the snap general election thread

masterwilde

lovinituk wrote: »

We already mitigate things as much as possible and pay as little corporation tax as we legally can.

It's simple maths. The additional corporation tax at 27% for us would be more than the net cost to us of paying the staff.

We wouldn't be in trouble but it would affect my families income. I'd rather get rid of the staff and work harder like I did before we took on staff.

We're not rich by any means. We (my wife and I both work in the company) work bloody hard and never have holidays. But if the government wanted extra corporation tax from me the first thing to go would be the staff.

I wouldn't feel guilty about getting rid of the staff. We already put thousands more into the governments purse without me needing to reduce my families income even further.

That's fair enough, and yes a percentage of small/micro business will be in the same position, but dont forget JC stated he would help out the smaller businesses where this tax would place an unnecessary burden. Having to let go staff would be classified as that burden.

ManofLeisure_2

masterwilde wrote: »

I paid very little corporation tax when i ran my company as my accountant was wise

Wisdom had nothing to do with it.

Joe_Horner

bobbymotors wrote: »

Absolute rubbish. It's a free and fair market controlled by supply and demand. If demand falls an / or supply goes up rents will fall and vica versa. Rent controls have never worked and never will.

When it comes to necessities - I assume you accept that a habitable roof over your head is a necessity in a civilised society - the market can only act fairly if supply is sufficient to meet the basic standards. The market can then operate freely and fairly for "upgrades"

But if supply at a basic quality doesn't meet demand then those with the supply become free to extort. The UK rental market is not only at a point where supply at a basic quality doesn't meet demand, it's kept that way (to some extent) by developers intentionally withholding property to limit supply.

The situation is then compounded by the duty placed on local authorities and housing associations to base their rents on the local "market price" which means that, by artificially inflating the cos of an essential commodity, the "free market" can force those who should be in a position to provide balance to follow suit.

hallmark

lovinituk wrote: »

It's simple maths. The additional corporation tax at 27% for us would be more than the net cost to us of paying the staff.

Exactly. No business, big or small, is a charity. And Governments shouldn't act as if they are.

I used to employ people (a few, not many). We made about £10K net per person each year & quite quickly we decided it was a much much easier life to simply not have any employees & be a bit worse off.

That's the kind of thing Labour supporters either can't comprehend or wilfully choose to misunderstand. Employing people is a huge amount of work and responsibility. If it's not very profitable almost nobody will do it. We made £10K a year per employee & it was an easy decision to stop doing it & make a fair bit less for an infinitely less stressful life. Luckily for us and them were were able to place our guys in jobs that paid them well so everybody was happy with the outcome. Most of the time this is not the case.

lovinituk

hallmark wrote: »

So you are simultaneously saying UK companies should be forced to pay much higher corp tax whilst admitting you avoided as much as possible? Wow.

Exactly. I'm not sure how someone mitigates an additional tax bill without some dodgy accounting somewhere.

We do everything legally and above board. We make a profit and pay tax on it. If someone is making little to no profit through creative accounting then surely that completely goes against what Labour are proposing by increasing tax take?!

Of course I wouldn't give a monkeys if corporation tax went up if my profit on paper was next to nothing! But then surely if all companies are accounting like Google, Amazon, Starbucks, etc, then there won't be any additional money in the coffers for Labours spending plans!

ManofLeisure_2

lovinituk wrote: »

I wouldn't feel guilty about getting rid of the staff..

Crikey, that's exceedingly kind of you.

hallmark

ManofLeisure wrote: »

Crikey, that's exceedingly kind of you.

Why should he feel guilty if a Labour Government turned his economically viable business into a loss-making business & forced him to shed staff?

Seriously?

lovinituk

masterwilde wrote: »

That's fair enough, and yes a percentage of small/micro business will be in the same position, but dont forget JC stated he would help out the smaller businesses where this tax would place an unnecessary burden. Having to let go staff would be classified as that burden.

Would it? The company wouldn't be in trouble and could function perfectly well albeit with my wife and I having to work harder. The negative impact would be 2 extra unemployed people.

If it did qualify for help from JC, what would that help consist off? Wouldn't the cost of whatever that was potentially cancel out the extra tax we would be paying? If so, perhaps the total tax take through increased corporation tax wouldn't be as high as they envisaged.

Or are the thousands of small/micro businesses that would require help not included in the additional tax take? So would Labour be relying on the medium and large businesses to add to the purse (you know, the ones that are very good at creative accounting!)? Does their costing actually go in to this much detail?

Joe_Horner

lovinituk wrote: »

So another election is the only way Labour have a chance?

No. There's nothing in the UK system that says a government must have a majority, it's simply that because of the petty childish party-lines way our MPs tend to behave not much gets done if they don't.

The precedent is clear that, in the event of a hung parliament, the sitting Prime Minister is allowed to try to form a government. The first critical test of that is whether they can get the Queen's Speech agreed by the Commons. If they can't it shows they don't have the confidence of parliament and the government collapses.

If the sitting PM fails to form a government that's accepted by parliament then the leader of the largest opposition party is invited to form one. In this case that would be Corbyn for Labour.

If that happened then the other parties (particularly the Conservatives) can accept that (minority) government or not. If they don't then an election takes place.

So, if May fails to get her Queens Speech passed then Corbyn gets a shot and the Tories have a stark choice of:

• accepting (or, at least, abstaining) and crossing their fingers that it turns into a clusterfcuk quickly, or
  
• forcing a new election which they really don't want right now.

I suspect there'd be a lot of abstentions on the Tory benches.....

lovinituk

ManofLeisure wrote: »

Crikey, that's exceedingly kind of you.

Why should I? As I said I work bloody hard and am directly responsible for tens of thousands of pounds of tax going to the government. Why should it cost me more personally if corporation tax went up?