Not exactly. Firstly, the average London salary is £33,187; in Birmingham it's £25,273. An average middle-class household income should therefore be somewhere

Not exactly. Firstly, the average London salary is £33,187; in Birmingham it's £25,273. An average middle-class household income should therefore be somewhere in the £30K-£60K range. The 40% marginal income tax rate does indeed kick in at a very low level compared to the USA -- at £37K -- because it has barely risen for about 20 years. But inflation has pushed a lot of regular workers into that territory, and far from a high tax payer being one of the "hated rich", it's just another burden born by the middle class. (For "hated rich" status you need to aspire to the 50% marginal rate, which kicks in on income over £150,000 a year.) Meanwhile, the average home in the UK costs £232,628, but that's heavily skewed by London and the South-East -- in the West Midlands (Birmingham) for example, it's £177,690. What we've got is a situation where the marginal rate of income tax rises steeply much earlier than in, say, the USA -- but there is (or was) a much higher level of social services. For example, that tax rate includes free healthcare and primary/secondary education. And property taxes are much lower than in the USA, because education comes out of central government funds. Source: http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Country=United_Kingdom/Salary/by_State http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Country=United_Kingdom/S... Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/uk_house_prices/html/houses.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/uk_house_pric...