The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[juanpabloangel18]

18 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

its simply unaffordable UNLESS you increase taxes across the board

Why don't we start with the 49 UK billionaires and work down from there.

[KentVillan]

19 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Cheers, I’ll have a proper read of that later.

I’d previously been trying to find a current manifesto.

No party (afaik) releases a manifesto at this point in the election cycle. It's usually around a month before the election, after the date has been confirmed (for obvious reasons, if you think about it... unexpected events can tear up your plans overnight).

[Wainy316]

Surely due to inflation tax revenues are massively up.  VAT takings on practically everything bought but food will be up 10% and more.

 

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Surely due to inflation tax revenues are massively up.  VAT takings on practically everything bought but food will be up 10% and more.

 

The govt won't tell you and me that though, because they'll be using the extra income to govt coffers for one or both of these reasons

a) Reduce the National Debt by buying back bonds / Gilts etc to boast about the National Debt reduction come election time 

b) Build up a warchest for tax cuts in the build up to the next election

It's all about getting re-elected and not about what is best for the country

[KentVillan]

47 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Surely due to inflation tax revenues are massively up.  VAT takings on practically everything bought but food will be up 10% and more.

 

The govt is affected by inflation too, though, when it buys things.

In the short term, Sunak and Hunt are trying to exploit inflation by keeping various tax thresholds locked in, and refusing to bend to public sector wage demands. So there is a bit of a windfall there for them to play with, but that isn't sustainable long term.

I agree with @bicksterthat the plan could be to steady things for a year, and then use the extra cash cynically ahead of the election to try and make people feel like things are picking up with tax cuts, public sector wage increases, etc.

It's an old trick, and it worked for Thatcher in 1983 and 1987, and Cameron/Osborne in 2015.

This time around I feel like it'd probably be too little, too late? More like the 1997 election.

[Wainy316]

6 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The govt is affected by inflation too, though, when it buys things.

In the short term, Sunak and Hunt are trying to exploit inflation by keeping various tax thresholds locked in, and refusing to bend to public sector wage demands. So there is a bit of a windfall there for them to play with, but that isn't sustainable long term.

I agree with @bicksterthat the plan could be to steady things for a year, and then use the extra cash cynically ahead of the election to try and make people feel like things are picking up with tax cuts, public sector wage increases, etc.

It's an old trick, and it worked for Thatcher in 1983 and 1987, and Cameron/Osborne in 2015.

This time around I feel like it'd probably be too little, too late? More like the 1997 election.

Well yeah, it's cancelled out in terms of buying things and striking contracts with private entities but then it's saving when it's not increasing funding to certain areas in line with inflation and pretends it would need tax rises to do so, despite their tax take being up.

And yeah, a further windfall is keeping the Income Tax personal allowance at the same rate despite large scale public sector pay increases.

[KentVillan]

3 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Well yeah, it's cancelled out in terms of buying things and striking contracts with private entities but then it's saving when it's not increasing funding to certain areas in line with inflation and pretends it would need tax rises to do so, despite their tax take being up.

And yeah, a further windfall is keeping the Income Tax personal allowance at the same rate despite large scale public sector pay increases.

Yeah my point is it's more of an accounting trick for increasing tax %s, compared with the genuine uplift in taxation and govt spending power you get from economic growth.

[Demitri_C]

6 hours ago, juanpabloangel18 said:

Why don't we start with the 49 UK billionaires and work down from there.

Kool. Massive unemployment awaits  

[ROTTERDAM1982]

6 hours ago, juanpabloangel18 said:

Why don't we start with the 49 UK billionaires and work down from there

 

Becase they would just leave, and then we will get nothing.

Taxation and its collection needs a complete overhaul. £14 billion in tax uncollected from last year

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

Becase they would just leave, and then we will get nothing.

Just like Roger Daltry, Rod Stewart and all the other Tory twunts that come out with this nonsense every time Labour look like winning an election

Absolutely nailed on that they are currently tax exiled Non-Doms right now. The point is to stop that

[ROTTERDAM1982]

Unlike Labour supporters like Paul McCartney, Linekar etc........wakey , wakey

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

Unlike Labour supporters like Paul McCartney, Linekar etc........wakey , wakey

So to be clear. Your argument is thus:

Make people with lots of money pay tax. No they might leave and not pay tax still 

and to follow that up with

yeah but Labour wake up is... an argument of junior school playground level

[ROTTERDAM1982]

Ill spell it out.

If you make tax too punitive, then it has a negative impact on revenue, The world is a smaller place, you can work from anywhere in the world. The UK has numerous attractions for the rich, tax them by all means but get the balance right.

Your prejudices suggested that only Tory voters use tax avoidance schemes, and i'm the one who is in the playground?

[blandy]

14 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

Unlike Labour supporters like Paul McCartney, Linekar etc........wakey , wakey

I dunno who they vote for, but I guess the point is that they would say they would be happy to pay more tax, or at least accepting of doing so, whereas the ones Bucks mentioned (or others in the past) have said "sod that, if they raise taxes on me, I'm off". So it's not whether they vote for this party, that one or none, it's more about (some) rich folk saying they'd leave and take their money with them. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't actually go through with it. 

[ROTTERDAM1982]

They both use tax avoidance schemes, they all do. Say one thing do another. Ferguson is another great example.

[Davkaus]

While I'm not against taxing wealthy individuals more, I think it's probably more effective and a higher priority to get the massive companies paying their fair share.

Starbucks ain't closing down every branch if we bump their tax up, and if they do, so what, the customer demand isn't going anywhere and new businesses will pop up. The difficulty is figuring out how to stop them offshoring their profits to their subsidiaries. 

[ml1dch]

14 minutes ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

They both use tax avoidance schemes, they all do. 

Pretty much everyone uses tax avoidance schemes. An ISA is a tax avoidance scheme. A pension is a tax avoidance scheme.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, ml1dch said:

Pretty much everyone uses tax avoidance schemes. An ISA is a tax avoidance scheme. A pension is a tax avoidance scheme.

Well, sort of - except these things you mention are actually Government introduced schemes, in that the Government encourages people to use them, and indeed set up ISAs in a budget for that purpose (to replace TESSAs), whereas other schemes to "avoid" tax might not be outlawed/illegal, but they weren't necessarily set up by parliament with the aim of allowing people to have an income in their retirement. Both are also limited in the amount that can go into them - is it 20 Grand a year for ISAs and something like a lifetime limit of £1 million for pension fund value? (anything over that gets taxed, I think, might be a bit wrong on the details).

I think my point is using a scheme that the government actually encourages "the little people" to use isn't (to me) the same as rich folk off-shoring their money to the Cayman islands to avoid paying tax.

[KentVillan]

2 hours ago, ROTTERDAM1982 said:

Ill spell it out.

If you make tax too punitive, then it has a negative impact on revenue, The world is a smaller place, you can work from anywhere in the world. The UK has numerous attractions for the rich, tax them by all means but get the balance right.

Your prejudices suggested that only Tory voters use tax avoidance schemes, and i'm the one who is in the playground?

If you make tax too punitive, yes. We're nowhere near that level.

Corporation Tax under Thatcher was 35%, it's currently 19% increasing to 25% next year.

Taxation on unproductive wealth (property, cash, etc) has no negative impact on economic productivity anyway, as by definition that wealth isn't being used for anything productive.

It's always more complicated than the Myleene Klass take would suggest.

[KentVillan]

53 minutes ago, blandy said:

Well, sort of - except these things you mention are actually Government introduced schemes, in that the Government encourages people to use them, and indeed set up ISAs in a budget for that purpose (to replace TESSAs), whereas other schemes to "avoid" tax might not be outlawed/illegal, but they weren't necessarily set up by parliament with the aim of allowing people to have an income in their retirement. Both are also limited in the amount that can go into them - is it 20 Grand a year for ISAs and something like a lifetime limit of £1 million for pension fund value? (anything over that gets taxed, I think, might be a bit wrong on the details).

I think my point is using a scheme that the government actually encourages "the little people" to use isn't (to me) the same as rich folk off-shoring their money to the Cayman islands to avoid paying tax.

And of course, money in an ISA is paid in post-income tax, so it's just an incentive vehicle for encouraging savings.

Likewise a pension might be tax-free on the way in, but you pay income tax on the money you take out in retirement.

It's nothing like the complex accounting schemes and Dublin / Cayman Islands / etc entities used by multinationals to avoid tax.