5 ways to spend top earners tax contributions

So the UK's new tax regime has kicked in. If you are one of the top 1% earning more than £150,000 you probably know what that means for your pocket, but perhaps everyone else would find a quick explanation useful.

Lets take upwardly mobile middle-manager Dave, who earns £200,000 a year. According to the BBC, last year, Dave will have paid an eye-watering £67,689 in tax. This tax year, his contribution rises to a nut-crunching £87,131 in tax.

That's an extra £19,442 this year.

Now that sounds pretty painful, and if you have nuts, and have had them crunched, you can probably empathise.

But wait. Dave is still taking home a fairly decent wedge of cash every month - £9,405 a month in fact.

An adult in full-time employment being paid the minimum wage makes only £10,556 a year.

And there is more good news for Dave. Here are five ways that his extra tax contributions could be spent:

5 ways to spend top-earners tax contributions

• 1,940 school text books at £10 each
• 10.5 months of Herceptin treatment for a woman with breast cancer (£21,800 per year)
• The full winter fuel allowance of £400 for 48 pensioners
• 388 pairs of desert army boots at £50 per pair for the troops in Afghanistan
• The salary (£18,006) of a Police Community Support Officer in Dorset for a year

That's awesome. Who wouldn't want to be able to ensure that 48 elderly people will be safe and warm next winter?! But let's be fair; it isn't the only way that Dave could spend his cash.

Under the old tax regime here are some of the things Dave could blow his cash on instead:

• School fees for two terms at Eton at £9,617 per term
• 166 Shares in Goldman Sachs at US $173.16 a share
• 10 bottles of 1961 Veuve Clicquot champagne at £1,899.98 a bottle
• 8 3G iphones in full 18 carat gold at £2,295 each
• Joining fee (£1,000) and 18 years annual subscription (also £1,000) membership at Annabels private members club.

Before you have sleepless nights on behalf of Dave, remember, he is still taking home more than £9,000 a month. So he can still buy everything on his wish list if he wants to. He works hard and is doing so much for us, who would grudge him treating himself to an expensive bottle of champagne? He's earned it. It is just that he might have to save up for them a little longer. And in the meantime, he knows that he is making a significant contribution to making the UK a better place.

So, everyone, let's here it for Dave - thanks for everything you are doing to improve the community we live in!