Damn Lefties

[TheAnimus]

And again, there is still a substantial requirement for state money to make such a system work.

One of the things I hate about working in a large company is in-efficiency, some red tape and jobsworth ness.

But this is a fair few times worth in Labour Land, kids will grow up to think red tape is red because of Labour. When I was at uni, I ran a few school activities, from stuff like building robots to basic electronic engineering. I was given travel expenses by dsfed, and some lego too. A school gave me use of a room from 3pm, and excused some 12 year olds the last 15 min of Maths or something.

The teacher was on hand if anything went wrong, I had a simple CRB check.

I wouldn't be able to do that any more, the demand for control and constraint we have seen, the endless paper work. This was only 5 years ago.

If my company where to charge for this, it would have cost about £6k per term for a couple of hours of my time a week.

It is the movement away from social responsibility on the individual (ie me) to having a government regulate it, who you can see from the number of expense scandals not as good at doing good with my money as I am, I dislike.

However, I'm sure you're right to erode my freedom, take more of my money, because YOU think YOU know best. Just so long as its someone you deem to be 'rich enough'. My defination of rich enough is a full belly, and somewhere 'warm enough' (sorry, but thats not requiring central heating!) with safe running water. They have everything that is important in life, with the free education and health care too. Anything else is just fat and gravey, why should they not be trimmed too?

[Salazaar]

I love the way, you are completely blind to this hypocrisy, £12,000 is MORE than enough to live on. Easy really damn easy.

Now you don't need TV, might not need electricity (if you have say mains gas, or a wood burning stove) 90% of people definitely don't need a car, I know I certainly don't.......

In fact I picked £6k because when I was a student, that was the most I spent in a year, and I was hardly starving, or sober most of the time.

But yes your right, its only people who can afford a bently who should make a sacrifice, not people who can just about manage to afford a TV or an iPhone, those are clearly not conspicuous consumption, unlike those rich theaves in the city, with their spendings.

When you really are introspective, and grown up enough to not have this 'someone else' attitude then I might have an ounce of respect, as it stands i'm going to assume I probably pay considerably more tax than you, donate a lot more money (not to mention my rather expensive and prised by me at least, time) to charity. Your perfectly morally right to say I should pay more aren't you?

If you had a flat rate tax of 30% say, someone on 100k would pay 30k, someone on 10k would pay 3k. Nice and simple, fairly fair. the fact its already painful, and the talk of 50% on bonuses of over £25k (my last job half my salary was discretionary, one way to make people work a lot harder!) Not really fair at all is it?

Come off it, we're talking about what's practical in this country, right now. Sure you can live like a student on £6k (disregarding for a second your government susidised tuition fees and an entirely different market for student housing to what your man on the street would encounter) but you couldn't raise a family on it.

Saying that a flat rate is 'fairer' is just fanciful, fair is about asking people to pay what they can afford to pay and matching rates to levels of income. I'm not even saying that the spirit of the system that we've got now is wrong in any way. But I do think that there is something morally wrong with those who have more than everyone else trying to use every loophole and catch that they can find to avoid paying perfectly reasonable taxes that would barely effect their lifestyle were they to do so, which they do just for the sake of wealth accumulation.

[Salazaar]

However, I'm sure you're right to erode my freedom, take more of my money, because YOU think YOU know best. Just so long as its someone you deem to be 'rich enough'. My defination of rich enough is a full belly, and somewhere 'warm enough' (sorry, but thats not requiring central heating!) with safe running water. They have everything that is important in life, with the free education and health care too. Anything else is just fat and gravey, why should they not be trimmed too?

And yet this is the way that our society works right now. All we've been arguing about is where we draw the lines.

Or are you arguing that we shouldn't be taxed at all? Perhaps you'd prefer a completely free and open market where the rich are at liberty to spend exactly what they want, on who they want and anyone not rich enough, or lucky enough to have a rich benefactor is free to live (or die) in poverty in the gutter?

[TheAnimus]

Come off it, we're talking about what's practical in this country, right now. Sure you can live like a student on £6k (disregarding for a second your government susidised tuition fees and an entirely different market for student housing to what your man on the street would encounter) but you couldn't raise a family on it.

I lived like somewhat of a king on that, I had only about 2 weeks when my beer budget was too low to get drunk as much as I wanted (every day).

This was 4 years ago, and the housing available to students isn't subsidised in anyway at all. On Gumtree you will have little trouble finding a box room for rent for £500 all in for zone1 central London. That is for any man on the street (thou non-smoker might be preferred!)

Saying that a flat rate is 'fairer' is just fanciful, fair is about asking people to pay what they can afford to pay and matching rates to levels of income. I'm not even saying that the spirit of the system that we've got now is wrong in any way. But I do think that there is something morally wrong with those who have more than everyone else trying to use every loophole and catch that they can find to avoid paying perfectly reasonable taxes that would barely effect their lifestyle were they to do so, which they do just for the sake of wealth accumulation.

I said fairly fair, play fair.

Also, I'm not justifying people paying no tax, or evading tax. I decided to not give into the greed myself (thou be honest, if someone offered you £35k, you'd be tempted, you could give it to your favourite charity after all!)

I'm just saying that when you squeeze to hard, people jump ship.

And when someone like me, who is already paying more tax than the people who are often saying I should pay even more..... I get somewhat vexed.

I pay about £600 per annum for my accountants, so i'm not using loopholes, its just I really value the work they do for me, and the money they save me from overpaying.

£600 per annum isn't enough for the ultra dodgy stuff fyi.

[Phage]

Damn - huge post lost in the ether.
Probably a good thing. Is it lunch time ?

[Salazaar]

I'm just saying that when you squeeze to hard, people jump ship.

I'm aware of this and the argument that I was trying to get across was not that we should squeeze them until they bleed (maybe just until they gag a bit), but that I, personally, think that they should take a bit more moral responsibility when it comes to ducking taxes that are currently levied on them. And no, I don't know exactly how I'd behave in those circumstances but I'd like to think that I'd play fairly.

Also, I'm not justifying people paying no tax, or evading tax. I decided to not give into the greed myself (thou be honest, if someone offered you £35k, you'd be tempted, you could give it to your favourite charity after all!)

And when someone like me, who is already paying more tax than the people who are often saying I should pay even more..... I get somewhat vexed.

I pay about £600 per annum for my accountants, so i'm not using loopholes, its just I really value the work they do for me, and the money they save me from overpaying.

£600 per annum isn't enough for the ultra dodgy stuff fyi.

Obviously I have no idea what you're on but I get the impression that you're not actually the kind of fat cat high flyer that most of these criticisms would be aimed at (even if you aspire to such ), I don't begrudge anyone working hard and enjoying the fruits of that labour. But when you get a half-arsed senior manager getting paid in excess of £100,000 just because he'll jump ship if you don't, who squirrels away most of his earnings in foreign accounts just so that he can add another wing to his mansion. you've got to ask if something is going a bit wrong.

And don't get me started on professional footballers

Damn - huge post lost in the ether.
Probably a good thing. Is it lunch time ?

Yes

[TheAnimus]

Obviously I have no idea what you're on but I get the impression that you're not actually the kind of fat cat high flyer that most of these criticisms would be aimed at (even if you aspire to such ), I don't begrudge anyone working hard and enjoying the fruits of that labour. But when you get a half-arsed senior manager getting paid in excess of £100,000 just because he'll jump ship if you don't, who squirrels away most of his earnings in foreign accounts just so that he can add another wing to his mansion. you've got to ask if something is going a bit wrong.

Kind of am mate. I've decided to take two months off this year so as to not be effected by the 50% tax, because i'm not willing to pay that, i'd sooner earn less money and holiday more (next up Argentina, I find the last 100 years really bizarre, but thats a different post!).

I also have some completely legal CGT free in-trust savings, these will hopefully net HMRC more money when I redeem, but they are administered off shore.

And remember its not a half arsed senior manager, its junior and up earning £150k+ who are going to be taxed 50% on top.

[Salazaar]

And remember its not a half arsed senior manager, its junior and up earning £150k+ who are going to be taxed 50% on top.

That's also something that hasn't really been addressed, is it really that much of a hardship to be taxed at a high rate over £150k? If the first £150k are being taxed at exactly roughly (bar the allowance lost for having a salary over £100k) the same rate as everyone else, what exactly is the problem with paying a bit more on the excess (other than, y'know, not wanting to pay it)?

It's not like anyone who hits the 50% band is actually losing half their earnings anyway.

Just think about the numbers for a second, £150,000 could pay 10 people's wages and they'd live in reasonable comfort (after taxes) in Britain today. And the complaint is that there's a bit more tax to pay on the excess of wages that are above and beyond that figure...?

[TheAnimus]

would you rather be offered a £12k pay rise, or a £10k pay rise?

for me that is just too damn much, and works as a dis-incentive for me to work harder.

[Salazaar]

would you rather be offered a £12k pay rise, or a £10k pay rise?

for me that is just too damn much, and works as a dis-incentive for me to work harder.

I'd smile and say thank you for either, both would put me in far better financial position than I'm in now. Of course the only way that's going to happen in local government is if taxes went up...

(Can I just say that while I'm bitching and moaning about high earners, I have even less sympathy for people who, on a low budget, just rack up debts upon debts without a care in the world)

[Fraz]

would you rather be offered a £12k pay rise, or a £10k pay rise?

for me that is just too damn much, and works as a dis-incentive for me to work harder.

I find it amusing that you are hypothetically (or otherwise) quibbling over a pay rise between £10k and £12k. I'm sure that extra £2k would make, what... a ~1% difference to your final salary after tax?

What do you actually spend all this money on btw? Do you have kids?

[JPreston]

NB I'm privately insured and don't use the NHS, and I don't use the schools. The Police haven't been "Bobbys on the Beat" for 50 years...

You do use the schools. If you cannot see how; try and earn whatever wage your night school course awards you in a society with no functioning education system such as the aforementioned Somalia, or somewhere with almost total illiteracy such as Afghanistan.

When the police (who apparently no longer exist) fail to safeguard you from the inevitable anarchy of the illiterate and lawless society in which we apparently live and you are stabbed by looters or something, you absolutely will use the NHS as private healthcare providers simply are not equipped to handle A&E cases - all your insurance will fund is prompter treatment for non-urgent conditions (often carried out by the NHS hospitals) followed by transfer to a private clinic that is really nothing more than a Holiday Inn with adjustable beds and ethnically British nurses for recovery. Anything goes wrong and you're straight back to the NHS hospital burdening us taxpayers again. If you could, in exchange for a reduction in tax would you permanently waive your right to any and all NHS treatment for you and your dependents for the rest of your/their life?


Lots of surrealist talk in praise of flat taxation () and supply side economics peppering this thread. Can anyone tell the class where we've heard all this before? Anyone...? Anyone....?

Oh yeah. Here.

[schmunk]

you absolutely will use the NHS as private healthcare providers simply are not equipped to handle A&E cases - all your insurance will fund is prompter treatment for non-urgent conditions (often carried out by the NHS hospitals) followed by transfer to a private clinic that is really nothing more than a Holiday Inn with adjustable beds and ethnically British nurses for recovery. Anything goes wrong and you're straight back to the NHS hospital burdening us taxpayers again. If you could, in exchange for a reduction in tax would you permanently waive your right to any and all NHS treatment for you and your dependents for the rest of your/their life?

+1

I have disclaimed my free private medical benefit provided by my employer, as it creates a taxable benefit and frankly I don't see the worth.

[JPreston]

+1

I have disclaimed my free private medical benefit provided by my employer, as it creates a taxable benefit and frankly I don't see the worth.

And before anyone says "when was the last time you used an NHS A&E department, it's like a third world country innit" the answer will be "about 3 hours ago" - my housemate got beat up and looked like he could have had a fractured cheekbone, so I drove him over there. He was registered immediately and waited about 15 minutes to be x-rayed and talked through the results on the screen by an excellent doctor. I'd like to see anyone do better privately TBH.

[Phage]

You do use the schools. If you cannot see how; try and earn whatever wage your night school course awards you in a society with no functioning education system such as the aforementioned Somalia, or somewhere with almost total illiteracy such as Afghanistan.

When the police (who apparently no longer exist) fail to safeguard you from the inevitable anarchy of the illiterate and lawless society in which we apparently live and you are stabbed by looters or something, you absolutely will use the NHS as private healthcare providers simply are not equipped to handle A&E cases - all your insurance will fund is prompter treatment for non-urgent conditions (often carried out by the NHS hospitals) followed by transfer to a private clinic that is really nothing more than a Holiday Inn with adjustable beds and ethnically British nurses for recovery. Anything goes wrong and you're straight back to the NHS hospital burdening us taxpayers again. If you could, in exchange for a reduction in tax would you permanently waive your right to any and all NHS treatment for you and your dependents for the rest of your/their life?


Lots of surrealist talk in praise of flat taxation () and supply side economics peppering this thread. Can anyone tell the class where we've heard all this before? Anyone...? Anyone....?

Oh yeah. Here.

Hilarious. The use of some private and selective education leads to a failed state ? Uh huh.
I believe that flat tax was used as an example to demonstrate that ethics and tax are not the same thing.
You appear to have seized on the points that you think are most inflammatory and patronised one side of the argument without following the context. Well done !

[Fraz]

You do use the schools. If you cannot see how; try and earn whatever wage your night school course awards you in a society with no functioning education system such as the aforementioned Somalia, or somewhere with almost total illiteracy such as Afghanistan.

When the police (who apparently no longer exist) fail to safeguard you from the inevitable anarchy of the illiterate and lawless society in which we apparently live and you are stabbed by looters or something, you absolutely will use the NHS as private healthcare providers simply are not equipped to handle A&E cases - all your insurance will fund is prompter treatment for non-urgent conditions (often carried out by the NHS hospitals) followed by transfer to a private clinic that is really nothing more than a Holiday Inn with adjustable beds and ethnically British nurses for recovery. Anything goes wrong and you're straight back to the NHS hospital burdening us taxpayers again. If you could, in exchange for a reduction in tax would you permanently waive your right to any and all NHS treatment for you and your dependents for the rest of your/their life?


Lots of surrealist talk in praise of flat taxation () and supply side economics peppering this thread. Can anyone tell the class where we've heard all this before? Anyone...? Anyone....?

Oh yeah. Here.

Genius post

You appear to have seized seized on the points that you think are most inflammatory and patronised one side of the argument without following the context. Well done !

Oh come on... It was worth it for the scathing sarcasm alone, let alone the Ferris Bueller's Day Off link