MoneySaving Poll: What's your stance on lowering taxes & public spending?

Former_MSE_Sam_M

Poll started 6 October 2014

Would you prefer lower taxes & less public spending or higher taxes & more public spending?

If we take the straightforward premise that to be able to increase public spending taxes also need to be increased (which of course is an oversimplification), we’d like to gauge your stance.

Please choose the option CLOSEST to your views.

Vote in this week's poll

Did you vote? Are you surprised at the results so far? Have your say below. To see the results from last time, click here.

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Thanks!


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JCL

How people could vote for more tax is beyond me really. The Government gets enough of our cash already. How they spend what they get is the problem!

cepheus

JCL wrote: »

How people could vote for more tax is beyond me really. The Government gets enough of our cash already. How they spend what they get is the problem!

The majority of people would gain from tax rises in a progressive tax system, since they claim more than they pay out in the form of better services and higher benefits. The losers are the rich who (at least should be) paying out a greater proportion of their salary as tax, don't claim benefits and probably pay privately for services.

Taxes haven't been historically excessive in the UK as can be seen here. In fact the corporate and rich tax dodgers should be paying far more.



Of course what the Conservatives plan is a whopping big tax cut. this is not so much for middle earners (as the right wing press have faithfully repeated), but mainly the richest 10%, and at a time they are still whining about cutting a deficit. How deceitful can you get?

poorchester

What about the option of tax more, slash spending cos that's the only real option if we are serious about cutting the debt

electric_fish

What taxes would you increase/cut?

Would it be fairer to cut VAT rates rather than shift the income tax thresholds - as once you're no longer paying income tax it doesn't matter how the rate changes?

ScarletBea

Where's the option to keep tax as is, or a little more, and cut spend, or keep spend as is? Surely all the options in the poll just increase (or at best, maintain) the deficit, leading us further along the bad path??

Gavin83

I'd like to see peoples suggestions of where spending cuts should be made and services are pushed to the max already. Services are already suffering, how much worse will it get if spending is cut further?

happyinflorida

caMORON promised before he was elected that he would close tax loop holes - he hasn't done so. There is £35BILLION in unpaid taxes by companies making money in the UK and using a whole load of legal loop holes to avoid paying any tax.

Do you and I pay tax on what we earn through an employer? Yes we do and far too much. Why aren't more people up in arms about all of this?

We wouldn't need any cut backs if these rotten companies paid their taxes.

Boots don't pay, vodaphone, bhs, topshop, evans, starbucks, amazon etc - in fact are there any big companies in the UK that do pay their full amount of tax like we all have to?

I boycott all non tax payers - please do the same, otherwise this will go on. Complain to your MP and to corrupt caMORON.

Jnelhams

In 1985 the basic tax rate was 30% it's now 20% - A whopping reduction of 33.3% - I think there is plenty of room to increase tax if it is only going to be used to improve the NHS. - Not MP's Salaries, Wars, and general wastage by quangos.

Cyberman60

The more governments get the more they waste as Labour proved up to 2010.

For instance what has happened to the 150 Billion or so that Gordon Brown took out of private pensions since 1997 ? Was it worth destroying people's final salary pensions for that money ?

We now pay about 60 Billion pounds a year in interest on the National Debt, which is almost double what we were paying 5 years ago thanks to the 160 Billion annual deficit legacy. What did we spend that extra 160 Billion pounds on in Labour's final year ? :mad:

Spending is out of control so raising extra tax is clearly not the answer. Cutting spending and paying off debt to the level it was before 2010 will give us at least an extra 30 Billion a year to spend, so the answer clearly has to be a continuation of austerity to get rid of the annual deficit and reduce the National Debt back to manageable levels.

Why tax people up and then hand money back as WTC. :rotfl:
Surely it's easier not to tax them in the first place and give them incentive to work !!!!

Cyberman60

Jnelhams wrote: »

In 1985 the basic tax rate was 30% it's now 20% - A whopping reduction of 33.3% - I think there is plenty of room to increase tax if it is only going to be used to improve the NHS. - Not MP's Salaries, Wars, and general wastage by quangos.

That's daft. You can't just take the basic rate, say it's lower and assume people are paying less tax than in 1985, because they are NOT !!! :mad:

If you know what 'tax freedom day' is then you will understand that we pay more tax nowadays than ever purely because there are so many other taxes. For instance VAT was 15% in 1985 and is 20% today !!
Then we have new taxes such as insurance tax, flight tax, and fiscal drag which has brought millions of additional taxpayers into the 40% band in recent years.

The average taxpayer now pays over 40% of income in tax and tax freedom day worsened by three days in 2014, so we are paying more tax anyway than last year. :eek:

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