What cuts are you prepared to personally suffer to repay the deficit?

dori2o

Scrap tax credits, BUT in order for this to work, increase the Minimum wage to a suitable level to counteract at least the majority of the income lost to an individual who has lost their benefit. The reason why people don't work and stay on benefits is because so many employers ONLY pay minimum wage, and therefore it is easier to stay at home. (more income from salaries = more tax)

Bring in regulation on the maximum cost of childcare. A Nursery near us charges £300 a week per child for 8.30 til 6:30. Why should people go to work when they have kids when childcare costs are so high, yet minimum wage salaries have no chance of meeting the cost?

End child benefit for all those earning a household net gross income (I.e. after pension contributions etc) over £43875 AND only pay it for a maximum of 2 children.

Maximum rent paid by DSS should be capped to £650month. If you cannot find a property in the area you want to live in for that money.....tough. Get a job or move to an area where the properties are available at that price. Council tax benefit should only be available on Band A-B/C properties.

Increase the personal tax allowance to £12500 for under 65's and £15,000 for 65/State pension age +. Remove a large proportion of the populus from the tax system will make administering the system easier.

Remove the loopholes in the tax system that allow the most wealthy to avoid paying taxes on their income. It is a fact that the most wealthy in the country pay proportionately less tax from their total income than those at the bottom of the ladder. This is due to the many loopholes that their highly paid accountants can use to help them avoid taxes.

One such loophole is the ability for company directors to pay themselves in dividends. As an example, Individual earning net gross of £100k in a salaried position would pay £29930 in tax, whilst a company director, earning a net gross income of £100k made up of £6475 salary (to use up the tax free allowance) + £93525 dividends would pay only £21980 in tax, over £7k less in taxes.

Only allow company directors to be paid a proportion of their income in dividends, i.e. a maximum percentage of their income can be paid in dividends, say 30/40%.

Lower the Inheretance tax threshold to £150k per individual. So what if the estate comes into the IHT band. This will ensure those who are asking for an equity tax get their wish as mosts estates now include property which has increased in value during the boom years.

Increase funding into HMRC compliance units and stiffen the penalties for evaiding tax.

Longer prison sentences and financial penalties. Include this on credit reference checks for all to see. Name and shame those who steal money from the hard working people. Same with benefit cheats, name and shame, include a mark on their credit reference that they have been convicted of stealing benefits.

Also anyone caught making false benefit claims should be banned from claiming in the future, either for a fixed period or permenantly.

If you are a non UK national evading tax or stealing benefits you should be deported back to your country of origin and barred from EVER returning to the UK, no appeals, no claims of marriage or children living in the UK, just put on the next flight home. You were a guest in our country and took advantage of our laws, therefore you can never return.

Restrict the number of student Visas given out. The majority of those who are here who should not be have come across the channel on student visa's.

Can't think of any more at the moment

Pennywise

dori2o wrote: »

One such loophole is the ability for company directors to pay themselves in dividends. As an example, Individual earning net gross of £100k in a salaried position would pay £29930 in tax, whilst a company director, earning a net gross income of £100k made up of £6475 salary (to use up the tax free allowance) + £93525 dividends would pay only £21980 in tax, over £7k less in taxes.

Actually a company profit of £100k, with the sole director/shareholder taking a £6475 salary and the balance in dividends would result in a total tax of £29,696 - I can't see where you get a tax figure of £21980 from. Company profit, £100k less salary £6475 gives net profit £93525 on which corporation tax is 21% amounting to £19640 leaving £73885 as dividend on which higher rate tax amounts to £10,056. Total tax £29,696!

Your payroll illustration is also wrong as it doesn't take account of NIC!

There is a benefit of going down the director route, but it's not as high as £7k!

And, of course, the "director" will have more expenses than an employee, i.e. insurance, accountancy fees, computing, office admin, etc., all of which would be paid by the employer normally, making the "benefit" less - anyway a £100k gross salary isn't directly comparable to a self employed "profit" because of lack of employer benefits and poorer entitlements to state benefits. Comparisons such as your's aren't particularly helpful and don't give the full story (even if they had been arithmetically correct!).

dori2o

Pennywise wrote: »

Actually a company profit of £100k, with the sole director/shareholder taking a £6475 salary and the balance in dividends would result in a total tax of £29,696 - I can't see where you get a tax figure of £21980 from. Company profit, £100k less salary £6475 gives net profit £93525 on which corporation tax is 21% amounting to £19640 leaving £73885 as dividend on which higher rate tax amounts to £10,056. Total tax £29,696!

Your payroll illustration is also wrong as it doesn't take account of NIC!

There is a benefit of going down the director route, but it's not as high as £7k!

And, of course, the "director" will have more expenses than an employee, i.e. insurance, accountancy fees, computing, office admin, etc., all of which would be paid by the employer normally, making the "benefit" less - anyway a £100k gross salary isn't directly comparable to a self employed "profit" because of lack of employer benefits and poorer entitlements to state benefits. Comparisons such as your's aren't particularly helpful and don't give the full story (even if they had been arithmetically correct!).

The figures I use assume this is the 'dividend paid' by the company, not the amount of the company profit before CT etc. The conversation after all was based on personal income, not business.

Nelski

Pennywise wrote: »

And, of course, the "director" will have more expenses than an employee, i.e. insurance, accountancy fees, computing, office admin, etc., all of which would be paid by the employer normally, making the "benefit" less - anyway a £100k gross salary isn't directly comparable to a self employed "profit" because of lack of employer benefits and poorer entitlements to state benefits. Comparisons such as your's aren't particularly helpful and don't give the full story (even if they had been arithmetically correct!).

But those costs come out of the business before any personal tax is paid .....well they do in mine anyway so as a director I am not paying for them the business is

silvercar

So today a new brown wheelie bin arrives, so now I have two black bins (OK I accept that is greedy, but we acquired both with house), a green wheelie, a brown wheelie, a blue box and a black box.

Along with a plastic coated chart of the collections rota.

Some room for cuts I think.

ERICS_MUM

The mayor of our medium-size town has an official car for official occasions - it's an enormous Rolls Royce with chauffeur. I can't imagine the cost of maintaining, garaging and insurance this car, plus the cost of the driver (who hopefully is paid by the hour for the actual hours worked). Let's hazard a guess of £3,000 pa.

Our local GP surgery regularly asks for patients to donate money in order to buy equipment - currently a height-adjustable examination couch for the convenience of elderly, pregnant etc patients. Prior to that it was for an examination lamp to allow minor surgery to be undertaken by the GPs.

I'm not suggesting a like-for-like swap, but in the grand scheme of things there should be a better way of distributing "wealth".

dori2o

silvercar wrote: »

So today a new brown wheelie bin arrives, so now I have two black bins (OK I accept that is greedy, but we acquired both with house), a green wheelie, a brown wheelie, a blue box and a black box.

Along with a plastic coated chart of the collections rota.

Some room for cuts I think.

Didn't David Cameron (in a post election speach) promise to eradicate this stupid bin collection scheme and get binmen back to doing what they do best- collecting rubbish.

Conrad

Pennywise wrote: »

Actually a company profit of £100k, with the sole director/shareholder taking a £6475 salary and the balance in dividends would result in a total tax of £29,696 - I can't see where you get a tax figure of £21980 from. Company profit, £100k less salary £6475 gives net profit £93525 on which corporation tax is 21% amounting to £19640 leaving £73885 as dividend on which higher rate tax amounts to £10,056. Total tax £29,696!

Your payroll illustration is also wrong as it doesn't take account of NIC!

There is a benefit of going down the director route, but it's not as high as £7k!

And, of course, the "director" will have more expenses than an employee, i.e. insurance, accountancy fees, computing, office admin, etc., all of which would be paid by the employer normally, making the "benefit" less - anyway a £100k gross salary isn't directly comparable to a self employed "profit" because of lack of employer benefits and poorer entitlements to state benefits. Comparisons such as your's aren't particularly helpful and don't give the full story (even if they had been arithmetically correct!).

Your'e totaly off beam here. In REALITY a good accountant will get your Tax way lower.

I take home approx £7500 pm. If you gross that up as if I were an employed civil servant, the annual gross with that take home figure is c£140kpa.

My Tax bill, both corporate and personal = £10k pa.

FTBFun

Conrad wrote: »

Your'e totaly off beam here. In REALITY a good accountant will get your Tax way lower.

I take home approx £7500 pm. If you gross that up as if I were an employed civil servant, the annual gross with that take home figure is c£140kpa.

My Tax bill, both corporate and personal = £10k pa.

Ah so you pay 7% tax. Contributing your bit I see.

I'd love to know how you got it that far down.

ERICS_MUM

I could do any of these (maybe not all of them at the same time)

1. Defer my state pension until I'm 70 (I'm 55 now).
2. Accept a reduction of £1,000 per annum on my tax allowance (which is the basic allowance of £6,000 odd)
3. Pay a nominal amount to see my GP and diabetic nurse (say £10 per visit)
4. Pay towards my prescription meds, for which I currently have a medical exemption due to me having diabetes. I could pay for a pre-paid prescription card which is about £10 per month.
5. Pay 2% more VAT on non-essential electrical electronic goods such a telly, mobile phone, DVD recorder, camera, PC etc
6. Pay a higher rate of VAT on my fuel bills, based on my income (well ill-health pension). It's currently 5%, why not step it based on income, say 5%, 11%, 20% on a sliding scale
7. Pay higher VAT on parking costs