We deffo pay too much tax!

VAT @ 20%; – why not 15% like it was pre 1992?

Income tax @40% + NIC (9%?) on <£50,000 – you try bringing up a family on that in London.

Beer duty – way too high;

Employers’ NIC – purely a tax on employing people – WTF?

The whole cost of living crisis is caused as much by too much tax as too little income. Ironically reducing many of these tax rates would reduce avoidance and evasion.

there is plenty of public spending to cut – just wait. Sorry, but its going to happen.

And wealth taxes are totally unfair as they are a tax on taxed income.

Stamp duty is another shocker.

Insurance Premium Tax – sod off!

Flight tax (or whatever its called) – why?

council tax was designed to be fundamentally different than the old rates in that you pay for services used not property value, hence the bands stop before top values. We tax value with stamp duty, 7% on £2m so that’s £140,000

Yeah but the bands have a pretty loose correlation with the costs of services used – if any really. That was what the pole tax was meant to correct. I just think that if the more expensive houses paid more then those in the cheaper ones would pay less – if total expenditure stayed consistent. As stamp duty is only paid on purchases only those that move have to pay it and if you’ve stayed in a house for several decades you may have one that you paid no stamp duty on but is now worth enough to pay one of the top rates. This seems wrong to me.

Simplest tax would be to just have VAT, hard to avoid that. To help the poorer need different bands – basic stuff no tax, most stuff normal and yachts, Hi-Fi and flat screen TVs get the premium rates.

@@hh45 – thank you for bringing a smile to my face this Tuesday morning, most excellent rant.

@molgrips – yes indeed a wealth tax is a tax on earned income already taxed, like VAT or stamp duty

double the VAT on luxury items, eg almost everything electrical.

@matt – like a washing machine, a kettle, a light bulb ? I think that’s a bit extreme. It’s also quite clear a mountain bike is a luxury item or indeed any sporting goods based on your definition.

Unless we’re saving or spending overseas then as far as I can see they get ALL of our money in tax eventually anyway. Why make the initial percentage so high on VAT and salaries?

I wouldn’t mind at all.

Simplest tax would be to just have VAT, hard to avoid that. To help the poorer need different bands – basic stuff no tax, most stuff normal and yachts, Hi-Fi and flat screen TVs get the premium rates.

Purely for the sake of argument, how would that affect tourism and manufacturing?

Let’s assume VAT on everyday goods is something obscene like 50%. It’s great because everyone in the country contributes every time they buy anything. but this includes tourists – fair game, you may argue – but would they still come here if a cup of coffee is £5? And a cheap t-shirt is £30?

Similarly, what happens to manufacturing? I do try and buy British (or European) where I believe the product is as good as or better than something designed elsewhere. But how would a small British company making expensive, unique products survive when all of a sudden it’s already expensive items have another 30% tax added? Will they still sell because everyone has more income, or will people source something similar – if inferior – from outside the UK?

Finally, if people are sourcing from outside the UK and being stung on their transaction by the bank for VAT (as they should be, being in the UK), would this not mean that people decide to up-sticks and go where the products they want are cheaper?

Surely – ultimately – more taxes = better public services?

I don’t need better public services, I need more money.

how would that affect tourism

Can’t tourists claim back VAT anyway? Might be wrong.

manufacturing

If source from outside UK still need to pay VAT right? Outside EU anyway.

would this not mean that people decide to up-sticks and go where the products they want are cheaper

Then they’d have other taxes to pay.

But yeah, taxation can never be considered in isolation. In this global age we need a global approach.

I don’t need better public services, I need more money.

You’ll get neither.

Surely – ultimately – more taxes = better public services?

no it’d mean more benefits/pay and conditions for council workers in management/higher grades. Plus there’d be more levels of management.

I’d prefer contractors to leave public sector companies- no more £600-£1,000 a day specialists* in public/government departments and tax avoidance schemes made criminal. We’d be awash in money if waste and avoidance was targeted.

*Ironically these specialists can claim travel costs to an office, lunch, running a car etc offset any tax. Whereas we PAYE dont get our travel to work or lunch paid for out of tax……..

I assure you I won’t get less. 😀

I don’t need better public services, I need more money.

Nobody thinks they benefit from public services, especially corporations, but of course they are quite happy to drive and send trucks along public roads, report crimes to the police receive education or employ educated people, call the emergency services when shit goes wrong etc etc etc.

They don’t need public services, apart from when they do, which is pretty much all the time. Public services are provided to us all the time, it is just the greedy and ignorant who want to pretend they don’t benefit from them and don’t want to pay for them.

no it’d mean more benefits/pay and conditions for council workers in management/higher grades. Plus there’d be more levels of management.

The public sector is no worse for bureaucracy and waste than the private sector, there is just more greed and ignorance in the private sector.

MSP – Member

Nobody thinks they benefit from public services, especially corporations, but of course they are quite happy to drive and send trucks along public roads, report crimes to the police receive education or employ educated people, call the emergency services when shit goes wrong etc etc etc.

They don’t need public services, apart from when they do, which is pretty much all the time. Public services are provided to us all the time, it is just the greedy and ignorant who want to pretend they don’t benefit from them and don’t want to pay for them.

I didn’t say I didn’t need public services, I said I didn’t need to spend more on better public services.
I do, however need more money.
If I had lots of money then I would pay more for better public services.

I assure you I won’t get less.

Well I’m sure that all those services you will require in the future will suck up any “savings” you make.

The public sector is no worse for bureaucracy and waste than the private sector

Hahahahahahahahahah 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

El-bent – Member

Well I’m sure that all those services you will require in the future will suck up any “savings” you make.

If I was in the position to have savings, I wouldn’t need more money.

They don’t need public services, apart from when they do, which is pretty much all the time. Public services are provided to us all the time, it is just the greedy and ignorant who want to pretend they don’t benefit from them and don’t want to pay for them.

THIS

Molly I dont think you troll but I dont wish to play along when you do that.

In the UK you get:

Taxed
Double taxed
Stealth taxed
Other taxed …

Very simple we need a small public sector and we don’t really need all the services. I don’t want to pay jobworth in the public sector to create an environment that encourages parasitic living.

I blame all the tax and parasitic living on your ancestor Henry VIII …

🙄

and we don’t really need all the services.
Ah, but someone does… Funny thing is, I pay CT and get my bins emptied, occasionally !

City hall is full to the brim of lefties on 30 hours a week, taking a wedge and using CT to punish the public.

Ooo, inflation is <3 percent. What do City hall do ? raise CT by 5 percent. Wage rise ? did you get one ?, <2 percent you say ?
Doesn’t matter, City hall don’t care, CT is going up by more than wage rises or inflation.
Tough !

I wouldnt mind if

1. All the tax loopholes were closed so big corporates and wealthy individuals pay the same proportion of their income in tax as those on PAYE do

2. That I actually believed the government wouldnt waste it on its latest vanity project

3. That as a citizen I got more of a say in how it is spent than voting for a single MP every few years.

Oh and I like the other punitive tax ideas. Its great to read. Yeah, lets tax the successful and hard working. How dare they make money and profit ! How very dare they ! Instead, we should take their money from them to teach them a lesson, to make life easier for us and to ensure they never make the mistake of working hard, making profit or a success of themselves, ever again ! Yes, lets use taxes to prohibit people making money. Damn those who get into debt to attend Uni and go on to earn higher wages (possibly), tax them I say.

Yay for tax, tax and more tax !

I think most people would mind especially if they don’t see the tax money being spent in a good way.

For example, why does the UK send $500m to India every year. A Nuclear country which ranks in the top 12 of most millionaires and has its own space programme?

Wars in Iraq / Afghanistan…..

Yes, lets use taxes to prohibit people making money.

Don’t be ridiculous.

Increased taxation would not remove ALL the benefits of hard work and success. Just share some of it around.

I’ve not read past the first three pages but find it slightly annoying that most people said they wouldnt pay more tax, yet there’s recently been SO many threads, and so much press and publicity, berating the assumed rich for ‘avoiding’ paying more tax.

I detect a slight whiff of Hypocrisy.

We are mostly armchair rich imagining we wouldnt do the same if we actually earned that kind of money, the truth is different and you kid yourself if you disagree.

I think its the same with amrchair Everest climbers… oooh I’d help somebody down even it was certain death. Pah.

/devils advocate grenade thrown

more tax is essential unfortunately.. not 500m here or there but hundreds of billions have to be found to pay for pensions, education and the black hole of the nhs where 100 bn pounds a year isnt enough to provide enough nursing staff and gps who can see you the same day..

so small bits here and there make very little difference our leaders need to be brave and lead and use the N word more.. not that one this one.. NO.

If I was in the position to have savings, I wouldn’t need more money.

The savings would be in not paying for public services, which in turn will be sucked up plus more by the alternatives which you will require. Are you really that hard of thinking?

Yeah, lets tax the successful and hard working

How about the successful and lazy, can we tax them?

I’ve not read past the first three pages but find it slightly annoying that most people said they wouldnt pay more tax, yet there’s recently been SO many threads, and so much press and publicity, berating the assumed rich for ‘avoiding’ paying more tax

I detect a slight whiff of Hypocrisy.

It’s quite easy to detect hypocrisy when you compare the opinions of loads of different people as if they are one homogenous entity.

And it’s not hypocrisy or jealousy to want the rich to pay the same percentage of tax we do, rather than often much, much less.

Yay for tax, tax and more tax !

So that’s a yes, Solo? 😉

Don’t be ridiculous.
Try that yourself ! Obviously you haven’t met the shop floor staff who decline O/T answering “theres little point in working O/T as it goes in taxes”.
🙄

El-bent – Member

The savings would be in not paying for public services, which in turn will be sucked up plus more by the alternatives which you will require. Are you really that hard of thinking?

Ah, calling me stupid because you are incapable of comprehending the simplest of posts. I’ll try not to reply in kind.

Which tax that I am not currently paying will see me saving money by not paying it? ❓
You’ve already asserted your intellectual superiority, this shouldn’t be too difficult for you to answer.

1. All the tax loopholes were closed so big corporates and wealthy individuals pay the same proportion of their income in tax as those on PAYE do

@chrismac – the corporate tax rate is 28%, even if no tax dodges etc existed companies are taxed much more lightly than individuals. That’s just a feature of the world we live in, its like that pretty much everywhere else.

Solo – Member

Obviously you haven’t met the shop floor staff who decline O/T answering “theres little point in working O/T as it goes in taxes”.

When I worked in a bank, I once tried to get a chap with a terrible savings account to switch to a better one- he was getting 0.02% and he’d get something like 3%, all he had to do was sign a form, really that easy. He refused because he didn’t want the taxman getting any more money 😕

When I worked in a bank
😯

Who’d of thunk it ? That one of them would have owned up to doing such a thing.

Dude !, run, run now, before the STW pitch fork brigade get here.

And it’s not hypocrisy or jealousy to want the rich to pay the same percentage of tax we do, rather than often much, much less.

its hypocrisy to say a person would do one thing but then not when places are swapped.

you think the rich pay less tax than you? perhaps less than you think they should but not less than the average resident.

Never understood this lefty hatred of the rich, it’s because of the really rich who pay loads of tax that I don’t have to.
Cheers rich people! 😀

Whilst some only hate those rich that seem not to pay as much tax as they should (legally/illegally) it is true that some just hate the rich for being rich. I quite like that they exist as they can fund interesting/fun/useful things be it for selfish or altruistic reasons.

I thought the school holidays were next week

Solo – Member

Who’d of thunk it ? That one of them would have owned up to doing such a thing.

Dude !, run, run now, before the STW pitch fork brigade get here.

It’s cool, there’s a difference between “working for a bank” and “being a BANKER” 😆 I got paid less as an evil banker than I do now for being a lovely educator.