Your puzzlement, Quizmonster, comes from reading something I didn't write ...
> I'm puzzled, Ellipsis; if you're "fully aware" that what you wrote is incorrect, why write it?
I didn't write that I thought it was incorrect. I wrote that, once income tax had been paid, I'm fully aware that further tax might have been paid on what was left. However, when Gromit wrote "Ask the Chancellor if he would rather have no tax from 10K or 30% of 40K", he was clearly talking about the income tax, not the ongoing tax. And that's what I was talking about in my reply.
> So, which particular Government department would be paying him £27K after tax to be permanently absent from his work IN the UK
That's a straw man argument. I never said they would be permanently absent from the UK. But there are plenty of scenarios in which the money could be spent abroad. Suppose, for example, that a parent was working to put their child through university in the States. All of their income could be sent to the child, while both parents lived off the other parent's income.
> In general terms, yes we have workshy people here and it would be good if they were obliged to take employment...were it available...but they are no more "scum" than the worldwide casino bankers who really got us into the financial mess we're in. Each group is intent on rooking us of every penny they can...and getting away with it.
Agreed ...