2016 budget thoughts.....

wymondham

I'd ask him to tinker around at the edges. Increase something slightly, albeit in two years time and stopping other things altogether although not really announcing it. I'd also ask him to throw 'good for Britain' around during his speech as that's always helpful.

I bet he listens to my proposals more than any others!

CLAPTON

chucknorris wrote: »

I'm expecting a flat rate to be introduced, and if so, it would mean a hello for me to the 60% marginal tax rate, that would make me think about retiring.

I'm already having a rethink anyway, my wife visited her (previously in good health) mother on Saturday, found her unconscious, called an ambulance, went to the hospital with her, where she was given a bad prognosis. We got a call at about 2 am Monday morning saying that we had better come quickly (we did, but it was about 90 mins away) as she was unlikely to last more than a few hours, she did, but she passed away early this morning. She was only 72, I am now thinking, is it really worth working until I'm 66, when the financial argument to do so looks weak anyway.

sorry for your loss
none of us know how long we have

caronoel

chucknorris wrote: »

I'm expecting a flat rate to be introduced, and if so, it would mean a hello for me to the 60% marginal tax rate, that would make me think about retiring.

I'm already having a rethink anyway, my wife visited her (previously in good health) mother on Saturday, found her unconscious, called an ambulance, went to the hospital with her, where she was given a bad prognosis. We got a call at about 2 am Monday morning saying that we had better come quickly (we did, but it was about 90 mins away) as she was unlikely to last more than a few hours, she did, but she passed away early this morning. She was only 72, I am now thinking, is it really worth working until I'm 66, when the financial argument to do so looks weak anyway.

I am very sorry for your loss.

I do hope you and your wife are bearing up.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

1. Increase environmental taxes while reducing corporation and income taxes: we should be taxing bad things (environmental degradation) not good things (profits and salaries).
2. Continue to reduce the relative size of Government.

1. Eliminate all stealth taxes, environmental taxes, fuel duties, VAT, corporate taxes, sin taxes, council taxes, capital gains taxes, and replace them all with a much bigger tax on income.

2. Then watch people rioting in the streets to demand an instant and massive reduction in the size of government when they rapidly figure out just how much it really costs them.

mwpt

chucknorris wrote: »

I'm expecting a flat rate to be introduced, and if so, it would mean a hello for me to the 60% marginal tax rate, that would make me think about retiring.

I'm already having a rethink anyway, my wife visited her (previously in good health) mother on Saturday, found her unconscious, called an ambulance, went to the hospital with her, where she was given a bad prognosis. We got a call at about 2 am Monday morning saying that we had better come quickly (we did, but it was about 90 mins away) as she was unlikely to last more than a few hours, she did, but she passed away early this morning. She was only 72, I am now thinking, is it really worth working until I'm 66, when the financial argument to do so looks weak anyway.

I'm sorry for you loss. A person close to our family recently passed away in his sixties. It's true that we don't know how long we have.

But something puzzles me. You have spoken about your property wealth previously, so I don't think I'm crossing any boundaries with this, surely you have more than enough to retire at any point? In that case, work if you want to and don't feel that retirement is the end goal. The goal is happiness and if work keeps you engaged, stimulated and happy, continue to do it. Sorry, I'm younger than you so you don't need some upstart trying to give you wisdom, I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new, but those are my feelings.

mwpt

michaels wrote: »

Surely there are only two reasons for holding assets on death:
1) uncertainty over when death will fall
2) A desire to pass on the assets to ones offspring/other beneficiaries

Otherwise what is the point of not spending everything?

If it gets passed on as inheritence presumably it will get taxed when it is then spent so inheritance tax means tax on earning, tax on transfer, tax on spending whereas of course transfers during lifetime are not taxed. Is it not arbitary to say transfers to your kids on death are taxable but those made whilst living are not?

But essentially all taxes are arbitrary. The key would be to get people to see it not as an additional tax but as a working tax reduction. If we taxed inheritance a bit more, we could reduce other productivity taxes. During the time that the parents (or whoever) earned that wealth, they could be taxed less, and the tax imposed more on inheritance. But I doubt we could get people to accept that.

chucknorris

mwpt wrote: »

I'm sorry for you loss. A person close to our family recently passed away in his sixties. It's true that we don't know how long we have.

But something puzzles me. You have spoken about your property wealth previously, so I don't think I'm crossing any boundaries with this, surely you have more than enough to retire at any point? In that case, work if you want to and don't feel that retirement is the end goal. The goal is happiness and if work keeps you engaged, stimulated and happy, continue to do it. Sorry, I'm younger than you so you don't need some upstart trying to give you wisdom, I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new, but those are my feelings.

I like my job and I do get some pleasure out of doing it, if I didn't feel that way I would have retired already. The problem isn't (obviously) financial, it is getting the life balance right, which isn't as easy as it sounds. A death in the family like this makes you reassess your assumptions on longevity, which is what is going on right now. We have to just try and get through the next month or so, not do anything too rash and let time do some healing, a week ago at home all the talk was very positive about our future and what we were doing to do, now we are in a completely different place.

caronoel

My thoughts...

Pensions

• Pension tax credit of 25 to 30%, irrespective of marginal tax rate to encourage lower earners to contribute. Removing the tax benefits of “salary sacrifice schemes” and tax-free ISAs could fund some of this.

NHS

• £10 charge per GP visit – capped at £20 per month. Funds received would be ringfenced for the NHS.

Income tax

1. Announce intention to merge NI and PAYE
2. Widen standard rate tax band substantially

CGT

1. Harmonise CGT to be at an individual’s marginal income tax rate, to avoid gaming
2. PPR relief not available if you have held the house for less than 2 years

IHT:

1. Move the 7 year rule to 10 years, and greatly reduce “taper relief”. Start at 10% in yr 10 going to 50% in year 5, and 80% in year 3 or less.
2. Replace IHT with a Gift Tax, payable by the recipient on a lifetime basis. So the first £250k of gifts / inheritances received would be tax free – anything in excess would be taxed at 25-30%. This would encourage some folks to distribute their inheritances more widely

mwpt

All good suggestions caronoel, except a minor thing. I'd make it £5 per GP visit to mitigate some of the problems people will perceive with such a "regressive" charge. Also, £10 is probably a surprisingly large sum to people living in or close to poverty.

caronoel

mwpt wrote: »

All good suggestions caronoel, except a minor thing. I'd make it £5 per GP visit to mitigate some of the problems people will perceive with such a "regressive" charge. Also, £10 is probably a surprisingly large sum to people living in or close to poverty.

There just needs to be some sort of charge, to avoid timewasting "worried well" folks pitching up at their GPs when they could just as easily have gone to Boots to get free advice from the pharmacist.