[Finance] Cut tax or leave alone?

[RandyWanger]

I'm pretty sure when a Tory talks of tax cuts they're talking about more 'non-dom' style loop holes for the super rich, lower corporation tax and lower taxes on huge bonuses. Not lower VAT or income tax for plebs like us.

 

[Barnet Seagull]

Fair play to you kidder, it’s people like you that contribute to making the U.K. a better place to live. Here’s a link to voluntarily paying more tax. Best of British to you, let us know how you get on?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government

The challenge here is to target the cash to where it is needed. If I pay more tax to this government I'm lining the pockets of the wealthy; this they have proven time after time.

As such, I'll make my contribution in my own targetted way using my money and my time where I can be certain of the outcomes.

This includes:
Voluntary work and support for the county council in childrens service
Voluntary work supporting a national charity f
Weekly donation to local food bank

This doesnt change the fact that this support in my view shouldn't be as vital as it is.

 

[Commander]

USA is a mess, quite a few countries have a mixture of insurance/ state funded.

Indeed. I've never understood why so many people in the UK seem to think the two options are a) have everything free to everyone or b) have people dying all over the place because they can't afford basic medication.

Surely there are a number of other options within that scale?

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

My view is that the overall real terms tax take needs to increase year on year to deal with closing the public sector deficit and improving public services. Overall I guess we'll need to earn about 5 to 8% more than we do

I would do it by .....

2 or 3 pence on income tax, but raise the thresholds
Lower the Nil Rate Band on Inheritance Tax to around £200k (and reduce the scope for easy loopholes using trusts etc)
Windfall taxes on Fossil fuel companies to be much more commonplace
Online sales taxes

At the same time I would reduce VAT

 

[cunning fergus]

I'm pretty sure when a Tory talks of tax cuts they're talking about more 'non-dom' style loop holes for the super rich, lower corporation tax and lower taxes on huge bonuses. Not lower VAT or income tax for plebs like us.

Not that I am defending Tory economic policy, however they have steadily increased the personal allowance to enable the lower paid to keep more of their money. Plus it was Osbourne who introduced an effective 62% tax rate for those who earn more, not Rockefeller category like, but still they will pay 62% on income and bonuses.

#justsayin.

 

[BenGarfield]

Whilst I understand the recent rise in NI contributions is to provide more staff which will help reduce waiting lists it is not fair on those of us who have private medical insurance. Although I use NHS services my last surgery was done privately so I should not have to pay the extra. Whilst they cannot have different NI rates I should be able to claim tax relief on my private medical insurance

No, because the premise of this post is false. Despite what most people believe, in the UK at least, tax and national insurance dont pay for the NHS (or any other government spending) - follow this link to a very interesting paper which explains in detail how government finance actually works, An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer by Andrew Berkeley, Richard Tye, and Neil Wilson - https://gimms.org.uk/wp-content/upl...ing-Model-of-the-UK-Exchequer-2nd-edition.pdf

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Indeed. I've never understood why so many people in the UK seem to think the two options are a) have everything free to everyone or b) have people dying all over the place because they can't afford basic medication.

Surely there are a number of other options within that scale?

Well there are, but once you abandon the principle of free at the point of delivery then incrementally more and more free market principles will creep in over time, unless you trust future tory governments not to do this.

Personally I don't. Every public service has been diminished in the last 15 years. As had been said, if you want police to come and investigate your burglary, no chance, if you want your council to clean up the streets, no chance, their funding has been slashed.

Germany and Netherlands can get away with an adult system based on trust as they habitually elect honest and sensible governments. If we abandon free at the point of delivery, we'll be hurtling very fast to a US based system

 

[cunning fergus]

The challenge here is to target the cash to where it is needed. If I pay more tax to this government I'm lining the pockets of the wealthy; this they have proven time after time.

As such, I'll make my contribution in my own targetted way using my money and my time where I can be certain of the outcomes.

This includes:
Voluntary work and support for the county council in childrens service
Voluntary work supporting a national charity f
Weekly donation to local food bank

This doesnt change the fact that this support in my view shouldn't be as vital as it is.

Indeed, many years ago (as above) I realised there was a 62% tax rate in the U.K. and at that point you lose your personal allowance, which I would have as a basic human right, but there you are……bloody Tories.

 

[cunning fergus]

I wasn't talking about A&E.

I was talking about how immigrants were wrongly blamed for making it difficult to get an appointment with a GP, but that the study undertaken by the surgeries themselves, found differently.

I know, I was agreeing with you, the immigrants are clogging up A&E not GP surgeries because they don’t register with them.

I noted the other day that the Govt stated that refugees and others tend to have allocated medical resources these days so they aren’t clogging up GP surgeries etc. So that’s good news isn’t it?

 

[LamieRobertson]

Lots I agree with there. Inheritance tax should be massively hiked. It is the fairest tax of all. And either we reduce business rates or eventually we lose the high street. Unless we just want to shrug our collective shoulders and say it's an outdated concept. However, I think that would be a mistake - we'll all miss it when it's gone.

I'm not sure about stamp duty but I do feel we should massively tax second homes/buy to lets. The fact is, second property ownership doesn't help the economy at all, it just increases the cost of housing preventing first time buyers from entering the market. There needs to be better ways of getting people to invest rather than pouring it into second homes. Perhaps increasing ISA thresholds, I don't know?

Obviously we could leave corporation tax as it is and just increase receipts by simply allowing our companies to do business with the EU without fear of tariffs and other barriers to entry. Not necessarily re-joining but absolutely paying for access to the single market.

Agree with most of that …but given that not everyone will either be in a position to or want to buy a property, how would you go about making sure there is sufficient supply of property available to rent

 

[Barnet Seagull]

Lots I agree with there. Inheritance tax should be massively hiked. It is the fairest tax of all. And either we reduce business rates or eventually we lose the high street. Unless we just want to shrug our collective shoulders and say it's an outdated concept. However, I think that would be a mistake - we'll all miss it when it's gone.

I'm not sure about stamp duty but I do feel we should massively tax second homes/buy to lets. The fact is, second property ownership doesn't help the economy at all, it just increases the cost of housing preventing first time buyers from entering the market. There needs to be better ways of getting people to invest rather than pouring it into second homes. Perhaps increasing ISA thresholds, I don't know?

Obviously we could leave corporation tax as it is and just increase receipts by simply allowing our companies to do business with the EU without fear of tariffs and other barriers to entry. Not necessarily re-joining but absolutely paying for access to the single market.

Stamp duty prevents mobility. It impacts those who work by tieing them to a location and those looking to downsize. It means longer commutes and prevents cycling of the housing market. Economically and environmentally i think it is damaging. I struggle to see much benefit. Second homes we can agree on.

 

[Simster]

Agree with most of that …but given that not everyone will either be in a position to or want to buy a property, how would you go about making sure there is sufficient supply of property available to rent

It needs to be part of a wider plan to encourage people to move to less desirable parts of the country. So for example, businesses need to be encouraged with grants to set up businesses where unemployment is high. Then there's the idea of managing national infrastructure to match where the population growth ought to be. Things work well in Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia because their population isn't centred around a city that dwarfs the country, and that is what we need to see here. There is simply too much dependency on proximity to London. Sadly there is no chance of any of this being addressed with the current lazy, clueless shower of shit running things obviously.

Stamp duty prevents mobility. It impacts those who work by tieing them to a location and those looking to downsize. It means longer commutes and prevents cycling of the housing market. Economically and environmentally i think it is damaging. I struggle to see much benefit. Second homes we can agree on.

I'm not convinced by this argument as I think there are far greater forces that reduce mobility. The housing industry is not sufficiently regulated such that some thick chav in a cheap suit with no qualifications can buy and sell your house. And you have to say that there just isn't the consumer protection from vendors just deciding on a whim that they don't want to sell, regardless of how much you've spent on surveys and so on. These things would certainly make me think twice about moving permanently more than the cost of stamp duty.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

I’ve been reading off and on a book called “Why the Germans do it better” or something similar. There is a whole section in it about German unification where the East was way behind the West in all sorts of ways - infrastructure and everything else. They actually over a number of years increased taxes in order to pay for it….. and the Germans were happy to pay it according to the writer. So anyone who is commenting that cutting taxes means you can’t do levelling up is ABSOLUTELY 100% bang on right. Which is what Red Wall MPs are currently warning about, I think.

 

[Randy McNob]

The less tax you pay, the less of a stake in the country you have, creating a vaccuum which has to be subsidised by the private sector where you pay end up paying more for services. the Railways are a perfect example.

It's a fact that higher tax economies provide more GDP per capita than lower tax economies

 

[Recidivist]

Stamp duty prevents mobility. It impacts those who work by tieing them to a location and those looking to downsize. It means longer commutes and prevents cycling of the housing market. Economically and environmentally i think it is damaging. I struggle to see much benefit. Second homes we can agree on.

I find it hard to believe that stamp duty has more than a very limited impact on peoples decisions to buy a house.

It’s a relatively small percentage of the cost of a house……….

Second homes are a different issue though I think the practical difficulties might make it quite difficult to police/tax accordingly.


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[beorhthelm]

The less tax you pay, the less of a stake in the country you have, creating a vaccuum which has to be subsidised by the private sector where you pay end up paying more for services. the Railways are a perfect example.

It's a fact that higher tax economies provide more GDP per capita than lower tax economies

you're arguing for removing tax allowance, im not sure you mean that and it certainly would be courageuous.

you should check you fact, highest GDP per capita are usually tax havens like Singapore or Monaco.

 

[NooBHA]

Make rich people and companies pay taxes seems like the most sensible thing to do.

Of course another way of going about it is to remove all taxes and see where it takes you as a society. All those who moan about taxes because they believe they need a new stereo more than they need nurses, firemen and whatnot would pretty swiftly be taught a lesson.

Taxation also provides a lot of jobs in the country both at National and Local levels.

 

[BenGarfield]

Taxation also provides a lot of jobs in the country both at National and Local levels.

No it doesn’t. You don’t understand what tax actually is for. Tax doesn’t pay for government spending. You have been misinformed!

 

[Guinness Boy]

No it doesn’t. You don’t understand what tax actually is for. Tax doesn’t pay for government spending. You have been misinformed!

I think what he meant was the huge number of people in this country who are employed to calculate, administrate and collect all national and local tax as well as Customs Excise, and also those who have businesses ensuring the correct amount is paid by individuals and companies - not just individual accountants but, for example, compliance people making sure the correct tax is charged on bank accounts or general insurance policies.

Remove all those people from the economy and you'll not have an economy,

 

[Randy McNob]

you're arguing for removing tax allowance, im not sure you mean that and it certainly would be courageuous.

you should check you fact, highest GDP per capita are usually tax havens like Singapore or Monaco.

you're not comparing apples with apples, if you compare similar economies or countries of similar size, like other countries in europe with higher tax regimes