What is labour coming for next?

[MikeRafone]

I reckon after 12 years of dozen fuel duty that drivers will be next

what tax will the collect next to fill the black hole

100%

I presume you are referring to the mean spirit attitude of those who drive oversized cars with the resulting costs to society that they cause, often for journeys that could just as easily and sometimes be quicker taken on foot or by bike?

What are your suggestions then? Presumably you are rational enough to realise that things cannot remain as they are, with wealth accumulating at a faster and faster rate in fewer and fewer hands.

Very easy to say 'don't tax high earners or they will leave' but what are your alternatives to reduce the rapidly increasing inequality in our society?

Do you understand people earn different amounts of money?You know a surgeon earns more than a shop worker? Are you comfortable with that? Do you need an explanation of why that happens?

I’m pretty sure I’ve said up thread.
I would happily invest in an increase in the minimum wage, funding (properly) childcare so women can return to work and in education initiatives to get more people into skilled work. This can be done by increasing the astronomical levels of waste in the public purse and a tax increase across all tax payers. I would also be in favour of a small increase in CGT to bring slightly more on line with income tax.

But we need to balance tax increases with driving entrepreneurship and aspiration. You can’t tax your way out of this mess.
You can make it unattractive to earn past a certain point.

Completely agree with this. There are small villages in the area I grew up (Lake District) where more homes are Air B&B / second homes than owned by local residents. Post offices, shops & pub etc closing as out of season there’s not enough business to keep them open. I can’t afford to buy a fairly standard 3 bed house in my home town.

So if an entrepreneur creates.something that improves productivity/efficiency/fills a need etc eg they have a viable business and they employ people and pay 13.8% employers national insurance (job tax) for each worker, 24% corporation tax and then 45% tax on income you think society doesn't benefit?

Would it be better in your eyes if people didn't try and start businesses?

If you weren't being so massively patronising or so obviously looking to be confrontational, I would suggest that most people are comfortable with people earning a certain amount more than others (if they are actually doing a useful job for society like a surgeon rather than, say, an HR director or broker) but not the massive disparity we currently see between the top 1% (or top 0.1%) and the bottom 50%.

Depends on the business.

And I also don't believe that people won't start those kind of businesses unless they know they can become fantastically wealthy in the process, just as I don't believe that a CEO of some large enterprise will storm off in a huff if he (as they are almost all men) only gets paid £1,000,000 instead of £2,000,000.

Oddly I didn't get an answer yesterday to why the bosses of such successful businesses as the post office and Thames Water, need to be paid 10x + that of a surgeon. What is the value that those people bring to society?

Do you believe wanting to become wealthy and provide a good standard of living for your family is some kind of evil pursuit?
Remember, these people you are so quick to admonish are providing jobs and paying taxes (often in large amounts).

Not sure if this has already been answered but it comes from £325k IHT allowance plus £175k additional allowance if you're leaving the family home to a child or grandchild. That's half a million.

No IHT is applicable to Married or civil partnered couples inheriting from each other and on the second death any unused IHT allowance from the first death can be used.

So, if none was used that's the million.

It obviously won't apply to everyone but it's the maximum available.

One can provide a good standard of living earning 50k a year, why does anyone need to earn 10 or 100 times that?

Your soul

No I don't - did you even read the earlier responses? My issue is with the amount of wealth that some people have and the disparity between the top 1% in our society and the bottom 50%.

Businesses should exist for the benefit of society, not just those people that own them. The rewards for a successful business should of course go more to the person who created it or put some money into it, but the scales are unbalanced at the moment and getting worse.

No, but how do you decide who is deserving of driving a 'big' car? Who is going to make the rules?

Not everyone can cycle to work, to the shop and back, to drop their child at nursery and another at school. Your elderly mother breaks her hip and can't get in your Picanto. How long will it take to get official approval for a bigger car?

Who is going to administer those rules? How? How will the ban be enforced? By whom? How much are you going to pay the people creating and enforcing the rules? How much are you going to pay for the systems they use? Phones? Computers? IT support? Etc. Etc.

It's ill thought through nonsense driven by envy and / or a belief that everyone else should live life the way you think they should because you do and you're right.

Surely it is not in doubt that going round polluting the planet making it a less stable place just because one can is mean spirited?

The impact of what you say is that you believe there should be caps on what people earn based not on their ability or what is good for society or the economy but on some ratio of income versus people who don't work.

I'm keen on everyone earning more and I don't see the benefit of encouraging those people who pay the largest amounts of tax and create the most jobs and investment being told they need to stop investing or creating jobs in the UK because they have gone past the income ratio you have in your mind.

I'm a teacher. I live and work rurally and do a total commute of 40 miles so can't manage without a car. DH commutes a similar distance in the opposite direction so moving closer is not an option. So, put some tax on petrol, raise road tax on my fairly modest car, raise council tax, tax the flight we take for our annual holiday and I'll be pretty much funding my own pay rise with a little help from the winter fuel payment they've taken off my elderly parents! 😂

All either party will ever do is shuffle money around middle income workers whether they're in public or private sector.

And so, by counterpoint, do you believe that people should be able to do what they want regardless of the impact it has on society?

Accusing people of envy is such a lazy way of dismissing someone elses opinion because it does not match your own.

Have the bosses of the Post Office for the past 20 years earnt what they are worth?
Do the bosses of Thames Water earn what they are worth?

That's not correct.

The estate is liable for IHT, not the beneficiaries.

The executor pays the IHT out of the estate's funds, then distributes the funds to the beneficiaries.

So you're fine with the increasing wealth gap then?

Also you are going to penalise those that live rurally. Bigger cars are an essential when the hedge rows are tall and the tracks single. We also need the 4x4 element for the snow (highlands) and towing.

I'm not inclined to answer your new question when you're not answering any of those put to you.