Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Mark - what I said about DT were in respect of his comments and not him.
The reason people may be locked in to poverty is because of the benefit system that discourages work. Thankfully IDS is looking to deal with that problem.
Work is a way out of poverty alongside saving. People make choices in life and that is the greatest determinant of how well off they are.
Class and wealth obsessed socialist with their re-distributive policies always run the risk of increasing poverty if they take their obsession too far. The last government went far too far as Labour governments always end up doing. I am not saying dont help people, far from it. I want all to have opportunities, get up off their backsides and become more wealthy and I am certainly not against public policy supporting that.
The big problem with your thinking on this is that you inevitably kill the goose that lays the golden egg. If you want better public services and help to the less well off you first of all have to make sure that the wealth is created in the first place to generate the tax revenues. The burdens Labour governments place on businesses and the economy damage their ability to grow, compete in the world and generate the profits needed along with the jobs that also provide tax revenues and relieve the burden of social security.
I am not saying that all socialists are stupid (you and DT for instance certainly are not) but I am amazed at how you cannot grasp what to me is a simple concept. Prejudice combined with compassion is perhaps a dangerous combination that blots out common sense.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
Those without compassion often show their prejudice and sometimes their rather narrow minded opinions.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Jan - what use is compassion without the means to do something practical? Good intentions are not enough without the resources to sustain them. Do not assume either that those of us who see the need for a more efficient and sustainable economic model lack compassion either, it is for the 'greater good' that we need a more prosperous economy.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Barry
What amazes me is your inability to grasp what, for me, is a simple concept that wealth creation does not lead to generalised improvements in society. Again, I refer to a study from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (1997):
"Researchers working on the first report found that households in already-wealthy areas have tended to become disproportionately wealthier and that many rich people live in areas segregated from the rest of society".
Would you call the Rowntree Foundation 'class and wealth obsessed'?
A programme on BBC1 last night, 'Poor Kids', was an amazingly eloquent expose by young children of life in poverty, in Britain. If you didn't see the programme I would urge you to try and locate it. It showed: how chronically damp housing caused illness which led to missed school (and therefore future opportunity); bullying at school because of ragged clothing; children going without meals due to lack of money and if not at school because of being sick (caused by their housing!) missing the chance of one substantial meal a day; reduced socialising opportunities because the children recognised their condition and would not invite school friends home. Despite this the children were upbeat and talked about their hopes for their future. The parents were impressive too, trying to keep things 'normal' - i.e. provide for birthdays, Christmas etc - while having to struggle to provide for the basics for life. They recognised they were desperately poor but were not seeking to blame anyone but neither was one man having any success in finding work as jobs are being cut left right and centre at the moment. These people were unable (due to their circumstances not due to being 'feckless') to make the life choices that you expound. If you didn't see the programme I would urge you to try and locate it.
All this is before the cuts that Osborne has announced have really hit home. All most people want is a chance but this is being taken from the most vulnerable members of our society whilst they watch the richest get richer.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Mark - I am not saying that all public spending is bad, I am not saying that public policy does not have a role, what I am saying is that wealth creation must have a much bigger priority than the left and, specifically in government, Labour allow for.
You cannot simply burden the private sector with more and more of a tax burden and more and more administration and red tape without paying a heavy price in economic performance.
Right now we are paying that price. Public spending at 53% of GDP is intolerable - economic growth will struggle under a burden like that. Add to that all the economically counter productive legislation we have seen over the last 13 years (and, to a smaller extent under Major as well) it is no wonder we had the longest and deepest recession for 80 years and are struggling to get out of it.
The balance swung much too far toward 'social policies' and non-productive spending over those 13 years. It needs to swing back. Difficult yes, painful yes, public spending is like a drug on which we have become hooked. We have to get off that drug in order to restore the economy to health. We have to grit our teeth and get on with it, the quicker the better or the downward spiral will only get worse.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Barry
I am not saying that wealth creation is bad just the pretence that it brings us nothing but good and that it is achieved through the altruistic endeavours of a few. Most people recognise the state of the economy and are prepared to 'grit teeth and get on with it' (if they have a job!) but want to see some equity in the suffering. Facts like these below do not give confidence to the 'ordinary' person that we are all in this together.
"HM Revenue & Customs has failed to provide details of a deal that allowed Goldman Sachs to avoid millions in unpaid tax after other firms settled similar disputes, according to a prominent member of a powerful parliamentary committee............. Vodafone was accused of saving £6bn in tax after it agreed a deal with HMRC". The Guardian. May 13th 2011.
"..Topshop owner Sir Philip Green, whose business five years ago paid a £1.2 billion dividend to his wife, Tina, who resides in Monaco". The Daily Telegraph. December 2010
'How can the government continue to allow major retailers to set up shop in the Channel Islands to deliberately undercut small shops and internet businesses by exploiting a VAT loophole that clearly distorts competition and leads to tax abuse?' Philip Orford, Chief executive of Forum of Private Businesses on Taxjournal.com. January 2011
Richard Murphy, director of Tax Research and a long-standing campaigner on the issue of tax avoidance, believes that £25bn a year is lost to the UK public purse by tax avoidance. Out of this, £13bn is from individuals and £12bn from large companies.
In contrast, but I in no way condone this,:
Benefit fraud cost the country around £900 million in 2008-09. Direct.gov.co.uk
Let's have an honest discussion and let's imagine what all that legally avoided tax could achieve in the country at the moment!
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
jan h;
i will pop in and say hello as i pass in the morning age concern what time are you threre?
How sad that barryw is so blinkered.
Some time ago on this very forum i did show just how close myself and barryw are the I.D.S. and benefits new ideas.
Unlike barryw im always open to hear views and agree who ever the person may be should i share that view.
unlike barryw in post 42 on his views of socialists.
There are a number of issues from time to time that barryw and myself are at one on.as well as the conservsative ideas to;
whilst it would hurt barryw to say so, it doesn't worry me.
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Mark - As I said the problem is getting the right balance so that economic performance is not damaged to such a degree that we become uncompetitive. Right now there is no balance, matters are very dire and the burden being carried by businesses is intolerable.
There is nothing wrong with tax avoidance, tax evasion is rightly illegal. Why on earth you are so worried about what is being done perfectly legally. It is quite legitimate to use the means provided to avoid paying unnecessary tax. I have no idea of your personal circumstances of course but some of the ways you can personally avoid tax quite legally include:
Pension Funding
Using tax free ISA allowances
Ensuring that nil rate tax bands are fully used and these include personal tax allowances, CGT allowances and IHT allowances. Switching of investment assets between husband and wife being one common method of doing that.
Making sure that basic rate tax bands are properly used and where possible properly mitigated
Now we can also do that for the higher paid make sure that the upper rate of tax bands are also utilised and where possible mitigated
Using tax deferred investments and their assignment as a means to pass them on with incurring a tax liability.
Top-slicing for tax on certain investments.
Trust planning
etc etc etc - these are all areas that the vast majority of people here on the forum can benefit from and are not matters for the rich.
Business too have similar opportunities and any business that does not make sure they are tax efficient is not properly doing their duty to the shareholders (or employees come to that) - you could be benefitting from that too if you have a pension fund or Stocks and Shares ISA. In fact I suggest to anyone reading your post investigate the underlying investment holdings of their pension/ISA - there is a strong possibility that they are benefitting from the companies you have mentioned above and previously. Top Shop, Vodaphone, Goldman Sachs, the utility companies and so on. These companies are not in a 'bubble' isolated benefitting no-one but themeselves, they have people depending on them for jobs and most of us for our future pensions.
But that is a small part of the story - the majority of businesses in this country are small businesses who employ most of the private sector employees. It is these companies that are always the hardest hit by the core issues of red tape and the massive state burden and it is these companies that offer the greatest long term growth potential on which future success depends. I note that you do not mention these. These are the vital economic lifeline of this country that are struggling the most in this current climate, it is these who most need the reduced state burden.
At the end of the day when it comes to tax the best way are simple and low taxes. It is when taxes get high and complex that big companies start going to great lengths to find ways around it to reduce the burden and I cannot blame them as long as what they do is legal. Brown went to great lengths to find news way of taxing people and companies then introduced a whole range of complicated instruments to try to block companies avoiding those taxes plus anti-forestalling measures on top of that. Under him the tax code increased expedentially in complexity and yet the more complex he made it the more opportunities he created.
Simple taxes and low taxes are much harder to avoid and are much harder to justify avoiding. That is what we need.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Keith - perhaps instead of talking and referring to me in a 'third party' patronising manner you might try to engage constructively in a conversation about the actual issues as mark and I are doing. You might find it informative.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
BAZ;
I have twice on here showed how close you and I are on the benefits system and what should/could be done.
This is part of the posting that you raised
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
But a long way from the main thrusts of the conversation.
Guest 656- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,262
There are a lot of people working very hard on the minimum wage/low wages. They work long hours too, just to make ends meet. The reality is at the end of the day they barely have enough to cover the necessary bills, council tax, utilities, rent/mortage, food, clothes, toiletries etc. They simply don't have any money left for savings, in fact most short fall of their necessary outgoings. As for holidays, well they can forget that. Lets get real, and look at the bigger picture, some of these hard working peopke are struggling to say the least. Now with gas and electricity prices going up again this August, just in time for the winter months, it is going to get tougher for them.
A friend of mine who signs on having lost her job recently tells me that the dole money has gone up by a whole £2 recently, sigh! In my view the minimum wage is a disgrace and doesn't reflect the cost of living today one little bit.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Barry
regarding small businesses I thought the quote from Philip Orford covered this point. I repeat it below:
'How can the government continue to allow major retailers to set up shop in the Channel Islands to deliberately undercut small shops and internet businesses by exploiting a VAT loophole that clearly distorts competition and leads to tax abuse?' Philip Orford, Chief executive of Forum of Private Businesses on Taxjournal.com. January 2011
Again, I am not suggesting that tax avoidance is illegal but it costs the public, and apparently the private sectors and should be examined as to its appropriateness in a civilised society that wants equality for all and to provide for the most vulnerable.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Mark - I overlooked that point in my answer which is indeed a good one and one that as a Chamber Chairman can agree with. Amazon, who I use extensively, being an example of this of course.
The problem though is one of a global economy and as I said the complexities of our tax system. Far better to see that the attractions of offshore are not worth the bother and that there are benefits to being within the UK regime. That would need the lower simpler taxes that I refer to and must start as well with getting rid of the complexities that we have in the present system and reducing the beaurocratic costs of businesses also. Just to try to close this problem down in the Channel Islands will simply move it elsewhere. You cannot defend a punitive tax system and a heavily beaurocratic one through ever more complex controls without loss of investment and jobs plus restrictions to trade that will seriously rebound in forcing yet more businesses abroad.
Your point, a good one, just highlights my concerns arising from the impact on business of public policy and tax policy over the last 13 years.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Adding to Colette's post 53, the minimum wage earners are often obliged to travel far to work (in the sense that many found an available job miles from home and were fortunate to get it).
So this means having to drive a car, with all the expenses attached, or travel by train or bus, which also costs quite a bit, in order to get to work and back.
That could amount to one, two or three hours wages a day!!!
Is that realistic?
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Good old 'uncle' Vince Cable has shown his teeth and threatened to tax banks if they continue to stall on lending to small businesses. They must be trembling in their boots!!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i would love to see how that would work in practice.
would there be quotas where so much money is lent?
at what level does a small business become a medium sized business?
what would be the terms of such loans?
that is just for starters.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I do hear some stories of poor lending decisions purely due to the tick-box back covering mentallity that now infests not only banks but so many walks of life. We were discussing just this at the Chamber board.
After some very poor lending decisions pre-crunch the pendulum has swung much too far the other way. The danger of quotas and forcing banks to lend is that we will get back to some irresponsible lending. There is a balance and banks need to address the issues that are forcing them to get that balance wrong currently. That must be a return to a personal service.
We are also see a lot of undervaluations of property for lending purposes as well. This is a real problem particularly for developers. Again this is driven by a play safe mentallity.
