Quote Originally Posted by Trev View Post
Depends what you call rich, all I know is that I pay a **** load of tax both personally and through my business although not sure it's proportional to anything, certainly doesn't feel like it come January & July ; )
Amen to this - I run a business but it's hard to see the reward when you get taxed heavily for taking any profits out (moreso now they're changing the dividend tax rules), and if you leave the money in you pay load sin tax anyway.

People complain about the "rich" but do they realise that 20p in every pound a business makes goes straight to the government, after you've already paid 20% in VAT, and then if you take out enough in wages to make up for the long days and sleepless nights you pay 40p in every pound to the goverment.

Imagine my business bills a customer £100. We pay £20 over to the government in VAT. Of the £80 that's left we pay a further £16 in corporation tax, so we have £64 left. If I pay £20 of that to a staff member I have £44 left except the government charges me a further £2.2 in tax because I paid it to the member of staff (even though they themselves also paid £4 in tax!). I have £41.80 left from that £100 we worked hard to earn, so I think I deserve £30 of it, but if I do that often enough then I'm in the higher tax bracket and only receive £24 of it.

So I get £24 for every £100 billed. Ok, bit of an extreme example and it's not exactly like that with tax free earnings etc, but the sentiment is right. The working class might be hard done by but it's annoying when everyone makes out that those who run businesses have it easy.