When politicians won't answer the question

[Elektra1]

Just heard Treasury Minister James Murray on the Today programme talking about the changes to the government's borrowing rules, and changes to taxes in the impending budget. He was asked 5 times whether landlords work for a living (I assume due to changes to CGT and SDLT) and simply repeated the same response ("we are talking about how people make their money").

Landlords clearly make at least some of their money by buying and selling properties, and renting them out. Nothing wrong with that, it's a job. So why not just answer the question? Do they seriously think that the audience is taken in by repetition of the same non-answer? It just makes me think they must be shit at their job (being a politician).

Which is why I wrote ‘up to’.
And it’s still not all taxed at 40% is it? Just the money over the threshold. That was my point.

You are missing CT on profit

You’ll need to add that take to the taxes

They are seen as working people if the effort you are referring to returns a salary. It isn’t having assets that changes that. It’s delineating different approaches to different sorts of income. Working income, which comes as salary (and yes, massive simplification but that’s what happens when trying to express pages and pages of policy in a short statement) and passive income which comes from assets (again, huge simplification as not all assets bring income and not all asset based income is totally passive).
I don’t believe you don’t understand this. Why choose to be all offended and upset for no reason?

I won’t need to do anything. I’m not the one botching about dislike of a simple phrase.

@cardibach

"Over a threshold. Unless you earn so much that you don’t have one, in which case you are in an insanely privileged position."

So anyone who starts a new business risking their own money or invests their money into another business will not get taxed at the same rate as income so long as they risk a small amount of capital and get a small or below the threshold return.

Anyone who risks a larger amount of capital in the hope of getting a larger or above the threshold return would get taxed on their return at the same level as income.

So by that logic why would anyone in their right mind risk their own money (or bankruptcy if borrowed money) to set up their own larger business only to be taxed at the same rate as a salaried job. It would be far more sensible to keep their own money safe or avoid bankruptcy and just do a salaried job for someone else.

In short basic economics says the higher the risk the higher the return and vice versa. If the Government says I will tax you heavily if you get a higher return then why on earth would you take the higher risk?

My point is that your reply is just like a politicians, making a sweeping statement to make it sound like you’re only really affected by IHT if you’re wealthy and saying a million quid. An honest politician would use the £325k figure and say extra allowance are also available in certain circumstances that could take the threshold up to £1m.

It’s exactly the same as Labour portray private schools as Eton/Winchester (not the church schools who charge fees lower that it costs to educate a child in the state sector or SEN schools who educate pupils that the state can’t provide for), businesses are the big tax dodgers like Amazon (and not the 99.9% of businesses in the UK who are SME’s) and landlords are all dodgy (not the majority who provide much needed rental properties and can be very good landlords).

@cardibach this is not what was said, have you read the full statement? He clearly said that people who hold assets are not classed (by him) as working people.

What a reply. So simple you and Labour can’t even define it.

Your post is still incorrect re the landlord and taxes, and that is your error.

I am really sick of all of this. If we want improved public services we are going to have pay more tax. All of us.

People really need to stop whining.

It's the same with the employment rights bill. Well paid, well motivated employees are good for productivity and growth. But all anyone does is moan about employees having proper protections. My view is that if you need to exploit people, your business model isn't sound.

I think we all need to agree that what they actually mean is - if you've got anything at all - spare cash after you've worked all your life, scrimped and saved to buy your own home or live slightly above the minimum then we think you've got too much pie and we will take some of that pie. And we can take as much pie as we like because you all voted for us - ha ha fooled ya!

Because we want to level the playing field down.

We've only got to wait till Wednesday to find out the newly minted definitions of 'working people', 'the vulnerable' and 'not an austerity budget'.

@sharpclawedkitten

"I am really sick of all of this. If we want improved public services we are going to have pay more tax. All of us.

You do realise that if you keep increasing taxation then firstly you reduce productivity - higher paid workers either reduce hours, retire early, don't set up new businesses etc etc) and secondly this then leads to running out of other people's money and reduced tax revenues.

If we want improved public services we are going to have pay more tax. All of us.
People really need to stop whining.

People aren’t saying that more tax isn’t needed. I would happily have 1p put on income tax to put money towards public services. The comments everyone are making is that politicians don’t answer questions, were misleading in their manifesto and hide behind sound bites to get elected (and still do now they are in Government).

However, they need to ensure any tax changes don’t discourage investment/growth. Paying differing rates depending on how your income has been generated is key to that.

we are going to have pay more tax. All of us.

So you do want ‘taxes on working people’?

Of course people resent the slippery language that politicians use to be technically truthful but duplicitous in spirit.

Yes I, and others are aware of that, but I very much doubt the government would admit that.

This is true. I know the private school vat thing has been discussed to death already, but I KNOW personally families who have decided to jump to state and are talking about how it means one person can drastically reduce hours or leave a job entirely. Cost to the state with more children entering the state sector. Loss to the state with lost taxes on income. again… why do politicians of all stripes seem to be incapable of seeing logical consequences?

It's the same with the employment rights bill. Well paid, well motivated employees are good for productivity and growth. But all anyone does is moan about employees having proper protections. My view is that if you need to exploit people, your business model isn't sound.

Of course employers need rights, but so does the business that employs them.
If I see a job advertised as 9-5, no wfh allowed and apply for that job, then I accept those terms and conditions. On day one, I should not be able to then put in a flexible working request and for the business to spend time putting a case together (that would be sufficient for a tribunal) to say no. The business wanted 9-5 and shouldn’t have to justify why and spend time/resources in doing so.

It’s soundbites again, so Labour can come across as looking after workers etc so they their vote, not thinking or caring about the impact on businesses.

Tax increases in the majority of cases equal lower tax take and stifle growth. Public sector wage increases cause inflation. So you have stagflation and lower amounts of tax to spend.

Lots of landlords are working people. But the interviewer is trying to get him to admit the tax increases which he doesn't want to do yet.
For almost every tax increase there's a possible negative impact, but it has to come from somewhere.

@cardibach if an angel investor spends a lot of time analysing an investment opportunity, which is needed to get the entrepreneur's company off the ground, to help the entrepreneur employ people, to help that company grow and pay tax, they want a high return. This is a risky investment. But this is how "growth" happens, which is what this government NEEDS or we will end up in a perilous situation.

What about company workers who receive some of their compensation in stock ? Are they not "working people". Now the govt spokesperson is rowing back saying people with a "small amount" of investments do count as working people. What's a "small amount". What Starmer has said is if you work hard but don't have constant money worries or if you work full time and have assets/savings, you are not a "working person" in Labour's view.

This government is so anti aspiration and so divisive.

I think others have clarified your misconception about inheritance tax.

So if you work hard save money and then vest it in some way to generate income forget it because the government is going to grab as much as they can. Not really an incentive is it

This government is so anti aspiration and so divisive

Excellent summary 👏

The phrase "working people" is just meant to drive division between people. It's deliberately goady, and is intended to give the impression that all landlords just sit back and do nothing except rake in the rents.

And some may do that. But others will spend a lot of time and effort in maintaining their properties, sorting out problems, chasing overdue rents, etc, which all sounds like "work" to me.

Add to that the fact that most "working people" in the private sector do not have the (still extremely generous) pension schemes that public sector workers enjoy and have bought BTL properties as a way to boost their retirement income. But sure, yes, let's just tax that even more, whilst exempting public sector employers from having to pay NI on employer contributions, thus widening the gap between private and public sector pension provision even more.

People are not going to like me saying this, but Nigel Farage is one of the only politicians that doesn't do this. Or at least, it's incredibly rare