The least well off households pay 36.6 per cent of their income in tax compared to 35.5 per cent paid by the wealthiest.
Boris Johnson has a piece in today’s Telegraph in which he claims that we should be ‘humbly thanking the super-rich, not bashing them’.
“the latest data suggest that we should be offering them humble and hearty thanks. It is through their ]the rich’s] relentless concupiscent energy and sheer wealth-creating dynamism that we pay for an ever-growing proportion of public services.”
In other words, the rich are heroes and should be treated as such because they pay a vast amount of tax. The top 0.1 per cent pay an “amazing 14.1 per cent of all taxes”, according to Boris.
The rich do pay a high percentage of the treasury’s total tax share. The problem with Boris’ logic, however, is that it ignores one important fact: the poor pay a higher tax rate than the rich.
According to recent analysis by the Office for National Statistics, the least well off households pay 36.6 per cent of their income in tax compared to 35.5 per cent paid by the wealthiest.
This is partly down to the fact that VAT – which George Osborne put up in 2010 from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent – hits the poor disproportionately compared to the rich. Low income families spend around 12 per cent of their disposable income on VAT, compared with 7.6 per cent for average households and 5.9 per cent for highest earners.
So while the rich may pay a lot of money in tax, as a proportion of their income it’s actually less than that paid by the poor.
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25 Responses to “Sorry Boris, but the poor carry the greatest tax burden”
Bob Allison
Concupiscence:
Insubordination of man’s desires to the dictates of reason, and the propensity of human nature to sin as a result of original sin. More commonly, it refers to the spontaneous movement of the sensitive appetites toward whatever the imagination portrays as pleasant and away from whatever it portrays as painful. However, concupiscence also includes the unruly desires of the will, such as pride, ambition, and envy. (Etym. Latin con-, thoroughly + cupere, to desire: concupiscentia, desire, greed, cupidity.)
Chris Kitcher
But the issue is not getting back or taking goods/services to the value of what you pay in its about paying for the society that you want to live in. This idea of getting back what you pay in was the greatest stupidity of the wicked witch.
johnfwoods
The so called rich get far more out of tax in the UK than the poor, irrespective of the amount of tax they pay. What else can explain the numbers of rich people who are buying up our housing stock in London, if not to escape the poor services and civil unrest in their home countries, the result of less tax paid by them. Russia is the most obvious example, but the Greeks are catching up fast and will soon overtake the Saudis.
TM
Whether the poor pay more or the rich pay more, the one fact seems to escape everyone that if you are very wealthy whatever tax you pay sees you still wealthy and privileged and probably have a far bigger income and a stable career than many poor people do. Paying 45% tax may seem harsh but if you are earning £500,000 a year that still leaves you with about £275,000 a year. Can’t see anyone enduring hardship on that, and that’s not taking into account the fact that many rich and privileged people seem to be very adept at dodging tax like our comedian friend Jimmy Carr was found out to be doing, paying 1% tax through a loophole. He got caught and paid up; just how many other rich people dodge it as a matter of course? Many of us poor folk would be grateful to just have the opportunity to pay 45% tax, but for most of us that is just a dream in this economic climate.
Then of course Boris represents the affluent privileged London set, the people who always seem to be wealthy and get very good careers and positions in society no matter what real talents or accomplishments they may or not have, connections and private educations and ancestry mattering far more in the rarefied and rather sniffy air of the uber privileged classes. It’s easy for someone like Boris who has sailed through life on a raft of wealth and privilege and eased through it all via connections to big the rich up. He would say that wouldn’t he?! We should be humbly thanking the super-rich?! What exactly for Boris? Making us pay over the odds for gas, electricity, train travel, water rates, the ever rising price of groceries and the fall year on year of ordinary’s people’s wages? Wow thanks a million!!! How grateful we all are for the prosperity of the rich whilst we get poorer!!! And how grateful must all those pensioners be dreading a cold winter this year who might die of hypothermia because they can’t afford to heat their homes. Thanks for selling off these necessities to foreign owned companies who owe us no allegiance whatsoever. Thanks for the Tory party for attacking disabled people and making them pick up the tab somehow for the mistakes of the rich. Thanks for the growing divide between the affluent Middle class and the very wealthy, and the rest of the people at the bottom enduring austerity and uncertainty.
When will we begin to challenge this privilege that a few have to lord it over the rest of us, to hold us in contempt or patronise us. We are still lions led by donkeys. That is the real problem and until people begin to challenge it, we will remain a 3rd rate nation stuck in a timewarp.
TM
Yes, the much vaunted ‘charitable work’ of the rich; i.e. give £50,000 to charity and advertise it to the hilt, whilst avoiding millions and millions in tax through loopholes. If those people were made to just pay the taxes due to them there would be less problems all around.