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

What do you call people who move countries?

It wouldnt be a policy aim no. But equally I would cap earnings either or scare the people that pay the most amount of tax away. Your plans would just make the UK poorer and reduce the amount of money available to pay for public services.

Regarding your other posts, I dont believe in unfettered free markets either. I think investment banks should not have been bailed out in 2008 (absolutely inconsistent for Gordon Brown let Rover go bankrupt and then bail out the banks a few years later). I dont think asset price inflation has been good for the economy and the likes of Richard Werner have very sensible ideas about restricting bank lending for assets like existing property versus lending to innovation and new business (as opposed to private equity lending) Eg dont allow banks to create asset bubbles.

I think we need the state to provide a lead in certain sectors and set responsible and fair policies but I think people should not be able to rely on benefits and I think tax rates which scare higher tax payers away are terrible for the UK. I dont think the tories did a good job but am terrified that the Labour party are penalising anyone who does anything other than take the bare minimum offered by the state. The incentives to work longer hours, start a business, save/invest are being eroded and people who behave responsibly and try to look after themselves increasingly see no benefit from that compared to people who dont make the same sacrifices.

I have a novel suggestion for ensuring people do not have to rely on benefits.
Make the work they do pay enough to ensure they don't need benefits.

I agree with you on almost all of that (other than the scaring the high taxpayers away, which I think is dramatically over-exaggerated by, surprise, those with money and power who own our media and most of our politicians) and I do also believe we have to look down as well as up. Everyone needs to contribute.

But at the very best, what you propose will merely stop the gap from increasing quite as quickly unfortunately. It is re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic while the wealthy people have already claimed all the seats in the lifeboats.

The UK is already becoming poorer for most of it's citizens, but of course the figures that we get fed by just about every source are all GDP (hardly ever GDP per capita) and never anything about wealth distribution.

What is the point of being a citizen of a supposedly wealthy country if the majority of that wealth is nowhere you will ever touch it and nothing you will ever benefit from?

Yes, it is absolutely scandalous that we (taxpayers) are subsidising full time employees in order to boost company profits.

What about doubling or even trebeling the tax on alcohol. Would raised a ton in revenue and would benefit the NHS through less drunken behaviour. Win, win in my opinion

Fuel duty rises assume it's an optional spend but outside London & some other major cities the public transport options are slim. DH starts work at 7.30am there are no public transport options at that time and we live in the suburbs. DS is a student working in a bar so no public transport options to get him home after midnight. We need people in employment to pay taxes so why penalise them. Flights or cruise ships makes more sense.

People who create significant businesses in this country from scratch and ultimately employ hundreds of people, paying significant amounts in tax work 18 hour days , 7 days a week and often risk their homes to pay wages and grow the business. You really think they should earn £50k ??!!!!!

Why should the person who has worked their whole life pay for those that haven’t? Some of these comments are shocking with the opinions on people with “money” or “assets”

Why should someone who is working full time need benefits?

Sugar, alcohol, tobacco would be sensible taxes to increase.

You tell me! They shouldn’t, there is mass scale of ineffectual leadership and financial incompetence within the running of this country and I don’t see that changes whichever political party is in power. They are sending millions to France to stop the small boats and the French are just pocketing the cash!

Someone up thread mentioned tripling tax on alcohol…….fab what will we drink! Seriously tho for many they will find a dealer selling some toxic substance that’s never been alcohol and guess where they’ll end up when they’ve drank it…..good old A+E……

Free prescriptions for pensioners will be next
Unless you are on benefits of course.......

Exactly. Older people feel the cold a lot more-in their bones- and this policy will inevitably lead to some deaths from hyperthermia this winter as 80/90 year olds cut down on fuel. My 90 year old mother is on the state pension but does not qualify. She’s fine because she knows I will pay her fuel bill but there are others who don’t have family to help etc.
This should have been stated in their manifesto. Might have made them far less popular!

🤞

90% of current prescriptions are free, for one reason or another (100% in Scotland).

That is only because those who get the most prescriptions tend to be elderly or have an exempt condition. If the free prescription age was raised from 60 to 65 years old, 66% of those in this age group would have to pay.

England is the only part of the UK that charges for prescriptions.

We, as a family, are dual British/Australian citizens. We have just left the UK for Australia. Whilst in the UK we were high rate tax payers, paying 45% on part of our salary in income tax, we didn't get any tax free allowance, therefore paying tax on every penny we would earn, (obviously not all at 45%). We have purchased numerous houses in the UK and paid almost £40,000 in stamp duty on the last house. Our national insurance contributions were high.

We don't mind paying tax, we 'did our bit' and paid 'our fair share' and percentage wise more than most people. We contributed to the economy. Unfortunately it's just all getting too much.

In Australia we pay roughly the same in income tax and the Australian equivalent of stamp duty is similar to the UK, as I said we don't mind paying tax to the state for the benefit of everyone. However, fuel is cheaper here. The private school fees are cheaper (thanks to Labour), should we decide to pursue that option in the future. There is no inheritance tax in Australia, so when we die the state won't be taking an additional 40% (possibly increasing under the Labour government) of the money we have already paid tax on, enabling us to leave more to our children.

You can't just keep taxing working people and expect them to take it. I really want to reiterate that we didn't mind paying income tax and contributing as high rate taxpayers. We don't mind contributing towards health care.

Unfortunately adding VAT to school fees was the final straw for us, our children are currently in state school and have never been in private education in either country (Mumsnet HQ - I'm happy to provide evidence of this, as I expect the troll hunters will be along soon!). But this policy shows how the government intend to drag everyone down, taxing working people even more, reducing parents choice of how to educate their children, creating a monopoly on education.

We are not the super rich, we come from working class backgrounds, attended state school and average universities, no trust funds or inheritance from parents. Just hard workers. We realise we are privileged to earn a high salary, to have been able to purchase a house.

I'm sure someone will be along soon, in true mumsnet style, to tell me they are glad that we've left and one family won't make any difference etc.

We may just be one family, but there are lots of others like us who will also leave, taking money out of the UK economy.

Tall people also need more food, more expensive clothes and shoes. Should we remove taxes on basically everything to eliminate these unfairnesses too?

I get that this kind of thing feels unfair and tough, but it's difficult to design a tax that doesn't have a single tough edge case somewhere. The vast majority of oversized cars are being owned by families who are not full of incredibly tall people, and something needs to be done about it because of the issues this is causing with stuff like additional congestion, safety issues, wear and tear on infrastructure.

What’s a ‘ridiculous sized car’? Some have large families and live in rural areas

Exactly. Stay in your box everyone

Here in Australia you pay for prescriptions and some medical things until you hit a ceiling and then you don’t pay any more. So if you have a chronic condition or, when I was pregnant and had a few private scans and tests, I paid a bit and then not anything. I think you also get free prescriptions if your income is below a certain amount.
This seems like a fairly sensible way of doing things.

If the UK wants to avoid penalizing large families, it would make more sense to tax big cars and extend more child tax credits etc. to third and subsequent children.

If you allow huge cars to be cheap because "we want to help big families," then this ignores the fact that a) most huge cars are not owned by big families, and b) there are also some big families who don't own a car, and it does not make sense to give "big-family financial help" to some big families and not others. Are we also going to make public transport free or cheap for big families too? That's going to get really complicated.

If we want to support big families, the most straightforward and logical way to do this is to use the tax and benefit system to give financial benefits directly to bigger families, so that they have more cash per child, and trust them to make the decisions about how to spend this. Car-owning big families can then use this money to put towards the cost of a larger car. Non-car-owning big famlies can use the money on bus/train fares, on electric bikes, on buying a property which is in a more convenient location near public transport, or whatever works for them.

Right now, the UK has a mad system where it financially penalizes families for having a third child, and then claims that "Oh, let's make massive cars cheap to earn to support families with three kids or more." Regardless of your feelings on family size or on transport, this is a nonsensical way of doing things that makes absolutely no sense.