MakemineVanilla Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 Targeting the self-employed with an NI increase is another massive betrayal of the self-employed small business owner but it is not untypical of the Tories. One of the biggest myths in politics is that the Tories are the party for small businesses - they might have encouraged entrepreneurship to begin with, to reduce the unemployment they themselves created but but beyond that they have never followed through to give them any real support. On every High Street you can see that business rates are much too high, which results in empty units and multiplying charity shops - employment and business opportunities are being stifled. The trouble with small businesses is that they serve no political use for any party - they are not rich enough to bribe a party and they don't belong to Labour's client state of voters who can be bribed with the small inducements within their gift. If social care needed £2bn then everyone should pay for it because everyone will use it eventually. The Government should have had the courage to end the pensioners' exemption to NI, to pay for it, not pick on a small group with no political muscle. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 (edited) 14 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: Targeting the self-employed with an NI increase is another massive betrayal of the self-employed small business owner but it is not untypical of the Tories. One of the biggest myths in politics is that the Tories are the party for small businesses - they might have encouraged entrepreneurship to begin with, to reduce the unemployment they themselves created but but beyond that they have never followed through to give them any real support. On every High Street you can see that business rates are much too high, which results in empty units and multiplying charity shops - employment and business opportunities are being stifled. The trouble with small businesses is that they serve no political use for any party - they are not rich enough to bribe a party and they don't belong to Labour's client state of voters who can be bribed with the small inducements within their gift. If social care needed £2bn then everyone should pay for it because everyone will use it eventually. The Government should have had the courage to end the pensioners' exemption to NI, to pay for it, not pick on a small group with no political muscle. This is very true, they are thoroughly a party of big business. They do love an entrepreneur, but only if they are worth, at a minimum, in the hundreds of millions, then they will allow their companies to pay **** all in tax. Edited March 9, 2017 by Dr_Pangloss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itdoesntmatterwhatthissay Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 (edited) 35 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: Targeting the self-employed with an NI increase is another massive betrayal of the self-employed small business owner but it is not untypical of the Tories. One of the biggest myths in politics is that the Tories are the party for small businesses - they might have encouraged entrepreneurship to begin with, to reduce the unemployment they themselves created but but beyond that they have never followed through to give them any real support. On every High Street you can see that business rates are much too high, which results in empty units and multiplying charity shops - employment and business opportunities are being stifled. The trouble with small businesses is that they serve no political use for any party - they are not rich enough to bribe a party and they don't belong to Labour's client state of voters who can be bribed with the small inducements within their gift. If social care needed £2bn then everyone should pay for it because everyone will use it eventually. The Government should have had the courage to end the pensioners' exemption to NI, to pay for it, not pick on a small group with no political muscle. I lobby for SME housebuilders and I have to say 2010-2016 were very lean years for us. We got one huge measure through, affordable housing exemptions on small sites, but various local authorities challenged the policy which was directly aimed at increasing the capacity of the local supply chain and bringing homes forward more quickly. The biggest dismantling of this policy was via Labour local authorities who are having trouble understanding what the policy means in practice. But why do they do it? Ignorance? Cashcow before community? Or votes? I attended some of the recent Housing White Paper meetings, in Brum, South East and South West. I spoke to many local authority cllr's/planners/policy makers and it's not just government that fails to understand the value of SMEs. (In construction, local government is the real enabler) I'm not going to criticise May just yet because the housing industry has asked for change and on many topics the Housing White Paper has delivered for SMEs. Whether that translates to actual policy we shall soon see but while I would definitely agree that SMEs have typically not been part of any obvious strategy and too often the really hard choices are not made, for example you cited pensioners NI, my experience in the last 8 months has been very positive. That's not a bad angle either; solve the housing crisis and something like NIC changes become low priority. Edited March 9, 2017 by itdoesntmatterwhatthissay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted March 9, 2017 Author Moderator Share Posted March 9, 2017 30 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: The Government should have had the courage to end the pensioners' exemption to NI What's the point of "giving" people a pension, then taking back NI from it? just added beaurocracy, surely. Better just not give/pay less to start with, if you're going to target them for raising the money, surely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2017 The idea that small businesses and entrepreneurship and the rise of the privateer was anything other than for the good of bigger business is laughable. All those little people with their collective bargaining and standardised rates of pay. What an absolute brake on big business. Let’s convince them that rather than being a plasterer or a roofer that works for ‘Big Houses plc’ they actually need to buy their own van, do their own tax returns and still work for ‘Big Houses plc’, but now without sick pay, or annual leave, or a union, or an idea on whether they have any work on Monday. Self employed drones working for Uber are not small business start ups. They are people with minimal contract, to whom Uber owe the absolute minimum. In fact it’s switched the other way, they now owe a duty to the big company to get the work done or pay a fine. Only last weekend it transpired that ‘self employed’ delivery drivers for the likes of Waitrose face fines for phoning in sick. Welcome to entrepreneur’s Britain, putting the great back in rock n roll swindle. My main disappointment with the whole thing, is the ease with which such perennial self preserving selfish people can trick such a large portion of the population. Even down to things like persuading people they don’t need the nuisance of all this silly European rubbish about human rights or health and safety. Sign all that away and we’ll all be rich and happy and lightly sun tanned. Sure enough, 52% will sign up for that. We deserve whatever we get. We’ve voted for people with money and a sense of superiority and a lack of empathy to govern us. So that’s what we are getting. As long as only minorities are picked on at any one time, as long as 50.1% of voters can sense they might personally gain at the cost of others, then the tories can continue to pull off their perpetual con trick. If the **** N.I.C. is ‘unfair’ why not start clawing back some of the benefits the likes of Uber get, by not paying out what they’d have to if they actually employed people with an actual contract? No, they can maximise their profit, the lone driver can pick up the tax slack. It’s a brilliant deception in all fairness. Brilliant to say you’re doing it to be ‘fairer’. You’ve instantly won over all the selfish bastards who think they are suffering because Ahmed down the road pays 3% less national insurance. Suck it up tory voters, there’s more to come. One small group at a time. Just keep voting for them as long as others lose more than you do. The last effective group still standing that act with some sort of group think collective bargaining? Pensioners. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 Which tosspot decided to actually start calling NICs 'nicks'? Whoever it is. they ought to be strung up. That twerp Gauke was on newsnight last night and used it about 10 times in the first two minutes of his non-answer. I had to turn it off as I was about to put my foot through the tv screen. 19 minutes ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said: solve the housing crisis Why does this even get put forward as a possibility? No one in any position of power has any serious intent or desire to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 25 minutes ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said: I lobby for SME housebuilders and I have to say 2010-2016 were very lean years for us. We got one huge measure through, affordable housing exemptions on small sites, but various local authorities challenged the policy which was directly aimed at maximising profit maximising prices and locking out undesirable types with low value jobs and bringing closed community homes forward more quickly. just tweeked that for you I also have experience of SME house builders. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hycus-flange Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 16 hours ago, Jimzk5 said: As a self employed person this is a joke, no holiday pay, no sick pay and now more deductions from my pay. Then go Ltd, pay yourself £7k pa + dividends and a nice end of year tax free bonus, pay no personal tax, no NI and just stump up the tax on the profit of your company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 28 minutes ago, blandy said: What's the point of "giving" people a pension, then taking back NI from it? just added beaurocracy, surely. Better just not give/pay less to start with, if you're going to target them for raising the money, surely? The state pension is £119 per week and the NI threshold is £155 per week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted March 9, 2017 Author Moderator Share Posted March 9, 2017 6 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: The state pension is £119 per week and the NI threshold is £155 per week. The NI threshold is much lower than the income tax threshold. Why take NI off people and "give" them 119 per week? A pensioner with some interest of savings of 50 or 60 quid a week, plus their pension - why charge them 6% or 12% of their small amount of eligible income? it's just inefficient, isn't it? And if they have a larger income, they'll be paying tax etc. anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted March 9, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9, 2017 Anyone else smirk when Hammond blamed Brexit? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itdoesntmatterwhatthissay Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 (edited) 55 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: just tweeked that for you I also have experience of SME house builders. Tweaked? Surely you mean 'sent it to the Guardian for ignorance editing'. If you have experience you'll know SMEs typically build on these small sites and in many cases pay a disproportionate amount more in planning and build costs than the volume housebuilder. You'll also know that consequence policy (when a LA fails to deliver supply) favours the biggest companies. I won't go into the planning costs of SMEs as I'm sure you know them inside out and it would bore everyone else....even more than I'm doing now! Firstly, yes it is about maximising profits because the industry has lost two thirds of its SME housebuilders in the last two decades and the rest are still struggling. Very few SMEs can afford to plan a job in front; this means they can't guarantee their own work force, local supply chain spend or negotiate lower material costs. But when you say maximise profits do you mean 20%-40% as the volume housebuilders/Housing Associations are making, or 5-15% as many SMEs do make? Or is that not important? Is all profit bad to you in the context of housing? What about the pay of top executives? Does it matter they are on £200k-millions more than their equivalent SME guys? To your second 'edit'; when Britain built 250,000+ homes it was the SMEs which delivered supply. As the preferred partners for Councils, Housing Associations, self/custom build, co-op and latterly CLT's, SME capacity is vital. Also remember, the barriers SMEs experience are also faced by Councils, HA's, CLT etc. If planning (not contributions) for 8 houses can cost SMEs £60k+, it's costing them that amount too, as well as 18+ months for planning. When I look across our membership your second statement makes even less sense. Some of our guys only do retirement or key worker housing (inner city locations too), others do Passivhaus, many work in the poorest areas which mean only low income homes (otherwise they won't sell), a couple literally built their small town community and others only work for Registered Providers. So do you want to support the sector which delivers variety? Or the sector which for the last 20 years has been volume based on large sites with small flats escalating the price of the rest of the market? Are you against a competitive housing market? As I say to every local authority I meet. What homes do you want or need? And where/why? Not many have the answer. In many cases the enablers simply haven't enabled and that's impacted employment, prosperity, investment and the cost/supply of housing. Edited March 9, 2017 by itdoesntmatterwhatthissay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 2 hours ago, Davkaus said: Very good sir. I feel like not enough of a big deal is made of the tories clearly being fairly bad replicants. I've only just realised this gif is reversed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 (edited) 36 minutes ago, itdoesntmatterwhatthissay said: Tweaked? Surely you mean 'sent it to the Guardian for ignorance editing'. If you have experience you'll know SMEs typically build on these small sites and in many cases pay a disproportionate amount more in planning and build costs than the volume housebuilder. I can’t give a full answer to this right now. Might come back this evening. --yeah actually I'm going to be a little more discreet than type all that-- Anyway, laters... Edited March 9, 2017 by chrisp65 mustn't poop on own doorstep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 47 minutes ago, Chindie said: Anyone else smirk when Hammond blamed Brexit? No I wanted to curb stomp him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 56 minutes ago, blandy said: The NI threshold is much lower than the income tax threshold. Why take NI off people and "give" them 119 per week? A pensioner with some interest of savings of 50 or 60 quid a week, plus their pension - why charge them 6% or 12% of their small amount of eligible income? it's just inefficient, isn't it? And if they have a larger income, they'll be paying tax etc. anyway. It wouldn't be inefficient when the NI and Income tax thresholds are aligned which is supposed to be the direction of travel. I'm not arguing for or against any proposal about pensioners and NI, btw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted March 9, 2017 Author Moderator Share Posted March 9, 2017 13 minutes ago, snowychap said: It wouldn't be inefficient when the NI and Income tax thresholds are aligned I agree. I almost wrote the same, then deleted it as tangential. There's no logical reason not to just combine it all into one at that point, to further improve efficiency Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 6 minutes ago, blandy said: I agree. I almost wrote the same, then deleted it as tangential. There's no logical reason not to just combine it all into one at that point, to further improve efficiency They may have people questioning why there's only a 10% difference in rates between basic and higher if they were to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 1 hour ago, Chindie said: Anyone else smirk when Hammond blamed Brexit? Dave and Gid? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 And the turkeys will go on voting for Christmas. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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