Fear of tax, who else has stopped spending?

Austin_Allegro

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Wasn't there a survey showing 80% in favour of the vrich paying more? Ultimately if you did very well out of the boom its only fair that you cough up to help pay for the bust. Why should the people on the bottom suffer by having their already meagre wages frozen and their services scrapped?

And we get this rubbish about the rich leaving every time tax increases are mentioned. Yes - if its a 90% supertax. But if we put top rate up to 50% would people on £80k a year really up and leave en masse? Did they all through the 70s and 80s when top rate was up there? As an argument its simply disconnected with common sense or the facts. A good right-whinge argument in other words.

I see your point but I think the argument is valid, more so now than in the 1970s because of globalisation. It's a lot easier to set up somewhere else now with more open borders, better transport links, remote working etc, and increasing the tax burden on businesses tends to just make them move to less restrictive countries.

I think it would be more effective to reduce tax and red tape on small businesses which create jobs locally. Instead we have lunatic Labour MPs waffling about filling empty shops with art 'installations' instead of lowering business rates.

Old_Slaphead

themanbearpig wrote: »

£8,000 for every person in the UK just to maintain the debt's interest
£32,000 for every person to clear the debt. Average family owes £128,000 to the government.

Imagine if every person got a bill for £32,000 through the post... That's essentially what is going to happen after the election.

We'd better get some more immigrants in - we'll need some help in repaying that lot

kennyboy66_2

People seem to forget that for most of the 1980's, basic rate tax was 30% (cut to 29% in 1986).

The highest rate of taxation until 1988 was 60% (on earnings over £41k 1987/88).

In case anyone didn't know, this was during Thatchers time in office & there were few claims of mass emigration because of tax rates during those years.

Standard VAT rate was increased from 8% to 15% in 1979 and subsequently to 17.5%.

kennyboy66_2

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

I see your point but I think the argument is valid, more so now than in the 1970s because of globalisation. It's a lot easier to set up somewhere else now with more open borders, better transport links, remote working etc, and increasing the tax burden on businesses tends to just make them move to less restrictive countries.

I think it would be more effective to reduce tax and red tape on small businesses which create jobs locally. Instead we have lunatic Labour MPs waffling about filling empty shops with art 'installations' instead of lowering business rates.

The problem with countries "competing" on tax rates is that it attracts companies with zero loyalty to the area - as Ireland is now finding out.

I would say it now more bureaucratic to set up a business in the UK than it was 10 years ago. Just ask anyone who has recently set up a limited company. No end of hoops to jump through just to get a bank account & VAT number.

wolvoman

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

And we get this rubbish about the rich leaving every time tax increases are mentioned. Yes - if its a 90% supertax. But if we put top rate up to 50% would people on £80k a year really up and leave en masse? Did they all through the 70s and 80s when top rate was up there? As an argument its simply disconnected with common sense or the facts. A good right-whinge argument in other words.

Most of my clients' employees earn far in excess of that and they have already seen a brain drain in recent years to Dubai, Singapore, New York etc.
If you up tax rates even more then we'll lose even more talented people.

You do realise there are many hundreds of thousands of people earning £80K+ don't you? We're not talking footballers and fat cat bankers. We're talking about people who don't even earn enough to send kids to public schools.

SingleSue

I didn't start spending in the first place so nothing to stop spending on!

Graham_Devon

kennyboy66 wrote: »

People seem to forget that for most of the 1980's, basic rate tax was 30% (cut to 29% in 1986).

The highest rate of taxation until 1988 was 60% (on earnings over £41k 1987/88).

In case anyone didn't know, this was during Thatchers time in office & there were few claims of mass emigration because of tax rates during those years.

Standard VAT rate was increased from 8% to 15% in 1979 and subsequently to 17.5%.

Look at what you have said. Then put it into practice.

What you have said, looks worse on paper than it does today.

However, you now get 40% tax on £34,600 at TODAYS wage. This has bought a LOT more people into paying the 40% tax than there would ever have been paying the 60% tax in 1988.

What is todays equivalent of £41,000? Around £80,000?

I would suggest that actually, there is more tax coming in at 40%, hitting more people, than there was with the 60% hitting less people.

41k in 1988 was a huge wage. £34,600 today is not that far above the governments average wage. In 1988, the average wage was around 13k. So the 41k was over 3x the average wage. Or 28k difference.

The 40% bracket today is only 8k off the average wage.

Standard tax may have been 30% in 1988, but what was the threshold?

dervish

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

We'd better get some more immigrants in - we'll need some help in repaying that lot

NO.

We have enough mess with an economic crisis - we dont need a SOCIAL CRISIS as well. :mad:

Rochdale_Pioneers

wolvoman wrote: »

We're talking about people who don't even earn enough to send kids to public schools.

They don't? The poor dears!

sreppaw

Mr Cameron says that, over a four-year period, the UK will borrow £606bn - "a staggering amount".

Now i'm scared!