Dally wrote:
His was net not gross!
Anyway, your analysis is poor. Yes, what you get for your NI IS FANTASTIC because they don't go anywhere near the cost of the NHS or State Pension. Less than £50 billion pa is raised from employees NI. The NHS costs over £100 billion pa and state pensions more than that! Even with employer contributions the NHS alone takes more and pensions as I said even more. So, yes fantastic but only because other taxes and debt is subsidising it.
So when the average person says they've paid in all their lives....etc in fact they've paid nowhere near enough. So, when you tell the Yanks we don't live in some sort of communist state you are not been entirely honest.
Where the welfare state went wrong was not putting aside contributions into a sovereign fund out of which benefits were paid. A couple of years high contributions in the early post -war years to build the fund and we could then pay out of an accumulated fund - which would by now be the worl's biggest sovereign wealth fund. Instead we have the 3rd biggest debt (to GDP) in the world and are broke.
His is both nett AND gross as he doesn't pay any tax.
Well setting aside your normal chicken-licken outlook on life, its inarguable that the NHS and state pension is funded from taxation and is largely free of cost at the point of delivery to anyone with a NI number.
Look at your payslip every month and a portion of the deductions go to both provisions, how much of that is irrelevant really as you cannot obtain the same cover even if you used the whole of your monthly deductions to go out and purchase a healthcare and pension plan.
The correspondent from Dubai has already pointed out that the cost of living is high there and seemingly excellent salary packages are mitigated by this - and that was my point, that and an answer to the usual belly-aching from some about the NHS, the idea that governments can levy taxation and provide nothing back in turn is obviously unworkable, the delivery of first class healthcare, pensions, and education in return for taxation is to me the indicator of a very civilised society, the refusal to implement state healthcare in return for taxation is to me the sign of the ultimate uncaring selfish society where only money-grabbing counts.
