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Darren - you got your figures wrong. I was not referring to the top 11% but the top 10%, think - where do the top 1% fit in that? The top 10% contribute 53% of HMRC Income Tax revenue collected, official figures and just over half of that was from the top 1%. Re-read what I said.
The problem is that too many seem to think that high tax rates for the rich actually help redistribute wealth. They do not. If you want the wealthier to pay more tax then we need to simplify the tax system and reduce rates. Simple taxes are harder to avoid and lower taxes reduces the need to avoid them. Lower tax rates for the better off will also attract capital from overseas and incentivise more investment and economic activity.
The simple fact of life is that no-one likes paying tax, rich or poor.
What we need is an overall increase in the levels of profitable economic activity in the economy increasing the 'pool of wealth'. That will increase tax revenues, not high tax rates, it will also create more jobs further boosting tax revenues.
Sadly there will always be people 'at the bottom' - with little or nothing. Some people simply will never make something of themselves whatever you do whether its because they get into drugs, are lazy or simply too stupid to be useful to themselves or anyone else. What is important is that those 'at the bottom' who are not stupid, lazy or drugged up, get an opportunity to improve their circumstances and that is what is so tragic at the moment in that there are far too many people lacking those opportunities. I will never shed a tear about the former lazy useless so and sos and 'the State' should not keep throwing cash at them either. But because they will always be with us, by definition, as the wealth of the country increases including the wealth of the better off, the gap will naturally rise. A focus on that gap does no-one any good, the focus should be on getting the economy moving as the only way to help those who can and want to help themselves.
Roger - no-one is defending HMRC here. As I said it seems to me they are going for the easy targets and just see the larger companies as too difficult to tackle. A simpler tax code would help that problem.