I don't want to pay more fucking tax!

[marthainthemarket]

I am the sole earner in a family of four, earning just under 40k a year and getting probably fuck all or below inflation pay increase next year, if I am lucky enough to keep my job ( public sector and employer needing to make massive budget savings). I barely cope now.

I am so fucking angry that Labour fucked up the disability benefit cuts. Other countries don't have run away disability benefits crises because they have a proper assessment process that means they keep a lid on people getting disability benefits who don't really need them. But instead of dealing with that, they came up with a crap proposed cut that wouldn't have dealt with the actual issues and they couldn't defend.

And having fucked that up they are now raising everyone's tax. I hate them!

I can almost guarantee you that we are not going to have any of these things despite the tax rises.

no i honestly don’t think I am being unreasonable

don’t want to divulge too much, he is the MP of the neighbouring constituency

Regardless of how billionaires create their money, if you don't control their growth eventually they eat us all. What I mean by that is that resources are finite, there is only so much land, houses, gold, diamonds, factories etc and billionaires with all their excess money just buy more and more assets leaving less and less for the rest of us to fight over. This tipping of economic and political power towards a handful of billionaires in each country isn't a good thing. Farage arguing that taxing the wealthy is bad whilst saying the minimum wage for young people is set too high isn't a coincidence. It sounds crazy but a return to serfdom would suit a lot of them nicely. So yes tax the super rich.

Exactly

you need to define the super rich

I think our EU budget contribution included around £3 billion a year from VAT income, but that was only 0.3% of our total VAT income (other member states also contributed a standardised 0.3% with a few exceptions/caps).

I'm a pensioner so don't ask me if I understand the Triple Lock. If scrapped, the measly State Pension ( I think the second lowest in Europe) would rise by a miniscule amount. Pensioners still have the same bills as working people - fuel, council tax, water, insurance, food, house repairs etc etc.
Therefore more pensioners would be unable to heat and eat.

If taxes are already so so high (which they are) why don't we have good public services

Thank you for pointing this out. Poor example on my part. But there will be countless similar examples within the tax system.

Well I lay the blame squarely at the feet of 14 years of tory neglect / wilful destruction. Labour are disappointing but better than the alternative.

I think this article sums up extremely well, and in great detail why we’re here -

open.substack.com/pub/catherinemcbride/p/doop-loops-debt-spirals-and-dumb

We all want mutually exclusive things: low taxes and good services. And we can't have both. I pay tax that educates other people's children (am childless), cares for other people's mothers (lost mine young), provides mental health services (never needed that), sends fire engines when someone's house is burning down (nope, not that either), pays paramedics (nope), provides social housing (nor that) etc etc and I have no objection whatsoever. Because without all that, this country would be horrible. I very much expect to be paying more tax after the budget. Paying for all of the above, via the state, is much more important than whether I can go on holiday this year, or can afford to go to the garden centre, or have to cancel Netflix because I'll have less money. I WANT to pay for your children's schooling, because it's the right thing to do. Well-off people moaning about how much tax they pay turns my stomach.

So no one would be put into poverty. You are speculating what the impact could be over a period and into the future but that would be dependent on inflation and other factors. The idea that scrapping the triple lock in and of itself would cause pensioner poverty is just wrong

The problem is, that it is not easy to tax the super rich. Whether it’s loopholes; donors; the fact they leave the country and already pay in the majority of the tax (even though we might argue it’s not equitable).

To tax the very wealthy would probably take new laws to prevent all of the above. It’s practically impossible as things stand.

Which is why Labour are coming for us. And they will keep coming for us.

I've had some much needed teeth work done recently. Didn't go to Turkyie. Sure it was painful and I paid for that pain, but the results were worth it.

Oh I agree, the Tories are to blame for a lot.

But that doesn’t mean Labour are better just because they aren’t the Tories. They are arguably making things worse.

That will be the enormous debt and interest repayments and an obscenely growing welfare state.

You are talking rubbish. Scrapping the TL would effectively freeze the State Pension. Try paying the ever escalating bills on a frozen income. Try funding something like a new roof or a new boiler on a very small fixed income.
Try funding basic items like new glasses on an income of less than £13,000

Of course those are all valuable services that governments provide that you have identified and I don't think anyone would disagree that good public services are a positive in society. However you fail to mention all the money that isn't going on public services and is simply being handed from one set of people to another set of people. That is the bit that people who are big fans of taxation always seem to miss out, they focus on services that govts provide but always seem to stay quiet on the redistribution part.

No.

We would have to adopt the Euro and renegotiate economic terms and the Veto. But first we'd have to apply and have our application accepted.

Why would it freeze the pension, why would pensions not rise in line with other benefits? Why is the pension a special case compared with other benefits?

You've got to be a boomer or very well off!

I think patriotic millionaires say it should be those with over 10 million a year.

@Happilyobtuse Why?! People are wealthy because they worked hard and spent their time and money on getting a degree, and creating a career not just getting a job.

That's not correct, because the rest of us also worked hard, and spent our time and money on getting a degree, and tried to build a career. Yet, that did not make us rich, so there's a different reason for it.

People earning the Living Wage struggle and complain when they are given a 2 or 3% rise. That same rise based on the State Pension (and not everyone gets the full amount) would hardly buy a loaf of bread. Oh wait - any pensioner over 80 gets an extra 25p per week. And all pensioners get an annual Christmas Bonus of £10 - what will that buy? It's been the same amount since 1972, so pensions have not kept up with inflation, cost of living or wage rises.
Chew on that when you're ordering your expensive coffee and buying designer clothes.