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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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I don't think your numbers on income tax are correct.

While someone on £40,000 may only pay about £5,000 on the tax called income tax, they also pay National Insurance, which is income tax by another name. In addition, someone earning £40,000 is probably a graduate, and therefore paying back their student loans (a graduate tax by another name, sort of), as well as their mandatory pension contributions, which are a minimum of 5%. That's without going into the National Insurance and pension contributions that their employer has to pay, which, if they were not required, would go to the employee's salary.

A recent graduate on £40,000 living in England, with minimum pension contributions would pay:

Income tax: £5,148

National Insurance (inc employer): £7,555

Student Loan (Plan 2): £1,104

Pension contributions (inc employer): £3,200

Giving them an effective tax rate of £17,000 or 42.5%.

Even if we take out the pension contributions and student loan, this still leaves us with a tax payment of approximately £12,700 or 31.75%.

I definitely agree that Business Rates are far too high and would quite happily shift that burden to homeowners, which could incentivise more efficient use of property, but I don't think you can argue that the UK is a low tax country for average earners.

If you "inc employer" in the numerator, you should also "inc employer" in the denominator. So, it's 15903 over 50755, or 31%.