Don’t tax overtime
From this petition:
For many years now all British governments regardless of background, have taxed the People of the United Kingdom on there Working income known as pay as you earn, (P.Y.E)this includes their overtime. Many people are pressured into working overtime due to low hourly rates or from Employers often to the determent of their family life. By all all means tax normal working hours but not overtime.
I’m going to ignore all the obvious errors in the above (it seems that errors in the text are the done thing for e-petitions). What I’m trying to work out is the connection between tax on income earned while working overtime and the fact that some employers force people to work extra hours. If the concern was for family life in the UK (that’s the suggestion you get from the above) then wouldn’t it make sense to increase the tax taken on money earned from overtime, thus making people think even harder before ignoring their families?
Perhaps I’m totally missing the point, but I’d have thought that the idea of increasing the employer’s national insurance contributions on overtime payments would have been a little closer to what the author was after.