@ironeconomist.bsky.social
Yes I mean if I had my way all the Ni taxes would go and we would only have income tax.
November 11, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Yes I mean if I had my way all the Ni taxes would go and we would only have income tax.
You are right I think. I have checked and seems like it is set on adjusted income I thought it was set on taxable income. So can still do it without salary sacrifice.
November 11, 2025 at 7:49 PM
You are right I think. I have checked and seems like it is set on adjusted income I thought it was set on taxable income. So can still do it without salary sacrifice.
(You can ask an accountant but there are actually three relevant quantiles used for different taxes and reliefs. Net income, adjusted net income, and taxable income, and they are three different numbers that all matter for different things. I hate our tax system very much!)
November 11, 2025 at 7:42 PM
(You can ask an accountant but there are actually three relevant quantiles used for different taxes and reliefs. Net income, adjusted net income, and taxable income, and they are three different numbers that all matter for different things. I hate our tax system very much!)
(Is this silly? Yes. Could the government change this? Also yes. Is it the current situation? Also yes)
November 11, 2025 at 7:39 PM
(Is this silly? Yes. Could the government change this? Also yes. Is it the current situation? Also yes)
No the point of salary sacrifice is that it reduces your taxable income which is the quantity on which the threshold for child care is set. If you get paid and then do it via a self assessment then you get the income tax relief but it still counts as taxable income.
November 11, 2025 at 7:38 PM
No the point of salary sacrifice is that it reduces your taxable income which is the quantity on which the threshold for child care is set. If you get paid and then do it via a self assessment then you get the income tax relief but it still counts as taxable income.
If they also got rid of the income tax relief the. Yes payments would double.
November 11, 2025 at 7:32 PM
If they also got rid of the income tax relief the. Yes payments would double.
I think they are suggesting only the NI gain of the salary sacrifice is affected, you would still save income tax on these schemes, so a ~15% rise in payments I think.
November 11, 2025 at 7:31 PM
I think they are suggesting only the NI gain of the salary sacrifice is affected, you would still save income tax on these schemes, so a ~15% rise in payments I think.
Most households don’t have children even though not people have children because children only live with you for at most a quarter of your life for most families!
November 11, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Most households don’t have children even though not people have children because children only live with you for at most a quarter of your life for most families!
Yes I think when people say ‘families’ they don’t mean households where the children are grown up. They mean households with children. It’s 4.6% *of all households* but 15% *of families* because children grow up and don’t live at home forever.
November 11, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Yes I think when people say ‘families’ they don’t mean households where the children are grown up. They mean households with children. It’s 4.6% *of all households* but 15% *of families* because children grow up and don’t live at home forever.
I feel like you are ignoring what you are replying to. When this tweet was originally posted (pre Covid) a £100k income was top 2% of individual income. It’s now about top 4%. The point of it is that ‘rich’ people at 35 cannot even nearly afford quite ordinary family homes!
November 11, 2025 at 7:26 PM
I feel like you are ignoring what you are replying to. When this tweet was originally posted (pre Covid) a £100k income was top 2% of individual income. It’s now about top 4%. The point of it is that ‘rich’ people at 35 cannot even nearly afford quite ordinary family homes!
I mean the bad policy is the child care threshold and the personal allowance taper.
November 11, 2025 at 7:21 PM
I mean the bad policy is the child care threshold and the personal allowance taper.
Not sure where you got that figure from but it’s wrong. The ONS says that among families with at least one dependent child (ie ‘families’) about 15% have 3+ dependents. And that’s actually an undercount since a family may have both dependent and non-dependent children as kids grow up.
November 11, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Not sure where you got that figure from but it’s wrong. The ONS says that among families with at least one dependent child (ie ‘families’) about 15% have 3+ dependents. And that’s actually an undercount since a family may have both dependent and non-dependent children as kids grow up.
‘If you are in the top 2% of your cohort by income you should expect by 35 to buy a five bed house in at best a middling bit of London with no parental help’ is not a controversial statement about the world. You should expect this and it’s a terrifying failure of the state that it isn’t true!
November 11, 2025 at 7:04 PM
‘If you are in the top 2% of your cohort by income you should expect by 35 to buy a five bed house in at best a middling bit of London with no parental help’ is not a controversial statement about the world. You should expect this and it’s a terrifying failure of the state that it isn’t true!
Everyone always gets pushback along the lines of ‘of course the top 2% of income earners should be happy to live in a tiny annex of their boomer parents house’. Just wild to me that people think this way. The high earners should expect to get the nice houses that’s good and normal!
November 11, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Everyone always gets pushback along the lines of ‘of course the top 2% of income earners should be happy to live in a tiny annex of their boomer parents house’. Just wild to me that people think this way. The high earners should expect to get the nice houses that’s good and normal!
Stamp duty is so brutal that the social learning among all my high income London friends is to be one and done. You buy or rent one tiny flat early, live in it till you get married and buy one big house to have your kids in. More normal to have an actual housing ladder in non London.
November 11, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Stamp duty is so brutal that the social learning among all my high income London friends is to be one and done. You buy or rent one tiny flat early, live in it till you get married and buy one big house to have your kids in. More normal to have an actual housing ladder in non London.
I lived there in 2015 and it was definitely not upmarket, even discounting the regular crime scenes in Vauxhall tunnel.
November 11, 2025 at 6:44 PM
I lived there in 2015 and it was definitely not upmarket, even discounting the regular crime scenes in Vauxhall tunnel.
Sure I didn’t say a typical or average house I said ‘normal’ and it is objectively normal. Hundreds of thousands of family homes in London alone are worth > £1m millions across the UK. Weird to me to think we live in a world where the top of the income distribution can’t buy these without help.
November 11, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Sure I didn’t say a typical or average house I said ‘normal’ and it is objectively normal. Hundreds of thousands of family homes in London alone are worth > £1m millions across the UK. Weird to me to think we live in a world where the top of the income distribution can’t buy these without help.
I bought a seven bed room house for my family of 5 (so far) and honestly every room is in use and I sometimes think about upsizing.
November 11, 2025 at 6:42 PM
I bought a seven bed room house for my family of 5 (so far) and honestly every room is in use and I sometimes think about upsizing.
And honestly more is better. No way I could share my home office with my wife’s sewing we would both go mad. And we aren’t talking about average people here we are talking about the top 2% of earners. They should be able to have nice things!
November 11, 2025 at 6:41 PM
And honestly more is better. No way I could share my home office with my wife’s sewing we would both go mad. And we aren’t talking about average people here we are talking about the top 2% of earners. They should be able to have nice things!
Realistically if you are on a high salary it’s perfectly normal to want (1) your kids to have different rooms (2) at least one office and hobby room and (3) a living room. This is in no way an extravagant ask for a well off person. 3-4 beds for parents+kids and one more for an office.
November 11, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Realistically if you are on a high salary it’s perfectly normal to want (1) your kids to have different rooms (2) at least one office and hobby room and (3) a living room. This is in no way an extravagant ask for a well off person. 3-4 beds for parents+kids and one more for an office.
I mean, come on, it’s just not. Kennington maybe.
November 11, 2025 at 6:37 PM
I mean, come on, it’s just not. Kennington maybe.
Buddy I had 4 siblings growing up. 5 children is a normal family you can’t change my mind.
November 11, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Buddy I had 4 siblings growing up. 5 children is a normal family you can’t change my mind.
So it is literally true that you can be a very successful young professional at 30 in the very top of your cohort by earning and still you literally cannot buy a family home. That’s extremely bad! We have priced the very top of the income distribution out of the family house market in most of London
November 11, 2025 at 6:36 PM
So it is literally true that you can be a very successful young professional at 30 in the very top of your cohort by earning and still you literally cannot buy a family home. That’s extremely bad! We have priced the very top of the income distribution out of the family house market in most of London
I get that the tweet is a bit of an exaggeration but all these houses are completely out of the price range for a 2nd percentile uk salary which is like ~£130k and gets you a max mortgage of like £700k ish.
November 11, 2025 at 6:36 PM
I get that the tweet is a bit of an exaggeration but all these houses are completely out of the price range for a 2nd percentile uk salary which is like ~£130k and gets you a max mortgage of like £700k ish.
Let’s check in on Dalston another positively downmarket east London area. Cheapest five bed starts at £1.3m. I can do this all day.
November 11, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Let’s check in on Dalston another positively downmarket east London area. Cheapest five bed starts at £1.3m. I can do this all day.