"Tax is a Moral Issue"

[Wombat]

40% rate does exist: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/it.htm

I'm sure that Wayne Rooney & his ilk have good accountants that make sure they don't pay top rate income tax, just as Jimmy Carr does.

Yup and for 2013/14 40% is now down to 32k, which is a 2k drop from this year to offset the £1300 raise in allowance (luv the maths ). If it carries on at that rate a lot more will be higher rate payers that maybe wouldn't expect to be.

 

[Clive]

 

[Goweresque]

Gower, I think that most premier league players get their money payed into a company so they only pay 20%. I wonder where the foreign players money goes.

People keep mentioning 40% higher tax rate, surely this is 45% having come down from 50%.

In my opinion we are taxed too much, people can spend their own money more wisely than the government. They should lower direct taxes to encourage people into work and to work harder and look after themselves and their families. But of course the socialists like to take most of your money and then give it back to folk who do as they are told. I include Call me Dave in this because he isn't a proper Tory.

Here is an interesting discussion between various professional sports agents and tax accountants where the fact of footballers (and rugby players) being on PAYE is debated:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Why-are-all-players-Rugby-4465860.S.150031687

It seems that it is a rule of the Premier League that all players have a contract of employment with their club, which means PAYE for most of their earnings - part of their earnings can be paid to a company for their 'image rights' however.

 

[DrWazzock]

But I reckon, within a business or indeed an economy, if somebody is taking out a lot, then there is less to go round for the rest of us and there is less chance for the rest of us to build up any assets.

The ratio of lowest paid to highest paid in businesses has increased tremendously, yet I am not sure the ratio of output has increased accordingly. So higher tax on the most highly paid goes some way to rebalancing the system.

What has happened to the likes of Rowntree, the Fry family, Cadbury, Robert Owen etc. Altruistic and benevolent employers seem to have been replaced by cut throat mercenaries, so if they won't put back something of what they have taken of others lives, then I am not sorry that the state feels right to tax them highly. Though the state is not very good at spending that tax wisely.

 

[Brisel]

Though the state is not very good at spending that tax wisely.

Nor is the state very good at taxing the multitude of good employers wisely either. Are we to have a panel of judges to decide how much tax we pay according to how well we behaved last year?

 

[noflippinguse]

I am surprised at the number of lefty socialists / borderline communists on here!

Or maybe the right wing small business owners are just outspoken!

 

[Sussex Martin]

Well I am a small business owner in a similar position to many in that I and my family who work in the business work very hard for what we earn. The 40% tax rate starting at £32k is a joke, we have spent years building our business earning a lot less than that, now we are in a position to take more than £32k we will be penalised for building the business.
I will be having discussions with our accountant soon to try and limit our liability, I want no dodgy dealings, I just dont think I want to pay more than I legally have to!

 

[grumpy]

i cant be earsed with these topics but,

http://www.adamsmith.org/80ideas/idea/67.htm

 

[grumpy]

Well I am a small business owner in a similar position to many in that I and my family who work in the business work very hard for what we earn. The 40% tax rate starting at £32k is a joke, we have spent years building our business earning a lot less than that, now we are in a position to take more than £32k we will be penalised for building the business.
I will be having discussions with our accountant soon to try and limit our liability, I want no dodgy dealings, I just dont think I want to pay more than I legally have to!

was 85% in the 70s.

 

[Y Fan Wen]

Hmm. Not quite though that one through I think: 100% CGT tax on development land = no-one ever sells any land for development again. Why would you? You're not going to make anything out of it. Result - zero new houses built while such a policy is in place, unless you're going to forcibly take land from people as well?

I don't know how old Dr Wazzock is, but I suspect that he is younger than me who can remember Mr Wilson applying a 100% tax rate to royalty payments, which applied to farmers who were allowing their farms to be mined for sand and gravel. The day after that budget, all these farmers were on the phone to the gravel companies telling them to stop extracting. Within the week, there was no construction work going on!
In 1988 it happened again with forestry when it was moved outside the tax system. No income tax on timber sales! The day after the budget, my local forest nursery owner went out and sacked 12 of the 13 staff that he had. He realised that he hadn't a hope of employing men without being able to set their wages against his own tax burden.

 

[Salopian_Will]

But I reckon, within a business or indeed an economy, if somebody is taking out a lot, then there is less to go round for the rest of us and there is less chance for the rest of us to build up any assets.

The ratio of lowest paid to highest paid in businesses has increased tremendously, yet I am not sure the ratio of output has increased accordingly. So higher tax on the most highly paid goes some way to rebalancing the system.

What has happened to the likes of Rowntree, the Fry family, Cadbury, Robert Owen etc. Altruistic and benevolent employers seem to have been replaced by cut throat mercenaries, so if they won't put back something of what they have taken of others lives, then I am not sorry that the state feels right to tax them highly. Though the state is not very good at spending that tax wisely.

How many people do you employ to share the wealth? I am guessing not many because you cant justify it? Oh but if you grow your business you might be able to employ a few more. Hang on though, that would mean you earning more, which is not justified.

The confectioners you describe were as they were, because they could afford to, because they made money from business. There are still plenty of philanthropists out there today, and probably more than there were in the 19th Century?

Bloody socialists really get my goat.

 

[Brisel]

You can't legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the prosperous into poverty. There simply isn't enough to go around.

 

[Walterp]

You can't legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the prosperous into poverty. There simply isn't enough to go around.

It's not about improving the lot of either the working or non-working poor, it's about boosting the pay and conditions of the public sector.

 

[Brisel]

It, being what, taxation?

 

[Walterp]

It, being what, taxation?

The question of the composition and division of the nations' tax take.

 

[grumpy]

It, being what, taxation?

boston tea party,

 

[Roger Perry]

Lower taxes lead to more tax income. The more disposable income you have(due to lower taxes) the greater the economy will prosper and the wealthier everyone becomes....including the taxman. I do understand though that the country of my birth does not operate that way, but it does work..!

 

[rob1]

It's not about improving the lot of either the working or non-working poor, it's about boosting the pay and conditions of the public sector.

Boosting the pay of the lower end is a good objective cutting the pay of the useless feckers in public sector management should be done to pay for it

 

[DrWazzock]

I don't know how old Dr Wazzock is, but I suspect that he is younger than me who can remember Mr Wilson applying a 100% tax rate to royalty payments, which applied to farmers who were allowing their farms to be mined for sand and gravel. The day after that budget, all these farmers were on the phone to the gravel companies telling them to stop extracting. Within the week, there was no construction work going on!
In 1988 it happened again with forestry when it was moved outside the tax system. No income tax on timber sales! The day after the budget, my local forest nursery owner went out and sacked 12 of the 13 staff that he had. He realised that he hadn't a hope of employing men without being able to set their wages against his own tax burden.

IMO natural resources like minerals, wind power etc should be requisitioned by the state as and when required. It would be sufficient to compensate the landowner for loss of agricultural land resulting from the extraction. Whoever does the work of extracting the minerals should be paid for them, as they are the ones actually doing the productive work, adding value. The landowner did not produce the sand or gravel so does not deserve to be paid for it. That's how it works for oil and gas and everybody seems happy with that.

I should add I am neither a socialist nor a communist. I am just trying to test arguments here and see what people come up with. I fully agree people should be rewarded propotionally to how hard they work, but this should be a linear not exponential function.

But would any of you not also agree that we have some duty to those who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, and there is nothing wrong with giving them a helping hand.

Before the war my lecturer's parents were too poor to afford a doctor for their son who was seriously ill, so they did not call one. Luckily he pulled through on his own strength, but they, as I am, were glad to see the NHS created and sustained by taxation. Surely something of a moral issue there?

Yes, taxation has been used to improve the terms and conditions of those who work in the public sector, more so for those consultants at the top (who actually remain self employed). As Aneurin Bevan said he had to stuff their mouths with gold to secure the creation of the NHS, something which seems to continue to this day.

And then there's the argument that if I grew my business I would employ more people. Nonsense round here. Mega farms are ridding the land a the last few small farms and boast of how few staff they employ, not how many. So the wealth and resources concentrate more and more into the hands of a few extremely wealthy people.

Keep tugging your forelocks to the big boys if you like, but we can't all be Mr Big and sooner or later a lot more of us will feel the full heat of efficiency savings - how many on here could survive without that most socialist of ideas, the CAP? But to stop it would be morally wrong would it not, taxing the poor to subsidise the rich?!

 

[brynseiri]

Try this for size- for 7 years I had worked PAYE and also did my one man band agricultural contracting in my spare time, and as I had a steady wage, the money earned was re invested in implements and tools in readiness for the "one day I'll be doing this full time thing" so, legitimately as the sideline earnings were below the small earnings threshold, profits were low, thirty quid in a year once. Then I go full time self employed, and as far as I'm concerned, all my NI contributions have been payed via my previous PAYE employment. Tax man just sent me a 900 quid NI bill, so I send them my accounts and tax returns to prove what is what and also my PAYE stuff to show that there was no NI contribution shortfall- they respond with a "tough, cough up" letter because I hadn't registered the small earnings in 2007 when a new law warranted such a registration, even though they had received a tax return regarding said small earnings from the year dot. I responded with a letter stating they could see that the profits were tiny, and £900 daft figure, now then, they send me a letter stating that they were waving it this time due to common sense, but to retain this letter till I retire in case I can't draw a pension! The tax man had no problem issuing a £900 NI bill on a couple hundred quid profit, and a bailiff threat to boot, until I fought it. On a moral basis, the state is as crooked as the tax avoidance mob, so both as bad as each other.