[Closed] Lib Dems tax and benefit comments analysed

What does it say ?

It says you get the government you deserve mate. 😆

They also say that while Labour haven't made the country more equal, they have slowed the rate at which it is becoming more unequal a lot more than previous governments

But it's ok anyway because Dave cares about poor people and he's going to make it all alright.

But it's ok anyway because Dave cares about poor people and he's going to make it all alright.

They also say that while Labour haven't made the country more equal, they have slowed the rate at which it is becoming more unequal a lot more than previous governments

Yes I thought that was interesting because it sort of contradicts the popular view that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

The point I thought was really interesting is the idea that the poorest fifth of homes in the UK are poor not because they are on low incomes in the sense of paid employment, but because they have no income via paid employment, but rather live on benefits.

The rich pay moree tax than those living on benefits shocker.

The IFS are a right wing think tank, with its roots in opossing capital gains tax. Just because they claim to be independant doesn't mean they are.

It's not really important if the policies of the fringe parties don't add up is it?

Plaid Cymru could offer us a lottery rollover win each and they still wouldn't get more seats than they have now.

[i]while Labour haven't made the country more equal, they have slowed the rate at which it is becoming more unequal a lot more than previous governments
[/i]

🙄 That one was settled some years ago...

"Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich, So long as the gap is smaller, they would rather have the poor poorer."

It's not really important if the policies of the fringe parties don't add up is it?

And you think it's important that the policies of the main parties add up ?

Exactly 31 years ago today, billboards throughout Britain had this poster plastered on them :

[img] [/img]

The Tories won the election on the back of that poster.

The Tories didn't cut unemployment, they only pushed it up.

In fact, they never even managed in the 18 years they were in power, to get it down to the 1.5 million it was when they won in May 1979.

That didn't stop people voting for them though.

You might find this interesting. I did:

[i][b]The claim[/b]
“I increased the gap between rich and poor,” next to a picture of Gordon Brown
Conservative party poster, 28 March 2010

[b]The analysis[/b]
Two parts to this claim – has the gap increased, and how much did Gordon Brown – chancellor for a decade, PM for nearly three years – have to do with it?

“It’s fair to say incomes have increased for most people, they’ve increased most at the top, and growth has been fairly meagre at the bottom,” is how Luke Sibieta, a senior research economist at respected independent number-crunchers Institute for Fiscal Studies, describes the equality picture under Labour. (A much more detailed IFS explanation is here )

This broadly backs up the Tories’ claim of a widening gap – caused largely by the very richest getting richer more quickly than everyone else.

So how much of that increase in inequality is down to Brown?

It’s worth noting that rising inequality is a problem that pre-dates Labour. The graph below shows the most commonly used measure of inequality, which takes into account incomes across the whole population.

[img] [/img]

Source: Institute for Fiscal Studies - The Gini coefficient, 1979 to 2007-08 (GB)

If you cropped the graph to start when Labour came to power, there would still be an overall rise (albeit with downs and ups along the way).

But this is looks like a pretty puny foothill next to the comparatively Himalayan increase which took place under Thatcher during the eighties.

One thing we do know is that Labour’s tax and benefit changes have been redistributive (think Robin Hood in action). Look at the graph on page 11 of this [url= http://www.ifs.org.uk/budgets/budget2010/browne.pdf ]pdf[/url] from The Institute for Fiscal Studies, which assesses the winners and losers from Labour’s reforms.

It’s a fairly steady slope with the poorest ending better off, and the rich ending up worse off, than they would have done if Labour had stuck with the status quo it inherited.

Whether they’ve done enough is a matter of debate.[/i]

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/2010/04/01/conservative-campaign-right-on-re-offenders-wealth-gap/

One quite interesting aspect of the current tax credits system is that if you are an employee in a company controlled by yourself it is quite easy to manipulate your pay/hours to maximise the tax/child credit take - and obviously reduce/stop tax and NI (both employee and employer).

I reckon with husband/wife employed through a LTD company you could have joint income/credits of cicra £70k without the cost of tax and NI - this is all NET!

Plus expenses. And of course have the business buy your bikes totally legally 😆

The IFS are a right wing think tank, with its roots in opossing capital gains tax.

That doesn't quite explain why they are saying Labour's policy of taxing everyone but then paying credits to people on low pay is better than the Lib Dem policy of taking low paid people out of tax in the first place.

It seems to me that this IFS report, accusing the Lib Dems of missing the point, actually misses the point itself; to follow the report's own logic, you'd have to argue that there should be no personal tax allowance at all (Paxo also made this error in his interview with Clegg last night). Also, paying tax to fund civil cervants to decide if you can have some of that tax back is obviously wasteful.

I'd be interested in a report about whether the Lib Dem idea produces lower marginal rates of taxation for people on below average wages than Labour's tax-and-give-back approach - my feeling is that it would.

You know what, the reason I dither on voting or not is because every time I read threads like this on various websites, the same forum ****s reel out the same old statistics to prove they are right.

Who gives a flying **** if your right or not, what the hell are the next government going to do to solve the mess we are currently in? That's all I care about, well that & pensions & a decent standard or living for all.

Also, paying tax to fund civil cervants to decide if you can have some of that tax back is obviously wasteful.

[u]But[/u] it allows you to employ legions of middle class swing voters in civil service posts in sensitive swing seats, who are subsequently afraid to vote Tory for fear of losing their jobs, and allows you to claim that you've created thousands of "new" jobs...

every time I read threads like this on various websites, the same forum **** reel out the same old statistics

So because of that, you are 'dithering' whether to vote or not ? 😕

💡 Why don't you just ignore statistics ....... if they upset you that much ?

Although of course you could stay home on May 6th and not bother voting..........that'll teach the statisticians to cause you so much distress.

well their manifesto is out now

and i like the last point a lot

Target zero waste to landfill

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/14/liberal-democrat-manifesto-at-a-glance

[i]Although of course you could stay home on May 6th and not bother voting..........that'll teach the statisticians to cause you so much distress.[/i]

No matter who he votes for, Peter Lilley will still be his mp at the end of the day.

They also say that while Labour haven't made the country more equal, they have [u]figured out how to change the way the data is compiled to make it look like they have[/u] slowed the rate at which it is becoming more unequal a lot more than previous governments

Fixed for you.

I don't know if its true, but that is what they have done with all other figures they could get their hands on.

i would like to propose a steering group that will lay down the policy for a working group which will analyse the claims of anotherdeadhero on a weekly/monthly basis and report those statistics against a set of standards which will be agreed in advance.

then we will know if adh's claims are becoming more accurate, and also how they compare with monsieur adh and senor adh.

of course the cost of this will be easily funded by efficiency savings and where necessary backroom cuts but not frontline services

Having a widening gap between the richest and poorest is not necessarily a bad thing. The poorest could be getting richer, and the richest *on average* getting richer still. Now that could just be because we've attracted foreign top businessmen, or that big businesses are doing very well here - which means much greater tax revenue and economic boost.

The tax regime in the 70s was an attempt at closing the gap, and it had dire implications I believe.

Though research suggests that the bigger the difference the more unhappy the society is irrespective of the absolute wealth.
I've no idea about the providence of the research funding though. Might all come from the socialist workers alliance for all I know.

I would think a graph of earnings distribution would tell us a lot more than some derived 'index' of inequality.