Ed Balls pledges to raise taxes if Labour win election

longleggedhair

Hate Labour, they destroy the economy in the name of fairness and who suffers the most-the poor! They have a completely backward mentality and have a vested interest in keeping the poor poor and dependant on benefits.


Anyone with a heart and a brain would only ever vote Conservative. I always have and always will.

CLAPTON

longleggedhair wrote: »

Hate Labour, they destroy the economy in the name of fairness and who suffers the most-the poor! They have a completely backward mentality and have a vested interest in keeping the poor poor and dependant on benefits.


Anyone with a heart and a brain would only ever vote Conservative. I always have and always will.

now what a tonic

such an evidenced based, scientific, deeply fair minded analyse of modern Britain

prowla

Tancred wrote: »

Balls hasn't gone far enough - I would put the 50% rate on all earners who are above £100k a year.

The top eaners pay more tax for the simple reason that they earn more money!! How can you pay tax if you don't have money in the first place, brains of Britain!

Erm, but even at a flat rate, people who earn more pay more tax.

For example, if someone earns £50k more salary, then they pay tax and NI on that £50k, so they probably see about half of their money gone, or in other words they pay around £25k more in taxes...

So they do pay more.

This is about saying that they need to pay even more than that.

But if over half of your salary is taken then most people with a brain would logically start asking themselves who they are really working for.

The risk is that if the government gets too greedy then it becomes viable for the higher earners to seek out (legal) means of paying less tax, and that's why rates as high as 50% don't quite deliver.

And of course, the country's progressive tax system is skewed in favour of low earners, since you don't pay tax on something like the first 10k, and then the lower 20% rate kicks in for earnings up to just over £32k, after which it jumps to 40%, and then to the higher rate over £150k.

So people who earn more do pay more tax, and if they jump into the higher band then they pay more tax at a higher rate.

(BTW, I'm simply pointing out the numbers; I don't earn £150k so the proposal doesn't affect me, and I don't earn £100k, so your suggested revision wouldn't either.)

StevenMarks

Some countries in Eastern Europe have switched to a flat rate tax and seen tax take go up quite a bit.

Everyone pays the same rate and is actually a fair way to tax rather than the "fair" way the self-proclaimed "Progressives" want to punish the successful in the UK.

nickj_2

he seems to forget that rich people create wealth and jobs by spending their money , but seeing that he was gordons right hand man in the treasury leading up to the credit crunch i find it incredulous that he's shadow chancellor , it's akin to putting dracula in charge of the blood bank

J_i_m

Looking at things realistically I would agree that a higher a tax rate is more likely to motivate high earners to up-sticks and settle somewhere else, where the tax is more lenient to their situation and hence result in a lower tax revenue.

This is a topic where it is easy to over generalise and we could debate the semantics of "fair" for pretty much ever.

For example extreme over generalisations could be;

A high earner considers themselves to be deserving of their income, and their tax to be unfair because they work hard and put in the hours. They resent paying a higher rate than that of a lower earner whom they believe to be lazy with a lesser work ethic or at the very least producing work of far lower value.

The lower earner considers the higher earner to be greedy, selfish and overpaid. They will also think themselves equally as hard working especially if their profession is relatively unsung yet essential to society. (i.e teaching, nursing etc) and they too put in long hours for comparatively less reward.

The reality is far more likely to be somewhere in the middle. We are all (after all) individuals with different life styles and different work ethics. None is necessarily more valid than the next.

A higher tax rate for higher earners might well be counter-productive, but ask yourself this. Is it possible that the higher incomes are actually signifcantly over-valued in comparison to the lower or middle incomes?

Is that "fair"?

I think we can only conclude that life in-fact is not fair. If it was fair.. wealth would be evenly distrusted, poverty would not exist and society would be genuinely equal (it isn't).

CLAPTON

nickj wrote: »

he seems to forget that rich people create wealth and jobs by spending their money , but seeing that he was gordons right hand man in the treasury leading up to the credit crunch i find it incredulous that he's shadow chancellor , it's akin to putting dracula in charge of the blood bank

would it not be true that if that money was given to poorer people then they too would spend it and so create wealth and jobs?

penrhyn

Should a cleaner be paid the same as a doctor?

J_i_m

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".

lostinrates

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".

More valuable? Ask people who get Mrsa!


More skilled, more expensive to train in, fewer people with apptitude to the job etc.......certainly. There is also the matter of the sacrifices made in time during youth to train for the job, and in early years at least working in it.

So yes I suppose an implied value to the job, though not to the people in the roles.


To those talking about employment, my husband's work has enabled us to keep me out of claiming any thing for my ill health as I get further from the time I was in paid employment, and to fun the start up of our small business, which will has already given money into local economy in terms of contractors and self employed people. We aim to have a full time position of employment in the future and a part time one, but probably the fulltime one as a job share might be viable.

Things like the support for small business offered with the aim of getting very small businesses like ours to offer stable employment by this government make that aim more viable.

Why I like this better than tax? Its direct, its real, its a direct transference of (snort) wealth. Its a direct potential bridge of social divide. Its a direct knock on the door of ivory towers.