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

The above logic works with a lot of other cases where people have a tendency to get sad and angry about sad edge cases.

The UK should be taxing things like delivery services and online shopping. If you propose doing this, you immediately get a lot of angry responses that "What about disabled people who use these services?" Again, a) most online shopping/deliveries are used by people who are not disabled, b) many disabled ppl do not make more use of online shopping/deliveries than other ppl, because the world of disability is vast and everyone has different needs/preferences.

It would therefore be fairer, and make more sense, to tax online shopping/deliveries more heavily, and use some of this money to increase the benefits paid to the disabled. Disabled people who do use delivery/online shopping a lot, can use this extra money to fund the cost. Those who don't, can choose to spend the money on other things. Some disabled people, for example, might actually prefer to have money to spend on buying/renting a property near a family member who helps them or is directly next to shops or on a better bus route.

Again, it is better to just give disabled people money directly and trust them to make the decisions about how to spend it, rather than paternalistically decide that "We think you should be doing online shopping and deliveries."

The UK should be taxing things like delivery services and online shopping.

Why?

Because of the impact on communities (increased vehicles and delivery bikes clogging roads and knackering pavements etc.).

CIOT/IFS Debate: Should the government introduce an online sales tax? | Institute for Fiscal Studies

I'd recommend the above for those wondering about online sales taxes; it's a good discussion which represents various opinions on the issue.

They will tax anyone with aspirations to do better. You work hard and earn more so you pay more tax - quite right. IHT p**ses me off - you earn the money and have paid tax on it, bought your house and paid stamp duty and council tax, and if you need care they will make you sell your house to pay for it and when you die, if there is anything left they’ll take 40% of it. We are the only country who has inheritance tax and it raises very little for the government in the scheme of things. I know we need to pay more but can’t they come up with better ways? For the first time in my life a have a massive feeling of impending doom. Inflation will go through the roof but Starmer will just give pay rises to cover the increased cost of living. The Tories were far from perfect when in power but Labour honestly scare me.

The Rwanda policy was illegal under the current law of which they were planning to change; the policy was a long game.
The idea was a deterant first and foremost and given time would of taken effect.

People proclaiming Rwanda is such an awful place - well its not at war and advancing well economically, needing immigration to further its development.
Removing the policy was actually
More expensive than leaving it in place and dormant.

Oh be quiet. You seriously must live in your own privileged bubble.

How? :-)

Matt Hancock's pub landlord PPE contract? Boris Johnson's wallpaper? Robert Jenrick's bungs for his mates? 6.5 billon for the rubbish Rwanda scheme - nope, Labour have been in 5 mins and they're tax grabbers...

No. The original commenter said that more poor people would move in. I was agreeing that those with money would move if heavily taxed, and as a PP has identified, a large proportion of tax is paid by a small percentage of the highest earners. I was merely pointing out that there would be a skills and wealth (aka those who contribute the most in tax) gap.

That IHT raises very little, perhaps is the clearest possible demonstration that very few estates pay it because the threshold is high.

Because we are set up to tax for breathing.

So they would be migrants, and we are supposed to not like migrants.

I wasn’t agreeing with the PP on the migrant point - maybe by response to that post was not eloquent enough.

But since you are pressing the point, I, personally, don’t have an issue with migrants who arrive in this country via the correct routes and who have a genuine willingness to contribute to the economy and society in general. I have huge empathy also for those in genuine need who are tricked by people smugglers to get into in small boats to arrive illegally, but as they are indeed arriving not through the correct routes, sadly they will face their fate as per whichever government is in charge at the time. I do have a problem with those who arrive illegally who are looking to extort and abuse our system when they have no real reason (war/ fear of persecution/ displacement) to leave their own country.

But back to my original point (which did not actually include reference to ‘poor people moving in’) if the highest earners are taxed hard, they can - and will - just move to a different country.

We have a large tax burden in the uk. We have hugely funded and extremely wasteful and inefficient public services. The solution is not increasing tax. That is so lazy. A program of cutting waste and inefficiency in public services would provide all the cash that is needed. For example we pay pensions straight from tax revenue, which is insanely wasteful.

@absquatulize But surely everyone knows that when a British person moves somewhere abroad they are an “expat”

And that expats are nothing at all like migrants in any shape or form… Because, y’know, they’re British 😉

Sorry I was forgetting that, how silly of me.

I have to say - unpopular opinion time - that I think all cars should pay Road Tax. We don't pay any for either of our cars yet we still have to go online and not pay for it!

I think a sliding scale works but I think everyone should be paying at least the £30 version.

I don't really understand why electric vehicles don't pay road tax. Road tax is needed to fix roads. Electric vehicles are heavy and drive on roads. Thereby contributing to the need for repair. Yes, fine for more polluting vehicles to pay more. But everyone should pay.

I'm not talking 6 foot 2. That's just on the tall side.

I'm talking 6 foot 8, 6 foot 9 heights for the men in my family. Even my teen DD is 6 foot 2.

And driving is a lot different to being a passenger. Most cars have space for the driver. Try taking 3 very tall passengers.

May I remind those who say they should raise council tax, that this happens every single year, without fail, anyway - check your bills.

Cars are usually classed in size by engine size for things like this so if yours isn’t large as you claim you’ll be fine 🤫

Again, repeating myself, but if we have a standard that says "No policy is ever allowed to have a single tricky edge case," we wind up not being able to make any policy changes at all, and we end up stuck with bad policies that already harm much larger numbers of people.

I understand that very tall people have some challenges, but all sorts of things like shoes and food probably cost more for the very tall as well - should we scrap taxes on absolutely everything? Your situation with extremely tall family members is not a common one, and 9.99% of people with a huge hefty car are not owning that car for this reason.

As electric vehicles gradually start to become commoner, it's pretty much inevitable that road pricing will be brought it. It won't be terribly easy or popular, but it's the fairest system for a number of reasons.

I think the Overton window on this has been shifting a bit. Even the Telegraph managed to write an article on road pricing a couple of months back which was actually quite balanced and not hysterical in tone.

I do not deny that road pricing will create some tricky edge cases (see previous post).

However, this has to be balanced against the problems of ever-worsening road congestion, roads falling to pieces with potholes getting worse each year, and a huge black hole opening up in public finances.

There are ways to make road pricing easier on those who worry they will have to pay a lot - free miles for rural drivers or those who have to drive a lot due to a disability.

(Sorry for third post) When countries apply differential tax bands, parking charges etc on great big cars, they usually base it on vehicle weight and engine capacity, things like that. A minivan rather than an SUV would allow you to house more people with "relatively" favorable tax treatment, as MVs are lighter with smaller engines in general compared to SUVs (does depend on the car, obvs).