Cuts to tax credits will make things even worse for the poorest households
New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed that the richest people in the UK are contributing a lower share of income tax than the poorest.
In its latest statistical bulletin looking into the effects of taxes and benefits on household income (for the financial year ending 2014), the ONS finds that the richest and poorest fifth pay 34.8 per cent and 37.8 per cent of their gross income respectively.
The richest fifth of households paid £29,200 in taxes (direct and indirect) compared with £4,900 for the poorest fifth.
This is despite the fact that, before taxes and benefits, the richest fifth of households had an average income 15 times greater than that of the poorest fifth.
After taxes and benefits are taken into account, the ratio between top and bottom was reduced to four-to-one, leading the ONS to note the importance of benefits and tax credits in rebalancing the top and bottom sections:
“The overall impact of taxes and benefits are that they lead to income being shared more equally between households…
“The distribution of cash benefits between richer and poorer households has the effect of reducing inequality of income.
“After cash benefits were taken into account, the richest fifth had an average income that was roughly six and a half times the poorest fifth (gross incomes of £83,800 per year compared with £12,900, respectively).”
The Tories’ planned cuts to tax credits could make up as much as £5bn of the planned £12bn cut to welfare. As well as helping to reduce inequality, tax credits have been hailed as a driving force in reducing child poverty.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
82 Responses to “Richest are paying lower proportion of income tax than poorest, says ONS”
Matt Booth
Who are you to decide what someone needs? Who made you the arbitrator of fiscal necessity? Can’t be satisfied letting the poor get on with their meagre lives and enjoy a few creature comforts as they toil away making the rich richer?
No-one in your right-wing circle will have ever taken anyone in the left seriously.
And don’t attempt to child me for defending the right of the poor to have a fucking TV and alcohol.
Fergus Mason
“Who are you to decide what someone needs?”
Who are YOU to decide that my money, that I earned, is better off being used to buy a TV for some idle twat who left school before sitting any O-grades?
the right of the poor to have a fucking TV and alcohol.”
No such right exists.
Matt Booth
They’re not luxuries, by very definition. And no, I think people have a right to live. If that means coming home from work, opening a beer and watching TV, then yeah, I think your comments suggesting they shouldn’t be able to do that is more disgusting.
Should someone who is out of work, or have been on benefits for a lifetime be given the means to acquire these things? No. But someone who works and still cannot afford life? Yep.
Matt Booth
And there it is, ladies and gentlemen! The right wing! Anyone on benefits is and idle twat! Ian Duncan Smith?! Is that you?!
You earned your money off the backs of everyone else in society, just like everyone else in society. Pay your fucking dues and stop bitching about it. Be content that you can live comfortably without relying on handouts because that was the luck of your draw.
Matt Booth
It all comes down to what kind of person you are.
If you’re walking down the street and someone trips over their shoelace and bashes their face in. You’re the kind of sod who’d walk past, tsk, and tell them they ought to have tied their laces. I’m the kind of person who’d take 10 minutes out of my life to help them up.