mentalchik
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit."
I just knew it...............the reason i struggle constantly to pay my bills and keep my son is coz i just don't work hard enough...........
Scrap income tax
- Thread starter derf
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dennisr
the acceptable face
I just knew it...............the reason i struggle constantly to pay my bills and keep my son is coz i just don't work hard enough...........
lazy git *shakes fist*
Or perhaps, just a bit less than that, to provide a small extra lever to encourage enterprise'n'stuff.
How does that work, though? I've always felt somewhat sorry for those people who've become custodians of what are effectively national treasures - stately homes and the like - who have to flog stuff off to pay death duties, etc. Come to that, death duties seem to me to be an iniquitous bit of taxation, especially since they hit so many "ordinary" people nowadays.
Does it? Cost more in bureaucracy? I can believe it might, especially if you factor in the time that the Revenue's unpaid tax collectors (ie every VAT-registered business) takes to deal with it, but I didn't realise it was definitively non-cost-effective.
But I definitely think that taxation should really be at source, and restricted to as few areas as necessary to avoid blatant evasion, rather than the system we have now where everything gets taxed at both ends.
If you want to argue about inequalities in society then fair enough but taxing people more because they earn more is merely the politics of envy.
If we have to have income tax then I would actually have it so that everybody pays the same percentage up to a certain point but that over that then the amount of tax payable decreases. Say 20% on the first £50,000 and 10% above that.
But ultimately all tax is wrong.
If we have to have income tax then I would actually have it so that everybody pays the same percentage up to a certain point but that over that then the amount of tax payable decreases. Say 20% on the first £50,000 and 10% above that.
But ultimately all tax is wrong.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
ah 'politics of envy'
a glib line trotted out by those who love the politics of inequality
a glib line trotted out by those who love the politics of inequality
elbows
Well-Known Member
Im sure part of the attitude problem towards this sort of thing is that some people literally think they've singlehandedly created every penny of the money they earn, which in most cases is quite far from the truth.
That and a general failure to recognise that at least some of their tax goes on things that benefit them, even if its just to provide a foundation on which they may engage in profitable activities.
That and a general failure to recognise that at least some of their tax goes on things that benefit them, even if its just to provide a foundation on which they may engage in profitable activities.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
How is 'all tax wrong', genius?
I heard some RW loon claim that income tax was a temporary measure for the Napoleonic Wars and should therefore be abolished.
Just to check what you mean..when you say "taxing more because they...earn more" are you saying that a flat rate of (say) 30% across the board is doing that, or that having higher rate bands as you go up in income is taxing them more?
ETA: Oh, OK, I see in your later post.
I disagree. Arguably, the "most important" money is the first few thousand any of us earn, as that's what we're going to use to meet our most fundamental needs - food, some form of shelter, clothes, heat. After that, the "needs" become slightly less essential...cars, nicer clothes, a home that's a bit more than just a shelter. After that, really, we're not buying anything that we really need, and as you go up the spending pyramid, I'd argue that the need:want equation tilts ever further towards the "want" than the "need". Nobody needs a 6 litre Mercedes to get to work, but, for some, it's a nice thing to have.
I don't think there's any case for punishing those who are well-off, but I don't think your idea of tapering off the tax as the income goes up is a sensible or reasonable one. Personally, I think we should have a tax-free allowance that's roughly equivalent to what we absolutely need to live - so, by my reckoning, that'd probably be in the high teens of thousands, say £18-20,000, at which point a fairly high basic rate of income tax comes in. Then, up at much higher levels - perhaps, as kabbes says, using percentiles - we get increasing rates of taxation, on the basis that that level of income is less "essential", while still recognising that there's nothing wrong with earning more if you have the skills or talents to do so.
You say "all tax is wrong" - how on earth do you come to that conclusion, and how do you propose funding a State without taxation?
Because its a form of penalising people. There is no 'choice' element to it and is by way of enforcement and collection a method of Government control.
Yes, public services need to be paid for but tax strikes me as being the worst way of doing so because it just comes with very little in the way of direct responsibility for those spending it.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
Anyone hazard a guess at his salary ?
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Flat rate tax hurts lower earners more than higher ones. A loaf of bread is a pound. That's 0.05% of a £2000pm take-home wage. It's 0.2% of a £500pm wage. The cost of living is an absolute cost - electricity, petrol, food etc. A flat tax rate would directly eat into this basic spending. The same issue scales up to cars, homes, clothes etc.
I'd be interested to hear how a government could raise money without tax though...
dennisr
the acceptable face
its true - obviously - i'm just jealous
jealous of the security to keep the roof over their heads, jealous of security of having some sort - any sort - of pension, jealous of the security of knowing you are going to get paid a huge wack even when you feck the entire global economy (while the rest of us find contracts and agreements ripped up and are given 2 mins notice after 30 odd years earning their profits for them - like he Visteon workers have).
I'm an envious sort - like all the rest of the monkeys, "I want to be like you-ho-ho"
kabbes
First intersubjective, then internalised
Nobody has a right to specifically benefit from the work of their forebears. It encourages the beneficeries to not input into society, it increases inequalities, it leads to the problems of entrenched wealth. Personally I would allow for the passing on of a reasonable family asset -- possibly the value of an average house -- and tax the rest at 100%.
Leaving that aside, however, I have to say that those who have inherited a £2m pile and have to sell it because they can't afford to pay the death duty are still more than £1m better off than they would have been, so boo fucking hoo. Meanwhile, somebody else has paid £2m for that pile and has presumably done so with the intention of looking after it.
Sorry, I wasn't speaking literally. I don't know if it literally costs more than it brings in. I meant "worth" in the more flowery sense. It wouldn't surprise me if the collective cost of those unpaid tax collectors' time genuinely was more than the value of the tax though.
Amen to that.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
wow, rarely do we see such idiocy.
Isn't there a choice in who one votes for dear stoaty? You know, for the people who decide what level to put tax at?
And if 'public' services aren't paid for by taxes, then they're not really public, are they? Would you prefer direct payment? (ie for the rich only) or some nice form of charity? (which is actually totally undemocratic and without any element of 'choice')
Or are you just a selfish cunt who can't really think things through?
In some situations, we're already there. Dentistry, for example. And it isn't pretty.
elbows
Well-Known Member
And having a system where some people can earn vast sums also penalises people, everyone else.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
At some point, we are surely going to have to do something creative with fuel taxes based on reasonable need .. though it will be a nightmare to calculate and cause loads of disputes.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
How do you suggest we pay for public services then?
Not sure really. I must admit that I loathe paying tax because I see so much of it wasted and squandered that I dont really think that anybody gets the fullest benefits of it and that ultimately it does not help others as much as it should.
And I think that many people have their judgement clouded over the issue because of the culture of envy that exists where by the whole power to impose taxes has been hijacked by political expediency rather than as a way of raising the funding needed for public services. We have produced a political class who have no experience of generating the means to be taxed and therefore are feckless in the way that it gets spent.
Now on this one I fully admit to not thinking it through. Its easier to know what I am against as opposed to knowing what should be done.
I need a ponder.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
lol, ie I dont care as long as I keep all my money and dont see any of it going on foreigners or anything else I dont like.
Let's hope you dont get some horrible disease that would cost the NHS (money stolen out of YOUR pocket) millions to sort out. Cos being such an upright citizen you'd refuse to take receipt of 'stolen' goods wouldn't you?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
yes. But it's not the taxes that need to be gotten rid of.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
There it is again.
What the fuck is 'the culture of envy'? You appear to be spouting platitudes you heard someone else say without really knowing what you mean by them.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
Frankly, given your piss poor posts, the above should be your tag line.
you've seen my teeth then?
I can feel mine. I'm just waiting for "abscess, bleeding or swelling" so I can ring the emergency dental service. It's why I tend to get a smidgeon aerated when people start advocating "small government" style US-modelled social and healthcare systems
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I can feel mine. I'm just waiting for "abscess, bleeding or swelling" so I can ring the emergency dental service. It's why I tend to get a smidgeon aerated when people start advocating "small government" style US-modelled social and healthcare systems
and such sysems actually cost more to administer than the NHS! Not least because of the greedy cunts doctors who demand humungous salaries, and the massive finance departments looking for any way to get out of paying for much needed claims.
I think you do. I'd have thought that if you had given a microsecond's thought to your "tax bad" idea before you hit "Submit Reply", you'd have realised that the first question was going to be "...so what's the alternative?".
There isn't an alternative. Some form of mandatory taxation regime is the only option - it just comes down to the question of what gets taxed, and why.
And I think you'll probably find you're in a minority if you object to taxation: most people do recognise that it's a necessary way of funding the things our society does in a way which at least aims to make it equitable. It's a hugely imperfect system, and it certainly doesn't get anywhere near being equitable, but it is much better than it could be.
The US is always touted as a low-tax economy, but when you add in all the various state and property taxes, plus premiums for medical healthcare, the very poor sick pay provision, etc., etc. you discover that, though they may pay less in terms of headline income tax, they're actually being walloped pretty hard - it starts to make our system look a lot more like good value.
And I suspect that, even if you go to the higher earnings brackets, you'd probably find that most people wouldn't begrudge paying tax, though they might argue about the level of it - you're not going to find anyone who thinks they should pay more tax, after all! I think one option might be to offer higher-rate tax relief on, say, donations to specific charitable causes, so that people could effectively pay "voluntary" tax to particular organisations, which might end up being revenue-neutral to the govt (given how many public sector roles are filled by charitable groups now), but make people feel a bit more like they got the choice.
Crispy's point about flat tax is very significant, though, and offers the basis for a true synergy between a kind of best-of-socialism attitude at the bottom, with some kind of reward system built in for the enterprise and capitalist bit nearer the top.
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