Tax increases should occur but be on wealth but Tories dont do anything that means wealth distribution.

 

Johnson will Uturn no doubt.

Increase the taxes until the piggies squeal!!

I've been meaning to start a thread on social care, but never got round to it.

 

The Tories made two commitments in their manifesto which, realistically, were incompatible. On Johnson's first day as PM, he said he had a plan to fix the social care problem that was ready to go. In the election a few months later, the Tories committed to solving the problem, but there was no detail - strange, considering there was supposedly a plan ready to go. However, they also promised not to raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT. As they are the three main tax-raisers, it was difficult to see how they were going to pay for their plan, but they got away with it.

 

Raising taxes to pay for NHS recovery is, at least in part, a justifiable breach of the manifesto pledge. The increase in waiting times (partly due to Covid, partly due to earlier cuts) has to be addressed. The Covid effect is one reason why I think making manifesto pledges legally binding is a stupid idea. However, raising taxes to pay for social care is, while nece4ssary, harder for them to justify politically. Using NI, rather than income tax, is totally unfair. NI is specifically a tax on earned income from work. It is not payable on earnings from sources such as rent and dividends. It is not payable at all by anyone over the state pension age, even if they are still in work. A 67-year-old who still has a well-paid job (perhaps as an MP) as well as income from rent and dividends will not pay a penny, but an 18-year-old paid £15,000 per year will have to pay.

 

The Tory manifesto also said that they would introduce a plan with all-party support. So far, there has been no consultation with opposition parties. Another lie, then.

NI is already too much, putting it up is deeply unfair on the low paid. How hard would it have been to put this on income tax.

I'd want them to raise wealth taxes like inheritance tax, stamp duty {the recent cut was criminal as that raised house prices even more), tax on assets (I know that one might be difficult but can be investigated)), clamping down on company tax avoidance and are they going to cancel the Brexit festival nonsense? (haven't heard anything about that for a while so hopefully)

Edited September 7, 20213 yr by Smint

@1435206806628876288

 

Shameful.

 

The money's clearly going to be used to pay for Covid, so why not just come out and say that's what it's for? Surely that would be more electorally palatable than saying it's for care?

 

Or is this so they can announce another tax hike in 6 months that's to pay for Covid, and is much more significant - if nobody says anything about 1.25% on NI, whatabout 3-5% on IT?

Edited September 7, 20213 yr by chartfridays

The media is slavishly reporting that it will FIX the social care crisis caused by thr Tories in the first place. Barely more than a dictatorship.

@1435206806628876288

 

Shameful.

So they want to make the tax system even more complicated.

So they want to make the tax system even more complicated.

 

Adding work OAPs to NI will be a bit complicated but is long overdue to be honest.

 

The caps on social care costs not tax.

It's just utterly wrong. The lowest earners are going to be hit (again) under the ruse of it being entirely for social care — something people do want reforming. Not like this.

 

No capital gains tax, no inheritance tax, no wealth tax. The richest yet again getting away with contributing as little as possible whilst the youngest generations are battered over the head with no savings, no assets and stagnant wages.

(This is not going to fix social care by the way)

The NI brackets start lower than the tax bracket so this is quite literally a raid on those least able to afford it. Sure a fiver a week doesn’t sound like much to lose for most of us but when your budget is planned to the penny that’s a f***ing big hole.

 

 

There’s so many better ways this could have been done. They could have hiked the % over the UEL so that someone earning 50k pays more but those under 50k see no changes. That’s much fairer. (The rate on earnings over 967£ per week is 2% which is frankly scandalous when the rate below that is 12%!!)

 

NI needs reforming. Raise the LEL to the PT/ST and then make it progressive so the more you earn the more you pay.

The NI brackets start lower than the tax bracket so this is quite literally a raid on those least able to afford it. Sure a fiver a week doesn’t sound like much to lose for most of us but when your budget is planned to the penny that’s a f***ing big hole.

There’s so many better ways this could have been done. They could have hiked the % over the UEL so that someone earning 50k pays more but those under 50k see no changes. That’s much fairer. (The rate on earnings over 967£ per week is 2% which is frankly scandalous when the rate below that is 12%!!)

 

NI needs reforming. Raise the LEL to the PT/ST and then make it progressive so the more you earn the more you pay.

 

The problem is if you make NI progressive you might as well just combine it with IT and have a single flat tax rate. Which would actually be a great thing to do in terms of simplifying the tax system, unfortunately the government are so damn insistent on using NI contributions to gatekeep benefits they won't do it.

I’d be happy with a single progressive rate of tax but I think that’s never gonna happen.

 

 

I currently pay a progressive IT and then have 4 different social security payments to make one of which is a care insurance. (The others are pension, medical and job-loss insurances) it’s a bit messy and bloody expensive so I’m not the biggest fan of it tbh but the progressive income tax is great

Well let's be honest taxes had to rise somewhere, but I totally agree with the points here that an NI tax rise is probably the least fair way to do it. Not sure NI is a differing tax to income tax anymore anyway, seeing as income tax goes down and NI goes up. I think the argument has always been it's harder to dodge NI than income tax, but just seems a massive slap to the face of everyone and nor is the tax proportionately fair.

 

Might as well at this point just create a seperate covid tax for us all to pay for the rest of our lifetimes.

Triple lock has been suspended.

 

Tbf an 8% rise in pensions wouldn't look too great when you're raiding working age salaries!!!

Triple lock has been suspended.

 

Tbf an 8% rise in pensions wouldn't look too great when you're raiding working age salaries!!!

Suspending the triple-lock for a year is another broken promise that can be justified on the grounds that there have been unforeseen circumstances since the election. The only justification for keeping it is that the state pension is still substantially lower than that in comparable European countries.

I have long felt that the possibility of combining Income Tax and National Insurance should at least be considered. If it is done in a revenue-neutral way, most people would benefit with the wealthiest paying more. The combined basic rate would be nowhere near 32% (20% income tax + 12% NI), even if tax reliefs were also applied at the new basic rate.

Tory MPs not raising a murmur of disapproval. Quelle surprise.