knockoff nige

45% is massive considering the cost of living these days. But taxing the rich a measly extra 2% would fix many of the worlds problems.

Zen10

I'm not talking about normal people though. I'm talking about people that bring home thousands per day. They need taxing. The fact that the UK Government wouldn't tax the banks an extra 0.5% but are happy to shut emergency wards says it all for me.

Bibbs

I think people who what me to pay for their way of life are spiteful. If you can't afford it, don't have it. Don't expect me to work hard and pay for it.

I'd love to live somewhere like Singapore. Low tax which provides the basic services. But unfortunatly, due to their emmigration laws it would be quite difficult for me.

Choosing Somalia is slightly different - "People who want high taxes and the government to provide everything should move to North Korea". What a silly statement.

45% is huge, 92% is insane. Just by saying "it's not as bad as it could be" isn't a valid reason.

One of the reasons the Stones moved to France was the UKs daft tax laws. Looks like the rich French will be moving to London if the new President gets his way.

Zen10

I've been arguing this for 20 years.

It's not different at all, although your NK point is amusing. The point is that states provide a lot of things people take for granted, particularly Jeremy Clarkson types.

Tax rates for top earners after WW2 were in the 90s, which I why I refer to it. National road structures, health systems, and massive militaries were built. Today the rich don't pay tax any more, so we have none of these things. Eventually everyone will work this out.

Tax flight is nonsense. Hardly anyone actually does it but what happens is the press get hold of a few high-profile idiots and blow it up as evidence. The truth that the rich aren't paying any tax at the moment anyway so it's not the increase that frightens them but the mere suggestion that they should pay any at all and that government might start getting serious about collecting it and shutting loopholes.

Bibbs

The problem is the mega rich are the most able to move.
45% of *something* is better than +45% of nothing.
(I feel the Laffer Curve is the 'Godwins law' of economics).

The majority just "suck it up" and pay. But the extra they pay doesn't cover the few that do leave.

Someone mentioned Jimmy Carr paying 1%. That'll still be about 40k in tax at source. More then the average person. Then there will be his employees, his VAT on all the stuff he buys etc. The government will get all the money, it'll just take them a little longer.

Why don't the government close the loophole? Because it's where Cameron's dad made a lot of money.

Bibbs

The problem is the Government provides too much, and you don't get value for money. Things are complicated for the sake of it.

UK road licence. Why? Because it keeps a LOT of people in south Wales employed. Wouldn't it be easier to scrap it, and add the money on fuel? Use more, pay more.

Why is the tax system so complex? Wouldn't a flat rate of 30% on everything over minimum wage (x40hours) be easier? No NI, no allowances, no rebates, no credits? Yes, but then there wouldn't be departments in Newcastle with thousands of staff.

Governments are NEVER as efficient, with YOUR money, as you would be.

Zen10

Oh yeah old Dave's cash came from his father's offshore investments. What they're not seeing is that slowly the populations are waking up to the tax scandals, and the Libor scandals, and so on and they're going to start getting really angry with it. There is a lot of discontentment in the air and I'll be honest I'm not sure how they're keeping a lid on it.

Either way, the economies are in massive debt, and governments seem to think that the ordinary man and woman will pay for the repair in tax increases and future debt, and the 1% can just fly away into the sunset.

Zen10

On that one example, no government would want to crank fuel up by the amount it would have to go up to in order to replace road tax. It's already ridiculous. And I am ideologically, and practically, opposed to a man earning 12k a year paying the same tax rate as a man earning 12k an hour. It's obscene. Plato said the highest paid should earn no more than five times the lowest. Over the years, as our societies have got more productive, and the rich have got a bigger and bigger share of that productivity, we are now in a place where Bob Diamond earns hundreds and hundreds times more than the lowest paid in the same company.

All perspective has been lost.

Bibbs

Now what WOULD be upsetting is if his dad was also involved with the overly expensive push to subsidised windfarms instead of using reliable power stations .. oh ..

It's all about keeping it rolling and, for the UK MPs, getting on the Euro gravy train for life.

(and we have the cheek to push other *corrupt* countries to government change)

Bibbs

400 quid over 50weeks. 8 quid a week more. If you do over average miles, you pay more.

But they wouldn't. If you earn more, you pay more (as a value).
There wouldn't be any loopholes either.
People on minimum wage, full time, pay nothing.

But some people are worth x5 more to a company than others.
In my company, I earn x10 my wife. But then I do all the work.

Zen10

Plato's example is limited, of course, but the disparity that has widened between rich and poor now is immense. Biggest in history. Unprecedented. We don't know how thing play out from here. We can see the economies are crashing. We know the super-rich are evading tax on a biblical scale. We know public and private debt is probably unrepayable.

What to do?

Bibbs

Depends on how you define rich and poor.

(I don't see people in the UK as poor, with free education, free housing, clean water, cheap food. Usually with Sky, Bensons and Skol provided by the social)

A few hundred years ago I'd have thought the gap between lords and serfs was wide. I see no difference now, apart from the numbers being bigger with several hundred years of inflation.

What to do? Forget about it and join in. Minimise your own tax and spend the money on things that make you happy.

It's a part of the reason I came back to Aus from the UK. Less tax and a better standard of living. The fact I'm earning x3 what i did just makes it better.

Don't stress, have fun, and every few years tick a box that makes no real difference.

Zen10

Good advice for us all. Karma is on a carrier pigeon as I write.

Amazulu

As a contractor in the UK, it was very easy to minimise the tax you paid, in fact we got away with murder as the Inland Revenue is a shower of shit. I see this coming to an end as there are now senior civil servants, BBC people etc doing it and the government is starting to get pissed off.

Unfortunately, the ATO is much more on the ball and it's not so easy to get away with. Saying that, the more you live here, the more you learn about how to reduce your tax. I also earn vastly more than I did, or could, earn in the UK, and as I get older see that my retirement prospects/income are on a different planet compared to if I had stayed over there.

We are indeed living in great times.

furbacchione

Her style sense is also a very large distraction for other heads of state...