The Politics Thread

[Worthy4England]

another 3 pages of smoke and mirrors
the rich and privileged like us going around in circles on things like this coz it deflects our attention from the basic facts that
# "Trickle down" economics is, and always was, a load of bollox. Brain drain my arse- chinless wonders couldn't cut it without the old school tie
# "Rolling back the state" = allowing the rich to keep their hands firmly in the pockets of the less rich while nobody spots them doing so
# the utter devastation of our industrial base has led to us being unable to organise our economy along mercantilist lines - we cannot balance our trade a la Germany so rely on being the centre of the financial world - a world which involves selling barrowloads of nothing to other people who buy it on the idea that it will go up in value

So your really well thought out plan to solve all this is still "let's tax a small group of people at 70%?"

Stunning.

Let the good times roll, already.

Oh and don't believe that chinless wonders don't get regular job offers from other countries.

[Hoboh]

another 3 pages of smoke and mirrors
the rich and privileged like us going around in circles on things like this coz it deflects our attention from the basic facts that
# "Trickle down" economics is, and always was, a load of bollox. Brain drain my arse- chinless wonders couldn't cut it without the old school tie
# "Rolling back the state" = allowing the rich to keep their hands firmly in the pockets of the less rich while nobody spots them doing so
# the utter devastation of our industrial base has led to us being unable to organise our economy along mercantilist lines - we cannot balance our trade a la Germany so rely on being the centre of the financial world - a world which involves selling barrowloads of nothing to other people who buy it on the idea that it will go up in value

So your really well thought out plan to solve all this is still "let's tax a small group of people at 70%?"

Stunning.

Let the good times roll, already.

Oh and don't believe that chinless wonders don't get regular job offers from other countries.

Where you off to Worthy?

[Prufrock]

Thing I don't understand with the 50% tax band is, we are always being told it doesn't actually raise that much money, and so is purely symbolic, and so should be got rid of. But, if it doesn't actually raise that much money, it still doesn't seem to be affecting people too much, and so any move to get rid of it is surely only symbolic. Somebody earning £160k per year pays an extra 1k. One. Somebody earning £200k pays an extra 5k*. I can't for the life of me see anybody 'going abroad' doing a 'brain drain' for five grand a year.

So, if having it is symbolic, and getting rid of it is symbolic, then, its symbolism isn't an argument either way. Which signal do we want to send? That while Cornish folk are paying 20% extra for pasties (one bloke reckoned that was going to cost him £200 per year, which by my maths -see *- means he is currently, pre-rise, spending twenty pounds PER WEEK on pasties) and tramps can't have special brew any more that the rich are suffering some of the burden too (even if it is largely symbolic) or, that f*ck y'all, all o' y'all, if you don't like it, trytoblowmebutyou'llnevergetthroughthegatesandtheguardsmanwillhaveyoushot?


*All figures subject to the condition my maths isn't utterly shite

Your logic is confused, if I may say so...

You can't say "it doesn't raise much, therefore it has little effect on people, therefore it's just symbolic, oh and by the way I don't actually reckon it changes people's behaviour much too...". I'm sorry, but that isn't coherent.

Now, a decent chunk of the unrealised revenue associated with this tax may well be people deliberately (and perfectly legally and even reasonably, actually) bringing forward or delaying their remuneration to avoid what was always billed as a 'temporary' tax. Lots of rich people can afford to do this to ride out a 'temporary' measure and have the control necessary to do it.

But I also do think that people underestimate how much rich people think about these things. I do believe that some individuals decide to locate themselves (or at least their money) elsewhere, work less because they are incentivised less, or come to realise that the aggressive tax avoidance that they didn't bother with before is worth it after all.

Maybe your man on £200k won't flee the country, but I do belive he'll have a good think about whether getting to £210k is worth is effort, or whether splashing out on that expensive accountant his mates on £400k use looks more like a good idea.

And above that level, people making big money in competitive worlds, often where money is way of keeping score, do not look like to be ripped off in any way at all - especially given that lots of these people will move in international circles and the Joneses they are keeping up with are the super rich in other countries and other tax regimes.

Football sometimes provides us with examples of the sort that aren't publicised in other industries: http://fourfourtwo.com/news/england/40191/default.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; http://www.worldsoccer.com/news/arshavi ... -cover-tax" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I once criticised Michael Portillo for intellectual laziness when he said that it was 'immoral' for a goverment to take away half of everything a citizen earned... as if morality can be determined a % cut-off point. However, I do think the 50% mark is psychologically significant and people will always resist and resent paying half or more to the state in the form of income tax, and this is why most western countries have settled on an idea that something in the 35-45% bracket is what is 'fair' or at least tolerable.

I was careful not to say it doesn't raise very much therefore it doesn't affect people very much (though, granted, there is a lazy, inconsequential 'if' used newsreader style, as a synonym for 'whilst'). A 100% tax rate on those earning over a million probably wouldn't raise much but would certainly affect those concerned.

What I was getting at in a hilarious stream-of-conscious manner is, regardless of what it raises, if you could close all the tax loopholes and make everyone pay the tax they are 'supposed to' is the difference between 40% and 50% that large? If you closed the loopholes available by paying yourself through a company and drawing your wage abroad would the extra you pay be enough to make you move abroad. The difference wouldn't be enough to make you move elsewhere in Europe, to learn a new language move your family, when overall tax rates between the like of us, France and Germany are broadly similar (ie what you actually keep after all tax is taken). Would you go to America? Possible, if you are young and unattached. The problem there is being a small fish in a very large pond. I just don't buy the logic that everyone would up-sticks and go. I think the 50% rate is entirely symbolic (as I say, it probably doesn't raise very much, I don't think it affects people very much, and I don't think it genuinely causes people to move abroad, I think it is an empty threat). As such the question is, is it the right symbol? I think so. You, I boldly predict, will disagree.

I'm torn on the morality of legal tax avoidance. On the one hand, if a badly drafted law, or just the sheer complexity of it all means there is a way to save money for yourself and your family, why shouldn't you take it? On the other hand if it is clear society's democratic will (and I don't often buy into that as a valid rule, but tax laws ought to be fairly objective standards) says that is what you are expected to pay, is going against the spirit of that by being 'clever' legitimate? I'm not sure.

Without trying to unduly interject here, could I suggest that you might be missing the point?

The people who are using legitimate tax avoidance (or illigitimate tax avoidance) aren't affected by a change in the rate from 50% to 45% or if it was to go the other way from 50% to 70%, because they're avoiding it.

So the people, that a change in the overall upper level of tax is going to hit, are those people that are currently paying at the upper tax rate and may well look at ways of avoidng it, if it changes to 70% (or something punitive as was the contention originally in this debate)

It does fook all, to capture any additional shillings in tax from those people that are avoiding it anyhow, it just dips into the pot of people that are already paying it. That's a fairly small group of people (circa 4-600,000 in the UK), who should somehow (according to BWFCI) "be morally responsible" for bailing out the UK from the shite that a load of bankers caused?

Just as an FYI, you don't pay more than 50% tax until you're somewhere between £3m and £4m per year so I think that the contention mummy makes that paying 50% of everything you earn to the state isn't quite right in the context it was given - it's on everything you earn over £150k. You pay a overall tax rate of 39% on £151,000 and about 40% on £200,000.

Then aren't we back to the question of how do we make those who aren't paying what they 'should', pay what they 'should'? It seems the road they are choosing is to do it on property, which makes it easier, but opens its own can of worms. If it was made a real priority, there must be folk who can write a new set of tax laws to catch it all. Big up for Parliamentary Supremacy.

[Worthy4England]

Thing I don't understand with the 50% tax band is, we are always being told it doesn't actually raise that much money, and so is purely symbolic, and so should be got rid of. But, if it doesn't actually raise that much money, it still doesn't seem to be affecting people too much, and so any move to get rid of it is surely only symbolic. Somebody earning £160k per year pays an extra 1k. One. Somebody earning £200k pays an extra 5k*. I can't for the life of me see anybody 'going abroad' doing a 'brain drain' for five grand a year.

So, if having it is symbolic, and getting rid of it is symbolic, then, its symbolism isn't an argument either way. Which signal do we want to send? That while Cornish folk are paying 20% extra for pasties (one bloke reckoned that was going to cost him £200 per year, which by my maths -see *- means he is currently, pre-rise, spending twenty pounds PER WEEK on pasties) and tramps can't have special brew any more that the rich are suffering some of the burden too (even if it is largely symbolic) or, that f*ck y'all, all o' y'all, if you don't like it, trytoblowmebutyou'llnevergetthroughthegatesandtheguardsmanwillhaveyoushot?


*All figures subject to the condition my maths isn't utterly shite

Your logic is confused, if I may say so...

You can't say "it doesn't raise much, therefore it has little effect on people, therefore it's just symbolic, oh and by the way I don't actually reckon it changes people's behaviour much too...". I'm sorry, but that isn't coherent.

Now, a decent chunk of the unrealised revenue associated with this tax may well be people deliberately (and perfectly legally and even reasonably, actually) bringing forward or delaying their remuneration to avoid what was always billed as a 'temporary' tax. Lots of rich people can afford to do this to ride out a 'temporary' measure and have the control necessary to do it.

But I also do think that people underestimate how much rich people think about these things. I do believe that some individuals decide to locate themselves (or at least their money) elsewhere, work less because they are incentivised less, or come to realise that the aggressive tax avoidance that they didn't bother with before is worth it after all.

Maybe your man on £200k won't flee the country, but I do belive he'll have a good think about whether getting to £210k is worth is effort, or whether splashing out on that expensive accountant his mates on £400k use looks more like a good idea.

And above that level, people making big money in competitive worlds, often where money is way of keeping score, do not look like to be ripped off in any way at all - especially given that lots of these people will move in international circles and the Joneses they are keeping up with are the super rich in other countries and other tax regimes.

Football sometimes provides us with examples of the sort that aren't publicised in other industries: http://fourfourtwo.com/news/england/40191/default.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; http://www.worldsoccer.com/news/arshavi ... -cover-tax" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I once criticised Michael Portillo for intellectual laziness when he said that it was 'immoral' for a goverment to take away half of everything a citizen earned... as if morality can be determined a % cut-off point. However, I do think the 50% mark is psychologically significant and people will always resist and resent paying half or more to the state in the form of income tax, and this is why most western countries have settled on an idea that something in the 35-45% bracket is what is 'fair' or at least tolerable.

I was careful not to say it doesn't raise very much therefore it doesn't affect people very much (though, granted, there is a lazy, inconsequential 'if' used newsreader style, as a synonym for 'whilst'). A 100% tax rate on those earning over a million probably wouldn't raise much but would certainly affect those concerned.

What I was getting at in a hilarious stream-of-conscious manner is, regardless of what it raises, if you could close all the tax loopholes and make everyone pay the tax they are 'supposed to' is the difference between 40% and 50% that large? If you closed the loopholes available by paying yourself through a company and drawing your wage abroad would the extra you pay be enough to make you move abroad. The difference wouldn't be enough to make you move elsewhere in Europe, to learn a new language move your family, when overall tax rates between the like of us, France and Germany are broadly similar (ie what you actually keep after all tax is taken). Would you go to America? Possible, if you are young and unattached. The problem there is being a small fish in a very large pond. I just don't buy the logic that everyone would up-sticks and go. I think the 50% rate is entirely symbolic (as I say, it probably doesn't raise very much, I don't think it affects people very much, and I don't think it genuinely causes people to move abroad, I think it is an empty threat). As such the question is, is it the right symbol? I think so. You, I boldly predict, will disagree.

I'm torn on the morality of legal tax avoidance. On the one hand, if a badly drafted law, or just the sheer complexity of it all means there is a way to save money for yourself and your family, why shouldn't you take it? On the other hand if it is clear society's democratic will (and I don't often buy into that as a valid rule, but tax laws ought to be fairly objective standards) says that is what you are expected to pay, is going against the spirit of that by being 'clever' legitimate? I'm not sure.

Without trying to unduly interject here, could I suggest that you might be missing the point?

The people who are using legitimate tax avoidance (or illigitimate tax avoidance) aren't affected by a change in the rate from 50% to 45% or if it was to go the other way from 50% to 70%, because they're avoiding it.

So the people, that a change in the overall upper level of tax is going to hit, are those people that are currently paying at the upper tax rate and may well look at ways of avoidng it, if it changes to 70% (or something punitive as was the contention originally in this debate)

It does fook all, to capture any additional shillings in tax from those people that are avoiding it anyhow, it just dips into the pot of people that are already paying it. That's a fairly small group of people (circa 4-600,000 in the UK), who should somehow (according to BWFCI) "be morally responsible" for bailing out the UK from the shite that a load of bankers caused?

Just as an FYI, you don't pay more than 50% tax until you're somewhere between £3m and £4m per year so I think that the contention mummy makes that paying 50% of everything you earn to the state isn't quite right in the context it was given - it's on everything you earn over £150k. You pay a overall tax rate of 39% on £151,000 and about 40% on £200,000.

Then aren't we back to the question of how do we make those who aren't paying what they 'should', pay what they 'should'? It seems the road they are choosing is to do it on property, which makes it easier, but opens its own can of worms. If it was made a real priority, there must be folk who can write a new set of tax laws to catch it all. Big up for Parliamentary Supremacy.

To be honest Pru, I don't think that'll solve it either.

As I think Bish said (or it could've been Brucie) they have better accountants than HMRC, so none of the suggestions present a way out of our current dilemma, although they might nibble round the edges.

Non-doms, will always have the kop out.

We either have to start growing quicker and at a rate that we've not seen for about 100 years, and/or we need to cut spending. Cutting spending will only go a little way, it just looks like a long haul to me. I'd be happy to try taxing bank profits at a higher level, but even that's only going to be marginal, if it was fundamental, they would bog off.

We could try changing our economic basis from capitalism, but as yet, no one anywhere has managed to suggest something that would work, other than some sort of ideological rant that capitalism isn't working - we can see that, but I believe it will rebound over time. I can't see any of the other possibilities getting off the ground, but I'd be happy to listen to any suggestions the anti-capitalism fraternity want to put forwards.

[Worthy4England]

another 3 pages of smoke and mirrors
the rich and privileged like us going around in circles on things like this coz it deflects our attention from the basic facts that
# "Trickle down" economics is, and always was, a load of bollox. Brain drain my arse- chinless wonders couldn't cut it without the old school tie
# "Rolling back the state" = allowing the rich to keep their hands firmly in the pockets of the less rich while nobody spots them doing so
# the utter devastation of our industrial base has led to us being unable to organise our economy along mercantilist lines - we cannot balance our trade a la Germany so rely on being the centre of the financial world - a world which involves selling barrowloads of nothing to other people who buy it on the idea that it will go up in value

So your really well thought out plan to solve all this is still "let's tax a small group of people at 70%?"

Stunning.

Let the good times roll, already.

Oh and don't believe that chinless wonders don't get regular job offers from other countries.

Where you off to Worthy?

I'm not a chinless wonder - I don't earn anything like enough.

[Hoboh]

Worthy the only flaw you and a lot of others have with taxing banks etc is the notion they would suddenly drop all the business they do in the UK and sod off abroad and forget that waiting in the wings will be some of their competitors or other folk like Branson etc who would love that "hole" to appear. There is a lot of money to be made in the UK for the banks and they squeal like stuck pigs with every bit of legislation, but still they trade on!

[Hoboh]

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/labour-inques ... lloway-win" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Don't like the fella but huge credit to him pulling this one off, even taking into account the campagain "through the mosque"

So if it worked for one......................

I am now lanching my official party, The Hoboistas. Motto, "See a flaw be quick on the draw".

(A few more votes up top would not go amiss )

[Bruce Rioja]

another 3 pages of smoke and mirrors
the rich and privileged like us going around in circles on things like this coz it deflects our attention from the basic facts that
# "Trickle down" economics is, and always was, a load of bollox. Brain drain my arse- chinless wonders couldn't cut it without the old school tie
# "Rolling back the state" = allowing the rich to keep their hands firmly in the pockets of the less rich while nobody spots them doing so
# the utter devastation of our industrial base has led to us being unable to organise our economy along mercantilist lines - we cannot balance our trade a la Germany so rely on being the centre of the financial world - a world which involves selling barrowloads of nothing to other people who buy it on the idea that it will go up in value

So your really well thought out plan to solve all this is still "let's tax a small group of people at 70%?"

Stunning.

Let the good times roll, already.

Oh and don't believe that chinless wonders don't get regular job offers from other countries.

Where you off to Worthy?

I've met Worthy. He actually has a chin to spare.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/labour-inques ... lloway-win

Don't like the fella but huge credit to him pulling this one off, even taking into account the campagain "through the mosque"

So if it worked for one......................

I am now lanching my official party, The Hoboistas. Motto, "See a flaw be quick on the draw".

(A few more votes up top would not go amiss )

Gorgeous George does it again - and wow, what a margin.

Wonder if it's sign of more to come?

[Bruce Rioja]

Wonder if it's sign of more to come?

Wankers that speak in staccato? Let's hope not!

[thebish]

Gorgeous George does it again - and wow, what a margin.

Wonder if it's sign of more to come?

not really sure what to make of it... I think it is..

PART Galloway's undoubted skill at street-campaigning and oratory (this often proves to be more bluster than substance - and he won't stay their MP for long IMO)

PART labour's weakness under Milliband minor and an increasing disaffection with its working class roots

PART general disaffection with "mainstream" politics

this is a big defeat for labour - but there is little comfort in it for the lib dems (lost their deposit again) or the tories (very nearly lost their deposit...)

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Wonder if it's sign of more to come?

Wankers that speak in staccato? Let's hope not!

Well I was thinking more in terms of increased localism in politics, disaffection with the main parties, and strong muslim voting blocks!

[The Axman]

Wonder if it's sign of more to come?

Wankers that speak in staccato? Let's hope not!

Well I was thinking more in terms of increased localism in politics, disaffection with the main parties, and strong muslim voting blocks!

Because of course all muslims think alike.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Exactly, I knew you'd understand.

[thebish]

[CrazyHorse]

Unite union rules out strike action by fuel tanker drivers in UK over Easter to focus on talks. Details soon

And yet the panic continues. Plus, 5live News reported last night that one or two unscrupulous garages have magically put the price up by 10p a litre because of the extra demand.

[thebish]

Unite union rules out strike action by fuel tanker drivers in UK over Easter to focus on talks. Details soon

And yet the panic continues. Plus, 5live News reported last night that one or two unscrupulous garages have magically put the price up by 10p a litre because of the extra demand.

and people are taking the governments domestic petrol panic-storage idea seriously... and dodgy advice in the wrong hands can be fatal....

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9622958 ... r/?ref=rss

[Bruce Rioja]

Does that relate to petrol, or Wild Bean Cafe pasties? I'm confused?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Just as an FYI, you don't pay more than 50% tax until you're somewhere between £3m and £4m per year so I think that the contention mummy makes that paying 50% of everything you earn to the state isn't quite right in the context it was given - it's on everything you earn over £150k. You pay a overall tax rate of 39% on £151,000 and about 40% on £200,000.

Thanks, but I was talking about marginal income (and associated effort), not the whole.

Interesting number though - is that the amount at which someone pays 50% of everything earned in tax, when NI is taken into account?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

another 3 pages of smoke and mirrors
the rich and privileged like us going around in circles on things like this coz it deflects our attention from the basic facts that
# "Trickle down" economics is, and always was, a load of bollox. Brain drain my arse- chinless wonders couldn't cut it without the old school tie
# "Rolling back the state" = allowing the rich to keep their hands firmly in the pockets of the less rich while nobody spots them doing so
# the utter devastation of our industrial base has led to us being unable to organise our economy along mercantilist lines - we cannot balance our trade a la Germany so rely on being the centre of the financial world - a world which involves selling barrowloads of nothing to other people who buy it on the idea that it will go up in value

Where are the smoke and mirrors or indeed the rich and privileged in this thread? I'm a fair way off even the 40% bracket, so I do not argue from a position of bare self-interest...

What is this 'trickle down economics' anyway, and in what sense is it a load of bollocks?