£1.61 per hour!

[j1979]

Indeed - what could be fairer than the people who are willing to get off their ass and work for a living being taxed to hell in order to fund the lazy and incompetent. Hurrah for Labour.

chain gangs it is then

[TheAnimus]

actually that was the wigs, but its all kind of academic now, as no mainstream party supports slavery.

Interestingly thou Labour have passed more laws to restrict our freedoms than any other party even at war time......

[j1979]

actually that was the wigs, but its all kind of academic now, as no mainstream party supports slavery.

does community service not count ?

Interestingly thou Labour have passed more laws to restrict our freedoms than any other party even at war time......

but on the flip side.. the Tories introduced the most unfair tax (poll tax) within my lifetime. and some of the poorest people paid the highest amount of tax as a percentage of total income. not really very fair.

[Barrichello]

Lib Dems are fundamentally flawed in many key areas, to the point where under other circumstances i just wouldn't vote for them, however

Indeed, flawed like Clegg being an advocate of joining the euro?

If we had been in the Euro it would not be Greece getting the headlines right now.

[Fatboy40]

Indeed, flawed like Clegg being an advocate of joining the euro?

If we had been in the Euro it would not be Greece getting the headlines right now.

Your first line, the main reason I cannot vote Lib Dem even though I liek all of their other policies

But, nah, it would still be Greece.

Greece are a special case, the amount of work done there as 'favours' (for example building work), that then gets re-paid as a further favour returned at a later date is screwing them over as no money is going to the state as taxes. Someone I work with was out there for many years as an estate agent and this sort of behaviour is rife, how the hell can their government spent what it has with no sign of any sort of income from the population ?.

[Aard]

be grateful

in 1996 i earned £40 per week for 40 hours and had to travel by train to next town over to college 1 day per week out of that money (about £5 return if i remember)

[TheAnimus]

but on the flip side.. the Tories introduced the most unfair tax (poll tax) within my lifetime. and some of the poorest people paid the highest amount of tax as a percentage of total income. not really very fair.

The poll tax is not the most unfair, its not good, but there are worse.

Rates which it replaced in many ways was worse but it was her desire to cut the costs of property valuation which lead to the idea of it been based on the number of residents. This combined with her failure to think what the local money grab would really be, she should have set some kind of limit on the budget change.

The idea of a local geographic tax to pay for the services is a good principle, people who are retired should be slightly taxed on the property they have to encourage them to move out. If government interferes in new property been build, they must interfere equally on the other side, no matter how unfair that might seam (People cry I've payed for this house, but the rise in value of your asset is largely due to planning rules that prevent supply meeting demand!)

So whilst the poll tax was a farce, where her stubberness was her undoing, I think its unfair to call it the most unfair tax.

For me, that is NI, as people who are casual workers, are tax very painfully, the rises done by Labour plenty couldn't understand. When I did the payroll I got so fed up trying to explain to the staff that it was in their interest to claim they worked 30 minutes less than they did because otherwise with the tax they would be 5% worse off.......

Given that NI is just a general tax mascarading as something else by name, I think that is the most unfair for the poorest people.

What is quite interesting is places like Vietnam where they have a large amount from land owners and imported goods. It seams quite a fair way of taxing people.

[Pob255]

The poll tax was massively unpopular with the lower income people, who of course would of ended up paying more and stangle popular with thoes with higher incomes and large "relatively" expensive houses who would of had to pay less.
This was also following on the heels of the scrapping of the higher upper band tax brackets, which just added insault to injury to many people.

Thatcherisum is a really interresting subject, the people who remember her best where thoes who did well under her government and thoes with the most bitterness are the poeple who where badly over by it.
Yet many of the decisions made at the time really did have to be done, esp in the early years, Labour in the 70's had lost control and the situation was very bad.
Greece is in a simular situation to that of the UK in the 70's, a large public sector with nationalised industry with strong unions and while the situation is going badly the unions seem hellbent on resisting any change. (well that's how it seems from the media coverage)

You also have to remember that new labour's changes to the Labour party where originally based on the economic princaples Thatcher's government introduced to the british economy.

As to the LibDem policies being " ***king retarded. " I don't quite see how "establish a
Council for Financial Stability; involving representatives of all parties, the Governor of the
Bank of England and the head of the FSA." so basically forming a non-political body to form an intelligent and informed decision on "timing and scale of deficit reduction." rather than just scaremongering and using the deficit as a political football, which is what the conservatives are seeming to do.
Also most of the rest is about cuts and savings in spending, again saying they will make some cuts and do a review before making more in following years.

The Tax reduction is is nothing more than a double edged sword, an increase to the personal allowance while scrapping systems like the Tax credits, which to my mind is a very "fair" change.

[schmunk]

When I did the payroll I got so fed up trying to explain to the staff that it was in their interest to claim they worked 30 minutes less than they did because otherwise with the tax they would be 5% worse off.......

Please could you explain this, as I'm not sure you're correct.

NI (and income tax) is only paid on income above a limit, so earning an extra amount wouldn't create a liability on the whole income, only the extra income.

Furthermore, NI (unlike tax) is not cumulated over the year (unless you are a company director), so your earnings in one pay period do not affect your NI liability in other pay periods.

[TheAnimus]

They where paid weekly, and if they worked more than 2 hours overtime in one week, they got 'less' than if they spread it out to the next week.

Nursery Staff are kinda bottom rung, for some age groups its a 3:1 ratio of children to staff. Given somewhere like cornwall is piss poor to begin with, that means that all staff can be paid is minimum wage. The two biggest costs to my parents where staff, by a long shot, then insurance.

The only way to do it at a price people can afford was to pad it out with under 18s who are below minimum wage thresholds, until you get to the higher ratios of staffing. No one is willing to pay half their hourly wage in childcare when its minimum wage, its simply not worth working given benefits.

So whilst it sounds quite harsh, the majority off the staff were VERY badly paid.

As such IIRC the threshold back then was £85 per week, so they are well inside the personal allowance but NI isn't based on earnings in a year, unless your a director.

So I used to encourage them to work that extra time next week, as the difference of a few pounds when so badly paid means a lot.

NI is a very unfair tax, it takes advantage of the fact that most employees don't realise who much they are been taxed as plenty of it comes from the employer.

[schmunk]

Ah, I see what you're saying now. However, it only works if they're not working some extra time next week as well as that carried forward...

[TheAnimus]

Indeed, but it confuses they immensely why the harder they work, the less they earn, when its not income tax.

[benus]

Once in my life I worked for 0.40 pounds per hour, after a month of hard work I got less than 100 pounds. Those were the days

[Moby-Dick]

In 94 I was getting £3.20 an hour for bar work - it was much better than the £1.50 an hour I got working at a photography shop