In the news

Sure, but combine that with e.g. nursery support being removed and you suddenly have a lump where the tax system shits on you for a bit before easing off. Which was kind of the point originally noted, that there's a level where people get shafted most and it's not purely the highest earners.

But that's the point, we're really not far off a flat rate tax. A guy earning £25k has a marginal rate of 32% and a guy earning £145k has a marginal rate of 42%.

A sensible progressive taxation system should increase monotonically, not do this:

Paying tax isn't being shafted, it's contributing. It's a good thing. Great public services cost money to run and I'm happy to pay my bit towards them.

I'm afraid I've lots track of the various childcare things, mine got too big.

Yeah sure, I'm not appealing for sympathy for all the hard up 6 figure salary people. Just saying that the point where the tax system seems to pick as "make it worst here" seems to me to be around + just above the £100k mark, and as you say the marginal rate gets better again a bit higher up.

Combine this with student debt that more recent grads may never pay off and we tax income a fuckload, seemingly to avoid taxing capital. Which is the bit I find pretty shitty. Work your balls off to earn a lot? Pay loads of tax. Get given it by a dead granny? All yours!

It's being shafted if it isn't proportionate and fair, though. I'm not arguing for all taxes to be cut (or for them to be cut at all, really). I just think the two weird steps in the graph above are bad as they mean some people get a worse deal because they fall into a certain income band.

Good graph.

For clarity I obviously don't have a problem paying tax (although fucking Boris could choose better ways to spend it). I would however prefer that more of it came from people who are richer than me and less of it from people who are poorer than me. (Rich is not the same as high income. Rich people don't even need to bother with income a lot of the time.)

To understand how much the current tax system hates all that is simple and good all you need to do is take a good look at the High Income Child Benefit Tax Charge (the biggest lump on that chart).

Is it? If you just look at it without further explanation you would think that you pay 40% income tax if you earn above 42k but it's a lot less as a total.

This kind of graph works better for me

I used regularly to see the missing person posters for this boy and think how sad it was and how there can't be much worse in life than to have your child disappear. There's nothing in the article to suggest he has been found though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-59952786

It's a terrible story that sounds like it's not going to get much better.

I'm fairly sure I've seen his picture on bus stops in Hackney very recently (last six months?) as part of a larger campaign for missing children.

^ Read that earlier today and thought the same. Not knowing what happened or if they're still out there is unfathomable.

It's encouraging that there are arrests but I find it hard to believe that he'd still be alive somewhere today. He was 14 at the time so he would have a full memory of his parents etc should he ever escape etc.

Maybe this will help

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Ignore me

I concur with tax being used for stuff we don't like, as long as a taxpayer has some voice in it, via voting I guess? Kids and animals create nice ads, but they are not on the top of the UK charities for donations (2016) When in NY working for MoMa in volunteer dept I had access to what was donated to the museum and majority was via corporate and estate donation, not necessary hard $$ though, could be art itself.

1 Cancer Research UK £463m
2 British Heart Foundation £278m
3 Sightsavers International £270.5m
4 Macmillan Cancer Support £233.7m
5 Oxfam £211.3m
6 RNLI £182m
7 Salvation Army £141.4m
8 British Red Cross £135.4m
9 RSPCA £121.4m
10 Save the Children £119.6m

But that's the point, we're really not far off a flat rate tax. A guy earning £25k has a marginal rate of 32% and a guy earning £145k has a marginal rate of 42%.

That's the effective rate - overall tax as a percentage of gross income.

The marginal rate is what the next pound earned is taxed at.

That chart is somewhat out of date (basic rate threshold is now 12,570, for example).

I concur with tax being used for stuff we don't like, as long as a taxpayer has some voice in it, via voting I guess?

That's the theory. I'm not especially keen on the outcome of recent elections but I still think it is a better system than people directly choosing where their money goes. For example if prisons (5.6 billion last year apparently) had to be funded by raising money from direct donations I think they would have a bit of a crisis.

(I happen to think we use prison too much and there are better ways to deal with offenders but that is a different issue to adequate funding of prisons)

That's the effective rate

What is?

What is marginal rate and what is effective rate? I’m confused

Marginal tax reflects the steps where the tax jumps up but effective is how much you actually pay on your total income, not just above 12k, 40k etc.

Effective = if your salary is £x, what % do you pay in tax overall

Marginal: if your salary is £x, then how much tax do you pay on each extra £1 you earn

This for me too. I'm not annoyed taxes are too high, but I don't think they're well designed, both in terms of the steps up in tax as people get more income, and in terms of how capital assets are taxed (or aren't, which is the problem)

I had it the wrong way round - thanks

Ah no, not meant like we decide where money goes, more in terms we decide on who decide on where money goes :) by way of elections. If direct decisions were made we would have chaos to say the least and yes, places like prisons would be first to have massive cuts.

I happen to agree on over-usage of prison instead of ploughing money to prevent people going that way in the first place. It would cost much less too.. . in the long run

For me personal taxes are not best set-up, but the real issue for me at least are corporations not paying their fair share. Can think of few to be honest, but is one that comes at the forefront all the times....making the owner richest person in the world.