employment, alongside a reduction in the numbers of Tax collectors, all conspire to reveal the truth about the Emperor's New Clothes.

But the general public seem to have accepted the propaganda, so the best hope is for the Labour Opposition to come galloping to the rescue with a sensible and credible response that has a little more substance to it than the same old same old tax-and-spend routine that eventually scuppered Gordon Brown.

The Nice Party needs to demonstrate a Nice way towards future prosperity.

oftenwrong wrote:OK, I have become convinced by the cogent arguments on these pages and elsewhere that the current "austerity" programme is an invention of the Nasty Party to cloak their real intention, which is to dismantle the Welfare State during this Parliament.

The rude health of the London Stock Exchange combined with figures showing surprisingly full employment, alongside a reduction in the numbers of Tax collectors, all conspire to reveal the truth about the Emperor's New Clothes.

But the general public seem to have accepted the propaganda, so the best hope is for the Labour Opposition to come galloping to the rescue with a sensible and credible response that has a little more substance to it than the same old same old tax-and-spend routine that eventually scuppered Gordon Brown.

The Nice Party needs to demonstrate a Nice way towards future prosperity.

Not necessarily 'nice' (though it will be nicer for most people) - but radical, thought-through, well-argued and clearly-presented.

I entirely agree with skwalkers point here. We often here the reasoning, from neo-liberal capitalists, that the top earners, and the top 1%, pay a large bulk of the revenue take.

But...

...it simply serves to prove how disgustingly imbalanced and unjustifiable wage structures in the UK are. The division of the spoils and market rates are totally out of kilter, and that is what has led us into our current state.

Don't imagine claims about how much of a tax contribution the top 1%, and top 50% make, to somehow absolve them and demonstrate how good they are for us. It simply demonstrates how wrong the present economic model is.


..and,

If an employee of a company has to claim housing benefit and tax credits in order to get by - because their wage does not suffice, it is clear the company is overpaying / overvaluing the services of it's higher end employees. The company should adjust it's pay structure so it is not dependent on state hand outs to top up employees wages - or take a reduction in profits.

If you are paid, let's say, £1500pw and a low paid employee at your company needs state benefits than it is your company, and indirectly you, who are actually leeching off the state.

If the company has, say £100,000 weekly wage bill than it should keep it's wage bill as such and divide it so no employee needs to claim welfare. Some peoples salaries would rise and others would be reduced......and this is exactly what needs to happen. However no current political party has the gumption to make such a radical move.....thus we will continue treading down the path of inevitable economic, and social, catastrophe.

A sensible, and it seems to me, workable idea there.
Wonder why no-one's doing it - isn't really complicated after all

boatlady,

The reason no-one is doing it? Greed - on the part of the powerful high earners, and apathy - on the part of an undereducated, dumbed down general public - who don't understand that they have power in numbers and really could change things by simply calling a general strike with no intention to return to work until change was implemented. Simply refuse to continue making money for the fat cats. En masse - stop shopping at multi-nationals, refuse to pay rocketing energy bills, stop buying goods, etc. What they gonna do? Throw everybody in prison? Cut everybody's gas/electric off?

Wake up people - you have the power in numbers. You can demand and get a fairer slice of the pie.

Oh! What a lovely thought!

Nice to see the Institute for Fiscal Studies calling for a 3p increase in basic rate tax just before those on wages of £1 Million+ get their 5p in the pound cut......

Raise income tax rate by 3p... or face record cutbacks: Think-tank warns of black hole in public finances

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274756/Raise-income-tax-rate-3p--face-record-cutbacks-Think-tank-warns-black-hole-public-finances.html#axzz2KJDUPEzt

Microsoft failed to stick to the deal for some 15 million installations of Windows 7 in Europe from May 2011 until July 2012. The company admitted the failure last year, adding that it was an oversight.

What's the fuss?
Anybody can overlook a minor detail like 15 million installations.

Lefteris Pitarakis, PA Wire
More than £1 in every five paid in income tax is being spent on benefits, according to official figures

And Gideons answer is to reduce the taxes of the wealthiest meaning a lesser tax take. The problem with this statement is, many pricks out there will believe it to be the fault of the poor and needy, and further the Tory led Coalitions attacks and rift creation between the low paid and the no paid.

Agree bobby, tell me again who set the tax rate at 40% whilst they were in power and only moved it to 50% when they knew they were going to lose the election. Oh that's right the labour party. Who claim the they were growing the economy until the crash, when in reality the only growth was in the financial sector and house prices, why the labour party of course. The bunch of lib/socialists in power at present are simply trying to carry on with policies set in motion by the previous bunch with no thought nor care for the working man, the only difference, welllll I can't see one, professional liars the lot of them.

No need to worry, tlttf, wealth trickles down from the Toffs to the riff-raff. You have that on no less an authority than Margaret Thatcher.

tlttf wrote:-
tell me again who set the tax rate at 40% whilst they were in power and only moved it to 50% when they knew they were going to lose the election.

Who set the tax rate at 40%? Lawson, in 1988.

Who moved it to 50%? Darling, after the bankers had wrecked our economy and it meant hard times for all. Under Labour, we might have "all been in this together".

You forgot to add that disingenuous Tory lie that a 50% tax rate brings in less money. It doesn't, it has brought in an extra £2.7 billion a year.

It's taken 3 years but at last the government is doing what should have been done when Labour was in power rather than make it simple to avoid payments.

HMRC in offshore tax evasion crackdown after receiving fresh data

Biggest tranche of information ever received by HMRC contains 400GB of information on offshore tax evasion

A fresh crackdown on offshore tax evasion has been launched after HM Revenue and Customs said it had received data showing extensive use of schemes to hide assets.

HMRC is working with the United States and Australia to analyse 400GB of data showing the use of tax evasion schemes via companies and trusts in territories around the world including Singapore, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/09/offshore-tax-evasion-crackdown

kudos to HMRC - lets hope they recover a good slice of the billions of unpaid tax that's out there