The big bonus week: Jan 17th to 21st

50% tax, NI 11%, 20% VAT, council tax - I end up paying more than 60% of my income to the UK Government.

We bankers are working hard to pay for public services in this country, none of which we actually use. If you stop paying bankers that money wont magically go to SOMEONE else in the UK - it will just go SOMEWHERE else.

Nathan - Can you please explain it again in even simpler terms?

Public Sector Genius....obviously you don't work with numbers or anything too difficult....public sector workers do not pay tax. It might say it on your pay check but you are not paying that money.
If you give a child 10 pocket money and ask him to pay 2.50 tax....you are simply giving him 7.50! He's not giving his money to you...it's your money in the first place (Tried to make that as simple as possible for you)

Public Sector Genius
You really should look up "Bar School Economics" sometime as you obviously don't understand how the tax system works.

If a person has two kids, even with two earners on an average wage, they'll be receiving more back from government than they pay in income tax. (Schools get something like 3K per child, add in health care and most people with children are either getting out roughly what they pay in tax, or aren't actually covering the cost of the services they get with their taxes.)

The exception is the high earners who would find it impossible to get back in services what they pay in taxes, and those without kids (or whose kids have grown up).

Driving away the high earners (even just the portion who are bankers) would lower the excess tax collected so that the government's finances would get even worse. (And when the government finances get into a truly perilous state, they will have no option but to start cutting services/pensions/benefits or sacking some public sector geniuses).

I agree with Tax exile...and I am going to move out of the UK as soon as possible. Not only I pay 60%+ of what I earn to the state, I even have to bear insulting comments. I hope the UK financial services sector shrink dramatically. Then I am curious to see the impact on the UK finances and economy!