MSE News: Super-rich must give more, says Nick Clegg

Randvegeta

you said: "they do not increase the wealth of the country."

i replied: "obviously the public sector contributes to the wealth of the country."

So the public sector contribute to society. But they do not produce anything. Would the wealthy be able to make all that wealth without the contribution of the public sector? Probably not but that doesn't change the fact that the public sector DO NOT create wealth in the country. I have already said they are important, and valuable. But you are demeaning the importance of the private sector.

i can understand it, but it's blatantly false. in comparable jobs, the public sector mostly pays less. (where comparisons make sense, which is not everywhere.)

I guess this is a matter of opinion. We can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

are you kidding? you clearly haven't got the faintest idea what it's like to barely have enough to get by. you need to use a little imagination.

No, because I work for a living. I'm also not stupid, I do not live beyond my means. The point of what I was saying is that there is a set amount that people (in general) need to live relatively well. So if we set this amount sufficiently high enough, I do not see why they would only just barely get by? Do you think minimum wage is too low? Why? I think its more than enough for a single person. If you are going to bring in arguments about single parents, or 1 working parent or some special scenario like that, first, I'm not talking about them. I made that clear. Second, if they cannot afford to have a family, why have one? Why should someone who has been responsible enough to WAIT until they can afford to have a child pay higher taxes so the irresponsible can benefit? People need to take responsibility for themselves.

there isn't a simple cut-off income, after which it doesn't hurt you at all to pay tax.

And why is that?

people have different needs and circumstances; some are fine on an income on which others would struggle. that's why the marginal rate should rise only gradually.

And what circumstances warrant special treatment? Having babies? Being married? I don't consider those excused good enough. They should think about the consequences of their actions instead of thinking of how much they can suck out of other hard working people shouldn't they!

you are not even consistent. if it doesn't matter how high a marginal rate people pay, so long as they keep everything up to the minimum wage, then it equally doesn't matter high a marginal rate somebody on a high income pays.

What? What are you on about now?

John_Pierpoint

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

ok, sounds like i misunderstood your views on the NHS and education. dunno how you expect it to be paid for, though, if you think taxes are too high.

what level of tax is so high that a too many ppl leave? apparently, you've left already. but, given the structural deficit, we are in no position to lower taxes, which presumably we'd have to if we wanted you to come back. the discussion has been vague about what taxes might rise by how much, but i would suggest leaving the top rate of income tax at 50% but doing a huge amount to close down loopholes. the idea that huge numbers would leave as a result of that is a joke. some will leave, as always. and others will continue to move here.

many businesses (especially service businesses) can't actually move overseas. others can, but if they sell here, we can tax them. taxation of international businesses is 1 area where the tax system is completely flawed. the standard approach, "transfer pricing", just doesn't work. we need to look at the total profits of a business, and tax a proportion of them in each country, based on some formula, e.g. 1/3 based on where their sales are, 1/3 on where their employees are, 1/3 on where their assets are. so this is an issue, but there are workable solutions.

i'm not sure why we need foreign investment. the UK is a rich country, with plenty of capital of our own. i've no objection to it, though. and if we close the tax loopholes which favour overseas businesses selling to the UK over ones based in the UK, then businesses will be more likely to choose to base themselves here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings

I would say that, unlike casino banking, the people who created ARM in the shadow of Cambridge University were as much motivated by the excitement of what they were doing as the wages they were earning.
There was an element of tax funding given the amount of free publicity they got on the BBC not to mention the UK government response to the "chips with everything light bulb" moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdGD8ZS62yw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_instruction_set_computing

Way back in the 1970's California (then a well educated "can do" society, with a fine climate and a "shangri la" destination for migrants.) tried to behave as a country in its own right and tried to avoid Transfer Price dodges, by introducing "sunshine laws", these amounted to "If you sell 10% of your turnover in California, we will tax you on 10% of your world wide profits". Some companies simply pulled out, rather than comply.
I don't know if it is relevant, but which state in USA has continual problems now funding its public sector payroll?

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

obviously the public sector contributes to the wealth of the country. it provides an educated population, a transport system, a stable legal system, etc, without which the private sector could hardly operate.
.

Increasingly every thing the public sector does is being made self accounting then logically the users have to pay the costs, then surprise surprise they become profit centres. In the "socialist" 1960's most of these were "free" at the point of use. Now they all charge.
In my local town Basildon car parking charges last until midnight - it this so as to ration a scarce resource (road space)? Just possibly on a Friday of Saturday night but the other days of the week it is simply just another of expensive to collect taxation.

The truth is that the productivity of most of the world's population is so low that they could not possibly be employed even at minimum wage. Coincidently, the productivity of employed UK labour per hour is falling.

The future of rising population (1,000,000 more in less than 20 years?), rising raw material prices, rising food prices, climate change and falling real incomes does not look good.