to not understand why the government couldn't just raise income tax?

[emkana]

I guess that wouldn't help with all the savings that had to be made (or so we're told), but why no tax rise at all?

German newspapers very critical of measures btw, saying it will kill the already ailing British economy.

I should know?

Are you accusing me of participating in genocide?

Please, please, do be clearer so everyone can see it.

Where the fuck did all this come from

I thought we were talking economic policy

I was not the OP.

I am annoyed that someone can spout that German's have a sense of social responsibility especially pre20th century and that they are critical of our methods on dealing with our economy. Who gives a F what the German's or anyone thinks. Or does this German in Scotland think we should all be in awe of what Germany thinks. Mmmm that reminds me of 1914 and 1939.

So did I, hubbly. But apparently it's about my being a genocidal maniac, along with every present inhabitant of Germany.

LOL.

I am not German.

I'm not white, either.

YABU. High income tax rates cause brain drains. The government has already lost more than £500m in tax because big hedge funds have left.

In the famous 1988 Lawson budget the top rate was cut from 60% to 40%. The amount actually raised from income tax went up hugely!

Think about it like this. If income tax was 0% obviously the government would get nothing.

If income tax was 100% then there would be no point in you working, because you wouldn't earn anything.

So the rate of income tax which brings in maximum revenue must lie somewhere in between. It varies according to the psychology and character of the country. In Britain, it is probably around 40%.

Oh, so now other countries are not allowed to be critical of how the United Kingdom deals with its economy, too.

Expat....leave it.
Eeet's no' worf eeet!
Everyone else gets you, don't worry.

Honestly, Dione, don't bother feeding them.

I actually find such deranged creatures rather funny, minou.

GMM-because you can afford to.....£184,000 in tax & NI? Thats my 10 times my YEARLY GROSS salary. You lot don't live in the real world.

She could do with doing a bit of delving into Britain's colonial past, methinks.....

clearly expat, anyone who admires german fiscal policy is a genocidal maniac.

I guess that anyone who admires the american model is in cahoots with the KKK too.

GMM lost whatever pretence of an argument she had and to prove it called Expat a Nazi. Hillarious.

Wow-very late post.........

Godwin's Law!

LFN, no one is talking about 100% or even 60%, but a few pence on each band wouldn't be unrealistic surely?

hubblybubbly As well as the huge problem of brain drains, high taxes act as disincentives.

I know a GP who has recently stopped working one day a week so that she ends up earning just under £150k. It has got to the point that she values the extra time more than the extra money - but psychologically, it was the 50% rate which made her take the decision. The Exchequer would be much better off if she did the extra day's work.

We see the same thing at the bottom of the income spectrum. Effective marginal tax rates for the poorest as they come off welfare and go into work can be up to 96%! Why would anyone bother working on minimum wage when they only keep 4p in every pound?

As for the basic rate - well, ordinary people in the middle deciles are very squeezed as it is. Why squeeze them more when there is so much waste, and so much to be saved on welfare?

You don't have to want a CEO to be paid the same as a road sweeper (bad plan!) to acknowledge that the CEO doesn't necessarily work harder than (or even as hard as) the road sweeper - that the extra effort required for the higher-paid job (even in earlier years of training to acquire the relevant skills) might be great, but the extra salary is a disproportionate further multiple greater. The highly-taxed CEO left with 200K is not nobly giving more of themselves to society than a roadsweeper, just because the percentage of tax they pay is higher.

thewishingchair A good CEO might create hundreds or even thousands of other jobs though. The roadsweeper can't usually do that - though the most enterprising roadsweepers might well start their own cleaning companies, outcompete other companies, and become good CEOs earning big salaries themselves.

Ah, I'm back. Just when my melatonin was taking hold, the arsewipe in the next close was blasting his music.

Well, he'd better stop or I'll become just a generic homocidal maniac :o.

I screamed at him like a banshee.

He's gone quiet.

I've had to dose myself on temazepam. Now, I'm just waiting for it to take hold.

I think the disincentive argument is a much stronger one (for being careful how taxes are set). I do find myself getting impatient with the idea of very highly paid people being somehow long-suffering because their after-tax salary is a lower percentage of their pre-tax salary. It might be a lower percentage of their pre-tax salary but it's still a vastly greater amount of money than most people get.

thelongfingernails I'm not arguing that they shouldn't be paid as well as they are, just that they are not somehow a more morally worthwhile human being than someone who works hard at a less well paid job. Nor do they need their 200K take-home pay to stay at 200K rather than dropping to 195K for a while, just because their theoretical salary is a greater multiple of their take home pay. As a society we might not want their take-home pay to drop too much in case they leave (or we might call their bluff ), but that's different to implying they have somehow given enough already, are more deserving and longsuffering than those taxed at a lower rate, and shouldn't suffer any more.

I suppose what I mean is that when you work hard and get all enterprising and end up landing a job as a CEO, your reward is that take-home pay of 200K - no one ever gets to take home the 400K, nor expects to. The fact that your firm has to pay you 400K for you to get that, does not mean you are suffering nobly and giving more to your country. That's just the tax environment in which the firm is working. In a country where taxes are lower, arguably the price commandable by a wannabe CEO is going to be commensurately less, isn't it? (Which is obviously cheaper for a firm, so a risk for a high-taxing society in that firms may want to leave, but that's a separate issue to the argument of how much a CEO is actually suffering due to a high tax burden - it's the implication that they are suffering I have trouble with!)

at the direction the thread turned overnight

Am speechless.