Some essentials are already zero-rated or reduced-rate VAT (fuel, food, kids clothes). You could expand that to other essentials while increasing VAT on non-essential luxury items.

Not unless we leave the European Union we couldn’t…

personal travel certainly come under essential.

what if the person chooses to go by car over public transport or cycling?

what if the person chooses to go by car over public transport or cycling?

Still a basic “quality of life” essential I’d say, given the car-centric nature of our society.
Obviously such decisions would need to reflect a general consensus, not individual circumstance.

Public transport and cycling are lovely – but not that great for a visit to IKEA.

I think basic food and personal travel certainly come under essential

Not sure about the travel, I’d go for food and shelter. Food is already pretty cheap – obesity is more of a problem. So we just need housing costs to drop to about half to a third of what they are now. Now if Clegg would say that I’d admit he’s got some balls.

This statement is purely Clegg trying to get some attention after putting tuition fees up to £9k and slashing the budgets of the NHS and the police.

This is a simple statement of “tax somebody else not me I pay enough already”

It’s a terrible idea, massively counter productive.

It is a tax on living in the South where the vast majority of higher value homes are located.

The “rich” are already paying substantially more tax than they were 5 years ago, the top 1% pay 25% of the income tax and the top 10% pay over 50%. The “rich” have bought their £2m home paid out of after tax income.

VAT increase on non-essentials .. we used to have two rates of VAT 15 and 25 I recall, when introduced the higher rate destroyed a number of UK industries like yacht building, now we buy boats from France, Scandinavia and Italy for example. We used to have a 10% car tax (plus the VAT) that was removed as it was seen to be counterproductive.

Junkyard – Member
Its is more a case of where /how you view it but economists [a right wing bunch presents their opinions as science] term it a progressive system though i personally think that is stretching the point a bit

JY, reading that made me smile. I admire your restraint in writing it and hope that the lip wan’t bitten too hard!! 😉

Public transport and cycling are lovely – but not that great for a visit to IKEA.

ikea offer free delivery if you produce valid bus/tube ticket 🙂

Given the debate above, hasn’t Clegg achieved what he wanted, recognition having basically disappeared after the great student fees rip-of, and the PR referendum?

Its a ploy to buy a point or two in the opinion polls, and as the Lib Dems will never get elected again, he can say what he likes.

The extent to which these ideas represent joined-up Lib Dem policies is probably summed up by:

Baroness Susan Kramer, Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson in the Lords, said she had first heard of Mr Clegg’s desire for the tax from the interview in the Guardian and looked forward to hearing the details.

The FT did not include a smiley at the end of this quote. You have to wonder what kind of people are in government these days!

@Gweilo – bingo !

Its a ploy to buy a point or two in the opinion polls, and as the Lib Dems will never get elected again, he can say what he likes.

Isn’t that the type of thinking that got him in all this trouble in the first place 😀

Clegg is a two faced, hypocritical tosser. My contempt for him knows no bounds and I voted for Lib Dem. A mistake I won’t make again as long as Clegg and that weasely little **** Danny Alexander draw breath.

As regarding the tax issue, taxing wealth is taxing what has already been taxed and also potentially taxing those who have worked hard, put some aside and generally planned their financial well-being. The current tax system is so heavily flawed and out of date that it is no longer fit for purpose. The whole lot needs scrapping and redesigning afresh with far fewer “options” on what to pay (or not). Abolish ALL loop holes. Everyone pays the same flat rate, say 30% of income. It’s not perfect but it’s a start and it’s a damn site fairer.

Everyone pays the same flat rate, say 30% of income.

How is that fairer? Or should it be who is it fairer for?

The wealthy may pay a large amount of tax when they are not hiding it under the bed 😉 but money brings political influence which has distorted Government policy in their favour. This needs to be greatly diminished.

Still find it bizarre that people here who are clearly not wealthy, blindly support those who are.

How is that fairer?

Everyone pays the same percentage. Do you really think that the top tax payers are paying anything like 30%? No, too many loopholes.

I’m not financially wealthy by any stretch but neither am I on the breadline. I would class myself as probably centre-left however I hate the “politics of envy” where people who do well are penalised for no other reason than that.

however I hate the “politics of envy” where people who do well

Where does this notion of “envy” come from? I’m not envious of the mega-rich, many of whom are amoral egotists. It remains the case that the uber-wealthy (and I don’t mean GPs earning £100K) become wealthier while the poor become poorer, and societies break down because of that. The only people insulated from that meltdown are the ones at the top of the tree, while the poor in this world pay for everything, whether Mexican peasants, African miners or minimum wage earners on English sink estates. It suits the mega-wealthy for the poor to be defenceless and in fear of poverty.
I’m not financially wealthy or on the breadline either, but I’d happily pay more tax if it evened out the pile.

This ain’t envy, this is disgust.

Does anybody really believe we are a poor country that can’t afford a welfare state?

“The annual Sunday Times Rich List yields four very important conclusions for the governance of Britain (Report, Weekend, 28 April). It shows that the richest 1,000 persons, just 0.003% of the adult population, increased their wealth over the last three years by £155bn. That is enough for themselves alone to pay off the entire current UK budget deficit and still leave them with £30bn to spare.

Second, this mega-rich elite, containing many of the bankers and hedge fund and private equity operators who caused the financial crash in the first place, have not been made subject to any tax payback whatever commensurate to their gains. Some 77% of the budget deficit is being recouped by public expenditure cuts and benefit cuts, and only 23% is being repaid by tax increases. More than half of the tax increases is accounted for by the VAT rise which hits the poorest hardest. None of the tax increases is specifically aimed at the super-rich.

Third, despite the biggest slump for nearly a century, these 1,000 richest are now sitting on wealth greater even than at the height of the boom just before the crash. Their wealth now amounts to £414bn. They include 77 billionaires and 23 others, each possessing more than £750m.

The increase in wealth of this richest 1,000 has been £315bn over the last 15 years. If they were charged capital gains tax on this at the current 28% rate, it would yield £88bn, enough to pay off 70% of the entire deficit.”

Michael Meacher MP, letter to the Guardian, 2 May 2012

– Really? The problem isn’t we are poor. The problem is we are grotesquely unequal.

Still find it bizarre that people here who are clearly not wealthy, blindly support those who are.

There’s nothing new in that – it’s always been the case.

In ‘The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists’ written by Robert Tressell over a 100 years ago, the “philanthropists” are the workers who selflessly and generously allow themselves to be exploited thereby guaranteeing that their bosses will be richly rewarded.

Throughout history those lower down the social scale have willingly accepted that they were worthless, whilst those at the very top were worthy of, and had a right to expect, so much more – worthless peasants and worthy lords.

Today Tories shamelessly claim that the super rich require ever increasing amounts of money to motivate them, as self interest is all that concerns them, whilst on the other hand ordinary people must have their wages kept low as only this will motivate them to do their patriotic duty and work harder. That argument enjoys widespread support and it is made without it ever being called into question.

The problem isn’t we are poor. The problem is we are grotesquely unequal.

^this

If anyone is able to get ransos’ Adam Smith quote printed on to a T shirt, can they consider a version 2 which has Adam Smith on the front (as an Economist) and Dennis Healey on the back (as a politician) saying

“In five years I found it impossible to draft a wealth tax which would yield enough revenue to be worth the administrative cost and the political hassle.”

It shows that the richest 1,000 persons, just 0.003% of the adult population, increased their wealth over the last three years by £155bn. That is enough for themselves alone to pay off the entire current UK budget deficit and still leave them with £30bn to spare.

I though the current deficit now stands at over a Trillion pounds and is still growing?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/24/britain-national-debt-tops-one-trillion

Don’t go confusing a debt with a deficit. Different things. You can’t really pay off a deficit, just reduce it or move into surplus but you are still borrowing like it or not.

So if we taxed the supa rich we would still have a deficit and a scandalously massive national debt. Now we can blaim bankers, the supa (yes cj) rich, the poor, the middle classes, the work shy and the little boy that lives down the lane but we cannot get away from the fact the we (the country) have been spending to much for some time. Whatever happens it will need to be paid. A rise in tax, cutting spending on everything including the sacred cows of the Royal Family, NHS, Armed Forces, Civil service (local and National), European Union costs, sport, everything you can think of has to be cut. BY how much we can argue all day but it needs to be substancial. We to have a national debt we can afford with a very low deficit (if at all), just like your mortgage. Anything else, given the way things moveing away from the west as a centre of wealth creation and we will be f..ked. Greece and Ireland are fine examples to look at but Iceland and Canada are much better. Both the latter countries got themselves out of very difficult situations by doing the things that needed to be done. Cut everything that cannot be affored and short term wealth taxes were just some of them.
We are in a situation that has no none painful way out, someone will have to pay and it should be us, not your Grandchildren (I have no kids so have no reason to care) but some of you should.

As you can see I have no strong feelings on this at all except to say that anyone who thinks the answer is to borrow more is miss guided in the extreeme and probably has a massive credit card debt they are ignoring.

increased their wealth

Its a pointless statement

if I bought a house for a million pounds in 2005, then watched its ‘value’ climb to 1.5 million in 2007, then drop to 750k at the bottom of the market in 2009, then it slowly climbed back to 1 million again by 2012,

by that measure I may be 250k more ‘wealthy’ than I was three years ago, but ‘worth’ half a million less than I was in 2007 – however none of this reflects my cashflow or liquidity in any way – it creates a nonsense theoretical value that could rocket or crash overnight – just like if my ‘wealth’ was tied up in shares in Apple or RBS.

I would class myself as probably centre-left however I hate the “politics of envy” where people who do well are penalised for no other reason than that.

I don’t really think anyone on the left would use the phrase politics of envy tbh.
It is not about envy it is about fairness. Very few of the wealthy have done much more than inherit it tbh. Odd exceptions to keep the dream alive we can all do it if we worked hard enough but it is largely not done by hard work

I am not envious as I do not want their wealth I am however very uncomfortable with the notion of billionaires whilst we have starvation in the world. I am even more uncomfortable with the idea I may pay more [%] tax than said billionaire.
To call it envy it to just do a lazy slur when tbh the real deadly sin here is Greed rather than envy
Very lame attack that just shows how right wing you are IMHO – i.e. you think we are all as motivated and desiring of money as you are. Anyone who uses the term admires those with wealth and they are the ones who wish they were as wealthy

The problem isn’t we are poor. The problem is we are grotesquely unequal.

TRUE

In five years I found it impossible to draft a wealth tax which would yield enough revenue to be worth the administrative cost and the political hassle

He lacked imagination if you give me enough power dont you worry I will get the bastards 8)

I’m sure you would JY !! 😉 But in all seriousness, it will be interesting to watch what happens. With the recent trend in Europe to be moving away from wealth taxes (including, the much admired on STW, Sweden) on the grounds of complexity and low yield, we now have M Hollande firmly committed to bucking the trend.

My prediction FWIW, introduction of mansion tax (40-50% chance at best, more likely to continue to fiddle around with stamp duty), likely disappointment with result (80-90%). What was the quote, :”if we ignore history, we are doomed to repeat are mistakes” or something like that?

But still think that this 90% pre-conference bluster and little more.

70% tax worked well back in the 70’s. If only there was a way to look back to see how successful that was????

You need to define the word ‘fair’ in this instance as the dictionary definition doesn’t match with how it’s used regarding tax.

http://www.cityam.com/forum/clegg-s-confused-narrative-offers-no-remedy-britain-s-problems

the real deadly sin here is Greed

I think this is the real root of the problem. People simply aren’t content with ‘enough’, they constantly desire ‘more’. And in such a socially disparate society, people need to address their insecurity by establishing themselves in an economic bracket they feel they belong in. Hence the very rich ‘needing’ unnecessarily large homes, very expensive clothes and cars, being able to dine in the most expensive restaurants etc. And the rest of us fighting for the scraps, the share you get being dependent on where you fit into the hierarchy.

The UK is a particularly ‘unequal’ society in comparison to some other countires. You will not see quite the disparity of wealth in Scandinavia, for example, and people there do seem more content. There doesn’t seem to be the ostentatiousness we see here in the UK. People are happy with more modest homes and posessions. The gap between rich and poor seems significantly smaller than here. Interestingly, things like crime and poverty are significantly lower, and people are on average measurably healthier. Yet Norway in particular is a nation with very high taxes. This does not seem to put off investors, contrary to the claims of some economists.

Ultimately, there is vast wealth in the UK, grossly disproportionately distributed. The pragmatic solution would be to take some of it from the top, to raise the levels at the biottom. This would lead to a lowering of ‘wealth’ at the top, but would the super rich really ‘suffer’ in any way? They’d still be very comfortable. I am curious as to why some believe they are ‘entitled’ to such vast wealth, in a world where others around them have so little. Why does a banker think they are more entitled to wealth than a nurse or fireman? Who is more ‘valuable’ to society?

It amazes me how many people seem entirely comfortable with the idea that rich people will just evade paying taxes, so why even bother trying.

Good idea that – make a lot of noise about a “good” idea because you know damn well that you won’t be asked to put into practice.

Re making the dole queue masses work for it. Great idea. And run it with unemployed middle management etc. After all it isn’t just the uneducated blue collar worker who is unemployed. To be honest the same should apply for criminals. those who just get pissy little fine’s. Their work would be according to their skills.
Finally I can’t possibly have any faith in any twerp who doesn’t know what fair means. Puicture the scene. Usain Bolt and me with my screwed knees that can’t run upstairs. Do we start together and him finish before I have run a few yards or let me start 10 metres from the line and both go on the gun so we finish together. For some reason some people seem to think that the latter is fair. Fair means you treat everyone the same. Same tax rate etc. if we stopped wasteing so much money we would be straight a lot sooner.

Are they the same people who dont think we should not do anything with benefits as people will always fiddle them?

Thought not.

But still think that this 90% pre-conference bluster and little more

I agree but I think he has much more of a commitment and a genuine one to fiarness and redistributive taxes. he is quite left wing social justic eon this issue…unfortunately we all know how much he sticks to his prionciples Raido 4 said that CMD vetoed a mansion /wealth tax[last budget] and that even GO was on side with it

Fair means you treat everyone the same.

that right we would let you both win with the same time – imagine it like us all having the same amount of money – you know like you want us all to pay the same tax rate as that is fair yet oddly us all having a different % of the money is also fair. WHY? If we can have different amounts of the wealth./income and it be fair then it can also be fair to have different tax rates

Almost no one argues for flat rate taxes not even in America

As for doleys working 2 problems

1. It is expensive as you need to pay someoen to do it – have you seen how wel A4E have done on this and how keen comapnies were to be seen as using “unpaid/slave” labour
2. It would end up dopin gthe work of people paid to – council for examples woul use them to mow lawns and do gardening aso it would oddly increase unemployemnt

Apart from costing more and increasing unemployment its a great idea

Can we not just print some more money?

Junkyard – Member
I agree but I think he has much more of a commitment and a genuine one to fiarness and redistributive taxes. he is quite left wing social justic eon this issue…unfortunately we all know how much he sticks to his prionciples

Isn’t this the interesting or annoying thing, whichever way you look at it? So the LDs make sensible suggestions to help the less-well off (taking more people out of tax at the lower end), no noise on obvious areas of negative taxation that hit the less well off more, support income tax cuts for the well-off (albeit they could argue that this was pragmatic rather than idelogical, time will tell!), make noise about wealth taxes (ideological rather than pragmatic in this case if history is a guide.)

So there stance on taxation and distribution is…..?

(of course, none of this is unique to Lib Dems)

Almost no one argues for flat rate taxes not even in America

But everyone screams for a more transparent and easy to manage tax system!

1. It is expensive as you need to pay someoen to do it – have you seen how wel A4E have done on this and how keen comapnies were to be seen as using “unpaid/slave” labour

2. It would end up doing the work of people paid to – council for examples woul use them to mow lawns and do gardening aso it would oddly increase unemployment

Can you spot the fundamental flaw in your objection Junky

you’re complaining that it will both put people out of work and create jobs at the same time?

Why not allocate the jobs/staff/resources from point 2. to point 1. – the people currently doing it become the supervisors and team leaders of the volunteers, that way you end up with a revenue/jobs neutral solution!

Well done you just created a MASSIVE new layer of beurocratic middle management within the state sector…you must be so pleased – can you tweet it to Dan for me?

Actually it makes some sense and yes I had not thought of it.

I doubt a gardener will be the right person for this sort of job and I suspect their would still be job losses – or ridiculous levels of superviser to staff.
What happens when the chariot of free eneterprise removes all unemployed people do they just get theoir old jobs bakc when there are no “volunteers” left

Hence the very rich ‘needing’ unnecessarily large homes, very expensive clothes and cars, being able to dine in the most expensive restaurants etc.

Unfortunately it’s not just the rich is it.

Missus was watching some penny pinching tv show on this week – a couple couldn’t afford their wedding so were doing it on the cheap. They sat there complaining they had no money just beside the 50″ plasma television, calling in favours from mates on their latest iPhone, etc.

Unfortunately it’s not just the rich is it.

No you’re right. Everyone seems to ‘ned’ more and more material goods, a bigger/better car/clothes/house, the latest iGadget, etc. Keeping up with the Joneses on a grand scale. A friend was moaning because hios wife ‘needed’ a new car, as she felt embarrassed about turning up to school with the kids in their old one with all the other mums in their shiny new cars. The current car was perfectly fine. It’s all about status, and very little about actual need.

I doubt a gardener will be the right person for this sort of job

He says, looking down his nose at the proletariat working classes…

a lowly gardner, supervising people, oh, how quaint! Maybe the people who currently do the admin work in the job centres

and I suspect their would still be job losses – or ridiculous levels of superviser to staff.

Ah, you suspect, thats a fairly good reason to rule out trying it then, isn’t it.

What happens when the chariot of free eneterprise removes all unemployed people decide they would prefer to get a job instead

We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, in the meantime they’ve done something useful for the rest of society rather than sitting at home on the playstation.

Politicians always say these things to try and get the support of a lot of people. They think “taxing the rich” will mean most people support them, as most people don’t think they are rich, and think others better off should be taxed. It’s boring now. Be honest with yourselves and grow up, if you earned “that” sort of salary you would want to keep as much salary as you could, you’d probably pay tax and like all those in that position look to avoid paying vast sums.

It reminds me of the same argument about climbers coming off Everest and the evil act of saving themselves rather than probably die. Oooh I would do something different, I’d stop and try to save them. Pants you would. And pants you would pay more tax than you legally had to.

Stands back to watch the fire. 😉

Sorry I was charitable to your reply I thought you may have embraced the new forum and its ideals, my mistake enjoy your scribble.

There will be no one left for you to debategoad soon