Scottish budget

[DVB]

Big FU to the middle class.

 

if you are earning £50k you will pay £1500 more in tax than someone in England.

 

Additional Dwelling Tax up to 4% will stop buy to let which should reduce house price inflation but likely to drive up rents.

[Ray Gin]

Good, if you earn 50k you can afford it.

[Statts1976uk]

It’s absolutely scandalous, they want to try and either keep the best people or attract them to this country only to make being here financially unattractive. 

 

It it wouldn’t be so bad if the services we are paying for were excellent. Our education system is failing and our health service is struggling, it’s hard to see how this extra money is actually getting used properly.

 

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by Statts1976uk

[ri Alban]

Good budget. Funny that folk moan about services, but  greet when it comes to paying for it. 

[AlimOzturk]

If your earning over 50k a year what the your greeting for still be well off.  

Edited December 12, 2018 by AlimOzturk

[DVB]

3 minutes ago, ri Alban said:

Good budget. Funny that folk moan about services, but  greet when it comes to paying for it. 

Assuming people are just going to pay it. I would imagine those with the option to be English for tax will take it meaning that Scotland loses all that tax.

[DVB]

5 minutes ago, AlimOzturk said:

If your earning over 50k a year what the your greeting for still be well off.  

You can have a deemed income of £50k without actually earning £50k due to the way the tenant tax is calculated.

[Irufushi]

50k a year middle class ? I’m a right poor ******* class then. 

[ri Alban]

7 minutes ago, DVB said:

Assuming people are just going to pay it. I would imagine those with the option to be English for tax will take it meaning that Scotland loses all that tax.

On they go. They can pay for their childrens university, prescriptions , OAP care. Bye bye.

Edited December 12, 2018 by ri Alban

[DVB]

Just now, ri Alban said:

On they go. They pay for their children university, prescriptions , OAP care. Bye bye.

£1500 a year could get you a lot of prescriptions.

[Dunks]

24 minutes ago, Ray Gin said:

Good, if you earn 50k you can afford it.

 

[The Brow]

£1500 over 12 months, would you really miss that if you earn £50k? 

 

Its more baffling that everyone gets free prescriptions. 

 

 

[Jambo-Jimbo]

12 minutes ago, ri Alban said:

On they go. They can pay for their childrens university, prescriptions , OAP care. Bye bye.

 

I have heard of quite a few older people, who have moved to Scotland precisely because they know that they will get free care in their old age, free prescriptions etc etc etc, whether they pay anything into the Scottish tax system for all these freebies is open to question, I am surprised that the Scottish Governement allows it to continue.

[Jambo-Jimbo]

2 minutes ago, Lord BJ said:

Does earning £50k a year make you rich? I would imagine a lot of teachers, nurses and public sector workers fall into that bracket. Same people who have had there wages frozen for a long time.

 

Got to be honest, I don’t view them as particularly rich people. 

 

People in the bracket will face cut backs, as the more you earn the more you spend. Fair enough, it might be a choice of luxuries to give up for some ie. not going on holiday or something but for many they will already be struggling to meet their bills and this will be as stressful as anyone who faces money worries.

 

It will be a drop in many’s living standards and I’m not really one to applaud more people being dragged down towards the bottom as opposed to raising people in a upward direction.

 

Raising taxes is always popular when in impacts someone else. It’s nice to have other people pay for stuff.

 

I’m not sure raising personal tax is silver bullet many think, more often than not tax takes reach record level on year but services and cuts happen. That doesn’t seem the correct correlation to me and certainly not a sustainable one. 

 

 

 

 

 

Nurses, your having a laugh surely, the average Scottish nurse earns under £30k, NHS managers on the other hand, you know the ones who need maps to find their way around a hospital,  £50k is pennies to those lot.

 

[DVB]

4 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

 

Nurses, your having a laugh surely, the average Scottish nurse earns under £30k, NHS managers on the other hand, you know the ones who need maps to find their way around a hospital,  £50k is pennies to those lot.

 

A senior nurse would be a higher rate tax payer in Scotland and a basic rate tax payer in England.

[hughesie27]

6 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

 

Nurses, your having a laugh surely, the average Scottish nurse earns under £30k, NHS managers on the other hand, you know the ones who need maps to find their way around a hospital,  £50k is pennies to those lot.

 

Nurses is laughable. Basic teachers i think get a salary cap at about 35k?

[Captain Sausage]

One of the reasons my wife and I left Scotland. 

 

Sick of the weather and the constant shafting of the middle class. 

 

England might not be Ibiza, but financially we are better off, despite a more expensive house!

[Jambo-Jimbo]

21 minutes ago, Lord BJ said:

 

https://www.rcn.org.uk/employment-and-pay/nhs-pay-scales-2017-18#tab3

 

It appears nurses can and do earn in that bracket. Not all, I grant you but that the things with averages, lots of things above and below the line. Like most industries the more you progress in your career the more you earn.

 

 

 

What that pay scale doesn't tell you is that band 8 is the band which management starts at, for the nurses at the coal face so to speak they are typically band 5.

 

Band 5 = Staff Nurse (Max £29k per year)

Band 6 = Sister (Max £36k per year)

Band 7 = Charge Nurse ( Max £42k per year)

Band 8A = Senior Specialized Nurse/Management (Max £49k per year)

Band 8B onwards = Management (£47k to £102k per year)

 

Many management roles have Nurse in the job title, and quite a few have little or no medical training, so the title of nurse is in name only.

[Victorian]

I hope they go further with the rebalance of the tax burden.     People of these high earnings can complain but they have enjoyed many years of a deeply unfair low personal taxation,  mainly due to the low taxation (for the well off) ideology of the Tories.

 

Everybody should pay a bit more tax.    I earn nothing like £50k but would accept a rise in income tax.     Services need funding.     

 

Dry your eyes ffs.

[Cade]

If these very minor changes to income tax suddenly mean you are going to be destitute, then you are living beyond your means anyhow.

 

It's hilarious to hear well-off people screaming and moaning about this.

[Victorian]

1 minute ago, Lord BJ said:

 

Deeply unfair personal taxation? How? 

 

Whilst the Tory ideology is lower taxation was for all not just the well off. That’s just your narrative. 

 

The economic policy of lower tax as economic route is prettt tried and tested. You might not agree with but there is a clear logic to it. 

 

Whose crying?

 

The Tory ideology is to shrink the public sector therefore it needs less tax pounds to fund it therefore they can keep taxes as low as possible for the benefit of their core support.     Priority to the natural Tory voter in order to serve self interest.    It's an obsolete model in today's UK.       All services desperately need substantial additional funding,  simply to provide reasonable services.    Everyone should get used to the idea that taxes need to rise and that everyone will see the benefit in the shape of better public services.     The better off in society can better cope with modest increases in tax.

[Captain Sausage]

1 minute ago, Cade said:

If these very minor changes to income tax suddenly mean you are going to be destitute, then you are living beyond your means anyhow.

 

It's hilarious to hear well-off people screaming and moaning about this.

 

So going by that logic you’ve no problem with small cuts to benefits, right? People shouldn’t be living beyond their means, that’s nice and clean cut. 

[Jambo-Jimbo]

9 minutes ago, Lord BJ said:

 

So we’re agreed nurses can earn and do earn more than 50k ?

 

I didn’t say nurses at the coal face or basic teachers or lint the profession. Not everyone in these field end at the lower end of the scale and starting out. 

 

Amyway this will turn into a semantics argument. If it helps, read my post as nursing and teaching professionals. Let me know if that changes the main points of my post ?

 

 

 

 

 

Em, no, band 8A is as high as a nurse can go and they are the real specialized nurses who probably make up less than 5% of all nurses and they earn under £50k, management earn more than £50k but nurses do not.

 

Once you reach the higher end of a band that's often as far as you can go.

Example, my wife is a senior staff nurse at the top end of band 5, she can't earn more or progress unless a sister's position becomes vacant, which can be few and far between and sometimes it's years before a position comes up, especially in a more specialized ward which she works in compared to a general ward.

[Herbert.]

40 minutes ago, Captain Sausage said:

One of the reasons my wife and I left Scotland. 

 

Sick of the weather and the constant shafting of the middle class. 

 

England might not be Ibiza, but financially we are better off, despite a more expensive house!

 

So you pay more per month on a mortgage on a more expensive house then a higher cost of living depending where you are to save yourself paying maybe the price of a week away over a year in tax?

[Captain Sausage]

4 minutes ago, Herbert said:

 

So you pay more per month on a mortgage on a more expensive house then a higher cost of living depending where you are to save yourself paying maybe the price of a week away over a year in tax?

 

Mortgage is more, but I pay 30% less interest and cost of living is not noticeably higher than Aberdeen...

 

Crack on though, boss. 

[skinnybob72]

Love the way that the SNP were trumpeting on about how folk on less than £29k were better off under the Scottish tax system compared to the rest of the UK - its about £20 a year, or 38p a week. What are folk supposed to do with that? 

[gashauskis9]

That prick Mackay thinks folk who are just over the HRT are millionaires.  Shafted again!

[Victorian]

2 minutes ago, Lord BJ said:

 

The Tory ideology was to lower personal taxes to stimulate the economy. This gave people more disposal income to spend which in turn means people buy/sell and make stuff you get the tax from that as opposed to the individual. That’s why as they lowered personal tax they jacked sales tax up.

 

The tax take goes up everyone benefits. 

 

Weirdly its generally successful at raising standards, it does lead to greater inequity amongst people. But I guess it’s what do you value more standard or equality. 

 

Why do we need to get used to the idea that personal tax should go up? Why can’t for example business feel some of the burden, why shouldn’t we look at wealth taxes, why shouldn’t we get rid of the pointless shit we do that costs us money. I think we’re mucking about the edges if adding a couple of pence on income tax.

 

its about raising the tax take not the tax rate for me.

 

A couple of pence on income tax isn’t really going to change the level of service massively. Sadly it’s going to take more than that. 

 

I agree with most of that.    We need a wholesale review and modernisation of the entire tax system.     The Tories are less likely to do so than others.

[gashauskis9]

2 hours ago, Ray Gin said:

Good, if you earn 50k you can afford it.

Sorry chief, but that’s pish. I pay enough tax and get shafted with the child benefit charge as a double whammy.  Anyone accuses me of being middle class, they can do one.  I was brought up with **** all and beyond what Ive worked hard all my life to earn,and my family, I still have **** all because I can’t afford to save.

[Ray Gin]

7 minutes ago, Gashauskis9 said:

Sorry chief, but that’s pish. I pay enough tax and get shafted with the child benefit charge as a double whammy.  Anyone accuses me of being middle class, they can do one.  I was brought up with **** all and beyond what Ive worked hard all my life to earn,and my family, I still have **** all because I can’t afford to save.

 

So all your 50k is going on essentials? No luxury expenses (fancy car, expensive designer clothes, nights out, holidays etc)?

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by Ray Gin

[skinnybob72]

If they want to improve public services then they should be looking at the money wasted within these services and deal with that before raising taxes.

 

My missus was doing a shift for the NHS at the weekend and they wanted her to go from A to B for part of the shift, she was happy to drive but they insisted on a taxi there and back which came to about £40 - money that simply didn't need to be spent. That kind of thing must go on all over the place within public services and they could no doubt save millions quite easily.

 

 

[Brighton Jambo]

all the Tories need to do at the Scottish election is run on a no referendum and lower tax agenda and they will Hoover up votes.  I think people on here might be surprised how many people earn 50k per annum.  We are not talking the top 5% 150k brigade here.  

[gashauskis9]

5 minutes ago, Ray Gin said:

 

So all your 50k is going on essentials? No luxury expenses (fancy car, expensive designer clothes, nights out, holidays etc)?

 

Pretty much.  I don’t drive so don’t own a car, don’t wear designer clothes, go out once a month if I’m lucky.  Two holidays a year max.

 

Most of money is spent helping my Mum out and paying my ex’s mortgage to make sure she and the kids have a roof over their heads.

[manaliveits105]

More money towards the important things like Indy2 for the Krankies 

[Roxy Hearts]

5 minutes ago, manaliveits105 said:

More money towards the important things like Indy2 for the Krankies 

Good

[The_razors_edge]

9 minutes ago, skinnybob72 said:

If they want to improve public services then they should be looking at the money wasted within these services and deal with that before raising taxes.

 

My missus was doing a shift for the NHS at the weekend and they wanted her to go from A to B for part of the shift, she was happy to drive but they insisted on a taxi there and back which came to about £40 - money that simply didn't need to be spent. That kind of thing must go on all over the place within public services and they could no doubt save millions quite easily.

 

 

 

I work for a local authority and can assure you it absolutely does. Money being frittered away all over the place. Unfortunately, nobody anywhere in the directorate I work in has a clue about business and how to save money or actually try and generate income. Frightening and laughable all at the same time.

[Brighton Jambo]

A higher tax model will only be accepted by the people long term if the services they get in return are tangibly better than before.  I won't derail the thread as I don't believe the NHS or education are as bad as some say but they definitely do not of a standard to justify Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK

[Ray Gin]

Just now, Brighton Jambo said:

A higher tax model will only be accepted by the people long term if the services they get in return are tangibly better than before.  I won't derail the thread as I don't believe the NHS or education are as bad as some say but they definitely do not of a standard to justify Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK

 

Really? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40494488

 

Plus free prescriptions, free dental checkups, along with free tuition fees for Scottish students.

 

[DVB]

44 minutes ago, skinnybob72 said:

Love the way that the SNP were trumpeting on about how folk on less than £29k were better off under the Scottish tax system compared to the rest of the UK - its about £20 a year, or 38p a week. What are folk supposed to do with that? 

The Scottish Tax system is so politically driven.

 

To have three tax rates for £2k difference between them is bizarre.

[manaliveits105]

SNP OOT ! 

[jamie1874]

SNP have had one policy over the years, increase tax for one group of people.

 

First it was council tax increase, after promising a reform they decided to leave as his and whack a increase on the top end of the bands.

 

Next they set the higher tax bracket at a different value than rUK.

 

On top of that they add 1% to that band compared to rUk. 

 

Creating an even greater two tier tax system in the UK, with very little evidence of better Health, education and public services. 

 

However due to Westminster being in such a mess over Brexit they have continued to make themselves easy to elect for the majority of scotland as so (rightly) against brexit. The reality, take away all the noise and look at Scotland and the SNP and it’s not a party delivering - just a party capitalizing on fear of anyone else being worse.

[systemx]

Time to increase my pre tax pension contributions

[Brighton Jambo]

24 minutes ago, Ray Gin said:

 

Really? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40494488

 

Plus free prescriptions, free dental checkups, along with free tuition fees for Scottish students.

 

I said I didn’t think it was as bad as people make out but seeing as you went there 

 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/10/23/scottish-nhs-waiting-time-target-missed-2021-despite-850-million/amp/

 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/scotland/995976/snp-missed-nhs-targets-scottish-national-party-health/amp

 

the tolerance for these failures will be much less in a higher tax system.  

 

And free prescriptions is a gimmick nothing more.  Saves the average person very little and deprived the NHS of income.  Should be means tested 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EC_Hearts]

£50k isn't a breakpoint for paying more tax than over the border it's actually in the low 40's or possibly even high 30's.

What a way to encourage people to develop themselves while remaining in Scotland.

One of many policies derived by a group of individuals who have never had a proper job in their lives (just like Westminster)

[Brighton Jambo]

8 minutes ago, BarneyBattles said:

 

Maybe if you were single and on £50k but bung in a mortgage, couple of kids, nursery fees, wife working part time and the usual bills and £50k doesn’t go that far.

My nursery fees are over £1000 a month.  Plus mortgage, council tax , bills, petrol, pension etc.  People who think those on £50k a year are living the high life are delusional.  

[H2]

I find it amazing that people think it is ok that Socts have to pay more tax than everone else in the UK.  While the politicians pontificate about the benefits, these alleged benefits were in place before the tax hikes, and no tangible benefit has since been identifed, other than the increases in MSP salaries, which outpaces other public services workers.

[Ray Gin]

26 minutes ago, Brighton Jambo said:

My nursery fees are over £1000 a month.  Plus mortgage, council tax , bills, petrol, pension etc.  People who think those on £50k a year are living the high life are delusional.  

 

You are compared to folk trying to do the same on half that amount.

[JamboX2]

2 hours ago, Hunky Dory said:

“I’m raging that the SNP have done something that doesn’t impact me or anyone I know”

 

50k is not middle-class in Scotland. It’s more than twice the average wage.

 

Higher Rate Band starts lower than that though; think £40k. 

 

I'd argue that's a medium salary.

 

All for those who can pay paying extra but it seems to be hitting traditional middle income earners in Scotland more; which given the paucity of top rate tax payers is where in any constitutional set up most of Scotland's tax revenue will come from.

 

Nothing stopping innovative new forms of tax being introduced in Scotland though; Land Value, Tourist tax, reforming local government finance are all options but not really in government eye line. Which I find odd to be honest.

[JamboX2]

1 hour ago, Ray Gin said:

 

You are compared to folk trying to do the same on half that amount.

 

Those on less should and do get more free hours in nurseries and support in other ways from local authorities if they ask for it. So it's a hard one to square really.

[ri Alban]

4 hours ago, Brighton Jambo said:

I said I didn’t think it was as bad as people make out but seeing as you went there 

 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/10/23/scottish-nhs-waiting-time-target-missed-2021-despite-850-million/amp/

 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/scotland/995976/snp-missed-nhs-targets-scottish-national-party-health/amp

 

the tolerance for these failures will be much less in a higher tax system.  

 

And free prescriptions is a gimmick nothing more.  Saves the average person very little and deprived the NHS of income.  Should be means tested 

 

 

 

 

 

Means testing costs more than free prescriptions. As for waiting times, yes they've been missed, but they're held to a high standard.