The 50% Tax Rate

yesdigger

pqrdef wrote: »

Fantasy figures. Income tax on that will be about £900 and NI will be £570. Then there'll be council tax.

But most food is on 0% VAT, as are rent, fares and water. Gas and electricity are 5%. And by the time you've paid for that lot, you won't have much left to buy anything else.

These are not fantasy figures they come from figures produced for a Channel 4 documentary about Britain's National Debt! I think they are from the Office of National Statistics, but I will have to check.

Even if they are a bit OTT I still think tax is too high, in your comment your forget car tax (people have to get to work many have cars), then there is petrol, insurance tax, air duty (if people can afford holidays etc) when you add it all up it won't be far short.

Generally tax hurts the people at the bottom end as those at the top and afford to find ways to avoid it! For example how much as the 50% rate brought in, I bet not much!

A._Badger

StevieJ wrote: »

I suppose old Murdoch is a Commie as well



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14785501

Can you still remember why you decided to drag Murdoch into this?

The point at issue was your apparent surprise when the political party you supported began behaving to type.

It's hard to see what Murdoch had to do with that. Well, other than being another twerp who supported Blair, of course.

Thrugelmir

StevieJ wrote: »

I suppose old Murdoch is a Commie as well

Unlikely considering he is of Jewish faith.

A._Badger

cepheus wrote: »

People who are more unequal tend live in relative close proximity in city areas so we would expect more problems, it merely verifies what I am saying. However, I question your claim that the rural US is any less violent than rural UK, do you have any evidence? I don't have data which exclude cities, but many violent states appear to be in the South and West.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/04/05/most-dangerous-states-crime-rankings-for-2010/

Here you are - and from The Independent, too - a source of which I'm sure you will approve. Note that it sharpens my original point still further, suggesting in the headline that: "crime rates in England and Wales 'worse than US'"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/crime-rates-in-england-and-wales-worse-than-us-2042216.html

Mind you, it's worth pointing out that, like all such statistics, I don't put a lot of faith in their accuracy (or your figures, for that matter) and can barely be bothered to read the partisan analysis by the cultural Marxist sociologists who helped us into this midden.

A._Badger

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Unlikely considering he is of Jewish faith.

Are you sure of that? I understood it was a matter of some controversy.

Even if he is, it hardly inhibited Karl Marx!

Thrugelmir

A._Badger wrote: »

Are you sure of that? I understood it was a matter of some controversy.

Counterfeit perhaps. As his mother certainly was, though his father wasn't.

pqrdef

yesdigger wrote: »

Even if they are a bit OTT I still think tax is too high, in your comment your forget car tax (people have to get to work many have cars), then there is petrol, insurance tax, air duty (if people can afford holidays etc) when you add it all up it won't be far short.

I thought we were talking about people on £12,000 a year.

I agree the low-paid pay too much tax. It's one of the reasons why people figure they're better off on benefits.

But if the low-paid can barely manage, the answer can't be to reduce benefits to a level where people can't manage at all. The only way is to make low-paid work more profitable.

We need to reduce the rate at which benefits are lost when some wages are earned, and not even think about income tax and NI until people are off benefits.

But the flip side is that the better-off will need to pay more tax. It's just a sick joke when the rich try to use the low-paid as an argument to get their own tax bills reduced. But then, they don't have any better arguments, as is becoming clear.

StevieJ

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Unlikely considering he is of Jewish faith.

Then again Mr&Mrs Marx were born Jewish

Karl's father, Heinrich Marx, was descended from a distinguished line that was at the center of German Judaism all the way back to the fourteenth century, where one "Eliesar" was the rabbi for the Mainz community (the core of medieval Talmudic study).

bendix

Trotsky was Jewish too.

To say being jewish precluded you from being a communist is a baffling statement. Pretty much every major left-wing academic or radical has been jewish - Ralph Miliband, father of the David and Ed.

I don't understand the point Thruglemir is making.

FTBFun

A._Badger wrote: »

Here you are - and from The Independent, too - a source of which I'm sure you will approve. Note that it sharpens my original point still further, suggesting in the headline that: "crime rates in England and Wales 'worse than US'"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/crime-rates-in-england-and-wales-worse-than-us-2042216.html

Mind you, it's worth pointing out that, like all such statistics, I don't put a lot of faith in their accuracy (or your figures, for that matter) and can barely be bothered to read the partisan analysis by the cultural Marxist sociologists who helped us into this midden.

Here's the actual report, rather than the one "interpreted" by the Indie/Civitas depending upon your political viewpoint:

http://www.heuni.fi/Satellite?blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobcol=urldata&SSURIapptype=BlobServer&SSURIcontainer=Default&SSURIsession=false&blobkey=id&blobheadervalue1=inline;%20filename=Hakapaino_final_07042010.pdf&SSURIsscontext=Satellite%20Server&blobwhere=1266335656647&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&ssbinary=true&blobheader=application/pdf

- Homicide rate in the US and UK is the same (7 per 100,000 people)
- The incidence of rape appears to be higher in the US than the UK (suprisingly its higher in Sweden, Australia and Canada)
- Assaults are higher in the UK, but "major" assaults higher in the US (I presume that's the difference between a punch and having seven shades of !!!! kicked out of you)
- Robbery rates are higher in the UK
- Burglary rates are higher in the UK
- Car theft is higher in the US

Therefore it seems to even itself out between the two, although one might perhaps argue that for "serious" crime, the US is worse than the UK, which tends to have fairly minor crimes against the individual. That's not an excuse though.