Autumn Statement Predictions?

MattMattMattUK

MK62 said:

Raising direct taxes might be, but raising VAT from 20% to 25% would certainly be inflationary, as it would inevitably mean higher prices on goods and services.
It'd also be something of a regressive move, as the bottom income quintile currently pay over twice as much VAT as a percentage proportion of their total income, compared with the top quartile.......raising the level of VAT would further widen this gap.

This comes up again and again and has been discredited again and again, the bottom two deciles contain people with low incomes in any one particular year, but high wealth, their VAT expenditure can easily exceed their income. This happens particularly with wealthy pensioners who no longer use annuities, but have built up assets which they dispose of and use those funds over the course of their retirement. The issue of VAT does not stand up to scrutiny, no matter how many times it is trotted out. One only needs to look the figures in any real detail to see the issues with it. 

Thumbs_Up

The Tories need to be devious knowing full well they will be thrown out on one's ear. Make it hard for the next government whoever they are :'(  to reversed the tax policies.

dealyboy

Right ... my wager is ...

IHT - no change
income tax - 1p cut to basic rate
                  - higher rate no change
tax thresholds (personal allowance) - no change
personal savings allowance - no change
personal savings zero rate band - from £5,000 to £6,000
national insurance - no change
new 'British' ISA
corporation tax - down to 20%
pension triple lock - retained but April 2024 increase to be 7.8% (change to earnings component)
benefits April increase - retained as September CPI (6.7%)
UK Aid - to return to 0.7% of GNI (from 0.5%) from 2025

badmemory

dealyboy said:

Right ... my wager is ...

IHT - no change
income tax - 1p cut to basic rate
                  - higher rate no change
tax thresholds (personal allowance) - no change
personal savings allowance - no change
personal savings zero rate band - from £5,000 to £6,000
national insurance - no change
new 'British' ISA
corporation tax - down to 20%
pension triple lock - retained but April 2024 increase to be 7.8% (change to earnings component)
benefits April increase - retained as September CPI (6.7%)
UK Aid - to return to 0.7% of GNI (from 0.5%) from 2025

And mine

Iht raising the limit

income tax no change

tax threshholds no change

personal savings allowance - both the £1k & £500 removed

personal savings zero band rate no change

national insurance no change but promising a future reduction to tax personal allowance level

corporation tax down to 19% or lower

pension triple lock change to only increase by 7.8% or lower

UK Aid still at 0.5%

MarkCarnage

MattMattMattUK said:

MarkCarnage said:

The tables on comparative tax between countries above also appear to leave out National Insurance, which is effectively a tax, and will increase the effective rate of tax quite significantly for those in the £12k -£50k bracket. 

They include NI, I am unsure why you think they omit NI. I grouped everything under "income taxation" not "income tax" for the reason that in the UK we have Income Tax and National Insurance, other countries have national and regional income taxes etc. 
Take £25k for example, the £3,978 figure is made up of £1,492 NI and £2,486 Income tax. 

MarkCarnage said:

The whole UK tax system is a mess caused by generations of politicians and needs complete reform...it is regressive in the wrong places, has marginal rate 'cliff edges' and undertaxes property at the expense of income at personal tax level. 

Property taxes are bad taxes economically, they are generally taxes that should not exist. A services tax which is what Council Tax should be, is reasonable, as is a tax based on occupation and so theoretical impact on local services. Taxes based on the value of property are not sensible or rational.

MarkCarnage said:

It also favours debt over equity at a corporate level. 

There are a lot of issues with our Corporation Tax, it does not favour investment either, especially when compared to other nations who successfully built business taxes which encourage investment and encourage reinvestment of profit back into the business. Corporation tax needs wholesale reform, but I am not sure that is going to come from an autumn statement. 

MarkCarnage said:

I am of course not holding my breath about any attempt to deal with this, and indeed this time round expect to see:
1) Even more distortions to bribe whatever small segment is deemed essential to be bribed to get the desired result under our FPTP voting system
2) Much trumpeting of very minor changes to exploit the complete numerical ignorance of most. 

This is a pre-election period, the Conservatives know that they are going to lose the election next year, the only question is how many previously safe seats they can hang onto, and how many policies they can push through now that offer their voters long term benefit, whilst at least staying vaguely close to their fiscal rules. Hence the IHT changes. 

MarkCarnage said:

All encouraged by the Mail/Express/Telegraph, whose owners will continue to benefit. 

Look at their markets, people over 70 and high net worth households, they will give those people what benefits they can ahead of the election, although largely targeted at the latter group and they will do what they can to secure a job in the private sector when they lose their seat at the next election.

It might have been clearer to explicitly state that the tables included NI, income taxation may be technically correct but the wording difference wasn't obvious....I assumed that you hadn't as not everyone pays it (many pensioners for one). I did think that the number for under £25k looked to be on the high side...! 

Your statement on property taxes is your opinion...it's not fact. There are many who would argue the opposite and back it up with evidence, which you haven't.....land is a scarce resource, why should it not be taxed proportionately to its use? Council tax is regressive, by stopping at an arbitrarily low level.It encourages capital flows into unproductive assets. 

I agree with you on CT.

 IHT is a nettle that needs grasping, either by taxing the recipient and/or lowering the rate. I'd lower the exemption level and the rate and tax it at recipient level. Not something I'm expecting to see from this lot though. In Scotland, the ScotGov policies are equally bad in the other direction! 

I wouldn't be too sure that the over 70s are as much in the Tory camp as you seem to imply.....and it's a very short sighted strategy to give bungs to them surely! Unless you think that the next age cohort will blindly switch voting allegiance. 

westv

badmemory said:

personal savings allowance - both the £1k & £500 removed

Do you mean removed as in all savings interest is taxed or removed in that no savings interest is taxed?

RogerPensionGuy

Thumbs_Up said:

The Tories need to be devious knowing full well they will be thrown out on one's ear. Make it hard for the next government whoever they are :'(  to reversed the tax policies.

As per this posting above, this statement will be playing politics 100% and so will the two events next year if indeed any occurs before next election, my current guess is they will tinker and tweak this one and the budget next March and then election very soon from that point unless a major upset.

Sounds indeed like IHT charges coming and them personal limits on interest of £500 or 1K PA and a few other little tricks.

Looks like they will doing stuff by any means to get more people working and help control pay inflation and indeed help the economy to grow a litter. 

Pat38493

westv said:

badmemory said:

personal savings allowance - both the £1k & £500 removed

Do you mean removed as in all savings interest is taxed or removed in that no savings interest is taxed?

I was wondering the same but I think it must have meant the former otherwise the following comment about keeping the following comment after that does not make sense.

Qyburn

MattMattMattUK said:

I would also raise VAT to 25%, as it only applies to non-essentials 

Seriously? Just as an example most people would consider shoes and clothing essential.

MK62

MattMattMattUK said:

MK62 said:

Raising direct taxes might be, but raising VAT from 20% to 25% would certainly be inflationary, as it would inevitably mean higher prices on goods and services.
It'd also be something of a regressive move, as the bottom income quintile currently pay over twice as much VAT as a percentage proportion of their total income, compared with the top quartile.......raising the level of VAT would further widen this gap.

This comes up again and again and has been discredited again and again, the bottom two deciles contain people with low incomes in any one particular year, but high wealth, their VAT expenditure can easily exceed their income. This happens particularly with wealthy pensioners who no longer use annuities, but have built up assets which they dispose of and use those funds over the course of their retirement. The issue of VAT does not stand up to scrutiny, no matter how many times it is trotted out. One only needs to look the figures in any real detail to see the issues with it. 

.....discredited by whom?