How bad will tax get?

koolcat99

I claim tax credits, a whole £41.75 every 4weeks.YEH me too, thhe amount of paperwork and time is insane. I still claim though and it goes straight to my sons savings acount.

chewmylegoff

kabayiri wrote: »

Hmm, that old chestnut eh?

Businesses hate paying tax, full stop. This competitiveness argument is a grand excuse to avoid paying tax.

Would this be the same KPMG which decided to create a range of tax avoidance products, and not get them pre-approved by the US government.

They decided that taking the hit on the fine from their illegal actions was outweighed by the profits they would make. So that makes it all right then?

Btw, they were fined $456m in the end, a record in the US I believe.
I'm so glad this bunch of shysters are advising our lot on future tax policy.....:eek:

UBS were fined $780 million recently, also for tax related activities.

just because the US arm of KPMG got a massive fine, doesn't mean they don't have a point. at the end of the day, companies must minimise their tax bill - they have a responsibility to their shareholders to do so - therefore if they can move their HQ to another country and save more tax than it costs to restructure, then they have to give it serious consideration.

if companies end up fleeing these shores (or more accurately maintaining a top company incorporated in the channel islands, and flying the whole board there for meetings, then flying back to their office on the mainland) then the exchequer loses money. the key is how we tax the overseas profits of global groups which are HQed here - it needs to be sorted out, and the treasury knows it, but it keeps delaying its solution.

prowla

splishsplash wrote: »

I'm in Ireland - my payslip yesterday showed me that Tax, PRSI(NI), Pension Levies and Income Levy amounted to about one-third of my gross salary.

That's not including the Pension payments or voluntary contribs to other things.

Our Vat rate went up in December - currently it's 21.5%.

This is only the start...

Our politicians are leading by example though - ministerial visits abroad for St. Patrick's day were halved this year. They only went to New York, Washington, Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, Australia, Germany, and 'some other countries' :rolleyes: .

Ours too - apparently Tony McNulty (Employment Minister) has stopped claiming £24k a year for his parents house that is only 8 miles away from his family home.
What a fine example!

prowla

vlad_the_impaler wrote: »

Will we ever learn?

Apparently "we" voted them in!
(Though my MP is a Tory, and the Tories polled more votes than Labour in England in the last election.)

chewmylegoff

prowla wrote: »

Ours too - apparently Tony McNulty (Employment Minister) has stopped claiming £24k a year for his parents house that is only 8 miles away from his family home.
What a fine example!

i wonder how many MPs have "done nothing wrong", whilst playing the system to divert money they don't really need to their families. he may not have strictly speaking broken any rules, but he is in breach of trust.

*MF*

vlad_the_impaler wrote: »

No, it was much worse at the tail end of the last labour govt. I have a book written in 1976 by the then Telegraph economics editor about the decline of the middle classes. The chapter on tax makes some pretty serious reading.

35% minimum income tax is correct, going up to 98% on unearned income!

The ones that are really frightening are the since abolished taxes.

Capital transfer tax. This was to tax the transfer of money, a business and/or assets to the children in a family. It was actually possible to pay MORE tax than the value of the assets.....

On £100,000 1975 pounds, you paid £19,525, or 20%. on £750,000, you paid £1,248,000!!!!! And these figures were on transfers at least three years before death. Transfers through wills were even higher. On top of that you have lunatic unions to content with. How did we suvive? Government spending as a proportion of GDP went from 46% in 1966 (the first year of Wilson's govt), to 64.8% in 1976, the last year. So, you know where all the money went then.

Is anyone else seeing any patterns here at all? Labout govts get in, tax the balls out of all of us to finance their idiot social engineering, and then run out of money 10 years later. Sure, the method of tax is different. Last time it was direct, this time they learnt their lesson and taxed hidden things like Pensions and NI, but the net effect was still exactly the same. Loads of money raised, massive damage done raising it, and the net result of b*gger all. Last time the money got soaked up by unionised layabouts, failing businesses and p*ss-takers, and this time it was robbed from us by bent businessmen working for large foreign corporations. And of course, unionised layabouts, failing businesses, and p*ss-takers.

Will we ever learn?

It was bad back then, wasn't it - and you are totally correct in pointing it out.

Here however was what I based my comments on - wrong or right, it is just my opinion.

We know that the Government is hell bent on a borrowing spree, and that the repayment of those borrowings will be through taxation - thus my question - how bad will tax get?

To follow your point about the Wilson Government, here is a graph which shows Public Spending from 1900 to 2011 (it will probably get worse after Darling gets up to speak about the Budget in April)

It shows the peak you referred to around Wilson, it also shows the effects of the two world wars - and that we are not at the same levels today as we were at any of those three points - so you are right and I was wrong in how I phrased my comments.

However, and here I am starting in 1966, this is a graph of Public Spending - but also shows the levels of net public borrowings (and yes, in April at the Budget I think this will look worse not better):

It doesn't look good does it - and interestingly it covers a period of both Conservative and Labour periods in office.

Then how you form an opinion depends on how you see the UK in terms of plus or minus on a load of inter-related factors:

Our growing and ageing population: the levels of personal debt: the reduction in our manufacturing base: the reliance on financial services as a growth factor: our growing dependency on imported fuel: the increase in unemployment: off balance sheet accounting (PFI): etc etc.

I look at these factors and others - and I ask - how bad will tax get?

I am an optimist by nature - but it is hard to be positive that we are in for an easy ride.


*EDIT* The source of those graphs was here:

http://ukpublicspending.co.uk/


Right now they need an "X" Certificate imho ;-)

kabayiri

chewmylegoff wrote: »

just because the US arm of KPMG got a massive fine, doesn't mean they don't have a point. at the end of the day, companies must minimise their tax bill - they have a responsibility to their shareholders to do so - therefore if they can move their HQ to another country and save more tax than it costs to restructure, then they have to give it serious consideration.

I may not agree with the shareholder argument, but I understand the logic behind it - you are right.

My point relates to KPMG bypassing the approval of US authorities before offering their products for use.

They knew this would breach the law, and I don't think any of us can countenance that.

vlad_the_impaler

*MF*, your post is both well thought out, and correct.

The factors this time, such as our destroyed economy, massive debt both personal and public, aging population, pensions black hole and PFI debt combine to make this economic situation probably the most unpleasent the UK has ever faced.

Some factors were beyond our control, but a great many, such as PFI, public spending, pensions etc are all well within the government's control. I remember reading in Private Eye back in 2000 about the sell and lease back schemes for PFI. The figures were always massaged to make PFI 'cheaper' when it never was, and will never be. A political move made by evil VIs lining their own pockets with rake-offs.

The other big difference is the shift in atitude of the people. They have destroyed everything we ever worked for, and most seem to not be interested. No plays being written or songs sung like there were in the early 80s. No-one cares because we are all too busy paying to gawp at Jade. Cameras, the right to silence, the list goes on and on and on. :mad:

chewmylegoff

kabayiri wrote: »

My point relates to KPMG bypassing the approval of US authorities before offering their products for use.

They knew this would breach the law, and I don't think any of us can countenance that.

no, but in the same way that we wouldn't countenance an F1 driver doing 150mph on the M1, it wouldn't mean their opinion is void when it comes to driving.

*MF*

The UK's deficit is about 2.7% more than Chancellor Alistair Darling acknowledged in the pre-Budget report, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.

The government may have to find £39bn a year by the end of 2015/16, to plug the gap in its finances, the IFS predicted.

To raise the £39bn without raising any taxes, there would need to be a five-year real freeze in total public spending, the IFS says.

Alternatively, if it was raised entirely through tax-raising measures, then families would face an average increase of £1,250 in taxes a year.

Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7984889.stm