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What Would Taxes Need To Be At To Give Us The Services We Want/Need?


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Old 31-12-2016, 13:17
ajb_tic_tac
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no need to raise tax just halve the forgien aid budget
What amazing and widely believed ignorance the above shows.
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Old 31-12-2016, 13:41
Styker
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no need to raise tax just halve the forgien aid budget
Labour increased the NHS budget by around 20 Billion a year in the last half of the 2005-2010 parliament, something they don't fire back at the Tories on which they should as the Tories only out in 2 Billion extra a year. Taking up to 6 Billion from Foreign Aid will not do much and would probably result in more refugees heading towards Europe too if we can't help them in their own countries.
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Old 31-12-2016, 15:59
TeeGee
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As always the majority of DS contributors would be of the opinion that tax rates can be as high as they like as long as it is somebody else who pays it.
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Old 31-12-2016, 16:04
alan29
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As always the majority of DS contributors would be of the opinion that tax rates can be as high as they like as long as it is somebody else who pays it.
I would happily pay more tax to get better services.
Paying tax is one way that we promote the common good.
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Old 31-12-2016, 16:09
Tassium
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Money doesn't "pay" for anything, it's just a convenient method of making it all work.

It's work/productivity that pays for things we all want.

So the question should be: "Why, when people are working so hard, is there not enough nice stuff as a consequence?"

The answer is simple, the percentage that people are given in exchange for their work is far too low.
--------------

Pay needs to increase, from that increased tax revenue would naturally flow.

So a minimum wage of around £15/hr with no exemptions for age/inexperience would make sense. This would be a problem for a heavy manufacturing economy, but it's no problem for the UK.
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Old 31-12-2016, 16:18
LostFool
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I would happily pay more tax to get better services.
Paying tax is one way that we promote the common good.
OK, how much more tax and based on what kind of income? £1000, £5000, £10,000 more a year?

Of course more tax doesn't automatically lead to better services. You have to work out what the money would actually be spent on. Should the propriety be on giving pay rises to existing staff, hiring new staff, building infrastructure, providing new services, extending existing ones, reversing cuts...
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Old 31-12-2016, 16:29
LostFool
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So a minimum wage of around £15/hr with no exemptions for age/inexperience would make sense. This would be a problem for a heavy manufacturing economy, but it's no problem for the UK.
So if you are going to pay over £30,000 for an unproductive and inexperienced 16 year old how much would someone who was very experienced and productive earn? If the difference was small then there would be little incentive to train, get qualifications and work hard. Therefore you would need middle-income professionals and experienced workers earning over £100,000 a year.

You need to think really carefully about what the effects would be on the costs of employing people (especially in the public sector), the prices of goods in shops and impact on exports. Why would anyone bother employing anyone or making anything in this country?
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Old 31-12-2016, 16:42
tiacat
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Would it be better if we all had out own medical insurance? Should we stop the state providing benefits?
For the price of our national insurance, health care is incredibly cheap in this country. We would not get the equivalent for the price

Also there are some people, me included who would not be covered. I cannot get life insurance, without going to specialist insurers. Its likely this would impact on my ability to get health insurance. I am not someone who is 'unwell'. Ive had tumors in my bladder and skull, kidney stones, i suffer from PCOs, am overweight, suffer from migraines, had a bowel infection, asthmatic, I had a high reading once of high blood pressure, have slightly high cholesterol, Ive had a slipped disc, I am on medication for a mental health problem

I can lose weight, which would probably lower the blood pressure and cholesterol but the rest is unchangeable.

Conversely, I am also a high earner and tax payer and if I cant afford life insurance for my health history, other people are going to be even worse off such as those who would be considered unwell on a day to day basis, even if they are still working. Having now been refused life insurance from someone, this makes it even more likely I will be refused again as I have to declare that. Consequently I havent bothered.
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Old 31-12-2016, 16:45
tiacat
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So if you are going to pay over £30,000 for an unproductive and inexperienced 16 year old who much would someone who was very experienced and productive earn? If the difference was small then there would be little incentive to train, get qualifications and work hard. Therefore you would need middle-income professionals and experienced workers earning over £100,000 a year.

You need to think really carefully about what the effects would be on the costs of employing people (especially in the public sector), the prices of goods in shops and impact on exports. Why would anyone bother employing anyone or making anything in this country?
Why do we need such a big differential between grades? Why does the shop manager of a massive supermarket earn about 30-40k but the area manager or even further up earn 3x as much or more. Does the CEO of a company work 100x harder than the lower earning members of his staff?
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Old 31-12-2016, 16:56
tiacat
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OK, how much more tax and based on what kind of income? £1000, £5000, £10,000 more a year?

Of course more tax doesn't automatically lead to better services. You have to work out what the money would actually be spent on. Should the propriety be on giving pay rises to existing staff, hiring new staff, building infrastructure, providing new services, extending existing ones, reversing cuts...
There needs to be an overhaul of how public services are admiinistered. Outsourcing has simply doubled the cost and lowered the quality of services such as when you hear about the NHS paying £8 for a lightbulb etc. Look at the costs incurred with new computer systems and the costs of locum staff. Politicians of all colours are so short sighted, to save money they have cost us more. Every time a cut is made it costs more somewhere else down the line.

You can see this in elderly care - bed blocking, causing delays to other services because there is a lack of appropriate nursing/care homes, because there is a lack of council provided social care for someone to go home safely. There is then an added pressure on the other family members or social network causing issues with carers mental health, physical health and not being able to work as they are full time carers.

You see this in child protection - more and more children are being subject to cP plans and subject to abuse/neglect, this came after more and more cuts to children's preventative services such as childrens centers and surestart etc. Again the added pressure of this impacts on local authority budgets because of the resources needed to work with families or in the worst case scenarios for the authority to take care proceedings costing thousands of pounds and then to provide foster care which costs hundreds of thousands of pounds. Then the unseen knock on effects to police services, health services, mental health services, educational services

You see this in mental health - again fewer and fewer beds in mental health, the whole care in the community system has been cut to the bone and cannot provide for vulnerable people, you therefore see more and more police time and resources, social services, the knock on effect on neighbours and family, people who cannot work due to their MH, cannot access education, crime, drugs, this then leads into child protection issues

The list is endless, and why? Because of the short sightedness of looking at one small part of a system and not caring about how a deficit in one part, a simple decision like removing an admin worker or closing down one afternoon of nursery provision somewhere or taking away a day centre, can ricochet across lots of other services.
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Old 31-12-2016, 17:04
thenetworkbabe
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What rate would taxes need to be at to get us the services/council homes that we need?

I think it would be best to build new towns with good quality council houses, industrial estates, rail/motorways links, hospitals that have lost their A+E's and Maternity Units need to be re-opened or the ones that have them need to be expanded, we need more spent on care costs, (unless families start doing more on looking after their own elderly family members).

We also need more Police, Prison Officers, Doctors too and more spent increasing rail links/capacity too both rail lines and carriages.

So what would the income tax/NI rates need to be at to get us this? What about other taxes like VAT/Road taxes?
You could add that more important things are woefully underfunded- the army has less firepower than Finland's , and the economy is starved of investment and infrastructure. The NHS is useless if you have 40 million casualties - because you failed to deter a war, and unsustainable if the economy grows at only 1% a year.

Indeed, you could argue, convincingly, that the fiscal problem is largely caused by growing longevity post retirement, and spending too much keeping very old people alive for another year or too. Labour prioritised NHS spending, post 1997, instead of growth, and health and pensions spending has taken a bigger and bigger share still since 2010.

The additional problem is that pensions spending , and NHS demand, continued to grow by about 30% ,while the economy didn't grow at all, or then slowly, post 2007. That hole, between demand and supply of money, can only be made up by a massive increase in growth now. It won't be, so demand will now fail to meet supply by getting on for 25% and that gap will grow as it can't be met now - from a 1% growth rate.

Taxes will just make things worse. The majority of people are now in jobs that depend on the marginal spare incomes of others - tax away the margin, and the service jobs, and their taxes vanish, and benefits bills soar. Put up VAT, when you already have post brexit inflation rising, and you have more inflation, and higher payments on the defecit, which will eat any tax gain . And, post brexit, the priority will be to cut corporate taxes to attract investment, and jobs here . You don't compete with ireland and its 13% corporation tax , if you do a Corbyn, and increase our businesses taxes past their already higher rates. You need to cut corporation tax, not increase it.

Its simple. You now badly need to cut taxes, not increase them . If you want to spend more, you need a new pot of money - like by raiding pensions tax relief .

But, ultimately, you have to face the fact that yuu can't meet NHS and pensions demands, rising at 4-5% a year, from an economy growing at 1-2% . You can't spend what you don't have, tax increases will reduce the tax take, and everything else has already been cut to the bone.
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Old 31-12-2016, 17:12
thenetworkbabe
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Money doesn't "pay" for anything, it's just a convenient method of making it all work.

It's work/productivity that pays for things we all want.

So the question should be: "Why, when people are working so hard, is there not enough nice stuff as a consequence?"

The answer is simple, the percentage that people are given in exchange for their work is far too low.
--------------

Pay needs to increase, from that increased tax revenue would naturally flow.

So a minimum wage of around £15/hr with no exemptions for age/inexperience would make sense. This would be a problem for a heavy manufacturing economy, but it's no problem for the UK.
Pay can only go up if people produce more. If wages rise without that , the same goods are chased by more money. You just get inflation, and the money buys the same as before.

Worse, inflation causes disruptions in the economy, that mean less tax, less growth, and higher unemployment.

There is no hidden pot of money to raid. Shares have only just regained their 2000 level , and savings incomes have tumbled post 2007. CEO's salaries are trivial by comparison to the other sums involved.
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Old 31-12-2016, 17:29
Tassium
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Pay can only go up if people produce more. If wages rise without that , the same goods are chased by more money. You just get inflation, and the money buys the same as before.

Worse, inflation causes disruptions in the economy, that mean less tax, less growth, and higher unemployment.

There is no hidden pot of money to raid. Shares have only just regained their 2000 level , and savings incomes have tumbled post 2007. CEO's salaries are trivial by comparison to the other sums involved.
You can stick your head in the sand if you wish, that attitude led to Brexit and it will lead to some form of hard socialism in this country.

At the moment many people have put their trust in the Conservatives/Theresa May.

When they and she fail there will surely be a "why not" attitude sweeping the nation as regards the ideas of Comrade Corbyn.
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Old 31-12-2016, 17:35
GreatGodPan
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Pay can only go up if people produce more. If wages rise without that , the same goods are chased by more money. You just get inflation, and the money buys the same as before.

Worse, inflation causes disruptions in the economy, that mean less tax, less growth, and higher unemployment.

There is no hidden pot of money to raid. Shares have only just regained their 2000 level , and savings incomes have tumbled post 2007. CEO's salaries are trivial by comparison to the other sums involved.
So why has the pay of top executives risen by large amounts over recent years, despite the profits of many firms falling?

Seemingly your rule only applies to the workers!
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Old 31-12-2016, 17:37
Union Jock
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Personally I think there are far too many working adults who don't contribute a penny yet use the services so there should be a minimum tax rate of 5p in the pound and there should also be an NHS contribution of some sort.
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Old 31-12-2016, 17:51
Johnbee
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I am sure I read once that the "perfect" free health service would cost about 2.5 X the entire Gross National product of a country.

As that is impossible to achieve, there must always be decisions about budgets and what you CAN afford for your people.

Britain spends much less on health then almost all other countries. All we need to do is up spend to average.


This lie about cost is standard for right wingers.
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Old 31-12-2016, 19:57
CRM
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So why has the pay of top executives risen by large amounts over recent years, despite the profits of many firms falling?

Seemingly your rule only applies to the workers!
Funny that re thenetworkbabe.
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Old 31-12-2016, 22:10
LostFool
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Personally I think there are far too many working adults who don't contribute a penny yet use the services so there should be a minimum tax rate of 5p in the pound and there should also be an NHS contribution of some sort.
I certainly think that an extra line on everyone's payslip (or tax return) for a "NHS Tax" would make people aware of how much they were paying towards their healthcare. I recently saw a hospital documentary (Channel 4, I think) where someone was asked if they felt guilty about using NHS resources for a minor aliment. "Nah", he said, "It's all free, innit?"

Once people start realising that they are paying £100 or more a month to the NHS they will realise that it isn't "free".
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Old 31-12-2016, 22:42
Steve9214
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I certainly think that an extra line on everyone's payslip (or tax return) for a "NHS Tax" would make people aware of how much they were paying towards their healthcare. I recently saw a hospital documentary (Channel 4, I think) where someone was asked if they felt guilty about using NHS resources for a minor aliment. "Nah", he said, "It's all free, innit?"

Once people start realising that they are paying £100 or more a month to the NHS they will realise that it isn't "free".
My pay slip has "NI" on it - which is my National Insurance contributions - which go towards the Health service.

I suppose some people might think we are all subsidising the devolved Stormont Govt.

But it might not be a bad idea to rename "NI" as "NHS tax" if it helps get the message across that things are not "free".
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Old 31-12-2016, 22:53
LostFool
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My pay slip has "NI" on it - which is my National Insurance contributions - which go towards the Health service.
Do NI contributions go towards the NHS or to pension payments?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Insurance

I think you'll find that the amount of your NI contributions which go to the NHS is very small indeed.
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Old 01-01-2017, 00:03
johhn
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NI and PAYE are simply two charges imposed by the government that actually go to the same pot of treasury's.
But I agree there are too many people who don't pay what they are really supposed to pay, e.g. self-employed and cash in hand jobs.
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Old 01-01-2017, 02:12
platelet
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40% is about the highest a tax rate can go before the higher earners get disgruntled and start finding ways to pay less. (Don't forget there is also UK National Insurance on top of that)
From personal experience I'd put it about 15%. Get below that I'm happy, get above that I need to work on it some more

(excluding NI where naively I believe I get a return so am less concerned)
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Old 01-01-2017, 07:55
Erlang
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Total tax revenue is approx £720Bn (approx £11k per person)
Approx 39% of the average median salary then.


Total UK government receipts are forecast to be £716.5 billion in 2016–17, or 36.9% of UK GDP. This is equivalent to roughly £13,500 for every adult in the UK, or £10,900 per person. Not all of this revenue comes from taxes: taxes as defined in the National Accounts are forecast to raise
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Old 01-01-2017, 09:22
alan29
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OK, how much more tax and based on what kind of income? £1000, £5000, £10,000 more a year?

Of course more tax doesn't automatically lead to better services. You have to work out what the money would actually be spent on. Should the propriety be on giving pay rises to existing staff, hiring new staff, building infrastructure, providing new services, extending existing ones, reversing cuts...
Para 1 - People who already pay tax.
Para 2 - These are exactly the sorts of questions and considerations that should be put to the people by the government. But they won't.
Ideally the research should be done and a specific plan for funding adequate public services should be put into a referendum. But wouldn't dare let the people make decisions that affect their daily lives.
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Old 01-01-2017, 09:39
Aristaeus
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IIRC ABBA in the '70's had to pay over 90% tax in Sweden on any earnings.
A lot of other countries at that time had similar punitive tax schemes for high earners,
This led to mass tax avoidance, and then a "brain drain" where talented people bogged off overseas to live and work

40% is about the highest a tax rate can go before the higher earners get disgruntled and start finding ways to pay less. (Don't forget there is also UK National Insurance on top of that)
Did Sweden have brain drain in the 70's & 80's?

Denmark's top rate of tax is 60%; Sweden's is 56%. Both are very successful countries.

The top rate of tax under most of Thatcher's premiership was 60%. Was there a brain drain under her?

There are plenty of tax free havens in the world, why would people stay for 40% but not 45%, and why is the line in the sand always claimed to be about 5% more than what the current rate is?
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