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Plan B

135

Comments

  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Moby wrote: »
    The US used the Marshall Plan to get Germany back on her feet.

    Was 16 European nations including the UK.

    Germany had a great industrial base in particular engineering. Plenty of household names that are still around today.
  • grizzly1911
    grizzly1911 Posts: 9,965 Forumite
    edited 6 December 2012 at 10:48PM
    Fella wrote: »
    The fact that you think increasing taxation solves anything illustrates how little you understand about anything.

    Let me try to explain it. The world get's better if we do more, produce more, make more, build more.

    Increasing tax doesn't make anything better. It does however, kill the incentive to do more, produce more, make more, build more.

    Imagine the world consisted of just two people: Myself, in Government, and yourself, a worker.

    Tomorrow I announce that instead of keeping 50% of what you work for and giving me 50% to spend however I please, I'll be taking 60% & leaving you 40%. Not only will I be spending that 60% exactly how I please, but I'll probably be spending it on things you not only disagree with but actively hate. Also, the chances are you didn't vote for me.

    Now, in those circumstances, would you feel inspired to go & work harder? After all You only have to work 10% more (so that's an extra 5 weeks a year) in order to remain exactly where you were before I raised your tax.

    I have worked for 30+ years. I have lived through a few Governments. In all that time the amount of total tax, as proportion of income, (direct, indirect, NI, council tax, duty etc.) I have paid has only ever increased.
    It only ever will.

    I was told that by an economics lecturer all those years ago and I didn't believe it then,

    As I get older I expect that little change as we move from direct to indirect taxation.
    "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....

    "big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham
  • CLAPTON
    CLAPTON Posts: 41,865 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    As I get older I expect that little change as we move from direct to indirect taxation.


    the current government increased direct taxation from 31% to 32% with effect from april 2012.
  • pqrdef
    pqrdef Posts: 4,552 Forumite
    edited 7 December 2012 at 3:24AM
    Fella wrote: »
    Now, in those circumstances, would you feel inspired to go & work harder?
    Wouldn't have any choice, would I, if I needed the money.

    In my younger days, I worked overtime to afford things I defined as essential, like a car. If I'd paid less tax, I could have balanced my books with less overtime, so I'd have done less overtime.

    If I'd had to pay more tax, I'd have had to work more overtime.

    That's how incentives work. The things you need are incentives. The stuff you don't need, not. There's no way I'd have worked more hours just to have more money to blow on inessentials.

    This fantasy world where people work harder when they pay less tax only exists in right-wing propaganda. At best, if those people exist, they should consider therapy. Normal people think work is a necessary evil and money is only worth working for up to a point.
    "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 Lewis
  • pqrdef
    pqrdef Posts: 4,552 Forumite
    In all that time the amount of total tax, as proportion of income, (direct, indirect, NI, council tax, duty etc.) I have paid has only ever increased.
    If you make more money, you pay a higher proportion in tax. It's called progressive taxation and it's generally considered fair.
    "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 Lewis
  • grizzly1911
    grizzly1911 Posts: 9,965 Forumite
    pqrdef wrote: »
    If you make more money, you pay a higher proportion in tax. It's called progressive taxation and it's generally considered fair.

    I fully appreciate that.

    All things being equal the levels of "tax" of have increased. they may have changed name, they maybe through stealth and the mix will have changed but had I kept a similar income through that period I would be paying more overall now.
    "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....

    "big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham
  • ILW
    ILW Posts: 18,333 Forumite
    CLAPTON wrote: »
    the current government increased direct taxation from 31% to 32% with effect from april 2012.
    They also increased the personal allowances.
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    CLAPTON wrote: »
    the current government increased direct taxation from 31% to 32% with effect from april 2012.

    Isn't that how to balance the books?
  • Fella
    Fella Posts: 7,921 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    pqrdef wrote: »
    Wouldn't have any choice, would I, if I needed the money.

    Good I'm glad you agree with me. You wouldn't work any harder unless you were literally forced to.

    You have confirmed the point I was making, that increasing tax doesn't improve anything, it's simply a disincentive to work.

    Increasing tax is basically the only idea that morons in nu-labor can come up with since they don't have the faintest, not the FAINTEST idea of how to actually create an environment that encourages innovation & enterprise. All they understand & all they want to understand is the politics of envy.

    Unfortunately increasing tax always has lots of fans - those people who would far rather whine in envy at anyone who's worked to improve their situation than actually get off their butt & work themselves. It doesn't bother them in the slightest that the top earners already pay astronomical tax and far far more tax than the whingers do. (And of course many of the whingers pay nothing into they system at all, they simulatanously leech off the system and moan endlessly about how unfair it is). They have no shame & just want an ever-increasing slice of what someone else worked for.

    Pathetic really.
  • grizzly1911
    grizzly1911 Posts: 9,965 Forumite
    edited 7 December 2012 at 7:33PM
    ILW wrote: »
    They also increased the personal allowances.

    Were they above or below inflation?

    NI increased for many of the decreases in Income Tax.

    Increased VAT on consumption. 8 - 20%. Increased VAT elements -domestic energy, insurance.
    "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....

    "big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham
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