Tax, salaries and rewards

Money, we all need it, some more than most. So whilst we are talking about £45M winners its time to think and draw four strands together.
Thread 1
Success has to be rewarded and we all need aspirational dreams, dreams that can take us out of the drudgery of every day life and gives us the hope of escape. At what point does a salary or bonus become unacceptable, £1M or £2M or £5M what about £10M how about £50M pa, so excessive as to be condemned by everyone as too ludicrous to contemplate?
We want rewards, we need to dream but where to draw a line, a line which supports a cohesive society and where those without are tolerant of those with an excess. No one wants a polarised society, even the most rich need those without to provide for and give support to their beyond dreams lifestyles and those without have to have the hope that they too can get rich or else they will abandon hope and just take what they don't have.
So, how many second homes, how many luxury yachts, how many private planes, how many private islands, how many years without toil are necessary to justify, adequate reward? When one man (eg Bill Gates) has greater wealth and freedom to dispose of it without scrutiny than a Nation State then we are in a very sick place.
Setting aside the historical origins that gave rise to inherited wealth, another subject for discussion later, reward used to be related to value. Those that worked extra hard, those who took risk, those that had exceptional skills, they were rewarded proportionately. Nowadays a footballer or a 'celebrity' with media ranking can claim silly monies whilst the A&E nurse, the scientist with ten years research, the craftsman with a life long skill, the soldier, the Brain Surgeon are paid, in relative terms piffling amounts. No fair rewards here. Our core values have been turned topsy-turvy by international financial backgammon, betting on south-sea bubbles of huge proportions. How do we get a reality check?
Thread 2
The theory goes that in a free market, supply and demand will level out salaries, so the most numerous tasks with large numbers of people able to carry them out will be paid least and the tasks where there are few specialists persons able to carry them out will become the best paid. So why aren't we inundated with would be footballers, stock market traders and TV presenters and why are science teachers in such short supply? It is not, probably never has been, a free market. For many good reasons, pay restraints and thresholds or freezes, union or public service comparability, market norms and a host of other well intentioned interventions have removed the self-correcting mechanisms that were supposed to work. We ineptly fix salary levels bolstered by claims of fair pay. Plus 'funny money' generated by share values or media ratings have totally distorted beyond any rationale, the right price for the job. We need a re-think.
Thread 3The stroke of genius was PAYE! The huge working underbelly of society was locked into a system that scrupulously, ruthlessly and efficiently took money at source and paid it to the state. There was no escape, if you were salaried, as most were. A large income without effort was guaranteed to the State, leaving it time to go the merry-go-round with those not on PAYE stopping off one tax avoidance bolt hole before stopping off the next in an never-ending cycle. Those with payed little tax, those without paid in full.
Times are changing, those in employment, those receiving regular full salaries are ever diminishing proportions of society. Employed work as a main source of State tax revenue has to be re-thought. Even VAT, the tax on already taxed income, is due a re-think when goods can be sourced with ease from around the world. National boundaries are fast becoming meaningless.
Thread 4
We must stop apologising for having lost our Empire, for having been brought to our knees by USofA, for having been a colonising nation for once having been a world player.
We are a great tolerant and inclusive nation, densely populated from richly diverse origins and offering a wealth of talent and commercial opportunities. Those that want to live amongst us are most welcomed but must pay their way, those that invest with us are will be shielded from payment proportionate to the degree and length of their investment and those that want to just sell into our market are welcomed but will have to negotiate an access to our market relative to the profits taken out of it.
We must learn to have confidence in ourselves as a Nation and to capitalise on the benefits of being such a great trading opportunity for the world. The free-booters can live elsewhere, we can manage just fine without them. Those that do have a rare ability or bring special honed skills or expertise and generate income or investment in the Nations future shall be rewarded proportionately above their fellows at the expense of those that generate large incomes for a narrow sector of society by using few skills or investment in our future.