http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8604215.stm

What do we make of this?

Will people start leaving or not coming here? Was the 50% figure just pulled out of Gordon's arse?

Why bother to work really hard for yourself and be successful in life if it all gets taken away from you. People should be encouraged to do well.

Its kind of a Robin Hood tax, but if you push these kinds of people out of the country you will also be pushing industry out of the company. Company Head offices etc will be moving out of England in favour of other locations and that WILL hurt GDP.

People who earn that sort of rate will have options available to them to minimise its impact. In other words they / their accountants will know how to work around it.

A hefty chunck maybe but less than 50% isn't quite all of it.

It didn't in the past. Low taxes are a way of the poor subsidising the rich. If the super rich all left. It would open up more opportunities for those below. Secondly will Microsoft shut up shop here? Highly unlikely. They might have to offer higher wages to offset the tax or what will happen in the past is more perks.

No buts its still a ridicules percentage.



Microsoft may not but many more will, if you don't need a base in the UK why would you have one? If the "super rich" left it would purely open more opportunities for those below....in the countries the super rich move too.

I'm not fundamentally against a 50% tax I just think the figures are wrong, 300k? Perhaps 1m.

On Radio Fives money programme this morning they discussed this and according to them , even the treasury are admitiing its a revenue neutral tax. But it looks good politically

Exactly smoke and mirrors.

If the 'super rich' were going to leave because they don't want to pay tax, they already would have. There are plenty of places they could already have gone that have either very low or no income tax rates at all. The Isle of Man is nearer to me than Birmingham for cripe's sake and their income tax rate is something like 15%.

They stay because of other factors and those factors matter more than money. Aside from the obvious fact that, if you're truly super-rich, losing an extra 10% of your income may in fact make very little difference to you on a day to day basis.

Every time there is a change we get this. 'If you up the rate of tax all the rich people will leave'. 'If labour win the election all the rich people will leave.' It. Never. Happens. People stay in a place because of a multitude of reasons and how much tax they pay is usually way down the list.

Jon

Since when do people earning £150k come into the classification of "super rich". Comfortably off yes, not disagreeing.

Maybe its me but in my mind you need to add at least one more zero and probably double it as well before you start heading towards the "super rich" tag ( £3m ).

People on that sort of money (£150k+) are in the top 1% of earners - what's that if not "rich"?

For me its a matter of aspiration, will I strive throughout my life to earn £300k, yes. Will I strive to earn £1m plus, no. I'm no good at football.

Its just a kick in the teeth for the (going to be controversial here) minority of people that don't want to live off the state or in a dead end job.

Or, alternatively, don't measure their personal image entirely on how much money they earn.

Rich maybe but NOT super rich.

It is still in the top 1% of all incomes.