howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
'entrepreneurs' are to become outre-preneurs? Let them go, I say. The poor dears.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
It is what I have said from the start. Every single report, past experience and common sense tells us this would happen.
If you want the rich to pay more tax then you reduce the tax rates and simplify the system.
The problem goes further than that. These people are also wealth creators, they invest into businesses and employ people, drive them abroad with high taxes they take their investment and jobs with them.
We need economic growth and more jobs, plus more tax revenues to reduce the deficit so keeping this tax rate is mad and would be no more than a political gesture that costs the man in the street dear.
Guest 730- Registered: 5 Nov 2011
- Posts: 221
I agree with you, I've never understood why people on higher incomes should pay a higher rate of tax. I think we should have a flat rate tax, everyone pays the same. The rich would still pay more, 30% of £100,000 would still be more than 30% of £20,000 for example and it would make it a lot simpler to collect.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
it won't happen of course - as sir humphrey once tried to explain something to jim hacker "it is a vote loser".
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Then you have to explain why and how it benefits the economy and everyone. People are not stupid and politicians sometimes have to give a lead and do the right thing instead of the popular thing. Conviction is what it was once called and we need more conviction politicians rather than focus oriented trend followers.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Well...so much for Income Tax. Except that what is used as a negative in one argument is seen to be a positive in the other argument.
Why tax the rich higher because they are so few.
Flat rate tax then the rich will pay more.
But 30% is more than the low paid pay at present and less than the high-earner pays. This could only result in a twisted grimace rather than a broad grin.
First what we need is to get to grips with Land Value Tax, then see what can be done to Income Tax.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Tom - NI and Income Tax makes 32% for basic rate taxpayers being paid now. If we apply the logic of tax simplification and flat taxes NI and IT would be amalgamated and 30% would be a reasonable starting point with a plan to move it down to 20% eventually for everyone. Higher starting point for tax also tends to be the norm for these tax models and I have suggested that should be at the level a min wage earner would get for a 37.5 hour week.
I disagree with a land value tax as there are many people who are cash poor capital rich and that would pose a very serious problems. It would also help concentrate land holdings in the hands of fewer wealthier people.
More taxes do not solve our problems - more sensible fiscal management of public finances and boosting economic growth will.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
I dont believe a word of that oft told tale that wealthy people will leave the country in droves if the 50p tax rate continues. Its a spin....emanating as it does there above from the daily telegraph and whathaveyou, because these guys are preaching to a readership of A B status and telling them what they want to hear...what they like to hear.
Last night on the BBC's Question Time, the head of Sainsbury's was on..their CEO Justin King. A very pleasant fellow... here is a picture..
The question on executive pay reared its ugly head. He was asked what salary he gets...he wasnt sure about answering initially and then did to an audible gasp... £900,000 per year. Figures we can only gasp at!
A number of the audience quizzed the panel as to whether any people are worth that sort of money. Even little old ladies are /were shocked. Not particularly at Mr King's salary but at the complete injustice in society due to the widening and unhealthy pay differentials. Ordinary people are truly shocked at this time like never before.
Some report the other day said if you carry on with the extrapulation based on the previous few years rises..we will be back at Victorian levels of workers/management pay ratio in no time at all when there was shocking injustice. Unbelievable... to think we are drifting back to those pay scales. The have's and most definetely have nots..and ne'er the twain shall meet.
Mr King of course is the acceptable face of higher management. He is running a successful company and in comparison to some, has not gone to dizzy heights of 8 or 9£million a year as some have, and ..this salary outrage often happens in companies that are performing somewhere between poor and/or mediocre. Then the injustice is clear and stupefying, yet they carry on, take a bit of flak for it, but dont essentially care about the flak from you or me. Water of the ducks back.
Mr King is highly unlikely to up sticks and emigrate over taxing levels of 50p. He has endured it so far and is showing no obvious signs of hardship.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
So what if he is paid £900k - he runs a massive company and thousands of jobs depend on that company remaining profitable and his decisions are central to that. Its a huge responsibility.
PaulB - it is the easiest thing to go into denial and to disbelieve 'what may happen' but the fact is we have evidence of it actually happening, overseas and here. We have seen the tax take increase from the top 10% earners when the top rates are cut. This is not theory.
Neither is it only about going abroad either. People with that kind of income often have influence of how they take their income and how much they take. Why should they take extra risk, why work extra hours, why start new enterprises, why develop new product lines, why take on more staff - if at the end of it you lose more than half what you earn?
Many people I know (and advise) limit their hours of work and size of businesses to keep their income just below the 40p rate because they feel its not worth the bother and risk. It would be much worse at the 50p level.
Only envy drives this need some feel to punish the better off regardless of the consequences. But then there are some people who enjoy S&M - it takes all types I suppose...
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Two things there BarryW...I dont believe its either the need to punish, nor is it envy. What its about now is fairness. Thats the right word. Fairness. Yes perhaps in the past in very left wing days of the cloth cap, much might have been envy driven. But I dont think so anymore. Even nice genteel ladies not given to revolution, are horrified now by the differentials. These are not motivated by the need to punish, nor is it envy as they dont ever aspire to such levels themselves, but its about fairness.
Victorian type poverty is beginning to come back, people are cold in their homes, the same people that paid taxes to prop the banks up long enough for them to pay each other huge bonuses. That is in itself morally bankrupt.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I cannot see how you can define high tax rates as fair when:
1/ It results in the highest paid 10% paying less tax meaning the rest of us have to pay more or the government has to borrow more which we will have to pay back.
2/ It results in reduced economic growth, fewer jobs and that means even less tax revenues and therefore we have to pick up that bill as well.
I find your idea of fairness a very strange thing. You mix up headline tax rates with what is paid in real life - very different.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
at the end of that day we can talk to anyone whether on a low income or a very good one they all the same thing - the people at the top are getting richer and richer for, in a lot of cases, not being good at their job.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
#. 9..........................#.11...................spot on...........................
Unfortunately they will fall .............as always..................on very stoney ground of #.10.
Research after research proves the wealthy people do not..will not leave the country.... just propaganda again..
...and many people keep their income at the 40p rate because it is just not worth the bother.....?....
......................tell it to the marines!!!!!
Coalition Government.................regurgitated Victorian Politics!!!!!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
How do you know someone is not good at their job Howard? How do you measure it? That is for the owners of the business, the shareholders and what is good is that they say of shareholders is being increased over pay. That is not the point here, this is about tax and economic recovery. Tax should be about fulfilling the needs of paying for public services while also protecting the economy and promoting growth. More than ever we all need the government to take a single minded approach to that - social engineering is a luxury that we cannot afford.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Reg - in your rather strange method of writing, you suggest I am lying. No I am not, I speak from direct experience, I am involved in advising them and actively helping keep them below the threshold (all very legal...). I could name 4 small business people who could expand their businesses and/or work harder who do not do so because we are squeezing as much as we can out of their businesses as we can without exceeding the threshold. They are placing quality of life first and good for them, why risk their money and take on longer hours and stress when they will suffer up to 41% tax and NI (not to mention employer oncosts). Confidentiality is important so I of course cannot and will not name anyone.
You prefer to ignore the facts of life in favour of what you would like to think, by contrast my thinking is influenced by real behaviour and real experience. You demonstrate why the last 13 years of Labour economic thinking has got us into such an almighty financial hole.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
In 1978 under the Callaghan government my marginal tax rate reached 83% (98% on 'unearned' income such as bank interest). I moved abroad and did not work in the UK again until Mrs T had brought it down to a sane level.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Tried to stay quiet, failed. It is silly to say people "are not worth" their salary: like property and other material goods, people/stuff are worth whatever people will pay for them. And it is quite fair to pay people commensurate to the size of the job. Why should we expect to pay the leader of a large organisation the same salary as we would pay someone who stacks shelves? However, I take exception to the idea that the people "at the top" are wealth creators. They probably do, certainly do, contribute to the creation of jobs and that is a huge contributor, but they only "create wealth" for the already wealthy - the rest is simply jobs for people who will then generate that wealth for the wealthy.
But as Peter points out, the tax system impacts on how many jobs will be created.........as the wealthy vote with their feet.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
I have never been wealthy. Just concerned to protect what little I have from confiscatory government. The only times in my life when I have felt financially secure have been the times spent abroad.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
barry
re; post 15.
if a company has falling profits and the share price falls then the top honcho is not deserving of a massive wage and bonuses.
everybody else whether they are in middle management or the shop floor knows this as their wages refelect the success or failure of the company.
