Deeper cuts or higher taxes or more borrowing? POLL

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Reply 40

thegodofgod

Original post by Steevee

Pretty sure they save the taxpayer money to be honest...

No, sorry - I meant that in terms of HMRC / the 'public purse'

Reply 41

Beebumble

Stop throwing money to the banks, IMF, Greece etc... While I don't want taxes to go higher I think it's stupid to lower them during a time when everyone else is receiving cuts and being told "We're all in this together."

Reply 42

Virtus May

Original post by pol pot noodles

You just said yourself that most taxed payed in this country comes from high earners (the top 1% pay 30% of all income tax), yet you want to increase taxes on them even more?

No I didn't, I said a lot of taxes come from higher earners (big difference).

The only reason they pay more taxes is well... they earn more, and they are subjected to a banded tax system, so it's not like they're paying any more tax for their first however many pounds compared to their lower bracket counterparts.

Are you suggesting that I contradicted myself? I don't see how it isn't reasonable to increase taxes for the highest earners, when it has been confirmed that they will pay 5% less tax for incomes exceeding £150,000 next year. In the South East alone there are over 7000 people earning £1,000,000 or more. That's at least £300,000,000 lost per year from just one small contingent of the UK, so we're talking billions lost per year in the UK as a whole. Yet the government has introduced austerity measures to cut the budget deficit and reduce debt. As I said before, the notion that reducing tax on higher earners creates jobs isn't very convincing, so why can't they tax higher earners more? Higher earners, specifically those earning over £150,000 per year, will still live affluent lives even if the additional tax rate is increased to 60%.

I think it's perfectly justified to have the tax rate for salaries in excess of £150,000 to be adjusted to 55%. Personal allowance should be increased by several hundred pounds. There would still be a significant net gain in taxes, predominantly from higher earners, and there would be a minor but welcome tax break for average earners.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 43

theonefrombrum

Lol look no one on this site knows what will benefit Britain, any answer chosen will have been done so due to a personal bias or a misguided assumption.

If they had the magic answer to solve our economic woes, i'm sure that by now they would have got it heard by the powers that be. I would assume that higher taxes would be good from a purely economic stand point, but from a moral and professional one i'm not sure that it is. People work hard and to dismiss those efforts and to negate any natural talents by taxing them loads just to get Britain's books in good order would just be plainly unfair.

I'm not knowledgable enough about borrowing and its impact to even say whether i think it would be a good idea and as to the cuts, i think that from an obvious point of view they're neccesary, especially with things such as excessive red tape and unneeded bureacracy. But it does beg the question, if they're making these cuts now and Britain's still functioning, doesn't that mean that before the economic troubles hit they were just spending completely unneccesarily? With things like the NHS having its budget cut, i'm not really impressed. Ultimately, Goverments are responsible for looking after its people, its sole reason for existence was never the pursuit of economic prosperity. The NHS is the most needed and valuable public asset in Britain and to say 'this man will not get treatment for that debilitating disease or that ward will have to have neccesary jobs such as nurses cut' is a complete and utter JOKE and it symbolises to me that we have some absurd decision makers in this government.

Reply 44

Arekkusu

The obvious problem is that none of these solutions is the magic formula; there can't really be one when it comes to money, as in the end books have to balance. It's all about timing your interventions right.

At the moment the most important thing, I think, is to remove red tape for small businesses. This is important because they are supposedly one of the best drivers of jobs (in large businesses, jobs are saturated). Direct investment in anything is problematic at the moment because we don't have any money: the government got into the pattern of heavy investment in about 2003 and can't get out because the banks want to keep their exposure to risk minimal. Borrowing isn't a dirty word as long as it's a good investment and we're not giving it all to equality and diversity co-ordinators and that sort of thing.

We also need to make sure we aren't exposed to the Eurozone, or at least that our exposure is low enough that European investors will shift to the pound. I don't know whether the pound only needs to be doing marginally better than the euro or whether it needs to be significantly better; if it's the second we really ought to start injecting some form of stimulus into our economy now so we have some good figures by the time Greece leaves.

I don't know much about economics I'm afraid.

Reply 45

User257034

More cuts taxes unchanged.

I would prefer to cuts mainly to be in welfare. We give too much to the non-workers.

Reply 46

User257034

Original post by Beebumble

What a silly post.

Reply 47

TheIronist

Original post by Aspiringlawstudent

...what?

I mean where do you get the money from when the rich leave because they don't want to be taxed so highly?

This is an empirical argument (where's your data?) ofc and there's very little evidence that higher (top) marginal tax rates correlate negatively with revenues from tax receipts.

Reply 48

shepstar1

Gargantuan cuts in the public sector, lower taxes, deregulate - allow the private sector to flourish - and, like somebody posted above, stop bailing out institutions. Bailouts are like using a bucket to empty a sinking ship of its water - simply delaying the inevitable.

Reply 49

Aspiringlawstudent

Original post by TheIronist

This is an empirical argument (where's your data?) ofc and there's very little evidence that higher (top) marginal tax rates correlate negatively with revenues from tax receipts.

Ever heard of the Laffer Curve? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

Reply 50

fuzznbass

At least be careful with the cuts :http://uk.news.yahoo.com/1-1bn-less-tax-recouped-cuts-230631889.html

Reply 51

Virtus May

Original post by Aspiringlawstudent

Ever heard of the Laffer Curve? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

The drawback of the laffer curve is that we can't accurately determine the optimal tax rate.. there are too many factors that affect this.

Reply 52

Mr Dangermouse

Probably a bit of both. Slightly higher tax levels and slightly less cuts but still a lot of cuts.

Reply 53

pol pot noodles

Original post by Virtus May

No, stop pulling figures out of your arse. The overall loss nationwide from the reduction of the top rate band will be £400m, not billions, since there will be an increase in productivity and decrease in tax evasion, and that figure is more than offset by stamp duty increases. This figure was widely publicised after the budget, so I don't know why you felt the need to invent your own ad hoc calculation.
Secondly, the top 1% own 21% of wealth in the UK but are paying 30% of the tax bill. They more than pay their fair share. There is no justification at all in increasing taxes on them further especially when it will more than likely lead to a decrease in overall tax revenues. It sounds as if you just want to shaft them for the sake of it.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 54

Lukfisto

lower taxes, more borrowing. When economy is on track - less borrowing, higher taxation, structural cuts.

Reply 55

TheIronist

Original post by Aspiringlawstudent

Ever heard of the Laffer Curve? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

Mostly irrelevant. The laffer curve says that if you wish to maximise revenue from taxation, there's a limit to how much you can tax people and that limit is between 0% and 100%. Whether it's 20% or 70%, you can't know a-priori and that is why I asked for empirical evidence (which the laffer curve is not).

Reply 56

TKC

Increase tax rates in the top brackets by 5 to 10%, but don't announce it.
In my experience wealthy people despise the thought of being taxed, but can't actually remember their tax rate, and wouldn't notice the extra money gone.

Reply 57

Mufasaa

Original post by Aspiringlawstudent

No, I mean how much money is it? £1bn? £15bn? £100bn?

Or do you not know?

I often find people want to say we can afford to spend x billion on this and y billion on that, but are unable to say where it comes from.

Noone can say for sure but considering how much is owed by one company (Vodafone at about £6-8 billion depending on who you ask) I feel it's safe to assume that the total about would be many 10s of billions, if not 100s of billions (although I hesitate to put the number that high). Combine this with ways of cutting down on fraud (financial fraud costs the country about £13billion a year, benefit fraud about £2-3billion) and more efficient government spending should mean better services, economy and a bigger constant cash flow for the country.

Reply 58

Virtus May

Original post by pol pot noodles

Ironic much? What about the rubbish that you're pulling from your own arse? The tax evasion theory is a complete farce used by the incumbent political party to justify the lowering of additional tax rates. Any tax evasion will persist at the same rate. There's simply no evidence to suggest otherwise. I'm sorry if you're unable to understand the rudimentary calculation that I made, it was made to emphasise a point. Furthermore, so what if the top 1% are being taxed at a greater proportion than what they own? They're still earning significantly more than those earning less than them, so it's perfectly justified. It's mathematically absurd to assume that increasing tax rates on the wealthy will 'more than likely' lead to a decrease in overall tax revenues. Increased tax rates equate to significant increases in tax revenues, obviously. Factors such as tax evasion figures have a negligible impact, there simply isn't any credible evidence to suggest this. It seems that you're being contentious for the sake of it, perhaps we should drop this discussion seeing as you clearly don't understand what's going on.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 59

Unkempt_One

Voted "No change in spending or taxation" but would restrospectively go with "slightly deeper cuts and slightly less taxation". Essentially more money for citizens and slightly worse public services, I could live with that as long as things begin to get better down the road.