What would you like to see in the Budget next month?

GreatApe

antrobus wrote: »

You miss the point by a country mile.

The real question would be this; is this hard working man any good at running a sandwich making factory? Free markets work on the basis that anyone can have a bash at running a sandwich making factory; consumers exercise a choice as to whose sandwiches they prefer, the good producers succeed and pocket the profits, the poor ones give up and do something else.

That's how an economy utilises its resources in the most efficient manner.



The reason that this 'sandwiches baron' earns so much is because he is supplying the public with the sandwiches they want. That's his contribution. That's the whole point of having an economy in the first place, to satisfy people's (largely material) needs.

The fact that someone makes a lot of money doing something is a signal they are doing something right in economic terms. And it doesn't matter whether that something is.

I think we are talking about different things.

Yes in a free market the best or hardest workers should get to the top thats not however what I was talking about. I was saying that peoples contributions are not solo events void of everything around them

So if someone says doctors are big tax payers aren't doctors great. My argument is that they probably are not as individuals really net tax payers. If said doctors all disappeared we would not say oh ok lets close the NHS down we would instead train more doctors. The demand for doctors creates the high paying jobs not the doctors themselves.

In the same way that if the top 5 football teams in the uk all died today not long after we would have the new top tier footballers earning the top bucks.

So for all those who think they are fantastic huge tax payers, or that some groups like cleaners or nurses are low productive leeches its simply not true. A full accounting of their functions would show that both are pretty much net even contributors even though on the doctors payslip it says they contributed 10x as much as the cleaner

GreatApe

rtho782 wrote: »

Nope.

UK public spending per capita is £12,025. http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/breakdown?units=d

My annual income is about £38,000, mostly from employment but about £8k a year from self employment.

My total deductions from my salary are £6,421.80. My employment also causes my employer to pay £3,020.54 in employers NI. I then pay £1,600 tax on my self employed income, and £145.60 in Class 2 NI.

I'll apportion 50% of our council tax to myself, so another £644.49.

Of my take home income, let's say I spend half of it on things eligible for VAT, which is probably an under estimate, and I pay £2,917.71 in VAT.

We'll forget things such as Insurance Premium Tax, VED, fuel duty, etc.

My other half is on £36k, all from employment, so she probably pays slightly more in than I do.

We have no kids.

But this is simplistic anyway - as you'd expect the average (mean) person to be a net taker, as we have a deficit, and tax sources that are not attributable to individuals, such as business rates, corporation tax, etc.

The fact remains that retirement was never planned to be 20-30 years, and, if the average current 90 year old had their kids at 20 (which probably isn't far out for that day and age) their kids are retired now too.

In April 2016 the average (median) weekly earnings were £539 for full time work. That's a salary of £28,028. On that salary, Income tax, NI, and Employers NI totals £8550.17. Assuming someone starts work at 18 and works until 66, that's 48 years of work, totaling £410,408.16. If you're then retired for 30 years, you get back £186,108. This of course does not take into account inflation, which would skew the figures until you get back more than you ever paid.

We can't afford pensioners. 5 years of retirement should be the expectation. For my generation too.

you dont need to get into the numbers, we are just one big tribe of 65 million people

your argument is that we can not support 11 million retired people in our tribe of 65 million which is clearly wrong 54 people can support 11.

If there was ever a true labor shortage, we would just put more of our tribe members aged 15-22 into the workforce to support the tribe members who are retired.

We probably wont even need to do that as some 3 million of our tribe is dedicated to moving things around and within ten years we will have computers do that so you will have 3 million more tribe members to look after the old ones

BobQ

In the past 25 years we have seen a growth in self employment (roughly 3.4m up to 4.7m). Some are genuinely self employed, some are contrived by employers to reduce employment costs (as with a well known taxi firm).

On the one hand encouraging genuine entrepreneurs who create jobs is to be encouraged. On the other hand the tax benefits of self employment mean that HMRC are loosing income from many people who work for themselves and create no additional jobs and from employers who use self employment as a means of avoiding tax. That raises tax for others.

So I would like to see the tax treatment of self employment reviewed to ensure that everyone is paying their share.

Add to this the loss of tax revenue from limited companies created by politicians, sportsmen, actors etc we might manage to reduce the debt in this country.

kinger101

BobQ wrote: »

In the past 25 years we have seen a growth in self employment (roughly 3.4m up to 4.7m). Some are genuinely self employed, some are contrived by employers to reduce employment costs (as with a well known taxi firm).

On the one hand encouraging genuine entrepreneurs who create jobs is to be encouraged. On the other hand the tax benefits of self employment mean that HMRC are loosing income from many people who work for themselves and create no additional jobs and from employers who use self employment as a means of avoiding tax. That raises tax for others.

So I would like to see the tax treatment of self employment reviewed to ensure that everyone is paying their share.

Add to this the loss of tax revenue from limited companies created by politicians, sportsmen, actors etc we might manage to reduce the debt in this country.

I think the cost of the gig economy is much higher than just the lost employer's NI. Many of these "self-employed" earn such a low amount that they have to get top-ups from tax credits.

When people grab an Uber cab, or get something delivered by Yodel, often they're effectively getting the tax payer to contribute.

BobQ

rtho782 wrote: »

We can't afford pensioners. 5 years of retirement should be the expectation. For my generation too.

So your solution is to starve them, execute them, poison them, withdraw medical treatment, confiscate their assets and let hyperthermia do the job?

My bet is that you will change your mind when you reach that age.

GreatApe

kinger101 wrote: »

I think the cost of the gig economy is much higher than just the lost employer's NI. Many of these "self-employed" earn such a low amount that they have to get top-ups from tax credits.

When people grab an Uber cab, or get something delivered by Yodel, often they're effectively getting the tax payer to contribute.

dont worry, virtually all of those delivery jobs will be done by software in 4-8 years

Perhaps as many as 3 million people in the UK are employed directly and indirectly in moving things/people around. It is going to be the biggest and quickest economic transformation in our lifetimes.

kinger101

GreatApe wrote: »

dont worry, virtually all of those delivery jobs will be done by software in 4-8 years

Perhaps as many as 3 million people in the UK are employed directly and indirectly in moving things/people around. It is going to be the biggest and quickest economic transformation in our lifetimes.

How close are Google to producing a droid which can just sling the parcel over your garden fence, even though you happen to be in at the time.

Sapphire

BobQ wrote: »

So your solution is to starve them, execute them, poison them, withdraw medical treatment, confiscate their assets and let hyperthermia do the job?

My bet is that you will change your mind when you reach that age.

Yes, and I guess it's the Soylent Green solution that's needed here – there is, after all, a precedent for such a thing. A version of it has been tried and was actually an important part of the economy of a certain European country within living memory. This solution clearly demonstrated that every part of the human body can be used in industry, while any assets can of course be dropped down in front of the offspring of the dead (look – free houses without having to work for them!).

For info., there's someone in my family who has severe Alzheimer's, no assets (she was a casualty of the Second World War, and thus lost everything, suffered from post-traumatic stress all her life, etc.). She and her husband always lived very modestly, were productive and never claimed for anything. Yet the family has been trying for a year to get her financial help for the care that she desperately needs, which she is entitled to, but has been met by delay and obfuscation by Lambeth Council (this is now being escalated with the Health Care Ombudsman and others). I dread to think what is happening to those who have no one to look out for them when they are so sick and vulnerable. What a society we've turned into (for myself, I revered my grandparents, and many others I know did, too).

BobQ

GreatApe wrote: »

dont worry, virtually all of those delivery jobs will be done by software in 4-8 years

Perhaps as many as 3 million people in the UK are employed directly and indirectly in moving things/people around. It is going to be the biggest and quickest economic transformation in our lifetimes.

I doubt that regulation will move that quickly. There are many issues of safety to be overcome before we allow swarms of drones to wander the skies and roads of urban areas.

Thrugelmir

GreatApe wrote: »

If a hard working man opens a ..... small factory making....sandwiches.... And employs 100 people. If said man has never been born what would the situation be? Would unemployment be 100 higher? Would we need fewer sandwiches or food?

What % of UK businesses even employ more than a 100 people.