To me it's simply about the system. Allocation of scarce resources to where they can be most productively employed. That goes for labour and capital. Land is somewhat physically fixed but how it is used obviously is a factor.
Do you feel the following tax breaks are reasonable and fair and do you support them?
Are they deserved?
Whether they help the nation in total or create issues and hardships on the many so a few can do even better.
It is not about the individual you or I!
Think in terms of social gain / loss.
Think about the system whether it is just? Is it fair?
How you might feel if you were on the bottom rung of the ladder?
hen it comes to austerity, the Conservatives have often argued that “there is no alternative”. When he was Chancellor, George Osborne inflicted painful spending cuts on our country, our communities and our public services.
Now, of course, Osborne has sought to reinvent himself as a small 'l' liberal and a newspaper editor. Yet the choices he made - and they were choices - still have a lasting impact. The prime advocate of the “no alternative” doctrine may have left Parliament, but the effect of his cuts will be felt for generations.
Yet the brutal approach to public spending of the Conservative years needn’t have happened, and it needn’t continue. As many of us have been saying in the decade since the global financial crisis, there is an alternative. One that values public services and those who provide them, and that places the biggest burden on the shoulders of those who can bear it most.
One of the best examples of this is on taxation. While hospital porters, school support staff and care workers have been forced to pay – in lost jobs and slashed wages – for the mistakes of the financial sector, the wealthiest in our society got a tax cut. The government claimed that reducing the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p in 2013 wouldn’t cost the government money. In fact, analysis carried out by UNISON shows that between 2013/14 and 2017/18 the income tax cuts for those earning over a million pounds a year alone have saved the nation’s super-wealthy on average £554,000 each. Those tax cuts have also cost the British taxpayer £8.6bn over those five years.
That’s £8.6bn that could have been spent avoiding the harshest of cuts to the NHS, schools and local government. And £8.6bn that could have been spent raising wages for those dedicated public servants who work for our communities. Put another way, tax cuts for the richest 15,000 taxpayers in the country could have bought them a couple of top of the range sports cars, a big house in the country or perhaps even a helicopter. Yet at the same time, the same government has cut wages in real terms for those who teach our children, care for our loved ones and empty our bins.
The money lost could have paid for an extra 20,000 nurses, 10,000 extra police community support officers (PCSOs), 10,000 extra police officers, and 20,000 newly qualified teachers - every year for the whole five years. Or it could have paid for 60,000 bursaries for nurses, midwives and other health professionals, 10,000 extra nurses, 10,000 extra PCSOs and 10,000 newly qualified teachers - every year for five years. Or it could have helped solved our nation’s social care crisis, by putting £1.7bn a year into social care. Instead, that money was squandered on those who need it least, including - shamefully - those who caused the financial crisis in the first place.
The income tax cut for the wealthy is one of the most emblematic budget changes of recent years, but it’s far from the only tax giveaway. The government has also slashed corporation tax while consistently failing to act on large-scale industrial levels of tax avoidance, which has once again been brought to our nation’s attention, this time by the Paradise Papers.
The truth is, we were never “all in it together”. There was an alternative that was avoided in favour of austerity, which was a political choice serving one group in society over another. Now, Chancellor Philip Hammond says the government has heard the calls for change, heeded the lessons of the recent general election, and plans to change course. The acknowledgement that another way is possible is to be welcomed, but only if the government makes the unlikely but necessary decision to walk that other road.
The age of austerity has devastated our country at a time when we need to be ready for the challenges of a future defined by automation and rapid technological advancement. Investment in public services - and most importantly of all, in those who provide them, is needed more now than ever. The way to better services comes not through more cuts but through real investment.
Governments should not be afraid to make the case for higher taxes to pay for the investment in pay, services and infrastructure our country needs. A higher rate of income tax for those who can most afford it would be a sensible and rational start.
That article is old but valid. Then there is the more recent Tory 2018 budget.
A surprise £3bn income tax giveaway worth £860 a year to high earners was the centrepiece of Philip Hammond’s third budget, but tax experts said it would leave low earners with little or no gains.
The chancellor brought forward the Conservatives’ election pledge to increase the basic personal allowance to £12,500 while raising the threshold for the 40% higher-rate tax to £50,000.
The rises in personal allowances – which are the starting points for paying 20% and 40% income tax – translate into significant tax cuts further up the income scale. For someone on £12,500, the increase is worth £130, but for those on £50,000 salaries it is worth £860 a year, although this is reduced to £520 once national insurance is taken into account.
I'm not talking about handouts or state help or social services here. Best analogy I can think of is this. They all work just that simply they do different pieces of work earning different levels of income.
Imagine a skinny person and a fat person. They both work for food.
You have limited amount of food.
Do you give the skinny person less food because he is skinny?
Similarly because someone is fat, do you give more food so they can maintain their obesity at level they are used to?
Alternatively, do you calculate what an average amount of calories a body needs and give each the same + extra on work that requires more energy / reward based on output?
If you find some extra food, do you distribute that food based on effort or just simply weight of person (ie current income).
I don't know just a sort of different way of looking at allocation of resources; based on need/want sort of thing. 🙄
I know a few people working for around 20-25K. One of them is a graduate and his ok. Gets by. Another is single mother with two kids under 10. No idea where dad is. Don't like to get personal. Don't know and don't care. I hear she is struggling. She doesn't want charity or handouts. Works hard. However, with two kids and rent plus all sorts of other expenses even 24K is not much. No she's not poor. She's not exactly well off. Struggling I'd say.
I concur to a point. It's not my fecking problem. Where's the freaking daddy? If people screw up why should rest of society pick up the tabs. There are many such people approaching the margins.
What I do get annoyed about however, is governments paying a 50K earner 4 x as much as someong on 12K.
That to me does not make social sense. It creates social challenges and makes people collectively unhappy. Doesn't help the top end either who may get to find them selves living in an environment with increasing probability of unintended consequences. Like being burgled.
So ignoring thy self. What do you think of the tax system? Just or Unjust? :whistling
