Should the rich be squeezed more?

marklv

chewmylegoff wrote: »

no it wouldn't it would mean that businesses would pay out higher dividends to its fat cat share-holding executives.

This loophole could be stopped by legislation.

marklv

chewmylegoff wrote: »

the catastrophic giveaway budget you are referring to was the 1988 budget.

here are some income tax receipt stats (£ millions):

1978-79 18,748
1979-80 20,599
1980-81 24,295
1981-82 28,720
1982-83 30,361
1983-84 31,108
1984-85 32,507
1985-86 35,353
1986-87 38,499
1987-88 41,402
1988-89 43,433
1989-90 48,801
1990-91 55,287
so, the "giveaway" budget you refer to actually increased tax receipts (basic rate reduced from 27 to 25 in the same budget). not really a catastrophe, was it.

punitive taxation would just result in remuneration being remodelled to take the most tax-efficient route. the losers would just be highly paid people in the public sector whose remuneration structure is controlled by the government.

the politics of envy is rarely practical.

The tax receipts were high because of the economic boom of the period, no other reason. The budget itself didn't increase tax receipts.

chewmylegoff

marklv wrote: »

This loophole could be stopped by legislation.

you would legislate to stop companies distributing their profits? that is genius, as long as you want to reduce GDP by, say, 100%.

Procrastinator333

marklv wrote: »

This loophole could be stopped by legislation.

How is paying dividends a loophole?

I think you are actually just throing the word legislation around in an attempt to get peeps to moan about too much government legislation.

chewmylegoff

marklv wrote: »

The tax receipts were high because of the economic boom of the period, no other reason. The budget itself didn't increase tax receipts.

it's true that GDP growth was about 4% in 88/9 tax year.

however, income tax receipts increased by approximately 5% despite higher rate tax being reduced by 33%. this just shows that ramping up higher rate tax doesn't have the massive revenue raising effect you seem to think that it does.

fc123

Sapphire wrote: »

I think those who can afford to pay more tax should do so. There are some obscenely wealthy people around. There should also be a heavy clamp-down on tax avoidance by the wealthy.

A good way of taking cash from wealthy people is to create a product or service that they wish to buy. It's foolproof.

fc123

marklv wrote: »

I have already said that I would greatly reduce corporation tax - that would help businesses. My argument is simply that the very better off should pay more.

????? You work in the Public Sector? Which bit if you don't mind me asking?

CLAPTON

Thrugelmir wrote: »

I can start with

Richard Branson
Alan Sugar
John Madejski
Duncan Ballantyne (Dragons Den)
James Dyson

For the record Fred the Shred's father was an electrician, and he was the first of his family to even go to University.

Don't mix politics and jealousy.

At least in Britain those who give everything to a career or business can reap the benefits.

I don't really understand your post... I thought it was clear that I believe entrepreneurs should benefit from their labours

I see no relevance that fred the shread father was from any specific background; I'm questioning why career managers should reap such extraordinary rewards
why e.g has the remuneration of board level people gone up from 40 x average wage to 80 x average wage in the last 10 years ... is there a shortgage?; have they doubled the profits of these companies ?
There seem to be other factors at work here.

damanpunk

Errrrr, I think you need to look at the disaster IR35 has been..... that should have been 'easy' yet has yielded very poor results.

marklv wrote: »

I would introduce legislation to make all this very difficult. It can be done, quite easily.

olly300

This thread is amusing.

International tax agreements or dual tax agreements mean that you have to pay tax in the country you are working in after 6 months of being there.

If someone moves to the US, then its the US tax man who get their money. Due to the dual tax agreement with the US if they still have a family in the UK then the UK tax man gets the difference.

Lots of countries tax higher than the UK so normally there is no difference. This means the UK tax man loses out.