Ed Balls pledges to raise taxes if Labour win election

Thrugelmir

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!

Perhaps what Balls needs to do is actually come out of with some real new economic policies. This issue is mere tinkering. Targeted to win votes. Not solve the problems.

Same old Nu-Labour, Same old policies....... As if Brown was still Shadow Chancellor.

penrhyn

Red Ed is purging the party of Blairites.
Balls card may already be marked.

michaels

penrhyn wrote: »

Its about time that the 40% threshold was raised, its now down at around £32,000, which is hardly a high wage.

Really if you consider what the effective rates are by including NI then it is not much of a jump from 33% to 42% so we have 13%, 33%, 42% (or more for those with kids between 50 and 60k), something pretty high at 100k when the allowance is removed and then 47% at 150k.

Fella wrote: »

The comments under the BBC article are quite surprising:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25894312

If you toggle on to all comments then sort by highest rated, literally every comment on the front page slates this move. The first time I've ever seen a BBC article with a 100% anti-Labour response.

Could be that Balls has got this badly wrong. His credibility must be even less than I thought.

That is what I thought, I can only conclude that lots of working people can comment/rate as it is the weekend. However I understand polling says this is very popular.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Perhaps what Balls needs to do is actually come out of with some real new economic policies. This issue is mere tinkering. Targeted to win votes. Not solve the problems.

Same old Nu-Labour, Same old policies....... As if Brown was still Shadow Chancellor.

Do people really vote on whether either party has a coherent set of policies?

I will never earn enough for this rate to affect me but I am not in favour, I can not see it is worth every one being worse off just to be more equal but then I don't judge my lot by comparing it to what others have.

One thing that does annoy me though is when those affected suggest it will make them less likely to put in the effort as they only get to keep 48% of any pay increase over 3000 per week. Two years ago i was earning about 400 a week and tax and benefits meaned I lost more than 80p of any extra £1s I earned. Surely losing 80p out of an increase from 400 to 401 is more demotivating than losing 52p out of an increase from 3000 to 3001?!

Thrugelmir

michaels wrote: »

Do people really vote on whether either party has a coherent set of policies?

No. but I sense increasing despair with politicians that lack any credibility to run a complex economy. The current crop of career politicians have no skill sets to speak of. They've achieved nothing in their lives. Not run a business, a hospital, been a trawler skipper, been in the armed forces.

AndyGuil

michaels wrote: »

Really if you consider what the effective rates are by including NI then it is not much of a jump from 33% to 42% so we have 13%, 33%, 42% (or more for those with kids between 50 and 60k), something pretty high at 100k when the allowance is removed and then 47% at 150k.



That is what I thought, I can only conclude that lots of working people can comment/rate as it is the weekend. However I understand polling says this is very popular.



Do people really vote on whether either party has a coherent set of policies?

I will never earn enough for this rate to affect me but I am not in favour, I can not see it is worth every one being worse off just to be more equal but then I don't judge my lot by comparing it to what others have.

One thing that does annoy me though is when those affected suggest it will make them less likely to put in the effort as they only get to keep 48% of any pay increase over 3000 per week. Two years ago i was earning about 400 a week and tax and benefits meaned I lost more than 80p of any extra £1s I earned. Surely losing 80p out of an increase from 400 to 401 is more demotivating than losing 52p out of an increase from 3000 to 3001?!

You lose the tax free allowance at 100k so effective tax is higher.

lostinrates

michaels wrote: »

One thing that does annoy me though is when those affected suggest it will make them less likely to put in the effort as they only get to keep 48% of any pay increase over 3000 per week. Two years ago i was earning about 400 a week and tax and benefits meaned I lost more than 80p of any extra £1s I earned. Surely losing 80p out of an increase from 400 to 401 is more demotivating than losing 52p out of an increase from 3000 to 3001?!

Didn't you scale back work hours planning pretty much what it worked out for tax credits etc and when added to savings on your home project it worked out better? I may well have misremembered..you know I have a likelihood of doing that . In anycase, its no different a high earner deciding its simply not worth them continuing to work a punishing schedule for a loss of reward.

We (fir amd i) make our choices based both on what we want from home and work life now, but importantly what we want for the future. If that future becomes unlikely to be feasible then we'd e probably consider making other choices. It would be kind of nuts not to. If fifty percent tax rate became a long term established thing then it would factor in decisions for our future.

Fella

Good article by Alister Heath on this:

http://www.cityam.com/article/1390799292/labour-party-s-war-better-dreadful-economics

The top one per cent will earn 13.7 per cent of all income this year but pay a record 29.8 per cent of all income tax. This year’s share was slightly exaggerated by delayed income being shifted out from previous years to avoid the original 50p rate. But the top one per cent’s contribution has been rising since the 1980s and it is clearly absurd to claim that “the rich don’t pay their fair share.” In fact, their contribution is immense.

Direct tax rates are already counter-productively high. The current top rate of income tax is 45p; on top of that there is 2p in employees’ national insurance and 13.8 per cent in “employers” national insurance (economists usually agree that it is a tax on labour, not profits, and is borne by workers in the form of lower wages, not companies). That means that the total tax on labour earnings is 53.4 per cent already above £150,000. Labour’s hike would take this back to 57.8 per cent.

princeofpounds

Tell you what. You explain exactly how we quantify the value of every job (which I'm saying is a ludicrous & impossible suggestion) & I'll give you a response.

It's easy. Everyone who is paid 20% more than me and above is not worth the money they get. Everyone paid similarly or below to me is receiving an honest wage for an honest day's toil.

grizzly1911

If all this tax and "working" so hard is getting too much for the 1% they could of course redistribute the work and wealth/income so tax is paid by so many more people.

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

If all this tax and "working" so hard is getting too much for the 1% they could of course redistribute the work and wealth so tax is paid by so many more people.

My boss is one of the 1% and a business owner. If all the tax got a bit too much for him he could retire tomorrow at 50 and live comfortably for the rest of his life.

I'd prefer that running a business (and employing me to help him) remains attractive by comparison.

Not that this has anything to do with the OP. The 50% tax rate was introduced for political reasons and subsequently removed for political reasons. The sums of money are inconsequential and I'd bet they'd hardly cover the admin costs.