TAX

[Colonel Bumcunt]

I think there needs to be an urgent discussion in society around taxation.

 

I think the whole Tory shit show is based on it, and I think Labour partyly lost the election because of it, and I think it's foremost in people's minds when they discuss or try to understand politics. 

 

Many millions of people in this country are being led towards an argument that they are 'taxed too much', and that tax is a waste of money, and needs to be reduced, or even removed. 

 

That's not helped by the endless stories of tax evasion, tax avoidance, which used to be the domain of the super rich, but now more and more people are trying to avoid it through creative accounting. 

 

So, what does the country look like without taxation?

Is there an argument that we should pay lower tax?

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Colonel Bumcunt said:

I think there needs to be an urgent discussion in society around taxation.

 

I think the whole Tory shit show is based on it, and I think Labour partyly lost the election because of it, and I think it's foremost in people's minds when they discuss or try to understand politics. 

 

Many millions of people in this country are being led towards an argument that they are 'taxed too much', and that tax is a waste of money, and needs to be reduced, or even removed. 

 

That's not helped by the endless stories of tax evasion, tax avoidance, which used to be the domain of the super rich, but now more and more people are trying to avoid it through creative accounting. 

 

So, what does the country look like without taxation?

Is there an argument that we should pay lower tax?

Tax was introduced to pay for a war that was proving too expensive. Everyone has to pay it but to justify it by saying it is used to pay for everything the country has is a bit of a stretch. It will continue to be paid long after we are gone, it will only stop when money is no longer the worlds trading standard.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Lower taxes means lower Government expenditure means worse public services. 

[Mudface]

New Labour is partly to blame for this. They had the chance to make the case for higher taxation levels with a quite simple pitch- you want decent public services, you need to pay for them. Instead they wimped out and introduced 'stealth' taxes while they were reducing personal income tax, relied far too much on the taxes from the City, and shoved a lot of infrastructure expenditure onto the never-never via PFI.

 

An effective counter to the Tory dogma would be to point out that people are paying more and getting less due to the skimming off of profits (to foreign companies and governments in many cases).

[Colonel Bumcunt]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48988052

 

Simplified tax discussion, worth a read for the uninitiated. 

[Colonel Bumcunt]

Today...

 

About 15,500 nurses in Northern Ireland have begun strike action in a dispute over pay and patient safety.

The Royal College of Nursing represents about 9,000 nurses who walked out at 08:00 GMT - the first time the union has taken strike action in its 103-year history.

About 6,500 other nurses, who are members of Unison, walked out earlier.

It follows weeks of industrial action by other healthcare workers over the same issues.

[VladimirIlyich]

10 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Lower taxes means lower Government expenditure means worse public services. 

This. But,also by allowing the rich to dodge paying tax means the burden falls onto the ordinary person to support state run schemes,the welfare state,education,transport and so on. The lower end of the wages sector are paying to fund the shortfall of those who avoid and obviously the cash simply is not there so those services fail.

[Numero Veinticinco]

Negged for red 

[A Red]

I know i'm in a minority for thinking this but, lower taxes could act as a stimulus to the economy giving people more to spend, more employment and therefore more tax revenue.

[Mudface]

1 minute ago, A Red said:

I know i'm in a minority for thinking this but, lower taxes could act as a stimulus to the economy giving people more to spend, more employment and therefore more tax revenue.

Or a real drag when people have to spend more on services that were previously supplied through public funds.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Put it up. Not just for the £80k plus bracket. Leave the tax free personal allowance at around the level it is. Basic rate and higher rate up by 1% to 3%. Additional rate up by 5%-ish.

 

The effect this has on the lifestyle of a person liable to paying such tax will likely be dramatically less than the effect that cutting vital public services, £30 a week from disability benefits etc has. 

 

I want to live in a society where money isn't everything and people realise that small, entirely affordable financial sacrifices are essential to providing a better life for everyone, particularly the most vulnerable in society. 

 

It's a no-brainer for me. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

11 minutes ago, A Red said:

I know i'm in a minority for thinking this but, lower taxes could act as a stimulus to the economy giving people more to spend, more employment and therefore more tax revenue.

An absolute cut in taxation doesn't work in practice. 

 

If you want to stimulate the economy, you need to invest in infrastructure, education, health, law enforcement, transport, etc. - the things that every functioning economy needs. That costs money and that money needs to come from tax or borrowing. If you cut taxes for most people, but make up the difference by taxing those who can most easily afford it, then you can stimulate the economy. 

[A Red]

1 hour ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

An absolute cut in taxation doesn't work in practice. 

 

If you want to stimulate the economy, you need to invest in infrastructure, education, health, law enforcement, transport, etc. - the things that every functioning economy needs. That costs money and that money needs to come from tax or borrowing. If you cut taxes for most people, but make up the difference by taxing those who can most easily afford it, then you can stimulate the economy. 

Opinions eh? I have come round to the idea of taxing the 80k earners a bit more though.

[aRdja]

I don’t know. It’s very difficult to imagine a country propering with no welfare state, public schools, cops, firemen, and a public health system.

[Teasmaid]

People bleat on about how much the pay, but they never consider what they’re getting for it. Mr or Mrs Average pays just under £3.5K in income tax each, and moan that they’re being robbed. A child’s state education costs between 5-7K a year per child, depending on age. Their combined tax just about covers schooling for one of their children, and nothing else. 

 

The vast majority of us are a net drain on the government, and that’s how it should be, in my opinion. If the government invests in us and our children they’ll get it back in years to come. But it winds me right up when you get some blathering Tory paying a tenner a week on their £14K salary, banging on about how they pay their way and why should they be penalised so lazy bastards can sit on their arses? Fuck off Carole, you’re not single-handedly propping up the entire benefits budget. 

[polymerpunkah]

Well, if Johnson is following the Trump model, he will provide substantial tax cuts for business, some, temporary, tax cuts for the middle classes, and no or little reduction in services, thus driving up the national debt.

 

It's the same thing, broadly, that Bush and Reagan did, as well.

 

Stimulates the economy, and leaves the debt for someone else to pay.

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

2 hours ago, A Red said:

Opinions eh? I have come round to the idea of taxing the 80k earners a bit more though.

Now, a cut to VAT (balanced by taxing the people and corporations that can afford it) seems like it might be a useful stimulus. 

[Jairzinho]

Said it before, but there need to be more tax brackets.

 

That and obviously sticking anyone that swerves paying what they owe in a cement mixer.

[SasaS]

From my experience, there is a very strong relation between how high on the income scale people think they can clime and where do they think progressive taxation should seriously kick in.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

3 hours ago, SasaS said:

From my experience, there is a very strong relation between how high on the income scale people think they can clime and where do they think progressive taxation should seriously kick in.

Several pinches of salt to be taken here. Firstly, there's the "from my experience" - are we talking about a sample large and representative enough to draw reliable conclusions about the relation you describe?

 

Secondly there is generally going to be a disparity between how high up the income scale people think they can climb and how high they really can climb. (I may be misremembering the figures, but I saw a study once that said something like 19% of Americans think they are already in the richest 1%. Presumably, an even higher proportion would believe that they can make it there.) 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

10 hours ago, A Red said:

Opinions eh? I have come round to the idea of taxing the 80k earners a bit more though.

I think you can say "opinions, eh" about what the desired outcomes are (e.g. whether your main priority is a reduction in poverty or an increase in GDP etc.) but when it comes to the most effective means of achieving those ends, we should rely on evidence to back up the arguments: and there's plenty of evidence that low top rates of Income Tax, low Capital Gains Tax, low Corporation Tax, etc. won't stimulate the economy. 

[VladimirIlyich]

21 hours ago, A Red said:

I know i'm in a minority for thinking this but, lower taxes could act as a stimulus to the economy giving people more to spend, more employment and therefore more tax revenue.

Its worked really well for the last 30+ years,for some,but not the majority.

[A Red]

10 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

I think you can say "opinions, eh" about what the desired outcomes are (e.g. whether your main priority is a reduction in poverty or an increase in GDP etc.) but when it comes to the most effective means of achieving those ends, we should rely on evidence to back up the arguments: and there's plenty of evidence that low top rates of Income Tax, low Capital Gains Tax, low Corporation Tax, etc. won't stimulate the economy. 

I said opinions as I really dont want a google search based discussion where we're chucking sources at each other.

[SasaS]

10 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Several pinches of salt to be taken here. Firstly, there's the "from my experience" - are we talking about a sample large and representative enough to draw reliable conclusions about the relation you describe?

 

Secondly there is generally going to be a disparity between how high up the income scale people think they can climb and how high they really can climb. (I may be misremembering the figures, but I saw a study once that said something like 19% of Americans think they are already in the richest 1%. Presumably, an even higher proportion would believe that they can make it there.) 

We are talking anecdotal evidence. People don't like paying taxes and always think there are brackets above them that should pay more. Or they think nobody should pay anything, as they do in Texas, where they've recently overwhelming voted to ban their state from ever introducing state income tax (presumably they still pay federal).

Personally, I think there is too much talk about raising taxes as means of redistribution of wealth or reducing inequality and too little organized institutional oversight of what you get for your taxes, as in costs, wastage etc. This is what I in general don't like about all these new deal and similar plans proposals stemming from the Pickety group ideas and such, it seems to be more important to get that money than to think about what to spend it on. In my view, you raise public spending when you need to, not just so you control most of the economy.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

39 minutes ago, A Red said:

I said opinions as I really dont want a google search based discussion where we're chucking sources at each other.

Me neither.