I know others have pointed this out, but what?
So how's austerity going?
- Thread starter Plechazunga
- Start date
A decade seems a bit extreme. There'll be an impact on the government budget for Sport down the line and lottery funding perhaps but i wouldn't expect it to be a determinant nationally. The regeneration in East London will be a long term benefit once the dust has settled.
All Ed Balls ever has to contribute to the subject is a cut in VAT, most of the pressure and alternatives stem from sources outside Westminster [which is probably a good thing actually].
I don't agree with all of Lib Dem policy but having three parties and three voices in the Commons as we used to, might at least been a positive for debate.
Not that it is all within power fo course, according to some guy on the BEEB earlier even China is in recession right now, officially released figures of growth being wholly fictitious apparently. And the US may as well be for all the momentum they can provide at this moment.
Maybe the world should just declare itself bankrupt and start over. lol
It all depends I think, The Greek Olympics was widely blamed for helping bring the country into economic chaos.
Thankfully any investment in London usually pays off but the Olympic Stadium, Olympic Village and Basketball Arena, won't have much use.
Ed balls and the VAT cut is nonsense.
Everybody knows its bullshit. I dont know why he persists.
Everybody knows its bullshit. I dont know why he persists.
Oh they'll find somebody to take on the stadium, eventually. I might be mistaken but i thought there was a story a few months ago about the Olympic Village having a host of interested bidders [its intended for housing and related commercial use in the area which shoud be in demand].
Income tax rises from 20% to 40%, but at the roughly the same threshold National insurance drops from 12% to 2%. People who whinge about tax rarely mention the second bit though.
The Olympic village was sold a few months ago to some Arab national fund
Nah, VAT is a horrible tax, cutting it would be a good boost to the economy
I agree that VAT is horrible, but cutting VAT costs an awful lot & the benefit is minimal, saving a couple of pence in the £, so fecking what. A complete waste of money, there are much better ways to 'spend' £12B than a pointless cut in VAT. The cut to 15% that Labour did was an utterly pointless exercise & just had the effect of increasing the deficit by £12B with no tangible positive effect.
Well it seems like the UK should change it's financial system if all it can do is rely on other markets
Lets hope the current situation doesn't last 20 years as it would be extremely depressing to hear successive governments telling us it's not their fault
That is a weird way of looking at it.
The VAT decrease had a good boast to the economy at the time and would be welcome now.
What it does is give people at the lower end of the spectrum much more buying power which has a very positive effect on the economy through retail sales.
You might not worry about a few pence in the pound but there are a lot of people who do especially in a time of recession.
It is quite possibly the best tax cut a large majority of people would benefit from.
I'm sorry, I just don't subscribe to this.
As regards a family on a low/no income, the vast majority of their purchases don't attract VAT, e.g. food, children's clothes, newspapers say etc With the level of VATable purchases they make the couple of pence in the pound really isn't going to make a difference.
B2B transactions have no net VAT effect.
In the middle you have people who have some disposable income, are you trying to tell me that someone spending £500 on a TV will be more inclined to buy it for £490 than £500, no they'll buy it anyway. The government loses out on a tenner & the customer pockets the £10 & may or may not buy themselves a pint in the pub on Friday night, or they were going to the pub anyway, so they probably won't.
Surely, you'd be better off spending the £12B on an infrastructure project, road building or repair for example, which provides actual employment to people who will then spend that money on buying stuff.
...except that there are opportunity costs to earning above £35k, and once the tax is deducted maybe it's not worthwhile to incur those costs for the take home pay.
Christ, do you people not pay tax? I thought everyone knew their marginal tax rate. It's like knowing your mortgage payment, or your salary. For starters, your marginal tax rate is not what tax band you're in. Just like your headline salary is not what you get to take home every month.
What the hell. If you simpletons can't be bothered to find out how much money you actually get and why, far be it for me to disabuse you. You deserve to get taken for every penny.
No, if the problem is overreliance of the economy on consumption raising VAT is actually a good idea. But you have to raise it by a large amount to matter. The recent fluctuations between 15% and 20% were too small to make a significant difference in behaviour.
Exactly my point, very expensive moves with minimal effect on behaviour.
In case you didn't notice we're all making a number of generalisations. Mine at least is borne out in part by personal observation and participation in organisational design of a fair number of organisations. I even have a policy prescription - fire the right 30% of people and costs fall with no decrease in productivity. Bet you didn't know that.
Heh. You're assuming people jump 20k in pre-tax income with no extra effort. I reckon I put in 20% more hours to make that jump. With a higher marginal tax rate of course I'm less willing. Maybe even unwilling, given my lifestyle choice and the fact that I like sitting in the garden with my family in the sunshine.
Given that I haven't really put down a proposal I don't see how you think it reduces taxation on high earners. Do you know where the hump in marginal tax rates lies in terms of salary levels? It's not on the super rich.
Let's just raise VAT and cut Corporation tax and the highest bracket for personal income taxes. Why not chuck in inheritance tax too. All good for the economy.
It's disgusting that they shifted the tax burden onto the poorest while shafting them with cuts to benefits and services that they need to get by while spending every penny they get and more, at the same time as giving misguided tax benefits to people who horde their money.
It's disgusting that they shifted the tax burden onto the poorest while shafting them with cuts to benefits and services that they need to get by while spending every penny they get and more, at the same time as giving misguided tax benefits to people who horde their money.
Raise VAT yes, cut corporation tax no, cut the highest income tax bracket not necessarily, cut inheritance tax no. Cutting or raising all of them would clearly be daft.
Listen to yourself. This table shows that the majority of the income tax burden still falls on the richest 25% of tax payers. But you don't need the figures - simple logic would suggest that if you cut benefits you can't possibly shift the tax burden onto those who receive them.
Osbourne increased VAT, he wants to cut corporation tax for large companies from 28% to 22% by 2014, he wants to cut the top rate of income tax from 50% back to 40% but compromised on 45% and wanted to raise the boundary on Inheritance tax but was stopped by the Lib Dems.
Surely these policies of cutting progressive tax rates, and raising regressive ones will shift the tax burden more towards poorer people? or do you deny this? or do you think this is a good thing because they are freeloading on the taxes paid by the rich so should be grateful for what they get?
Surely these policies of cutting progressive tax rates, and raising regressive ones will shift the tax burden more towards poorer people? or do you deny this? or do you think this is a good thing because they are freeloading on the taxes paid by the rich so should be grateful for what they get?
You getting a job for £35K then? Thought not. feckwit.
I disagree, it subtle, you'll do your shopping and find you have a tenner left, it will be spent
Thats your choice, most people will think they'll have a bit more in their pocket so it's worth the effort.
The problem in this economy is not consumption, the biggest debt most people have is housing and that is a neccesity, wage stagnation has bought us to this point
First of all, to find you have £10 left, you'd be spending £500 on your shopping, which I admit for a family of 4 may not be out of the question over a month, yet the majority of the food stuffs you are buying will be zero rated anyway, so you'd need to be spending 2 or more times that.
If, for some reason, you were spending £1,000+ on your shopping, the odd £10 is neither here nor there.
I brought a vacuum cleaner when the VAT was at 15%, instead of paying £89.99 I paid £88.07. I was a nice bonus I guess, but I didn't rush around Homebase looking for something to spend my £1.92 on, because all I needed was a vacuum cleaner.
I still think that spending the £12B in infrastructure would be better for everyone, of that £12B they'd probably get several Billions back in PAYE/NIC/CIS & possibly even the odd bit of VAT too, so it would be cost effective & you'd end up with a shiny new road. ffs, the state of the roads in the UK you could spend as much as you like on road repairs & everyone would benefit!
Might do. I'm sick of working to pay tax. Ignorant gobshite.
It's subtle only if you don't look after your money
You're probably right, given how few people here actually know what I'm talking about. You lot rant on and on about unfairness and how other people get ahead, but can't be arsed to look at your payslip and ask yourself how these numbers came about - well, it is indeed your choice. Don't mind me if I point and laugh.
You don't need to own your house. Especially if you can't afford it. And few people use credit cards to buy their house, yet credit card debt is still dead high.
Yep, as I said, daft. Osborne is something of a fool in many ways.
And yet, theory isn't borne out by the data...
I do think that some of you should be a bit more grateful to the people who are still picking up the tab. And no, those people aren't necessarily the "rich". People who are not rich still got caught by the 50% tax rate. £150k per year is not enough to make anyone rich. Comfortably middle class - yes. Rich - no.
if you earn £150k a year you are not paying an effective tax rate near 50% are you? Its 50% on earnings above £150k.
You know what the implication is if the rate of tax is decreased on the top rates of progressive tax rates and regressive taxes are increased, and yet the rich still pay a similar % of the total tax revenue?
No, the MARGINAL tax rate at £150k is not 50%. You're ignoring NI and the way the bands shift as you earn more. And tax on interest and dividend income. And the tax on your savings in the bank (although strictly speaking that's a wealth tax, not an income tax). And taxable benefits. And salary sacrifice. 20%/40%/50% is merely the starting point.
Doesn't anyone here check their payslips? File tax returns?
By the way, the effective average tax rate at £150k is not 50% either...
Did you check whether tax revenue went up or down?
Based on the income tax figures you provided (assuming I'm interpreting it properly) the tax revenues from personal income tax has been stable at between £150b and £155b since 2006-07, apart from one exceptional year.
Working on the assumption of a continuation of this stability in income tax revenues, a decrease in the top rate of tax with the increase in VAT would have what effect on % of income paid in taxes?
The upper earnings limit for NI is £42k, after which you pay a whopping 2% of earnings.
Maybe you should boast a bit less and think a bit more.
I was thinking that, but decided against bothering so cheers.
Also thinking about dividends being 42.5% above £150k.. and he can cry me a river about taxable benefits. I want my free house and car to get around paying income tax!!! feck off.
The point you are missing is knowing how much they pay in tax doesn't help them compare theirs with yours. For that they would need to see your payslip.
It strikes me that your argument has a serious flaw when you claim to be demotivated by the progressive rate of tax increase leaving you to wonder was the effort worth it.
The flaw being that even after those tax deductions you still take home far more per hour than many of the people whose work ethic you just spent half the thread questioning.
You're lucky to be in a position to pay that tax which of course pays for services that you take advantage of. You could always get a job doing something useful like driving a bus for £24K pa instead of fannying about with spreadsheets and reports that no one reads.
without going into to much detail because I know at the outset that never the twain shall meet, you really don't understand business if you think b2b is VAT neutral.
At it's very essence VAT can never be neutral as a VAT registered business owner I know I either pay it or claim it, never in the five years of doing quarterly returns have I ever had a zero position or neutrality.
you really think me paying less VAT does not allow me to employ people or grow my business?
What do you do for a living if you don't mind me asking?
I run a food retail business if you don't already know and I can tell you VAT matters in business and it certainly matters in retail from a customer and owner perspective.
Tax is a behaviour modifier now? I thought it was to raise money for the public good.
It is incredible how trained people can become to the most amazing of ideas.
Do you realise how institutionalised that concept seems?
Which was identified clearer by the Cornish Pastie debacle.
Thousands of jobs were at stake; before the chancellor finally saw sense.
Knowing a small amount about Spin's work (or at least, what he was doing a few years ago), I'm pretty sure his stuff gets read and acted upon.
I tend to doubt that anyone who can afford to go away and let 1000 mails clutter up his inbox unread is doing anything very important in the bigger scheme of things. His posts in this thread suggest he needs to re-calibrate his sense of self-importance along with his self-entitlement and a few other things.
1000 emails should never be sent to anyone in a short space of time, it's poor communications management.
