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The 50% Tax Rate
Comments
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Journalistic hyperbole, Stevie.
Just as this article from that communist rag, the FT:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f7f9bdfc-3204-11df-a8d1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1WbJ2lCWJ
In a city of 7m people with an average per capita income of nearly US$30,000, 1.23m live below the poverty line, earning less than half of a desperately low median wage. The city’s Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, is the worst in AsiaProbably not the demographic bendix socialises with.
As long as it isn't him living in a dog-crate sized box he couldn't care less. Same old bendix.0 -
It might be considered exploitative.lostinrates wrote: »Is cheap labour worse than cheap support of not in work?
It's true that a revival of domestic service might be the only way back to full employment. Even in the 19th century, there wasn't enough work in the factories, the end of surplus labour only came with the WW1 bloodbath and we don't want another of those.lostinrates wrote: »One of the interesting things is, DH's tax, if halved, would pay for a full time very well reimbursed person here, or two part time ones.
Making domestic help tax-deductible would help.
Tradition has it that service is socially divisive. On the other hand, people employing staff would have a lot less spare cash to throw around on £1000 designer handbags and the general riot of destruction of value that tends to be the lifestyle of the rich.
Might be difficult to start a fashion though. Expectations have been raised. Housekeeper and valet don't feature much on the schools' careers agendas.
Of course slavery is the historical norm."It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis0 -
It might be considered exploitative.
It's true that a revival of domestic service might be the only way back to full employment. Even in the 19th century, there wasn't enough work in the factories, the end of surplus labour only came with the WW1 bloodbath and we don't want another of those.
Making domestic help tax-deductible would help.
Tradition has it that service is socially divisive. On the other hand, people employing staff would have a lot less spare cash to throw around on £1000 designer handbags and the general riot of destruction of value that tends to be the lifestyle of the rich.
Might be difficult to start a fashion though. Expectations have been raised. Housekeeper and valet don't feature much on the schools' careers agendas.
Of course slavery is the historical norm.
I don't think my musings are a workable idea...hey ight be but I guess it would cost more to arrange it as a deductable? that's the normal responce t such ideas.
I dont think its really necessarily exploitative. People would be able to earn re than they get on job seekers, and show a continuous emplyment for their cvs and for their own motivation.
Personally, doesn't bother me if people spend £1000 on handbags or the smae on services...both offer employment, but I think direct contact is more social inclusive. In fact, so long as people spend it and don't save it its not sitting in the ''wealth pool''. Which of course might leave some more people in trouble later but......
He're the thing, the people I know earning around £100/150k...the young people anyway, aren't really buying too many £1000 handbags, or engaging services. They are saving a deposit for a home or paying their mortgages. £100k is a very sizable earning...but it doesn't make giver one Rockerfeller spending power. (or morality)0 -
Interesting point though . . if a place like HK can thrive on a top tax rate of 15% (and few pay that much) and yet still manage to issue a tax rebate back to every single citizen this year of HK$6000 (around five hundred quid) because of it's massive budget surplus, and it only has a few million people, why can't Britain?
I look around HK and the streets are clean. Things work. Rubbish is picked up. Public hospitals take care of the sick. Public pensions take care of the elderly. The unemployed get benefit, but are also encouraged to find new jobs, there are no homeless people on the streets etc.
So what's going on?
Could it possibly be that the tax regime here is seen as fair enough to encourage high earners and entrepeneurs to say - yeah, i'm happy to pay that - instead of using tax avoidance schemes and emigrating to stop paying for a welfare dependent state like Britain?
There are only 7 million people in Hong Kong with a remarkable number of major financial institutions. If you put London extant from the UK I suspect there will be a similar outcome.
Although of course, London doesn't have a massive dictatorship ruling over it which will be able to pretty much cancel all its democratic benefits after 50 years.0 -
I do mostly agree but there may also be an issue with provision of services, especially services that are benefits, actually driving demand for the services offered - for example the very high non-participation rate in the UK might be lower if benefits were less generous.Your taxes aren't paying the wages in your firm. They're paying those people who sweep the streets and pick up the rubbish that you mentioned. The public services you boast about are maintained by an underclass that isn't even on your radar.
How else do you think it's done? You can't actually raise more money from people paying less tax.
Do you pay more tax or less in Hong Kong? Amounts, not rates.
If you pay more, you must be making a lot more money. So that's why you're there really, nothing to do with tax.
If you pay less, and HKers in general pay less per head, then it can't be about lower tax rates bringing in more revenue, it must be about services being delivered cheaper, or not at all.I think....0 -
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Journalistic hyperbole, Stevie.
Just as this article from that communist rag, the FT:
Ironically I think that Bendix does think that the FT is a communist rag, it is either him or one of his fellow no7's has said that before
'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
It's certainly been Labour supporting in recent years, so I suppose it depends how you define 'communist'.
Ahh it was you 'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
Ahh it was you
Probably. I always try to be accurate. It's pretty much been a Keynsian/Labour rag since Blair - staunchly (openly) in favour of McDoom and only grudgingly abandoning the sinking ship, when the writing wasn't so much on the wall as burning a hole in it. Much like yourself, when you switched to the LibDems, I imagine.0
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