| Tax Rises are coming!!! 21:59 - Jul 30 with 11889 views | mutters |
Sounds like fun. Based on Labour sticking to its manifesto pledges of no increase in VAT, national insurance, or income tax increases, where will they raise enough cash to plug the "black hole"? |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 06:30 - Jul 31 with 1496 views | Churchman |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 23:22 - Jul 30 by Coastalblue |
The country is broken and it's going to cost money to arrest the slide, it's debatable whether we can actually fix it.
I'm not somebody who can easily afford higher taxes, but you have to be pretty naive not to accept they are required.
Saying they are not though, well then yes, that does kind of prove the point that actually most politicians are much the same regardless of team colours. |
The economy is huge - £3.4tn gdp a year. It is the world’s 6th largest economy. For scale, the NHS/Social care budget alone is £212bn a year. Some stats
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-febr
So in real terms while Reeves’ hilarious rinse and repeat ‘when we looked at the books’ nonsense £22bn sounds horrific, it really isn’t. The cost of Covid was £310-£410bn estimated (a fair chunk finding its way into tories + mates pockets probably) and nobody batted an eyelid. No, this is just a warm up for what the latest mob were always going to do - tax.
If you want public services, it’s going to cost. I’m frankly amazed about the resistance to progressive taxation like income tax. Those who have the most, pay the most. So what would I do?
Increase income tax say 3p in the £. Increase the minimum for paying tax to £15k and reduce the threshold for paying high rate tax to £45k. I would also merge income tax with national insurance The benefit would be retired people would continue to pay NI and the public could see what they were being taxed on. Winter fuel, Christmas bonus and a host of minor taxes would go if it were up to me. Pay people a proper pension or one support allowance and cut the messing about.
Inheritance tax is deeply immoral. People pay tax all their lives on everything (not the Reece-Mogg rich - they pay less than 10%). They want to leave something to their children etc and it’s taxed again or in reality taken off them to pay for care that the state should provide anyway, since they’ve paid in all their working lives. It’s wrong. But there it is. What I would do if I was to pillage it is remove the Tory introduced additional allowance for children/property of £175k per person
A better idea is to increase tax inspectors and go after those who don’t pay their whack, whether uber rich, self employed or criminals who cost the country billions. Yet Reeves is going to cut them.
They don’t need to waste public money on a silly ‘value for money’ exercise. It’s just spin. Just what do they think people do all day? If they don’t know just get the Departments ‘ DGs to tell them. As for ‘back office’ cuts what is back office? I worked in an office on projects. Was that front or back office? Stupid term, stupid waste of money. In terms of wasted money, where is it spent?
Activities are costed in government so the information is there down to the last rail journey. If I was to guess, an awful lot of money goes to third party, awful, private companies like Fujitsu. How about writing better contracts and taking some activities back in house?
Lastly - investment. It’s the only way to grow an economy.. cutting infrastructure projects? Aside from not improving say a transport link, that’s jobs and potential company business down the pan.
Financial control a plus investment at the same time is the only way to do it and was actually the last decent Chancellor’s approach in 2010. Shame he was thrown out in favour of the privileged idiots.
Just overlong musings [Post edited 31 Jul 2024 7:03]
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 06:59 - Jul 31 with 1423 views | DJR |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 22:26 - Jul 30 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
I’ve said iver and over again taxes will have to rise (DJR has also been consistent on this). It was inevitable, borrowing more would simply destroy what’s left of our fiscal credibility on the sovereign debt markets, as well as kicking the can down the road for future generations. I think probably a few like me know we need to pay more tax for better services and don’t begrudge that. It’s probably the perceived ‘dishonesty’ of the election campaign that no taxes would rise for working people. That was neither credible, or particularly honest.
The election was always Labour’s to lose, they could have been open and said better services will mean more tax. It must have been obvious to Labour as it was externally that taxes rises would be unavoidable. By not being more upfront this just plays into the ‘all politicians/parties are the same’ narrative. |
It's the dishonesty that gets me because Labour weren't honest before the election about the situation facing the country and what they would need to do once in office.
Of course they're trying to spin it that Reeves is effectively so clueless that she didn't know what was going on but to me this is just a smokescreen. Indeed, to take asylum overspend as an example, the FT is reporting today that Labour were fully aware of the situation back in February.
This is what the manifesto said.
"What we lack is a government that can match the ambition working people have for their family and community, with a credible long-term plan.
This manifesto is that plan.
Fully costed, fully funded – built on a rock of fiscal responsibility."
It is now clear that they intended to do something to address the issues that the IFS raised (namely make cuts and/or increase taxes to shore up things), but those plans were not included in the manifesto and so the fully costed, fully funded claim was a lie.
As it it, it will be interesting to see how ambitious they will be. I rather fear they will do the bare minimum, when if they had been more ambitious and open before the election, they should have been able to make the case for much more ambitious and desperately needed changes. [Post edited 31 Jul 2024 7:04]
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:19 - Jul 31 with 1388 views | NedPlimpton |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 02:13 - Jul 31 by Europablue |
It would be great if we set up systems that reward hard work and taking responsibility and we didn't carry freeloaders. What is clear is that we can't afford to allow hundreds of thousands of people in who are net takers.
It is a very fragile balance. Adding a private school tax might very well increase the number of parents who decide to send their children to state schools and create more pressure on resources, the same goes for demonizing people who use private healthcare. We should appreciate these people who pay towards services that they don't even use.
The other balance is not scaring off businesses and high net-worth individuals who are incredibly mobile. Lower taxes from rich people is better than no taxes from rich people. |
There are just over 9m pupils in state schools in the UK and just under 600,000 in private. Let's say 10% of pupils dropped out of private school because their fees were now taxed
It's a drop in the ocean
And you've completely ignored the boost that state schools might get from increased funding of additional taxes are being raised from private education |  | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:22 - Jul 31 with 1379 views | noggin |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 02:13 - Jul 31 by Europablue |
It would be great if we set up systems that reward hard work and taking responsibility and we didn't carry freeloaders. What is clear is that we can't afford to allow hundreds of thousands of people in who are net takers.
It is a very fragile balance. Adding a private school tax might very well increase the number of parents who decide to send their children to state schools and create more pressure on resources, the same goes for demonizing people who use private healthcare. We should appreciate these people who pay towards services that they don't even use.
The other balance is not scaring off businesses and high net-worth individuals who are incredibly mobile. Lower taxes from rich people is better than no taxes from rich people. |
"Lower taxes from rich people is better than no taxes from rich people."
And there is the problem. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:32 - Jul 31 with 1371 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 22:42 - Jul 30 by Freddies_Ears |
Who has it? The Tory donors who benefited by £37bn from the utterly useless test / track / trace. And from the £10bns of dodgy, unusable PPE. |
Is it shareholders of public utilities? Did Labour nationalise them yet? Let's face it we will never own them as a society but we will continue to be owned while urged to focus on 'culture wars.' |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:33 - Jul 31 with 1366 views | Rimsy |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 22:56 - Jul 30 by SitfcB |
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Services are not going to improve by throwing more money at them. Need a fundamental change how they are run. Cutting down on waste and pointless middle management for a start. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:57 - Jul 31 with 1323 views | redrickstuhaart |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:33 - Jul 31 by Rimsy |
Services are not going to improve by throwing more money at them. Need a fundamental change how they are run. Cutting down on waste and pointless middle management for a start. |
Nonsense. Those services have been starved of funding and good staff driven out. They wont improve until it is worthwhile for people to work in them, amd not a constant miserable battle to deal with everyday stuff. |  | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:12 - Jul 31 with 1283 views | EddyJ |
We need to hit this from multiple angles. I would consider:
1) Raise more tax. Target passive income, rent, dividends and capital gains, which are taxed far less than wages. This is why we are unproductive as a nation. It is easier to become wealthy by doing nothing than by doing something.
2) Introduce means-testing for the state pension for anyone under the age of 50 today. Someone is going to have to take a hit on the state pension. By setting the limit at 50, we give people 18 years to prepare for the eventuality. Taper it so that someone just below the limit is not better off than someone just about the limit. Scrap the triple lock.
3) Sort out the massive inefficiencies in the NHS. Why does every GP surgery have a different computer system? GPs have ceased to offer genuine medical advise and instead act as "gate keepers" to the specialists. Replace them with 101, which is a far better and more efficient service. Gate keeping can be done by non-doctors, who can refer to GPs or other specialst services if neccesary.
4) Build economy for the future. We don't want to be completely reliant on financial services forever. Focus on becoming a world leader in emerging technologies like green energy, AI, and robotics. Introduce incentives for companies in these fields. Bursaries for students.
5) Build infrastructure. Our infrastructure is in a terrible state. Building more will stimulate the economy new-deal style. Doesn't have to be massive projects like HS2. Focus on lots of small achievable things like schools, hospitals, road projects. | | | |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:18 - Jul 31 with 1266 views | Mullet |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:33 - Jul 31 by Rimsy |
Services are not going to improve by throwing more money at them. Need a fundamental change how they are run. Cutting down on waste and pointless middle management for a start. |
You seem to be trotting out lines from 20 years ago. There is a staffing crisis, an infrastructure crisis and pretty much everything else to varying degrees across services.
I can’t understand this idea of making it something/someone else’s problem so long as it means not paying to fix it.
This is why the Tories should never see power again, how they convince so many it’s not down to them either is staggering. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:20 - Jul 31 with 1250 views | DinDjarin |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 06:30 - Jul 31 by Churchman |
The economy is huge - £3.4tn gdp a year. It is the world’s 6th largest economy. For scale, the NHS/Social care budget alone is £212bn a year. Some stats
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-febr
So in real terms while Reeves’ hilarious rinse and repeat ‘when we looked at the books’ nonsense £22bn sounds horrific, it really isn’t. The cost of Covid was £310-£410bn estimated (a fair chunk finding its way into tories + mates pockets probably) and nobody batted an eyelid. No, this is just a warm up for what the latest mob were always going to do - tax.
If you want public services, it’s going to cost. I’m frankly amazed about the resistance to progressive taxation like income tax. Those who have the most, pay the most. So what would I do?
Increase income tax say 3p in the £. Increase the minimum for paying tax to £15k and reduce the threshold for paying high rate tax to £45k. I would also merge income tax with national insurance The benefit would be retired people would continue to pay NI and the public could see what they were being taxed on. Winter fuel, Christmas bonus and a host of minor taxes would go if it were up to me. Pay people a proper pension or one support allowance and cut the messing about.
Inheritance tax is deeply immoral. People pay tax all their lives on everything (not the Reece-Mogg rich - they pay less than 10%). They want to leave something to their children etc and it’s taxed again or in reality taken off them to pay for care that the state should provide anyway, since they’ve paid in all their working lives. It’s wrong. But there it is. What I would do if I was to pillage it is remove the Tory introduced additional allowance for children/property of £175k per person
A better idea is to increase tax inspectors and go after those who don’t pay their whack, whether uber rich, self employed or criminals who cost the country billions. Yet Reeves is going to cut them.
They don’t need to waste public money on a silly ‘value for money’ exercise. It’s just spin. Just what do they think people do all day? If they don’t know just get the Departments ‘ DGs to tell them. As for ‘back office’ cuts what is back office? I worked in an office on projects. Was that front or back office? Stupid term, stupid waste of money. In terms of wasted money, where is it spent?
Activities are costed in government so the information is there down to the last rail journey. If I was to guess, an awful lot of money goes to third party, awful, private companies like Fujitsu. How about writing better contracts and taking some activities back in house?
Lastly - investment. It’s the only way to grow an economy.. cutting infrastructure projects? Aside from not improving say a transport link, that’s jobs and potential company business down the pan.
Financial control a plus investment at the same time is the only way to do it and was actually the last decent Chancellor’s approach in 2010. Shame he was thrown out in favour of the privileged idiots.
Just overlong musings [Post edited 31 Jul 2024 7:03]
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Higher rate tax has been stuck at 50k for many years now and the amount of people falling into higher rate tax has been a back door tax by the Tories for a while.
50K is not a high earner in this day and age. |  | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:23 - Jul 31 with 1238 views | Churchman |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:33 - Jul 31 by Rimsy |
Services are not going to improve by throwing more money at them. Need a fundamental change how they are run. Cutting down on waste and pointless middle management for a start. |
What waste, what middle management? Who are they and what do they do? If they are kicked out, who does what they do? Or are there 1000s of people counting paper clips all day? The Tories used meaningless catch all phrases for things they knew nothing about and the current mob must not make the same mistake.
As an example, when I first worked in the CS in 2003 I was amongst other things given responsibility for a small team to do all the health and safety work. There were just four of us for a number of buildings and a lot of people. DSE etc, chairs, kit for those that needed it, personal evac plans, fire risk assessing, training and all that.
As lower graded people, we weren’t paid much but gathered a fair degree of expertise and did an awful lot of valuable work in my view. Back office? Yes. After I’d moved on, the tories came in. They decided it was cheaper for the government to be sued for RSI etc than to prevent it.
The teams were abandoned and managers told to do the work instead. Expedient and cost saving. Was it? So a person paid £60k a year replaced somebody paid £25k to do the same work as part of his job. You could argue ‘red tape’. Well so are guards on industrial machinery. Get rid and get back to child chewing looms style working of the 19c.
At the same time, I was asked to re-write all the offices contingency planning and disaster recovery plans. This included offsite desktop exercises with local authorities etc. it was taken quite seriously, as was pandemic preparation. From 2010, much of it was abandoned and come Brexit, nobody was the least bit interested. Why bother about pandemics that may not happen when without focussing on it the lights literally going off will happen?
In other words, when politicians use mealy mouthed words about ‘back office’ and ‘middle management’ it is yet another throwaway for we don’t care - cut, cut, cut and we don’t care about consequences.
If you want to save 1000s in public spending, rejoin the customs Union and single market. The increase in CS staffing from 2017 was to do with manning the borders/additional customs layers brought by being a third country. Nooooo - that’d be much too politically difficult. Much easier to spin vague nonsense about middle management, whatever that is. | | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:34 - Jul 31 with 1221 views | textbackup |
Wonder how much we’d save if we stopped taking care of the thousands that arrive daily on boats. Probably a decent amount.
But I bet I’m wrong for saying that. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:40 - Jul 31 with 1181 views | GlasgowBlue |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:34 - Jul 31 by textbackup |
Wonder how much we’d save if we stopped taking care of the thousands that arrive daily on boats. Probably a decent amount.
But I bet I’m wrong for saying that. |
Probably wasted £billions by not putting in place a quick and efficient asylum processing system and instead leaving refugees in limbo in hotels.
Don’t blame the people coming here. Blame the previous government for using them as a political football. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:45 - Jul 31 with 1166 views | Churchman |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:20 - Jul 31 by DinDjarin |
Higher rate tax has been stuck at 50k for many years now and the amount of people falling into higher rate tax has been a back door tax by the Tories for a while.
50K is not a high earner in this day and age. |
No, but somebody on 50k is a higher earner than somebody on 20k. We are not talking Denis Healey 85% let the pups squeak madness. Just those that earn more progressively pay more. | | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:46 - Jul 31 with 1165 views | NedPlimpton |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:34 - Jul 31 by textbackup |
Wonder how much we’d save if we stopped taking care of the thousands that arrive daily on boats. Probably a decent amount.
But I bet I’m wrong for saying that. |
Think about what you've just said, and this is the exact problem with populist politics
Is very easy to see that money is spent on housing migrants and therefore if we stop doing we'll be better off
So...
If you're saying we stop housing migrants, Where do they go? Will they just roam the streets? If so that will need an increase in policing. So who pays for that?
If you're saying we stop the boats, how? Who pays for this?
If you're saying that we speed up the application process so that we don't have to house migrants privately, then that's great but we need more staff to do the processing
Other considerations include our ageing population and growing pension commitments, lack of low-skilled workforce legal and humanitarian obligations etc etc
So please do explain what you are actually saying and how it will save money | | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:01 - Jul 31 with 1109 views | DJR |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 07:22 - Jul 31 by noggin |
"Lower taxes from rich people is better than no taxes from rich people."
And there is the problem. |
If we are talking about, say, CGT, it is rather difficult for a second property to leave the country. | | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:04 - Jul 31 with 1093 views | Pinewoodblue |
Saying what people want to hear works fine in the short term. Starmer was willing to say whatever was necessary to win the election.
Telling voters you won’t raise taxes, when you know that you will need to , is just dishonest and Showa a lack of integrity. Personally I would have preferred to see Labour say they didn’t want to raise taxes but they would if it was necessary. This would have cost them votes and if Reform hadn’t split the Tory vote Labour May only have had a slim majority.
Going forward my one fear is that an austerity budget will destroy the prospect of growth. Labours long term plans depend on growth.
It really will be Tory light and not in the best interests of the electorate.
Be bold announce a full review of the tax system and promise if major changes are needed they will be actioned on in the next budget.
Think it was Churchman who mentioned combine Income tax & NI good idea but go further. Substantial increase in tax codes, bring back 10% rate on first £2,000. and add a new banding between the standard & higher rate.
You could link some benefits, like Winter fuel payments, to your tax position. WFA being paid to anyone who doesn’t pay tax at standard rate. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:11 - Jul 31 with 1057 views | chicoazul |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 22:19 - Jul 30 by Cheltenham_Blue |
Really don't understand why people have such a hard time with this. Services and infrastructure are on their knees, and in that environment the Tories cut National Insurance twice to try and by everyone's votes.
If we want services, and we want good roads, we have to pay for them, meanwhile, we have never paid as much tax as we do now, and the highest earners have never paid so little.
Someone will be paying more in tax. |
We pay for them already and don’t get them. Why will it be any different now. People never learn. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:24 - Jul 31 with 1002 views | noggin |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:01 - Jul 31 by DJR |
If we are talking about, say, CGT, it is rather difficult for a second property to leave the country. |
Exactly. Tax them on their assets and put a stop to increasing wealth inequality. | |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:30 - Jul 31 with 970 views | DJR |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:04 - Jul 31 by Pinewoodblue |
Saying what people want to hear works fine in the short term. Starmer was willing to say whatever was necessary to win the election.
Telling voters you won’t raise taxes, when you know that you will need to , is just dishonest and Showa a lack of integrity. Personally I would have preferred to see Labour say they didn’t want to raise taxes but they would if it was necessary. This would have cost them votes and if Reform hadn’t split the Tory vote Labour May only have had a slim majority.
Going forward my one fear is that an austerity budget will destroy the prospect of growth. Labours long term plans depend on growth.
It really will be Tory light and not in the best interests of the electorate.
Be bold announce a full review of the tax system and promise if major changes are needed they will be actioned on in the next budget.
Think it was Churchman who mentioned combine Income tax & NI good idea but go further. Substantial increase in tax codes, bring back 10% rate on first £2,000. and add a new banding between the standard & higher rate.
You could link some benefits, like Winter fuel payments, to your tax position. WFA being paid to anyone who doesn’t pay tax at standard rate. |
Another dishonest aspect of Reeves' announcement about raising taxes is that it has been done at the beginning of the summer recess, thus allowing time for it to sink in with no push back in the Commons, and with many of the political programmes and journalists now on their summer break. [Post edited 31 Jul 2024 9:36]
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:38 - Jul 31 with 942 views | SitfcB |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 08:34 - Jul 31 by textbackup |
Wonder how much we’d save if we stopped taking care of the thousands that arrive daily on boats. Probably a decent amount.
But I bet I’m wrong for saying that. |
You’re racist if you say stop the boats apparently. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:43 - Jul 31 with 939 views | NedPlimpton |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:38 - Jul 31 by SitfcB |
You’re racist if you say stop the boats apparently. |
No one has mentioned anything about race in this thread
If you can provide a reasoned argument as to why stopping the boats will save money then go for it
But don't start pretending you're the victim | | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:47 - Jul 31 with 919 views | blueasfook |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:43 - Jul 31 by NedPlimpton |
No one has mentioned anything about race in this thread
If you can provide a reasoned argument as to why stopping the boats will save money then go for it
But don't start pretending you're the victim |
The cost of illegal immigration is £1.3billion per year. So yes there's a money saving to be made there if Labour can "stop the boats". I am yet to see their policy on this so can't comment further. |  |
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| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:52 - Jul 31 with 881 views | NedPlimpton |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:47 - Jul 31 by blueasfook |
The cost of illegal immigration is £1.3billion per year. So yes there's a money saving to be made there if Labour can "stop the boats". I am yet to see their policy on this so can't comment further. |
What do you mean by the 'cost of illegal immigration'? What's your source for this number?
Is this the cost already of attempting to stop it, because then surely that figure will rise if we were to do more to stop it?
A bit more meat on the bone is needed please | | | |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 09:55 - Jul 31 with 845 views | meekreech |
| Tax Rises are coming!!! on 22:39 - Jul 30 by Freddies_Ears |
I have had years of tax rises under the Tories. Several years of high inflation but no change in tax thresholds has cost me a lot. Wine & beer tax changes, nonsensical but expensive.
Beneficiaries? People whose NI has reduced hugely. Excludes unwaged and pensioners.
The great Tory con was to screw pensioners whilst making them think they were being looked after. |
Being a pensioner who misses pension credit by £5 am I classed as one of the Wealthy pensioners who deserves to be penalised by the withdrawal of the fuel allowance ?
For a government to be able to afford the rocketing cost of public sector workers after saying ordinary people would not be financially affected by their policies I find it hard to swallow that I am being financially punished to subsidise that program. | |
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