November 4, 201311 yr A tourist can reclaim the VAT that is spent in the UK In places like Harrods/Marks and Spencer Marble Arch/airports etc tourists can reclaim VAT Only if they are from outside the EU. Besides, regardless of what the VAT figure would have to be (and I don't know nay more than you do), people who earn so little that they don't pat income tax will lose a large proportion of their income. Not exactly a vote winner is it?
November 4, 201311 yr Only if they are from outside the EU. Besides, regardless of what the VAT figure would have to be (and I don't know nay more than you do), people who earn so little that they don't pat income tax will lose a large proportion of their income. Not exactly a vote winner is it? I put a wink next to the idea, i was not endorsing it as a potential government policy It would be unworkable
November 5, 201311 yr I am sure they will survive Whether the employees who lost their jobs will is a different matter the tax isnt on their savings property or investments, so they aren't actually getting any poorer. All they are losing is a slice of getting even richer personally (not the business) temporarily for the benefit of a society that needs to succeed in order to spend money on their products. Once things improve rates would drop again and they can carry on raking in the cash as usual. Let's not forget it's the filthy rich bankers that caused the problem in the first place, placing personal greed above national interests. Fact, I believe it's been pretty clearly established by now (jointly guilty with the politicians ignoring the problem for years until it all exploded in their face).
November 5, 201311 yr the tax isnt on their savings property or investments, so they aren't actually getting any poorer. All they are losing is a slice of getting even richer personally (not the business) temporarily for the benefit of a society that needs to succeed in order to spend money on their products. Once things improve rates would drop again and they can carry on raking in the cash as usual. Let's not forget it's the filthy rich bankers that caused the problem in the first place, placing personal greed above national interests. Fact, I believe it's been pretty clearly established by now (jointly guilty with the politicians ignoring the problem for years until it all exploded in their face). It is wrong to punish the rich / wealth creators / entrepreneurs, for the incompetence of politicians These guys have worked 15 hour days in many cases to create successful businesses, why should they be "punished" ?
November 5, 201311 yr It is wrong to punish the rich / wealth creators / entrepreneurs, for the incompetence of politicians These guys have worked 15 hour days in many cases to create successful businesses, why should they be "punished" ? They are hardly being punished. They can still remain extremely wealthy even after paying tax. The people who really are being punished are the people on minimum wage. If the minimum wage had increased at the same rate as FTSE100 executives' pay since it was introduced in 1999, it would now be around £19 per hour, over three times the actual rate. And before you attack the wrong argument again, no I am not suggesting the minimum wage should be £19 per hour. I am simply illustrating how the highest paid are not in a position to say they are being "punished".
November 5, 201311 yr It is wrong to punish politicians, for the incompetence of the rich Hey, you're starting to talk sense!
November 5, 201311 yr They are hardly being punished. They can still remain extremely wealthy even after paying tax. The people who really are being punished are the people on minimum wage. If the minimum wage had increased at the same rate as FTSE100 executives' pay since it was introduced in 1999, it would now be around £19 per hour, over three times the actual rate. And before you attack the wrong argument again, no I am not suggesting the minimum wage should be £19 per hour. I am simply illustrating how the highest paid are not in a position to say they are being "punished". Unless people work in the public sector every single job out there is out there because of an entrepreneur starting the business in the first place be it recently or a century ago, every business in this country was started from scratch. Start bringing in 'success tax' then it is unfair to the people who took the risk setting up the business Low tax encourages people to pay the tax, since cutting the top rate from 50p to 45p tax revenues from the high earners have increased according to HMRC, putting it up to 75p like the French have done has the opposite effect
November 5, 201311 yr Don't even start the "overall tax receipts have gone up!" argument. You know perfectly well that there's a million things that affect tax revenues, not just the income tax rate. You even alluded to one - the tax in France has almost certainly led people to come here who would have even if ours were still 50p.
November 5, 201311 yr Don't even start the "overall tax receipts have gone up!" argument. You know perfectly well that there's a million things that affect tax revenues, not just the income tax rate. You even alluded to one - the tax in France has almost certainly led people to come here who would have even if ours were still 50p. HMRC said that revenues from those that previously were on 50p increased when it was cut to 45p, this was used by Osborne as evidence it should be cut further before Clegg vetoed it
November 5, 201311 yr HMRC said that revenues from those that previously were on 50p increased when it was cut to 45p, this was used by Osborne as evidence it should be cut further before Clegg vetoed it As I said, the French rates are one of a multitude of things that have affected that.
November 5, 201311 yr As I said, the French rates are one of a multitude of things that have affected that. Very possibly, which makes it a bad thing to up the rate to 60% or so like Simon was suggesting It would damage foreign investment and lead to more tax avoidance
November 5, 201311 yr Very possibly, which makes it a bad thing to up the rate to 60% or so like Simon was suggesting It would damage foreign investment and lead to more tax avoidance Tax avoidance is completely, ahem, avoidable. You employ civil servants similar to old VAT inspectors and get the loopholes closed up. The Treasury knows exactly what the loopholes are, mainly because most of them are exploiting them themselves. The French 75% rate is problematic because it's so conspicuous. A 60p rate coming in where it's currently 45p wouldn't be anywhere near so.
November 5, 201311 yr It is wrong to punish the rich / wealth creators / entrepreneurs, for the incompetence of politicians These guys have worked 15 hour days in many cases to create successful businesses, why should they be "punished" ? The banking crisis was caused my hard-working bankers most likely doing 15 hour days who retired young and massively rich leaving society to pick up the pieces. Thats the tax payers. Us. All of us. Including rich and poor. Bankers who are not subject to true free enterprise where sensible hard work brings rewards. In the real Free-enterprise world anyone making the sorts of decisions they did would go bankrupt along with the businesses they ruin. Whether it was legal is irrelevant, what they did was financial madness and taxpayers bailed them out. Sorry, they owe us all big time as do all the idiots who stupidly invested in their catastrophic creations (usually the better-off as us poorer folk have actually never invested in anything but the odd holiday or luxury item). These are not normal times and the normal Tory party mantras don't work anymore than Thatcher's moronic belief that banks and others could be trusted to monitor their own behaviour. Greed has a tendancy to corrupt behaviour, encourage selfishness, and for every Bill Gates (rich with social conscience, people who see the sense in rich people being taxed more, people who help the needy) there are the Murdochs who use every means to acquire more and more power and vast riches to the detriment of society at large. Life, as I have said many times, is not black and white, it's shades of grey. Those who view it as either/or are the ones that cause the biggest c*ck-ups. So, the rich (not the poor) caused the crisis, it's only fair they should shoulder a heavier burdon (while still remaining very rich - rich people never ever ever ever end up on the dole claiming benefits. Never. Ever.) B-)
November 5, 201311 yr HMRC said that revenues from those that previously were on 50p increased when it was cut to 45p, this was used by Osborne as evidence it should be cut further before Clegg vetoed it Not that old bollocks again. Osborne gave a full year's notice that the rate was going to be cut so a lot of people would have made arrangements for income to be deferred until after the cut.
November 5, 201311 yr Tax avoidance is completely, ahem, avoidable. You employ civil servants similar to old VAT inspectors and get the loopholes closed up. The Treasury knows exactly what the loopholes are, mainly because most of them are exploiting them themselves. The French 75% rate is problematic because it's so conspicuous. A 60p rate coming in where it's currently 45p wouldn't be anywhere near so. I would be in favour of all the loopholes being closed but it would only work if all the other countries like USA, China, India, Singapore, Germany etc did the same too as businesses and foreign investment would just go to our rivals with less strict tax laws, and many jobs would be lost due to this Tax avoidance is wrong but it needs to be tackled on a global basis
November 5, 201311 yr The banking crisis was caused my hard-working bankers most likely doing 15 hour days who retired young and massively rich leaving society to pick up the pieces. Thats the tax payers. Us. All of us. Including rich and poor. Bankers who are not subject to true free enterprise where sensible hard work brings rewards. In the real Free-enterprise world anyone making the sorts of decisions they did would go bankrupt along with the businesses they ruin. Whether it was legal is irrelevant, what they did was financial madness and taxpayers bailed them out. Sorry, they owe us all big time as do all the idiots who stupidly invested in their catastrophic creations (usually the better-off as us poorer folk have actually never invested in anything but the odd holiday or luxury item). These are not normal times and the normal Tory party mantras don't work anymore than Thatcher's moronic belief that banks and others could be trusted to monitor their own behaviour. Greed has a tendancy to corrupt behaviour, encourage selfishness, and for every Bill Gates (rich with social conscience, people who see the sense in rich people being taxed more, people who help the needy) there are the Murdochs who use every means to acquire more and more power and vast riches to the detriment of society at large. Life, as I have said many times, is not black and white, it's shades of grey. Those who view it as either/or are the ones that cause the biggest c*ck-ups. So, the rich (not the poor) caused the crisis, it's only fair they should shoulder a heavier burdon (while still remaining very rich - rich people never ever ever ever end up on the dole claiming benefits. Never. Ever.) B-) What you say while you are right about some of the stuff about the bankers what you are saying is very simplistic and overlooks a lot of things The British public over borrowed, taking out lots and lots of credit and loans and credit cards that they could ill afford to do because they were too impatient and materialistic to save up and buy things 'i want it all and i want it now' culture is not the fault of the banks it was the fault of idiots who over extended themselves, banks should have been more responsible about who they gave credit cards and loans to but the public need to share a lot of the blame The banking crisis started in America with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Barings so we would have been affected by the subsequent global recession no matter what It would have been suicide not to bail out the banks, if the government had just left Lloyds, RBS etc to go to the wall millions of people would have lost their life savings, pensioners who had saved all their lives for their nest egg in retirement, businesses who had accounts would Lloyds and RBS would not have been able to pay their staff and suppliers, the country would have literally shut down
November 5, 201311 yr Your assertion that the materialistic culture (which you proclaim to be what's helping the economy now, oddly) isn't the fault of the financial elites is dangerously wide of the mark. You should read a book called Falling Behind. Hugely insightful and the text is quite large.
November 5, 201311 yr Your assertion that the materialistic culture (which you proclaim to be what's helping the economy now, oddly) isn't the fault of the financial elites is dangerously wide of the mark. You should read a book called Falling Behind. Hugely insightful and the text is quite large. House ownership is what i feel is helping the economy, I would not describe desire to own your own home as materialism, when someone buys a house they have to buy furniture and a tv and lampshades and tables etc all of which really do help the economy The people i think are complete twats are people who take out a credit card to buy an iPad for example just because their friend/neighbour/workmate/brother has one or whatever and they feel insecure because they haven't got one or because they haven't got the latest one, a sensible person saves up, a complete bellend gets into debt to get it
November 5, 201311 yr What you say while you are right about some of the stuff about the bankers what you are saying is very simplistic and overlooks a lot of things The British public over borrowed, taking out lots and lots of credit and loans and credit cards that they could ill afford to do because they were too impatient and materialistic to save up and buy things 'i want it all and i want it now' culture is not the fault of the banks it was the fault of idiots who over extended themselves, banks should have been more responsible about who they gave credit cards and loans to but the public need to share a lot of the blame The banking crisis started in America with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Barings so we would have been affected by the subsequent global recession no matter what It would have been suicide not to bail out the banks, if the government had just left Lloyds, RBS etc to go to the wall millions of people would have lost their life savings, pensioners who had saved all their lives for their nest egg in retirement, businesses who had accounts would Lloyds and RBS would not have been able to pay their staff and suppliers, the country would have literally shut down It's a shame Osborne doesn't yet seem to have grasped that the banking crisis started in America and was, therefore, not Gordon Brown's fault. As for your statement about millions of people losing their lifetime savings, that is not true. Most people will have got their money back because of the government-backed guarantees in place. Of course, it would still have been utter lunacy to have allowed the banks to collapse as millions of people would have been left unable to access their money in the short to medium term while the guarantee scheme cranked into action. By the way, when did the "I want this and I want it now" culture grow at its fastest? Yes, the 1980s and we all know who was in power at the time.
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