If you were Chancellor, what changes would you make?

[peterb]

2000% tax on peterb's savings.

edit: but he did help me sort out my broadband... I'll let him off with a one-off fine.

Well that tax wouldn't raise much!

-Make building your own house VAT free for materials and labour.
-Make foreign property investors (uber rich - Russian oligarchs -Saudi Princes etc) pay capital gains tax, since they are blowing up the UK property bubble almost by themselves with some help from immigration.
-Make workers earnings up to £15000 exempt from income tax.

I think you can claim VAT back on self build, but only at the end of the build and in one lump sum. The HMRC website will have more info

And income tax relief is creeping up towards the £15,000' albeit slowly. It will be £12,000 by the 2020.

[ik9000]

landlords are saying rents might increase by 100% or more to compensate for the reduction in tax relief....

good luck with that. There comes a point at which people will not pay. If they can't cover their BS buy to let mortgages they should sell.

[Galant]

On a separate note, and with intent towards swift and effective action, I'd take a serious look at eliminating pointless and wasteful regulations/restrictions that cost society both directly and indirectly. Examples - Those stupid laws about fruit and veg having to be the exact right shape, re-evaluate sell-by-dates and the restrictions on giving food to charity (as has been happening in France lately), certain 'health and safety' regulations and other stupid bureaucracy.

Additionally, education starts to factor into this, at least to my mind. Overall I'd want to increase productivity because I strongly believe that a healthy society is, intrinsically, a productive one and so I'd want to see about increasing productivity in and variety in productivity. As mentioned before, I'm rather ignorant on the fine points of economics, so I might be utterly wrong on this, however, I'd encourage not just academic performance (and try to find ways to encourage and accelerate that for those who prove themselves most capable and promising) but also productivity in terms of skills and trades and encourage and promote that in the same way. I think I'd want to try to encourage more self-sufficiency at all levels.

[Gerrard]

I know very little about economics so I can't and won't offer any detailed suggestions. However, generally speaking, I believe that increasing individual (individual, then local, then regional, and lastly, national) independence (freedoms + responsibility) is the right direction. With regards the economy and taxation I've often wondered what would happen if an attempt was made to make the connection between taxes and public spending more direct/visible. That is, we know that public monies go on all sorts of things from the roads to education to health care etc. What if, where possible, as many of those as possible were listed, along with their budgets, and then tax paying entities were able to contribute payments into those funds, perhaps on a first come first served basis? There would still have to be a general fund but the idea is to make that 'black hole' as small as possible.

This would likely have to happen at the different levels of society, and there would have to be some cross over with entities in richer regions contributing to funds/budgets in poorer areas, perhaps. Also, there would certainly be some funds that were more popular than others and some people might not wish to contribute to certain funds (military, for example), however, the fact it, we all contribute to all of those already, so making the payment of taxes required is where we are already.

I think it would be an interesting exercise in getting people to engage more directly in their society, to see the cost of things, as well as increasing transparency of spending, and identify where wastage may be happening along with where budget declarations are wholly unrealistic.

It would likely be a lot more work for someone in admin-land, but overall, I like the idea (pipe-dream).

As mentioned, I generally tend to the approach of maximum freedom, maximum rights and with it maximum responsibility. That's where this came from.

I guess you mean like it is on Humble Bundle (developer, charity, company)? It would certainly be an interesting experiment. But I think you'd find that the richest people who (in theory ) contribute the most individually are for less likely to need certain services (eg, NHS or schools because they have private alternatives) and therefore skew the results. Then again, the number of people involved would be significantly smaller, so that might offset it.

[DanceswithUnix]

A reduction on VED for vehicles with V engines, because they sound nice.

[abaxas]

In terms of BTL.... I'd only allow businesses to rent out property.

Problem solved.

[Jowsey]

With regards the economy and taxation I've often wondered what would happen if an attempt was made to make the connection between taxes and public spending more direct/visible.

I could swear a while back the coalition government was doing this for people who submitted tax returns. You would have a total breakdown of tax paid (PAYE & NI) and where it had been spent. This was just a pie chart showing you'd spent £600 on defence (being the 2% annual budget applied to your tax paid). My partners father received his and it was truly eye opening. Perhaps it was just a piloted scheme that has yet to take off?

[Jowsey]

In terms of BTL.... I'd only allow businesses to rent out property.

Problem solved.

I'd best be careful as I feel like I'll just start annoying people

You can self administer a 'business' (by which I assume you mean company) for less than a £100 a year. One share, one owner. All you've done is put the property into a separate tax vessel. Hey-ho, it's a more tax efficient way of extracting profits!

(I'm being a little contrary. I imagine you mean large companies)

[abaxas]

It just enforces the payment of tax and makes it difficult to remove the asset from the business.

[peterb]

In terms of BTL.... I'd only allow businesses to rent out property.

Problem solved.

Many landlords do set up a business - it has significant tax advantages, although of curse the company is liable to Corporation Tax on any profits.

[ik9000]

Companies should not be able to rent properties to private individuals. Developers should be made to sell new builds leasehold if they want to maintain control of a block. Where companies want to rent property to their own staff (eg overseas short-term placements) then fine, but that should be through their PAYE deductions at source only. Private mass-rental companies should not be allowed until we sort out this drastic issue of lack of supply. Forcing people to rent for decades is not a healthy long-term solution.

The issue is also one of up-keep. People generally are better at caring for their own property than rental. The area we used to live in, you could tell the streets where it was rental vs private ownership just by the condition of the frontages.

[chrestomanci]

Remove VAT on feminine hygeine products and birth control goods (seriously - this day and age they are not luxuries!)

Contraceptives are available free of charge on the NHS.

Feminine hygiene products are not luxuries, but there are plenty of other things that are subject to VAT, and are not either, If you make an exception for one, then you go down a rabbit hole of complicated rules, exceptions and all sorts of special interest groups asking for their favourite products to be exempted as well. You just don't want to go there.

Instead, I think we should abolish VAT on food.

Currently some foods are VAT free, others is not, there is a whole complicated system of rules, and a tribunal to decide what is subject to VAT and what is not. It costs retailers a lot to keep track of everything, and the cost of the tax falls unfairly on the poor who spend a larger proportion of their income on food. In theory, only luxury foods are taxed, but in practice the rules create all sorts nonsensical situations. For example, Fruit juice and chocolate biscuits are taxed, but £40/Kg steak is not.

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ice-70114-food

Instead, lets spend some money of a tax give-away that will help us all, but especially retailers (that the Tories want to help), and the poor (who they want to be seen to be helping). The new rule should be that all food is VAT free, except for alcoholic drinks and pet food.

[spacein_vader]

Expect I'll get some flack for this but here we go:

UK to be federalised, House of Lords is scrapped, the Commons becomes the UK federal government, with 300 MPs elected on a PR basis for 10 year terms. Federal government is responsible for defence, foreign policy, major infrastructure (more on that soon,) & monetary policy.
English parliament set up in Birmingham, this along with the existing regional governments in Wales, Scotland & NI look after other areas of policy. All are elected on a PR basis every 4 years (1 region has an election per year.)
All MPs in the various parliaments are paid a flat rate 100k, wage linked to inflation with defined stipends for ministers. This pay rise will counteract the need for expenses, which are banned.

National Grid, power stations (including green,) Transco, railway franchises, the road network, water networks, mobile phone towers, NHS and Openreach (the network part of BT,) are nationalised and looked after by federal government, these will not sell services direct to the customer. Individual companies can compete to supply energy/water/gas/phones/internet on a fair basis enabled by an unbiased network.

Trident to be scrapped at the earliest opportunity and not replaced. RAF, Army & Royal Navy all merged into a single service. This will be analysed, the number of people and equipment reduced and modernised to ensure we have a smaller (but better equipped,) force that is capable of defending our sovereignty but unable to engage in foreign conflicts. This can be paid for with the money saved on Trident and the sell off of large amounts of MOD property that would be surplus with a smaller force.

VAT will be removed on feminine hygiene products and set to 0% on all unprocessed foods (exception to include pasteurisation in the case of fresh milk.) Thereafter a sliding scale rising to 30% depending on the health issues that food may cause (mars bars, energy drinks, big macs etc. probably at the higher end.)

Sunday trading restrictions removed but all employers must give all employees working over 30hrs a week 2 consecutive days off.

Cannabis legalised and taxed in line with tobacco products (including those used by Vapists.) Anyone wishing to purchase any of the above products must register with the NHS, once done they become liable to pay for any treatment needed as a direct result of smoking.

It becomes illegal to apply a London (or any other geographic location,) weighting to any tax, benefit, public sector salary etc. This would cause demand in London to fall, bringing prices in line with the rest of the country.

HS2 scrapped, savings pay for improvements to existing rail lines. London Underground trains to be upgraded to be driverless, ticket offices at all underground and mainline stations to be replaced with unmanned machines.

mansion tax imposed on all properties over £1 million, additional tax rate moved to 100k (rising with inflation) and set to 50%.

Triple lock removed from pensions, tied instead to CPI.

/rant.


Most of it would make you unelectable, some of it would be unworkable but I can dream...

EDIT: Also, disestablish the Church of England and remove charity status from religions.
Make it mandatory to be able to leave/unsubscribe from any service by the same means you can sign up for it.
All privacy settings and marketing data protection questions must be opt out by default.

[ik9000]

yup. flack flack flack

Dead against you on Trident, drugs, lack of London weighting, defence cut backs. Not sure on federalisation.

I would seriously consider cancellation of HS2 however and would back nationalisation of a number of those industries - but for state supply with INDEPENDENT regulator to vet pricing. Cheap Power and 1gig broadband ought to be gov supplied for the shear necessity of both these days - THAT would help industrial and service sectors

I would also block heathrow/gatwick expansion and pump HS2 money into new airport on coast somewhere.

[Galant]

Chatting about this subject with my Dad over lunch just now. His focus was on the banking. He'd like to nationalise the banking.

No one's mentioned Europe yet either. Anyone know the figures for the direct costs of being a part of Europe?

[ik9000]

i think you'd also need to look at benefits - particularly to trade - of being in Europe too. I think on balance our current in but not in the Euro is the right place to be.

We just need 2 things. 1) a British sovereignty act - our high court trumps Euro high court on domestic matters, including prisoners having the vote, human rights matters (for criminals) and similar contentious matters

2) border control for undesirables, criminals and non-workers.