On the NHS, I tried for years to push for improvements to switch to digital cancer screening invitations after they missed my mother (offering to build the software for free), which is now happening, but suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here. My sister who works in NHS DEI hasn't spoken to me since publishing a book on it.
Every time someone with the finances, vision and ability leaves I think the situation gets a little bit worse, it increases the proportion of people remaining willing to put up with all of it. Anecdotally, many of my friends have already left, some of the older generation want to leave but feel tied in. My flight out is in 6 weeks. Good riddance, no doubt.
> just mentioning increased immigration
One of these seems like the solution to the other.
> as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income
Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe.
I started working with folks from the UK right at the start when social media really took off, and I personally think that what ails the UK is the same as what ails the world. Too much social media.
The UK has always been an empire in decline, but the wheels didn't come off until everyone became glued to feeds. It's Garbage In, Garbage Out. If your view of reality is driven by stuff that you see online, it's a distorted lens which then leads to distorted decision making that then leads to authoritarian creep.
Just my 2¢.
I only have to look as far as my own wallet to see the effects. I'm being taxed to the eyeballs while there is a glass ceiling preventing me taking any more pay home without a major jump which just isn't coming due to stupid tax rules keeping the working class from bumping into the middle class.
I see mine and my family's living standards drop only to be told by the news that I'm a likely target for more tax hikes, and there's just no room to tax me more while my bills have also gone up significantly, and something will have to give. If it gets to the point where I can't pay my bills despite being a "high earner" I'll have to start considering whether I leave with my family, and where to.
I'm not exactly the milky bar kid, but I imagine beyond my friends and family, I imagine the consensus would be very much the same, yet there goes two "successful" professionals and the children we were raising probably to be high earning professionals too.
I don't do social media, but I do keep on top of the news from all outlets, I try to look beyond the biases and form an opinion on a combination of sources.
Emotional phrases aside, what is your total NI + income tax deduction percentage, and what percentage do you think you should be paying?
They're well known an documented, but I'm sure you know that already.
Edit: Ah, there's a baseline personal deduction (12.5k) that disappears between 100-125k, meaning, for that narrow band, every dollar earned in that range has a higher effective tax rate due to that deduction slowly disappearing. It's still progressive, so you don't suddenly start paying 60% tax on everything.
https://www.brewin.co.uk/insights/earn-over-100k-beware-the-...
EDIT: it's interesting that anyone genuinely asking and trying to understand is getting downvoted as opposed to anyone who just disagrees with me.
I struggle with the child tax credits. If I'm childless and move from 99,999 to 100,000 it doesn't change my situation at all. I don't think we can view that in the same light - it's a tax credit benefit, but it's not just a matter of earnings. The goal is to support lower income families, so the line has to be drawn somewhere, and whether it's gradual or not someone is still going to complain about it going away.
Nobody is expected not to use it if they earn below the point it is taken away, it's just an arbitrary tax on parents who earn 100,000, while at the same time a few other paper cuts are piled on.
I know Americans always do tax returns, sounds like a pita for you guys, and I believe until recently you had no choice but to use some sort of service and couldn't DIY it?
Here if you're PAYE (salaries), it's dealt with on your behalf, the tax is deducted before you're paid and you don't have to deal with it, unless you're self employed. It's not necessarily a huge issue, but it's a time cost and that has to have a price, and if you get it wrong, HMRC are notoriously hard and will demand full payment immediately, if you're lucky and they accept your "excuse" (their word), they might let you split it over 3 months.
At this point it's best to make sure you have £10,000+ in savings aside just in case.
I've not had to do a tax return yet, but I've frequently seen tax bills in the tens of thousands from family and friends because their accountant got it wrong, and holds no liability.
I don't think it's as big an issue for me people have taken from my original wording, that's fine, poor choice of words on my part perhaps, but it has certainly been blown out of proportion including some minor jabs at me and (incorrectly) at my political leanings etc. Despite this really all having nothing to do with politics or news and quite clearly as I pointed out at it's direct effect on my family finances.
As the saying goes here in England, "I'm sorry I mentioned it".
This seems to be me to be a weird framing. It's a tax benefit for parents that's taken away when you hit £100k. When you hit £100k you don't face an arbitrary tax, instead you're now playing by the same rules everyone else is. You're in parity with your child-less coworker. Not disadvantaged, just no longer advantaged.