Martin Lewis: Cash ISA limit could be cut – this is 'p*ss people off economics'

Exodi

Middle_of_the_Road said:

westv said:

Do we need another thread?

No, we need another chancellor. I propose Martin 🙂

I might be a tad contrarian here, but I don't think he would make a good chancellor-  in fact I wouldn't wish the role of chancellor on my worst enemy.

It's incredibly easy and popular to be against cuts and for giving people more money. Much harder when you're the person responsible for finding the money and realising it's got to come from somewhere.

Inevitably there will need to be tax rises (other methods to increase revenues seem to have failed), which of course will also not be popular with the public, else otherwise she'll need to break her self-imposed rule of requiring day-to-day government costs to be paid for by tax income, rather than borrowing; and to get debt falling as a share of national income over a five year period. Either way she'll need to break a promise.

It's also an utterly thankless job where you're effectively blamed for everything, despite every country being in similar circumstances. That said I won't lose too much sleep over it, as it probably counter-balances Labour getting in by blaming the Tories for everything such as interest rates, inflation, etc the previous few years, despite it largely being out of their control and affecting the whole world. Unfortunately (as was seen in many countries), 'the other party' was voted in after successfully convincing the electorate that high inflation and high interest rates was due to the current governments mismanagement. 

EDIT: sorry, upon reading more of the thread it seems it's not as contrarian as I imagined.

Hoenir said:

Middle_of_the_Road said:

westv said:

Do we need another thread?

No, we need another chancellor. I propose Martin 🙂

Only time I heard him commenting on the "budget". He admitted to being hopelessly out of his depth. One thing being a people's champion and having to make tough decisions are at the opposing ends of the spectrum. 

wornoutandhot

A very simple and common sense way of looking at risk is by thinking how long you might have left to live and do you have the time left to recover from losses...Can you afford to invest in possibly a very volatile market due to the world-wide threats of war etc.  I don't have the time!!

Cobbler_tone

artyboy said:

mebu60 said:

People can still invest in premium bonds, use their savings allowances and go into short dated gilts if they need to - or even (shock, horror) pay a slither of tax on their interest in everyday savings accounts. No one's stopping them saving cash.

40% is not a 'slither'. 

And nor is 45%!

But sod it, tax the rich. It was always going to happen, whatever the protestations to the contrary.

Call me Robin Hood but it is preferable to taxing the 'poor' more. TBF the 'rich' generally already pay more tax and of course it depends on the definitions of  'rich' and 'poor'. 
Someone is always going to be unhappy, whether they are moving into the 40%/45% bracket, or someone trying to keep their winter fuel allowance or benefits. 
I think it is currently a case of 'tax everyone!'

IanManc

mebu60 said:

People can still invest in premium bonds, use their savings allowances and go into short dated gilts if they need to - or even (shock, horror) pay a slither of tax on their interest in everyday savings accounts. No one's stopping them saving cash.

40% is not a 'slither'. 

Nor is it a sliver. 

Hoenir

Cobbler_tone said:

artyboy said:

mebu60 said:

People can still invest in premium bonds, use their savings allowances and go into short dated gilts if they need to - or even (shock, horror) pay a slither of tax on their interest in everyday savings accounts. No one's stopping them saving cash.

40% is not a 'slither'. 

And nor is 45%!

But sod it, tax the rich. It was always going to happen, whatever the protestations to the contrary.

Call me Robin Hood but it is preferable to taxing the 'poor' more. TBF the 'rich' generally already pay more tax and of course it depends on the definitions of  'rich' and 'poor'. 
Someone is always going to be unhappy, whether they are moving into the 40%/45% bracket, or someone trying to keep their winter fuel allowance or benefits. 
I think it is currently a case of 'tax everyone!'

Take away all the artificial props and tax breaks that cost enormous amounts of money. Simplify the tax code. If people wish to work hard productively, let them keep more of what they earn.  

Cobbler_tone

Hoenir said:

Cobbler_tone said:

artyboy said:

mebu60 said:

People can still invest in premium bonds, use their savings allowances and go into short dated gilts if they need to - or even (shock, horror) pay a slither of tax on their interest in everyday savings accounts. No one's stopping them saving cash.

40% is not a 'slither'. 

And nor is 45%!

But sod it, tax the rich. It was always going to happen, whatever the protestations to the contrary.

Call me Robin Hood but it is preferable to taxing the 'poor' more. TBF the 'rich' generally already pay more tax and of course it depends on the definitions of  'rich' and 'poor'. 
Someone is always going to be unhappy, whether they are moving into the 40%/45% bracket, or someone trying to keep their winter fuel allowance or benefits. 
I think it is currently a case of 'tax everyone!'

Take away all the artificial props and tax breaks that cost enormous amounts of money. Simplify the tax code. If people wish to work hard productively, let them keep more of what they earn.  

I’m further left of that ‘let the rich get richer’ mentality. Someone earns more and they take home more today. I don’t like the mentality of ‘there’s no point earning more than x due to tax’, you still end up with more.
A lot of the people you allude to don’t actually work that hard. I’m surrounded by them.

Kim_13

Cobbler_tone said:

Hoenir said:

Cobbler_tone said:

artyboy said:

mebu60 said:

People can still invest in premium bonds, use their savings allowances and go into short dated gilts if they need to - or even (shock, horror) pay a slither of tax on their interest in everyday savings accounts. No one's stopping them saving cash.

40% is not a 'slither'. 

And nor is 45%!

But sod it, tax the rich. It was always going to happen, whatever the protestations to the contrary.

Call me Robin Hood but it is preferable to taxing the 'poor' more. TBF the 'rich' generally already pay more tax and of course it depends on the definitions of  'rich' and 'poor'. 
Someone is always going to be unhappy, whether they are moving into the 40%/45% bracket, or someone trying to keep their winter fuel allowance or benefits. 
I think it is currently a case of 'tax everyone!'

Take away all the artificial props and tax breaks that cost enormous amounts of money. Simplify the tax code. If people wish to work hard productively, let them keep more of what they earn.  

I’m further left of that ‘let the rich get richer’ mentality. Someone earns more and they take home more today. I don’t like the mentality of ‘there’s no point earning more than x due to tax’, you still end up with more.
A lot of the people you allude to don’t actually work that hard. I’m surrounded by them.

Once they have enough to live/retire on, each person will have their own take on whether working more is worth it, and what X is. When people don’t need to work, the size of the slice they end up with if they do so matters, so that they consider it worth their while to do that and bring in revenue for the government. I can’t imagine many still working if their effective tax rate was over 50%, unless they really love their jobs. Working more if you are not well off makes a far bigger difference to your life. Diminishing marginal returns.

ISAs might be unneeded to some but they beat having your tax code adjusted several times a year. A number of posters here would prefer to just pay the tax due rather than having code adjustments, collection of the amount due in a later tax year and inaccurate interest predictions applied to future years. 

subjecttocontract

When is the budget ?

ColdIron

October/November

dales1

Olenna said:
As for the ISA issue, it's fairly simple -  simply merge all the cash/lifetime ISA limits into a single limit matching the FSCS cap (circa €100k per person) with anything above taxable in the normal way. 

Now let me guess - this tax increase you propose, well it wouldn't actually hit you personally, would it.

Tax increases are an upward ratchet, and so (if necessary at all) need to be more carefully thought through than this.

Increasing taxes which discourage people from saving seems bad policy to me.