dnb

Before I get started, this is not an anti government rant, just an observation...

I am both amused and perplexed at the amount of my earnings that find their way to the government (both local and national), and wonder how long it will be before I have to pay for the privilage of working...

Because I'm lazy & paranoid , the figures are very approximate and only include direct work related taxable costs to me.

On my salary of 20k there's income tax to pay. This is about 4k a year.
There's NI, another 2.5k per year...
council tax (just gone up, because I live in the south and can afford it ) 1k per year.
Then, to use a fuel efficient car simply to go to work (40 to the gallon, cheap servicing - only taxable costs cosidered) 0.5k...

and so it goes on. There's all this pension stuff that I should be paying that futher increases the NI cost, but I'm hoping to see that back again when I'm old and even more cynical!

Added up, there's about 12k left for me to pay my mortgage with & have some fun - this is taxed at a rate of at least 17.5%.

The net result is that the government gets approx. 50% of my yearly gross salary. (because I have a petrol addiction it's more in reality... ).

In general, the working population must be paying similar tax to me (or I'm doing something wrong, and I want to know about it!!! ) so this means the government gets 50% of the income of the country. (only a 1st order approximation, I know the govenment employs people with the tax revenue and the sums get messy...)

Why are the government saying they have no money & will have to tax us more?

Statistics are fun aren't they - you can prove what you like!!

carl

Employer's NI too (although it doesn't come out of your salary, your employer will have taken it into account when deciding how much to pay you).

dnb

I know - depressing isn't it... I was only considering work related costs that show up from my salary.

At least I still show a profit at the end of the day...

Clarebabes

Work related costs must also include clothes, shoes, going out at lunchtime etc. These are all things you wouldn't buy if you weren't working too.

Dunk

iTrader: (1)

Check out http://www.taxfreedomday.co.uk/home.htm if you want to get depressed.

For 2003 it's June 8th, meaning that for the first 159 days of the 2003, every penny you earn will go to support government expenditures, after that it's all yours !!!!

D

dnb

8th June!!!

TaviaRS

It is so depressing. The one I find intensly annoying is the private fuel "allowance" if you have a company car [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

<rant>
Yes I have a company car, its a Skoda and doesn't pollute that much (all things are relative) and its cheap. So, taxable benefit on it is £4000 ish. As I get some private petrol (its hard to avoid using some "works" petrol) I get taxed on that. Taxable benefit for that, oh thats another £4500 Mr Tavia. Now £4,500 buys a not inconsiderable amount of fuel (5625 litres / 1237.5 gallons of Optimax). So Mr Taxman, lets for the sake of arguement say I get 33mpg on average, I do 40,837.5 private miles per year. Now, my car is 18 months old and has done 80,000 of which 61,703 are business miles. How the **** do you calculate fuel benefit???

Far canal, you really are a bunch of robin barstewards!

</rant>

Freak

self employment+good accountant=