Scrap Benefits and pay every adult, working, non working or retired, an unconditional basic income of £15,000 a year? Discuss

The sums are right, I would want a study done to check details and ensure public finances etc would be viable and balanced.
With the government telling us people are getting 26k in benefits, this must be entirely workable, and would make savings without making people destitute. Children would also require basic income but at a proportional rate.

No, its not a 15K "tax threshold" at all - look at total income.

Housing would need a better system, as the current one of "think of a number" rent levels in London combined with imminent mass homelessness doesn't work.

What greater needs are you thinking of garlicbutt?

ps: Your sums don't look right.

We would still need to give extra support to people with greater needs. What you've posted (guessing at what your numbers were supposed to be) is basically a £15k tax threshold with graded taxes thereafter. It would be nicer to come up with a system that left NO need for tax credits (in particular) or other income supplements.

I've got no idea why this hasn't been implemented, Chicken. I was on the New Deal - erm, 2005, maybe? - for the tiny amount of time it did work, and it was great. I was still poor, obv, but it was the only time since getting poor that I've felt securely confident about working my way out of it.
Unfortunately it only lasted a year or less. I never got to work out of the 'hole' as I suddenly started getting letters telling me my benefits would cease if I was earning. Gah!

This is interesting when compared to the relative rates of tax that people pay when coming out of benefits.

At the moment, if you get a small amount of work, the state removes it all immediately. Punitive and no incentive to work.

With the universal credit, people moving into work will be paying effective tax rates of 65%. This seems very high - the highest tax rates in the system reserved for those in poverty??

The idea of the basic income is as a replacement for all sorts of benefits. When people are earning a certain amount, say £30k, we could increase taxes gradually so that they no longer have/need basic income, for example could have a standard rate of tax of 50%:

When you earn £10k, you keep £5k and are taxed £5K. This makes your income rise from £15 to £20k: good work incentive, and decent standard of living.

earning £20k: total income £15k + 10k = 25k, tax contribution = 10k

earning £30k: total income £15k + 15K = 30K, tax contribution = 15K

earning £50k: total income £15k + 25k = 40k, tax contribution = 25K

earning £100k: total income £15k + 50k = 65k, tax contribution = 50k

Which looks pretty good in terms of getting everyone out of poverty, work pays, and tax levels look reasonable, with a bit of fine tuning and checking required to make sure everything adds up.

Garlic yes good old human nature!

I guess that's why we tend to be keener on communism when we're young; inexperience (or naivety) about people

Agree, either young and inexperienced or older and overly optomistic!

I've just spoken more to him raising these points and he's now saying he won't allow greed....he's sounding more and more like a dictator by the minute. [Grin]

CorruptBstard ^"there was me wanting to put a close to this thread as friends and you have to throw me that one LOL."

Right, where do I begin...?

The local currency idea, being backed by sterling at the rate of 1:1, means that the City of Bristol and the rest of the UK would be locked together in a one sided currency union. For obvious reasons, the Bank of England will not accept Bristolquids (TM) as legal tender, nor will they be under any obligation to exchange the Bristolquid banknotes for Sterling. Any exchange would have to be done in Bristol; presumably by Bristol City Council. To get the scheme off the ground Bristol Council would have to issue a promise that these notes would be held in parity - otherwise you get back to the dreaded inflation again! But, if these notes are guaranteed to retain their value against Sterling then there is no real problem. So far so good.

The problem will come when you start running the printing presses and begin conjuring up these banknotes out of thin air. Either you will have to honour your pledge that they will retain 1:1 parity, thus bankrupting Bristol City or you will have to abandon that promise and let the currency float freely and we're back to rampant inflation again!

"This would mean people start buying local goods"

Just how much food does Bristol produce? How much of Bristol's consumption is 'imported' from the rest of the UK? Or to put it another way, how self sufficient is Bristol? Because, if you need to 'import' a product from the rest of the UK, you can bet they will want to be paid in Sterling and not a currency that can only be spent in Britain?s eighth largest city. This will also apply to shops and supermarkets which source their produce from outside the Bristol area.

"to save a couple of pence on a tin of beans."

Again, no. Upthread you want to pay every adult £15,000 per year. To balance the books, you will need to tax every adult an average of £15,000 (If you don't do this you'll either bankrupt Bristol or have hyperinflation depending on your response to my point at the start of this post). To balance the books you will need to raise almost £300 per week, per person from your sales tax alone. I don't know about you my friend, but our weekly shopping bill comes to around £100. In Bristol, this would have to cost around £400 each week. That's a little bit more than a couple of pence on a tin of beans.

"I would like to acknowledge as well that any system is just that, a system, it can't in and of itself solve any problem, the problem but also the solution is human nature."

Agreed. Any system which fails to take into account how humans work is doomed to fail - and that, Garlicbutt, is an absolute policy which isn't flawed.

Corrupt I like you - should Bristol ever need a chancellor (and by God, if they elect you they will do!) I would be happy to serve.

Amber, that IS the only thing that spoils communism, isn't it: human nature! No ideology that ignores human nature is going to work with humans ... I guess that's why we tend to be keener on communism when we're young; inexperience (or naivety) about people.

Funnily enough I'm just having a conversation with my 15 year old who is mulling over the benefits of communism and explaining why he thinks it could work (if he implements it!)

Currently pointing out the downfalls and why greed and corruption will always take over!

I disagree that competition is always best. That's another discussion but I think it's worth stating that any absolute policy is flawed.

garlicbutt "There are a few ways to set that up, including forms of privatisation which make every community member a stakeholder and/or co-operatives."

The organisation structure of a privatised entity isn't the important thing. The fact that there is a plurality of options for Joe Bloggs to consider when purchasing their goods or services is what matters - this is, obviously, known as competition. As an example, Tesco is a PLC whilst Waitrose is a partnership. Both fulfil the same function (i.e. to feed all those Joe Bloggs' out there) and are in competition with each other - how the owners of those two companies choose to arrange their remuneration / limit their liabilities is of no real concern to the customer.

Previous governmental privatisation drives have left the public sceptical of further privatisation. This is for the very good reason that although nationalised industries have been sold off, there has never been an element of competition in the way they have been structured once in private hands. Take, for example, railway privatisation. The privatisation of British Rail did nothing to increase competition because the only way to have real competition on routes between, for example, Bristol and London is to have a duplicate network built alongside the first. To say that the railway line between Bristol and London is in competition with the line that runs between Newcastle and Leeds is absurd. What this flavour of privatisation did was grant a company with a fixed term monopoly ? this is a very bad idea indeed. Similarly, British Gas, the various old electricity boards' and Royal Mail have been privatised but not subjected to any real competition. Unsurprisingly, the prices of using these services has shot up whilst the business standards have declined ? exactly what you?d expect from a monopoly provider.

This isn?t a polemic against privatisation ? quite the opposite in fact ? but I do believe that we need to think about how to create competition within as many government departments as possible. Privatisation is part of this but, at all times, it is worthwhile trying to figure out if there is a motivation to improve services (cost, quality etc.) or not. Far too often, that motivation has been missing.

If she's still hungry when she's munched through my ever growing grass ill take you up on that. :)

Heh, Amber, love to the MN goat I can send her a ton of rotted plants if you're short on feed

Disagree with Judgey's privatisation drive, btw, but it could be done with tweaks. When public services work, they work on a kitty basis. This is basically no different from the way insurance policies work, only without the need for providers to cream off profits. There are a few ways to set that up, including forms of privatisation which make every community member a stakeholder and/or co-operatives.

Garlic ha! Yes...my MN benefits goat is tethered to my back fence waiting to be milked! ;o)

My tomatos are also looking a bit poor (unlike my grass which is waist high and gone to seed!) Too, hoping for a late bloom on them.

Much better plan imo, Judgey.

I think others have pointed out that sales taxes penalise the poor MUCH more than the rich.
When I was rich, only about 10% of my income went on basic necessities. Now 90% of it does. By increasing sales tax, you make it harder for me to live. For the old me, it would only have been harder to buy as many extras as I wanted.
Cutting down on salon treatments is very different from cutting down on food & electricity.

Not wishing to open up another huge can of worms but if you levy a sales tax only on businesses within the Bristol area why won't people who are able to just shop a bit further afield do so? The only people who will be hit by this are those unable to avoid it - i.e. those without cars, much mobility or the ability to travel. Yes, you will be gifting them £15k, and you could argue that they could then afford to pay the tax, but common sense says that people will avoid tax given half a chance.

Why not stand on the ticket that you can't trust anyone who wants to be a politician 'cos none of them are economically literate enough to do anything other than piss your hard earned money up the wall, therefore, you will damn near abolish the local council. The only tax you will collect will be to pay for services for the sick, the elderly, the infirm and the disabled. You will also need to collect something towards emergency services and road maintenance etc. This should come to no more than 50% or so of current council revenue. Let the people keep the difference. Next, whatever you have left in the pot, privatise it. Privatise the libraries, refuse collection, planning departments, the whole lot. Lubricate up the system with the free market and turn this bloody country around one city at a time.

This approach has been taken elsewhere, New Zealand to be exact, please take the time (no more than ten mins or so) to read this. In my opinion, it details exactly the direction Britain needs to be taking to pick itself up, dust itself down and start moving forward.

Good luck in the election.

a nice salad of homegrown assorted tomatos and some nice goats cheese.

Amber, have you actually got the Mumsnet Goat???
My tomatoes have been thwarted by this "summer". Maybe Corrupt will award an additional tomato benefit during bad years!

Good luck with becoming mmayor of Bristol CorruptBstard. If you do work out a way around the whole numbers issue, please let us know.

Finally, may I suggest that you change your user name before standing for public office!

"what would you do "just for the love of it?"

When I was 19 I went to university. At the time, I was torn between which one of two degrees I would study for. One was a practical degree with decent employment prospects, the other was a History degree. With half an eye on future employment prospects I chose the practical degree and have sort of regretted it ever since. Assuming an income of £15k for life, I'd go back to university to do the degree I always wanted to do, purely for the love of learning.

I realy am interested to know, what would you do "just for the love of it?"

Ignorance of inequality again. I currently do what I CAN do just for the love of it. It's a massive contrast to what I did when I was healthy & rich.

I write, I do a bit of gardening, study a bit, sleep a lot.
I used to go to galleries and museums, travel, renovate & decorate properties, go for long drives and long walks, go to the gym, meet friends for lovely meals and drinks.

I cannot do any of those things now due to the combined effects of disability and a £15k income.

Your premise appears entirely false, I'm afraid.