Off Topic Political Debate

All cheats and people who fail to pay taxes or alternatively take benefits they are not entitled to are wrong

 

Of course they are - and, just as not all the rich fall into the category of tax dodgers, not all of the poor and unfortunate on benefits fall into the category of 'not entitled'.

Of course there is also the question of the rich on benefits...

 

Surely trickle down and trickle up are both worthy and desirable and one is not better than the other. So the man buying a very expensive item will cause a trickle down as described by Lenny and others - seems normal to me. Equally if the masses have more disposable income, they will spend more and that will trickle up. So it's really a measure of value over volume - but both are equally desirable if you want a strong economy.
What the real difference between the Right and Left is how you stimulate these. A Right thinking view would be to encourage the wealthy to spend their wealth in this country with a favourable tax regime and the masses to earn more through improving themselves, seeking opportunities etc. A Left thinking view would be to tax the wealthy more, but this has no trickle down into the economy, it just fills the coffers of the government to spend more. For the masses it would mean enforcing the living wage (although risking SME's cutting jobs) and provding more state funded benefits (perhaps from the additional tax receipts from the wealthy) - thus the state is stimulating the economy through other peoples efforts.
My personal view is that taxes should be appropriate and balanced and fair - no one should pay more than 50% of what they earn to encorage wealth creators .The role of the government is to stimulate the economy by upgrading the skills and knowledge of our workforce so that we have a workforce that can compete and earn at a much higher level - this increasing the trickle up. We have to get away from being a "dumbed down" economy - we have enough Costa's, we have enough Strawberry Pickers and Burger Flippers. We need more engineers and technicians, we need more Doctors and Nurses, we need more Musicians and Actors. We cannot compete with cheap manufacturing and cheap call-centres, but we can upscale our country and strengthen the economy through quality rather than quantity.

 

I do like to see examples of good solid business resulting in an improvement in services to all. When capital is in private hands it can be directed at the greatest needs without the interference and waste of government (apart from planning etc)... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-32709422

 

And my personal view is that no-one should be paying tax at anything like that rate, it's simply daylight robbery. Whilst I've no figures to back up my thoughts, there must surely be a far lower rate which, if applied to everyone without exception - in line with the Buffett Rule - more money would flow into government coffers, to the betterment of all. Couple that with a bit more prudent spending - such as scrapping Trident rather than slashing living standards for all bar a minority of the population for a start - must be a better way to go.

 

We were discussing over the w/e some economist.. i dont know who ...who proposed the same rate of tax and VAT for all.......I am not an economist so do not understadi if it would work...the problem we came up with is there will always be selfish bastards who will squirrel their hoard away....so not re circulate...

 

More problematical is the fact that the authorities recognise that, but appear to be unprepared to tackle the practice head-on. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I suspect that those selfish bastards make up part of the authorities.

 

I would add HS2 to the list, but to scrap Trident would be a mistake. Even with the collossal expense the project has already incurred it would be an error. Our armed forces are woefully undermanned, through the continued reduction of government spending in this area, and the only deterrant to certain nations is the knowledge that our first respone would be vast.

This nation faces three threats, one of which is the full-on military assault to which (unhappily) Trident would be our response. The other two are terrorist and cyber attacks, to which respectively Ukraine and the Baltic states have both suffered recently, the common element here is a nation who will respect a very big stick, even if they will push, prod and poke in a very minor fashion to illicit no response until the only way to annswer them is waving that big stick as we have nothing else.

 

There were growing calls for a flat rate for everyone before the crash in 2008. I remember some countries or states trying this, not sure what the outcome was. I cannot see why you should target savers, surely many of the financial problems we currently face, both at personal and government level, are caused by spending before having the cash.

 

I thought it was a clever way to get rid of the benefit system. It wasn't much I don't think, £6k? something like that. And every person in England was entitled to it. You were then encouraged to work to top that up, as it's not easy living on such a small amount. It's an idealistic view that as a species we currently have an obsession with filling up most of the best years of our life with work, my last job took up something like 90 hours of my week.

Just like the excuse every Royal-lover uses, it would only cost you a fraction of a penny per person who chose not to work, why not get annoyed with some other part of your taxes being wasted?

 

Not a good idea to promote the 'something for nothing' culture.

Apart from inherited wealth there is no alternative to working I'm afraid. The only thing is to work smarter or find a career that requires less hours to make your required amount. I'm sure most people are quite happy to work hard in their younger years so life can become easier later on using some the benefits of capitalism, i.e. paid off mortgage, downsizing, ISA's, shares, etc.

 

not targeting savers....... it is just there is a caveat with this approach that apparently explains that some people will not recirculate their cash and therefore not enough monies go back to govt.....

 

You do seem to have it in for Green's and making some emotive comments about them Leo.

If you believe that everyone is entitled to have support then this policy just puts in place a basic level of support for all...

It may or may not be workable.. I don't warm to it.... and I myself find a lot of the UK green financial proposals simply aspirational


I wonder if we started a discussion as to who has the best policy for the environment which way the discussion would go......

 

Why would anyone suggest a flat rate of tax for all? It flies in the face of all progressive fiscal policy. The more I earn the more I can afford to contribute to things a society would like to have - be it benefits for those on hard times, libraries, parks and so on. Most of us accept a graduated tax system and happily cough up -so long as we still feel it worthwhile to work hard and we do not see money being wasted on causes dear to only a few people's hearts. We do object when tax rates start to exceed 50% - you work and I will take more of it than you.

No Yorkie - I do not have it in for the Greens but I do have it in for their woeful economic section of their manifesto. They need to sort that out. I agree in principle with a lot of what the Greens stand for and when our economy is repaired would like to see more "green" awareness. I am fairly sure the Greens would be as incompetent as Labour on the economy. Shame really as I would have no trouble voting Labour if I thought they would not bankrupt us again.

I favour a tax/credit/benefit system that is unified and seamless - we can argue about what levels can be afforded - I would like to see us aim towards a threshold of £20k before anyone paid tax. I would like to see the minimum wage increased to a real working wage level but it has to be afforded by reasonable taxes on the rest of us - or more realism in what the state can spend its money on. I just do not believe the argument that it can all be paid for by soaking the rich, the fat cats, the bankers etc. I cannot however support a party that advocates giving other people's money to somebody who wants to be idle. Maybe there are not many people in that category - but if it is only one then it is too many and no party should encourage a person to refuse to work if they are able to. Whilst the Greens have that as their policy I will oppose them

I do not accept that Trident is necessary for our defence. Do Germany, Japan and Italy suffer from being non nuclear? I f you save on Trident you can (if you must) spend some of it on conventional defence; some of it on the war against cyber attacks and the like and invest so much more in high tech new industries - helping small businesses and start ups.

 

If it included the word realistic then it would exclude the Greens at the moment.

 

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The problem is not savers, squirreling away and living off interest is OK as long as the bankers recirculate the cash responsibly to obtain the capital growth to pay the interest. This is where the weak link is, it's the complete collapse of the banking system, it doesn't lend responsibly, it fixes borrowing rates fraudulently, it's a filthy dirty mess, the trouble is the sums involved are so vast that it encourages a certain "type" to get involved. My swiss banker family member stated "he would never come and live in the UK again and never pay any tax he could avoid" based on the knowledge as a private banker of the amounts, sources and scams that are perpetrated. A problem beyond fixing.

 

Well the banks have to be fixed as there currently is no alternative for businesses. They seem to have a better supply of long term funds in Germany so it can be achieved. I know Vince Cable was doing some work on this but maybe they can really produce the funding needed. It angers me looking back how I was lectured on occasions by bank managers regarding financial competence of my companies whilst their bosses were fiddling like hell. One prat of a bank manager once suggested 'I needed to revisit my skill set'!!!

At the time I couldn't punch him on the nose because we owed them money. Endless to say we moved banks soon after.

Maybe separating their normal banking sections from the investment parts is a good idea. They certainly need to be able to fail if they get things badly wrong again.

 

How much money is given to the Royals every year?

 

That subject could generate a thread all of its own