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MSE News: 50% tax rate unlikely to raise revenues, says Cable
Former_MSE_Guy
Posts: 1,650 Forumite
in Cutting tax
This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:
"The 50% tax rate is unlikely to raise significant amounts of money for the Treasury, Business Secretary Vince Cable says ..."
"The 50% tax rate is unlikely to raise significant amounts of money for the Treasury, Business Secretary Vince Cable says ..."
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Comments
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I really dislike the constant mention of 'fairness'. There is no such thing in taxation. If you tax everyone equally that's not fair, because people who can barely afford it have to carry the same burden as millionaires. If you tax as we do now it's not fair because one millionaire has to pay the same as thousands of average people, despite probably using less than one average person's share of government services.
Time to abandon the idea of fairness and just tax people according to who your principles tell you should pay. That would be honest, which is as close to fair as we can get.0 -
I've always been bemused by council tax. Its purpose is, supposedly, to cover the cost of local services (in practice most money cvomes from central government but we're talking theory here). Why therefore does a single person get a mere 25% discount? If you have two single people living next door they are paying 50% more council tax than they would if they were living together.
I agree its difficult to get fairness when it comes to taxation, but raising the threshold to £10,000 is a good idea as it would go someway to reducing the bizarre benefit trap where people are worse off working.Mixed Martial Arts is the greatest sport known to mankind and anyone who says it is 'a bar room brawl' has never trained in it and has no idea what they are talking about.0 -
They have two lots of wheelie bins to be collected, for example.davidgmmafan wrote: »Why therefore does a single person get a mere 25% discount? If you have two single people living next door they are paying 50% more council tax than they would if they were living together.
But, more relevantly I believe, the fact that they are "choosing" to live on their own suggests that they can afford to. And therefore they can afford to pay more tax.
I don't think that it's as good a system as a perfect income tax, but it is less easy to avoid. I can't see a rich person living in a small property in order to pay less tax.0 -
JimmyTheWig wrote: »They have two lots of wheelie bins to be collected, for example.
But, more relevantly I believe, the fact that they are "choosing" to live on their own suggests that they can afford to. And therefore they can afford to pay more tax.
I don't think that it's as good a system as a perfect income tax, but it is less easy to avoid. I can't see a rich person living in a small property in order to pay less tax.
I think the biggest reason is that its a compromise between the two competing 'fairnesses' I mentioned above. If everyone only paid for their share of government services some people would be bankrupted, so you can't just make council tax £X per person. But neither is it fair to charge more to collect the bins of a widow in a big house compared to a family of 5 in a smaller house.0
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