Virgin Media Broadband

[wmrcomputers]

@dirtybobby - good explanation - thanks! I understand this a little clearer now.

@the rest - I'm VM too, but Shoes has a point on "how long" before they find another way of taxing every one of us. I'm quite surprised that they haven't just called this a "communications tax" and banged it on everyone who uses phone / net / tv / radio - for example.. everyone!

My annoyance is that we pay VAT on all of these services, so by introducing any other tax is again double-taxing us! I still believe that because we are taxed on our earnings it should end there. No VAT on just about everything we then spend our "already taxed" income on. Grrrrrr /rant over

 

[shoes]

Income tax 20% of your income
VAT on pretty much the rest 15% of your income
say 5% of your income is spent on fuel, 75% tax is another 3.75% of your income

Ok so we're up to 38.75% of your income is taken as tax so far

Council tax as an average lets say 7% of your income (that is the case for me anyway)..... 45.75%

That's almost half of your income taken as tax! And this is not even taking into consideration the finer points of tax law which are pretty much incomprehensible anyway but I wouldn't be surprised if the amount hit the 50% mark.

Drinking and smoking i will obviously exclude for two reasons, firstly they are optional and secondly because that tax pays for the unhealthy sods like me who turn up with various cancers / organ failures etc.

Then there is insurance premium tax, airport tax, import duty, road tax, tv licence.. the list goes on.

Anyway that was unbelievably off topic so i shall attempt to return to the OP by saying virgin rocks

 

[tek-monkey]

Don't forget that anything you save gets taxed on the interest generated!

 

[Florence]

National insurance is practically a tax too.

 

[shoes]

To be honest thats for the average joe too, if you manage to break the 37500 or therabouts threashold you can wave good bye to another 20% straight away. Thats TWO THIRDS of your income gone as tax for earning what is frankly not a lot of money. I don't think it is anyway.

 

[tek-monkey]

Well, 2/3 of anything above that threshold anyway. Ditching the 10p tax bracket was such a piss take, just proved Labour are only for the fat cats nowadays. They are the Tories from the late 80s, they just wear different coloured ties.

EDIT: Thats a lie actually, at least the tories did interesting stuff like coke fuelled hooker parties. All this lot do is try to steal money, so they're boring as well as corrupt.

 

[shoes]

Well I have already started looking into tax efficiency in preparation for my salary reaching that threashold in the next decade or so and i think doing some business off shore is a good idea

 

[tek-monkey]

In a Howard Marks kind of way?

 

[Lucy]

It's still worth having that salary though, because if you earned say £38,000 you'd only be paying 40% on the £500. I agree with the 10%, it's made me about £30 richer a month, but then I earn a decent salary and can afford not to be £30 richer a month, whereas someone on £15,000 can't really afford to be poorer.

Anyway, at the risk of being called Basil (where is he?!) I too use Virgin Broadband, and in the 2 years I've been with them I've had about a week of downtime, and they refunded me for that.

 

[Monquey]

To be honest thats for the average joe too, if you manage to break the 37500 or therabouts threashold you can wave good bye to another 20% straight away. Thats TWO THIRDS of your income gone as tax for earning what is frankly not a lot of money. I don't think it is anyway.

Wait - that's not how it works is it? You don't hit the upper threshold and they start taking another 20% of EVERYTHING - only what you earn over, I thought. Everything under is at the same rate as before.

Edit: e,f,b. ^^^What Lucy said.

 

[shoes]

Fair point, you're right. It's still absolutely disgusting though IMO. Do well, get shafted. The British way!

 

[Lucy]

I'd suggest it's more a case of do badly, get even more shafted. I wouldn't turn down a few grand pay rise just because it takes me over the threshold.

 

[tek-monkey]

TBH though pay rises are calculated with tax involved, I always look at what I take home rather than what my supposed pay is. This is why (I suspect) pay rises are always larger once you go higher up the scale. Cos otherwise theres no point, a 1k rise to you is the same as a £600 rise to someone lower. Companies need to make salaries over the 40% threshold stand out, because 1k difference at 50k wouldn't really bother you much. Or rather, you'd consider the job rather than the pay, its still monies!