Transcription
The current tax system in the UK now feels like theft. It feels like one huge scam. And virtually no one has any idea one just how much tax you're actually paying. And I'm going to reveal what I believe to be the figure and what a billionaire friend of mine believes to be the figure. It's much more than you'd expect. I'm going to expose it all. This here now is where all your money is going. I will end on some solutions and suggestions. I will suggest that you share this with as many people as you can because unless we all stand together and do something about it, nothing will change.
Because let me ask you, why is it you pay tax on what you earn and again you pay tax on what you spend? Why is it you pay tax on what you save and tax again on what you invest? Why is it you pay tax on what you own and again you pay tax on what you sell? Why is it you pay tax to the nation and pay tax again to the state? Why do you pay tax while you're alive and then again when you're dead? This is not just one double taxation. This is five double taxations and maybe one of the biggest scams that no one is talking about maybe except me.
So let's take you through your average day. You wake up, you turn on the TV. The TV license is a tax. You're paying now nearly £200 a year for what? For um for BBC Verify, I don't know. Oh, by the way, you know that box or now that flat screen that you're watching, that propaganda machine that you're paying a license to have, um you paid 20% VAT on that to buy it. And the average household now spends £444 a year on subscriptions through that propaganda machine. So you sit down and you have some breakfast with your family and you've paid tax on all the food that you've bought of up to 20%.
Then you leave your house to go to work and your house that you're living in is taxed heavily and twice. So stamp duty has now gone up to 15% at the highest bracket. You can pay 150 grand in tax for every million. And in many areas, a million doesn't get you much anymore. In London, right, you walk in, take a piss, wash your hands, walk out. That's a million quid. What? Oh, and by the way, so you've paid the the state, the nation, for the privilege of living in a house, which surely is all of our right. And then you have to pay the local council in council tax. So you pay what five plus grand a year now in many areas to have your bins changed once or twice a month. And in some areas like Birmingham, are they changing bins anywhere at all? I don't even think they are. Oh, and you pay your council tax and there's still [ __ ] potholes everywhere. [ __ ] potholes. What are we paying our car tax? And what are we paying our council tax for? There's [ __ ] potholes everywhere.
You got to go to work. You get in your car, road tax, well over five grand a year, just like council tax. You want to buy the car, it's 20% VAT to purchase the car. That's four grand in every 20 grand of tax. Let's say you want to buy in a limited company, maybe get some tax relief, no chance of tax relief. Company car tax is so penal now. You could pay 10 grand a year of car tax, benefit and kind tax just to own the car. It would be a luxury one. Then there's fuel. Fuel duty is 59%. VAT is 20%. So for every 70 pounds of fuel you put in, £4146 of that is tax. Let's say you want to drive to London, you're going to be paying through the nose in tax. You tax, parking tax, speeding fines over 20 m hour, congestion charges, toll charges, new emission taxes, and now EV car taxes JUST TO GET TO [ __ ] WORK in the morning.
So, you get to work, you're a bit tired. Oh, don't worry because we'll charge you up to 45% income tax. We'll charge you 8% national insurance. Your student loan repayments will be £1,100 a month. That's half. You're working until Wednesday afternoon of your 5day week for the government. It's exhausting.
So, let's say, look, you're going to give it a go. You're going to stay in the country. You're going to work hard. You're going to earn more money. Well, do you know if you earn £100 more and go from 99,900 to 100,000 for the next 48 grand, you don't earn anymore. You lose your childhood allowance. You lose your personal allowances. So from 100 to 148 grand, it's basically 60% tax. And you basically earn no more money until you get to about 150 grand. So why would you bother?
Well, maybe you want to start a business because apparently you get good tax reliefs in a business. You're going to work hard. You're going to take some risk. You're going to hustle. Isn't the government supposed to support that? Well, there's 20% VAT added onto anything you sell. There's 25% corporation tax taken off your profit. There's up to 45% income tax or 39.1% dividend tax. There's 15% national insurance on every staff member. is 3% pension contributions on every staff member. Small businesses are now getting hammered on business rates. You could have one or two staff and have over a h 100red grand a year in business rates. Minimum wage has gone up uh and you're getting hammered and that's going up again. So, we've just had to put a load of salaries up from well, we've had about 900 pounds per staff member um raise in national insurance and we're probably having some of our staff members seven grand increase, but we're not getting seven grand in in better talent. Oh, by the way, the bank will charge you 3% on top of all the money that you take. What the [ __ ] are you left with? You'll be down KFC licking people's fingers for food before long. Oh, by the way, if you import and export in a business, there's freight tax, customs tax, duty, and VAT.
Now, there's a shitload of stealth taxes that you don't even know you're getting death by a thousand cuts. Landfill tax, climate change levy tax, music license tax, aggregates tax, airport improvement tax, airport maintenance tax, airport passenger tax, airport departure tax, building permit tax, goods and services tax, environmental tax, gross receipts tax, health tax, luxury tax. In some places you have a marriage license tax.
Let's say you've had enough of this. You just need to go out and relax. Escape from it all. You want a beer, that's 55% tax. You want some wine? That's 70% TAX. YOU WANT SOME SPIRITS NECK AER SHOT, THAT'S 75% TAX. You want to smoke it away, that's 85% tax. Gambling, 15 to 40% tax. Oh, and 20% a liter of tax on sugar. Like you cannot escape it anywhere.
Maybe you can on a holiday. Well, your holiday pay is taxed at the same rate as your work pay. Then there's air passenger duty which can be up to 180 quid a flight. There's tourist taxes in many countries. Hotel rooms now can be 30% plus in tax. So maybe you're feeling like, "Oh man, I've got to sell some of my stuff here. That's fine. I I'll recoup some of it." Well, now you paid 28% capital gains tax on anything you sell. And do you remember when you used to be able to go on eBay and sell some of your stuff? Well, now you can't even do that. That's all completely tracked by ecom sites and the government. And by the way, if this is stressing you to the point where you're thinking of having a heart attack, don't even try AND DIE CUZ THAT'S 40% inheritance tax. YOU HAVE TO SELL YOUR FARM just to pay the tax.
But people say to me, "Oh, Rob, it's all right though because you know it's good to pay tax, you know, because it goes into health care, goes into education. In fact, 20.2% of all the taxes you pay is in healthare and you can't even [ __ ] get in and you can't even get an appointment and you can't even see anyone. What is going on? Many schools in the UK are so bad now that you'll have to pay for your kids to go to private school and private schools have just been charged VAT, a [ __ ] tax on education, which to me is the biggest scam ever. And many of these private schools have had to close. And so now that's flooding and making even worse the state education system, which is broken. So these black holes costing hundreds of billions in health, NHS, education, where's the rest of the money going? Well, COVID, that was hundreds of billions. Wars hundreds of billions. Vaccines, Brexit, politicians are doing well. They had a nice pay rise. Track and trace cost billions. Politicians expenses are nice. Second homes for all politicians. Oh, and all the train drivers in the public sector will go on strike and we'll get a massive pay rise. 80 odd grand for doing that on a train. But what about you, the small business owner? What about you, the employed person? 21.6% of all your tax goes on welfare, paying for someone else's welfare and not yours. And probably a lot of people that didn't originate from this country. 21.6%. 20.2% on health you can't use. 11.4% on state pensions. You'll never get 11% on national debt interest. Do you know you're paying over £4,000? You to pay off the government debt, but it doesn't pay it down. It just pays the interest on the debt. Money you didn't even borrow for a war you don't want to be involved in.
Oh, and by the way, the governments, past and present, have imposed multiple tax threshold freezes, which essentially is a tax raise by stealth. Huge inflation since lockdown that's stolen and eaten up a load of your spending power. And now you have the lowest relative quality of life since World War II. Massive government quantitive easing and money printing pushed up inflation further, eroding their value of their own debt and increasing prices and costs and reducing quality of living on you. And by the way, the rich are getting richer because the rich invest in assets and inflation pushes asset up as well as debt down. So there's a tip. If you can't beat them, join them.
Now, by the way, of all these taxes I mentioned, virtually none of them existed a 100 years ago. No income tax, no national insurance, no capital gains tax. Our grand nation, the British Empire, was the most prosperous of nations across the world with none of these taxes and zero national debt. We had a massive middle class and a vast global manufacturing base across the world. And now what do we have? And these taxes have got worse and worse and worse and they're so unfair and they're far too high. And when you add them all in, have a guess. How much do you think of what you earn and what you spend in total is tax? Have a guess. Let me know what you think. Have a minute. Because some people say, "Oh yeah, but Rob, it's you in the higher bracket is 45%." No, no, no. That's just income tax. Okay, maybe it feels like 50%. It's not. It is not. I believe it's over 70% of what you earn and what you spend is tax. And I think I've proven it. Now, my friend and founder of Brew Dog, James Watt, um he launched the UK's version of Doge, you know, the one in America that Elon Musk launched to get rid of massive government wastage and spending. And he reckons it's up to 92% of what you spend and what you earn is tax. I mean, it's ridiculous.
And look, I I don't know what else to do other than plead to the government. Labor, if you're listening, you need to find another way to generate revenue because tax on tax on tax and more tax, it just reduces productivity. It also just sends all the productive people away. How many millionaires have left? 16,800 last year. Nine of the 12 top billionaires in the UK all left. Six of the top 10 highest taxpayers in the UK last year all left.
But there is another way. Labor, if you're listening, here's what you need to do. You need to encourage people to start a business, to employ people. We need to encourage growth. So, we need to increase trade. And entrepreneurship is the way. Now, entrepreneurship is so penal, it's almost not worth it anymore. And entrepreneurs can't trade insolvently, but the government can. The government can be in three trillion of national debt knowing that they're in national debt and still trade. An entrepreneur, if they know that they're trading negatively or insolvently, that's illegal. We need to make it easier to start a business, easier to scale a business. Uh we need to help entrepreneurs create jobs. AI is going to wipe everything out unless we encourage entrepreneurs to create jobs. So um starting businesses I believe need subsidies, tax breaks and supports. We should get rid of business rates. That's just a ridiculous tax. The first year should be taxfree. We should definitely get rid of national insurance so that um we're encouraged in the UK to hire people and attract great talent. Otherwise AI will just get rid of it all and no one will have a job. And this is great for the government by the way because this will actually generate more revenue because obviously every um employee pays their own employees tax and national insurance. So that actually will increase revenue for the government and then more sales will be done in the UK and that will um have VAT for the government. So actually the government would end up winning. But you know I'm told by people in politics, very powerful people in politics, I'm told that Labour just have a disdain for um entrepreneurs. and and and it looks like it because they're exiling them all.
No one, I believe, whether you're employed or you're an entrepreneur, no one should be paying more than a third of what they earn and spend in tax. To me, a third is fair. Twothirds or more. That's not just unfair. That's [ __ ] theft. So, how about this? I'll give you one more plea, Labor. What about one simple flat tax system? What about 20% up to a third? Maybe you could have a little ratchet and let us put the Great back into Great Britain and the United back into the United Kingdom. What about that?
Now, look, if you're watching or listening, please share this. Um, I did a previous episode on disruptors talking about all the things that have got gone wrong in the UK. Thousands of comments and engagements. Um, bit of a different style for me on my show, but I think it's really important that we speak out about this. Thanks for tuning in. Remember to invest for freedom, choice, and profit. And if you don't risk anything, you risk everything.