Labour propose confiscating 10% uk equities - pension planning response?

Filo25

Just thinking about this, I presume this would also apply to ITs as well (not sure on OEICS).

So you would actually get a double whammy on your pension if invested in the UK, the underlying assets would get hit, as would the investment company itself, and certainly on ITs at least you would still get hit by this even if they were invested in non-UK funds

GunJack

Filo25 wrote: »

I've generally voted Labour most of my voting life, but this kind of populist expropriation really worries me, as to where it ends up going.

................

Ignoring anything else it is also just a phenomenally stupid policy, hitting companies who are British owned and allowing foreign owned companies who trade in Britain to completely avoid the hit, the obvious ways to avoid this tax for larger corporations, will also ending up hitting the UK tax base as well.

I tend to agree.....but both me & the Mrs have said we'd never vote Labour with Corbyn in charge.

What really gets me is the priority given to Israel/Palestine....I don't dispute it's not a great situation, but what about prioritising this country's inhabitants and interests??

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

LieBore want 10% of your pension pot if your work in the private sector to fund its crazy ideals!

Silvertabby

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

LieBore want 10% of your pension pot if your work in the private sector to fund its crazy ideals!

10% would just be the start.

redux

Setting aside any politics for a moment, once in a while you can see investment advice which cautions against investing in one's own employer, for instance when someone is talking about save as you earn share schemes, as your life is already bound to it in other ways, better to diversify the risks and invest elsewhere. In other words if the company has a downturn, the risk of redundancy might be increasing, while concurrently the share price is falling, both risks synchronised in the same direction.

So it's arguably not a clever idea, even if McDonnell's intervention has no poor effects at all, which some people are obviously sceptical about.

It's possibly as distortive as Thatcher's moves towards increases in share ownership through privatisation, which had to be preceded by some public utilities having tariffs thumped up by 40%, to make them attractive to shareholders, then floating deliberately under real share value, to underwrite the exercise with instant returns. Even all these years later utilities still have high dividends relative to risk, which I suppose fires up some of the anti feeling.

There seems to be an undercurrent in McDonnell's thinking that investment is always some form of theft, whereas surely a public company structure is already a way of sharing the results between labour and capital, albeit maybe not quite as he would like

He has in the past talked possibilities of some kind of financial transaction tax, but surely we already have stamp duty on some of these, on shares at retail level anyway.

If Labour need to raise more in taxes, I'd prefer to see the old conventional ideas around higher rate income taxes, rather than something that hits my pretty modest investments to cause proportionately more effect on me as I hope to think of retirement some years away than it hits higher earning richer people. 10% of the investment of a retired person is 10%, while 10% of the investment of a still working person is less than 10% of their annual wealth increase.

LHW99

If Labour need to raise more in taxes, I'd prefer to see the old conventional ideas around higher rate income taxes

I tend to agree, having lived through the times when basic rate income tax was 33%.
However, to raise significant sums, it would have to be a raise in basic rate, and too much ideology says "bash the rich - put up the top rate". It sounds good, but actually raises very little proportionally.
I suspect the media would pick up on any attempt to raise basic rate as "hitting the poor" and the tabloids would raise such an outcry that it would be a non-started (for either side of the political argument).

JoeEngland

GunJack wrote: »

I tend to agree.....but both me & the Mrs have said we'd never vote Labour with Corbyn in charge.

What really gets me is the priority given to Israel/Palestine....I don't dispute it's not a great situation, but what about prioritising this country's inhabitants and interests??

Yep. It's not as if he can realistically do anything to resolve the Israel/Palestine situation even if he were PM.

Paul_Herring

LHW99 wrote: »

I tend to agree, having lived through the times when basic rate income tax was 33%.
However, to raise significant sums, it would have to be a raise in basic rate, and too much ideology says "bash the rich - put up the top rate". It sounds good, but actually raises very little proportionally.
I suspect the media would pick up on any attempt to raise basic rate as "hitting the poor" and the tabloids would raise such an outcry that it would be a non-started (for either side of the political argument).

Of course, not frittering away taxpayer's money on such things as 'equality and diversity officers,' '[STRIKE]public health charities[/STRIKE] sockpuppets,' 'unneeded and unwanted transport policies,' 'other countries space programmes', 'other people's children' and 'putting up or sustaining house prices' doesn't seem to occur to any politician, since that would reduce the need for them to steal so much of our money to begin with.

The_Green_Hornet

I just wish politicians of all persuasions would just say they are going to increase income tax rates and VAT by n% to pay for increased funding in public services instead of all these (not so) clever schemes which anyone with an ounce of intelligence can avoid paying.

But no, Labour seem to want to punish the rich, and the Tories seem to want to punish the poor, simply for blind ideological reasons. A pox on both their houses.

redux

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

But no, Labour seem to want to punish the rich, and the Tories seem to want to punish the poor, simply for blind ideological reasons. A pox on both their houses.

It isn't as simple as that, or as clearly thought out, as owning investments isn't the sole preserve of the rich.

If this policy of decimating (the original meaning of the word, take away a tenth) shareholdings and their returns happens, people in modest retirement may see a drop of their holdings value and income to help subsidise people still in work, some on more than they ever earned themselves per year.