Ed Balls pledges to raise taxes if Labour win election

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

Raising the top rate to 50% will not have such a dramatic impact - as always, you are exaggerating.

Oh, and I have a suggestion. Try getting a job yourself if you want more money - my wife works, believe it or not.

Good for her.

As I suggested, you could earn more too. I really don't feel the need to explain my personal circumstances to you.

ukcarper

lostinrates wrote: »

Well, we 're such a tiny one percent I rather thought we were special :rotfl::rotfl:


My father at the end of his career was a one percent that absolutely couldn't have done his work from over seas. At all. But when things turned unpleasant there were discussions about ways too make it possible to have circumvented this.

Thankfully (IMO) the board voted over this by a tiny majority of one. It would, IMO, have been a Moral abhorrence.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of who is earning in excess of £150k. I'm sure a lot of the people complaining about the increase would be the first to complain about council execs salaries etc .

Intoodeep

J_i_m wrote: »

Well no, obviously.

Being a Doctor is considerably more valuable than being a cleaner.

However... that wouldn't mean it'd be fair for that doctor to be paid £500'000 whilst the clean was paid £12'500 (Yes, I doubt many doctors actually top 100K in fairness).

I do believe that there needs to be scale of salary proportional to skill and value. But I don't believe the one we have is actually "fair".

Wayne Rooney £130,000 A WEEK :mad:

danothy

Tancred wrote: »

Ok, so you disagree with me about what is fair and what isn't? No problem.

Let me put this to you:

Is it fairer to have:

(1) A flat income tax rate of 30% for everyone

or

(2) A progressive rate, starting at 20% and rising steadily to 50%.

Fairer to whom exactly?

Tancred wrote: »

Assuming you would choose (1), why does this seem fairer to you? It would mean that the poorest, who only spend money on necessities, pay the same rate as those with a lot of spare cash.

You assume wrong, and I am unsurprised about that. If fairness is about treating people the same then they should be paying the same in absolute terms. If it's about asking for the same financial 'effort' from them then they should be paying a flat rate, and if it's about making them the same as one another, then they should be paying progressively.

Thing is, asking them for the same isn't fair because it potentially forces the poorest to place the 'grater good' above their own ability to support themselves. Asking people for different amounts (flat or progressive rates) leaves some people unfairly paying for other's use of the overall system. Specifically, progressive rates remove the reward for working harder than someone else, which isn't fair in terms of return on effort. Asking for a use based contribution limits the utility of centralising the effort to group buying.

All are fair by one measure, and unfair by another, yet you pontificate your opinion as if it were fact set in stone that progressive taxation is fair with little more backup than "because it is". Personally, I think you should stop calling for a particular state of affairs until your arguments maturity has developed beyond "more spare cash means the rates shouldn't be the same".

Tancred wrote: »

You have missed the point here. A welathy person can choose what they want to with their cash, because they have lots of it. A poor person cannot. If we are going to have a society which protects the weakest, according to most accepted norms of civilised behaviour and morality, then you will simply need to differentiate between people's wealth when assessing tax rates.

Are you implying that protecting the weakest boils down to ensuring they can choose what to spend their money on?

Tancred wrote: »

A wealthy person who lives in a £2M mansion could quite easily live in a £400k house. His spending is based on ability to choose a lifestyle for himself. Someone on £20k a year doesn't have that luxury.

I'm not sure what your point is? Are we to tax that choice away from the wealthy, or provide it to the poor? Or are you suggesting that we should all be the same, regardless of effort?

Tancred wrote: »

The problem with you is that you are amoral. You believe that 'greed is good', in the words of the Gordon Gekko character. This is something I cannot agree with.

It's cool that you can decide on my moral position from examining my dissection of your statements from a logical perspective and from my assertions about the perspective of fairness that were presented for your benefit, as you clearly haven't considered them. I do take exception to you telling me what I believe though. You certainly have no right to do that. That you try to, I would say, speaks to your moral character.

Tancred wrote: »

wealth redistribution creates a more equal and united society.

Yet it could be considered unfair on those who put the effort in to create that wealth to have it redistributed to those who didn't, while being told that it's only fair to redistribute it.

lostinrates

ukcarper wrote: »

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of who is earning in excess of £150k. I'm sure a lot of the people complaining about the increase would be the first to complain about council execs salaries etc .

Do council execs opt out of work hours directives, for example? Genuine question, I have know idea? I do know from social circle that quite senior level council management have flexitime, which is something that doesn't really go with the sort of work sacrifice I'm comparing with my experience of DH and our friends who work those kinda salaries.

Tancred

lostinrates wrote: »

Good for her.

As I suggested, you could earn more too. I really don't feel the need to explain my personal circumstances to you.

I earn as much as I can in my line of work, doing my type of job, otherwise I would be earning more for sure. But I'm not complaining about it.

And yes, you do need to explain your personal circustances if you trying to argue a point that cannot be adequately clarified without doing so.

ukcarper

lostinrates wrote: »

Do council execs opt out of work hours directives, for example? Genuine question, I have know idea? I do know from social circle that quite senior level council management have flexitime, which is something that doesn't really go with the sort of work sacrifice I'm comparing with my experience of DH and our friends who work those kinda salaries.

Don't know but some earn more than £150k and people on less than that opt out of work hours directives.

lostinrates

Tancred wrote: »

I earn as much as I can in my line of work, doing my type of job, otherwise I would be earning more for sure. But I'm not complaining about it.

And yes, you do need to explain your personal circustances if you trying to argue a point that cannot be adequately clarified without doing so.

No, I really don't need to explain my circumstances. Its the Internet, there is no compulsion to do so. You are perfectly entitled to ask and I am perfectly entitled to withold information.

Fwiw, its not a secret and has been discussed here many times before, but your manner has been somewhat offensive, so I'm not terribly inclined to discuss it with you, unlike, say uk carper, who is arguing a similar point but with courtesy.


You could be earning now, surely?

Bantex_2

Fella wrote: »

There speaks a low earner, happy to see someone else's money taken off them & say it's no problem.

Did you read what you quoted?

lostinrates

ukcarper wrote: »

Don't know but some earn more than £150k and people on less than that opt out of work hours directives.

Yep, lots opt our of work hours directives, often those on lower salaries get other compensations for this in compensatory time off at other times for example. Or overtime. Or they don't have the extra expense of clothing etc.


I think council executives wage are probably different in value where they live. We had a big stink here, and you are right, I was vocal against a situation in our council. The whole county was. It was found later on dissection to be found extremely 'fishy' by all. I think its a pretty hefty job with responsibility though, the problem is that many times the council leaders seek to evade responsibility. A good council leader with a well run county is pretty valuable though I'd say.

In general I'd say our area has made some pretty big improvements in the last year or so. This hasn't been universally popular, in cludes a large about of green field building where we have a lot of unused industrial areas which would be ripe for redevelopment as residential areas I think, as on really good commuting routes witherings like roads, and power already to them. I'd not have so much issue with a council leaders salary though, now we have such significant strides forward. My immediate area has a difficult balance of having the only part of the county on eu poverty index and yet having some very clear wealth, though we are the armpit end of the county,
. I think it must be very hard to strike the right balance here all the time, in an area where employment is a continual struggle and the main business is on coming through here and getting out of here.

What I would have an issue with is that they don't need to stick a roundabout everywhere just because they can. We have weird roundabouts in the countryside tractors cannot get round:rotfl: