Those With the Broadest Shoulders

In his Rose Garden speech on 28 August 2024 Keir Starmer said that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burdens.

A possible description of those with the broadest shoulders would be those with the top fifth of incomes after adjusting for their household costs. A single person without dependants would be in the top fifth if he or she had an income of £57,000 on which the tax would be £10,300 and the National Insurance Contributions £3,150, total £13,450. By contrast, to be in the top fifth a couple with two children and a single earner would need an income of £157,000 - £100,000 more – on which the tax would be £66,600 and the NIC £7,700, total £74,300. If. on the other hand, the couple’s income were £57,000, ie the same as that of the single person, their tax and NIC would be the same as his or hers, but, before adjusting for household costs, they would be in the bottom half of the income distribution.

So, as it is, those single people with the broadest shoulders are paying a great deal less tax and NICs than their neighbours with families and with much thinner shoulders.  

Given that Keir Starmer has also said that there will be no increase in tax on working people, it is not at all easy to see how, except at enormous and unaffordable cost, the Government can alter the tax system and it do what they said it should.

But the first step is to recognise and understand the problem: the second is to start to plan how over the years the tax burden on those with families can be brought to the same level as those without.