Popular cuts and popular taxes

[jollydiane]

Can we think of anything which we could agree on?

1. The national lottery is a type of tax, but nobody is forced to pay it and we all like the thought of winning a million pounds so lets increase the tax up on this.

1. Winter Fuel allowance. This is scary for all governments but it cannot be fair for higher rate tax payers to receive this benefit, scrap this allowance they managed to do this for Child Tax Credits so it cannot be that hard.

1. When I went to Turkey I had to pay for a £10 Visa to get into the country, lets have the same here for tourists. After all many of our best tourist attractions are free any way so its not much to ask.

1. Can we scrap the free swimming for over 50, would it really put the over 50s off swimming if they had to pay a few pounds?

1. How is it that so many big projects go so wrong, e.g. NHS IT system, what system do we have that allowed this to happen?

1. There was talk by the government that if a pensioner paid £8500 they would have all their care paid for and would not have to sell their home. Although I have not heard much about this I cannot think this would ever be affordable.

1. Do we really need Trident are there better alternatives?

If we can agree then perhaps we can give this to our MP's or let Ed and David know we have solved their problems

Ok over to you

stop handing out benefits willy nilly to those with a broken fingernail and hurt feelings

Another benefit bashing thread

Benefits need to be bashed.

I'd pull our troops out of Afghanistan. According to that diagram that is costing us 3.7 bn a year

Bankers bonusses last year were c£ 14bn and not that much less the year before.

Various Corporate Tax Avoidance estimates put it as c $ 10 -14bn pa

To put this into context, The total Education budget in 2011 is £58bn.

Do you really think, Antique, that benefits are handed out to 'those with a broken fingernail and hurt feelings' when people with MS, heart disease, severe autism and even terminal cancer are turned down for ESA/DLA?

Oh, it's the Daily Mail fan club again.

How about looking at it from another angle.

Why do we not start at the top. you will probably think this is mad and maybe it is but we should stop companies paying directors huge bonuses until they pay their staff a living wage. Therefore while one member of their staff is receiving housing benefit or council tax benefit or even tax credits no director should be eligible for bonuses. That would cut the welfare bill.

Whatmeworry context? A vast majority of those 'huge' 'bankers' bonuses were paid to people like me who earned a wage - not a great wage but a wage and did a bloody good/hard job. I'm sick of people banging on about 'huge' 'bankers' bonuses when they mean upper management and investment/wealth bankers, most people who work in banks do not see large bonuses.

WouldCloseTaxLoopholesDitchTridentTiggaxx

Whatmeworry I did previously say that I think we should clamp down on tax avoidance. I've seen estimates that this would bring us closer to 90bn a year. I don't actually think we need to make these massive cuts. If I had to make a cut though Afghanistan would be my first one.

i am not sure about that at all BAMYBEBE if someone has a asset is it not reasonable for them to contribute to their own care

i understand we all want something to pass on but i think the key word here is selfishness

their should be more leaning towards looking after out familys ourselves really the asians do it that way you pay nothing for care and the assets get passed

on my on had a lady calling him for half an hour to feed him mum in the hospital he was very busy

he did say to me in that half an hour she could of feed her mother instead she used it to interrupt him comforting someone who was dying

we need to really get out of this dreadful mindset that the state is our everything we can and should do a bit of looking after ourselves

to be honest that's one thing we could definitely learn from asians how to look after our grandparents and parents ourselves with out moaning on how hard or busy we are they just get on with it

hardboiledpossum unless those people upped and left of course oh fil has a home in the states and pays 50% tax if it went any higher he would leave to be honest and in the us were he would be living tax would be very low

he employs a clerk and gives free legal advice and takes on human rights cases

just being devils advocates

you would be hard paused to get access to QC of his quality people who would other wise never be able to afford defence at his price

maypole1 I'm sure lots of people, myself included, do plan on looking after our parents when they can no longer look after themselves. I don't think this should be a part of economic policy though as those who's families don't want to care for them in their old age would be punished. What would happen to those people?

Whatmeworry context? A vast majority of those 'huge' 'bankers' bonuses were paid to people like me who earned a wage - not a great wage but a wage and did a bloody good/hard job. I'm sick of people banging on about 'huge' 'bankers' bonuses when they mean upper management and investment/wealth bankers, most people who work in banks do not see large bonuses

Context?

(i) Just about every bank on the planet would have gone under without massive taxpayer financial infusion.

(ii) They actually got a bonus, how many others did? Thos others apid for those bonusses.

(iii) I would bet that there is an 80/20 on bankers bonus, ie a small number of people are taking the vast majority.

maypole i did not understand anything you tried to argue apart from "we must learn from the asians"

it is all well and go, nobody stops you "learning" but it part of western culture to live in independent fragmented family units, there is no way back

asian culture still encourages help across the generation because there is no benefit system and no benefit mentality

I have the exact opposite experience with children free on buses to maypole (going all the way back to the first pg ) I moved to london just over a year ago and think the scheme is great. The kids that are troble makers get their free oyster cards revoked, I saw one boy that this had happened to trying to get on a bus once, he was acting like it didnt bother him but he was not happy when he mates got on the bus home and he got left behind. The behaviour seems no worse than when I was a kid and lived in London and went on the buses. It seems to me that it keeps kids off the streets, where we lived before there was no such scheme and kids didnt get buses to places/activities they stood around on street corners and caused trouble.

hardboiledpossum, no but it should be encouraged no?

for to many British families a home for granny is the first port of call it should be the last.

maybe working hand in hand with councils not expecting them to do it all maybe saying if granny can be housed near our home we will promised to have granny round at weekends if you help with the week

it takes nothing to have granny sitting on the sofa watching strictly while family life whiles around.
i just know deep down as a country us adults could do a lot more for our parents and grandparents than we will let on

i know a lady who complains about the care her mother gets says she far to busy to look in she attends my salsa class for two hours every week surly she could come for one and look in on her mum

we can do more and we should.

judgeing by the youth unemployment figures many of us have teens who are not working they could also help whilest not working their are many things to be done before homes are options

littleducks i witnessed a bus driver being spat at for refusing a girl who didn't have her oyster and my son has experienced being bullied to try and have his off him because they didn't have theirs.

to be honest that's one thing we could definitely learn from asians how to look after our grandparents and parents ourselves with out moaning on how hard or busy we are they just get on with it

Yes but it will be the women doing all the caring in those societies.

but whats the issue i am a sham so have no issue doing the caring but just like with the kids when i am tired or ill he takes over

and were both parents are working just like they do with the kids in our British culture you take turns

and i do think many older people remain independent for longer if they are with their family i do think in a lot of homes they dose them up to keep them shhh most just need somone their just in case like a teen can look after themslevs but need somone just in case

the goverment should do somthing about my leaky tap hehe hehe

The problem with capping public sector wages is that it's the lower bands who will suffer not the fat cats at the top who need money docking.

I'm at the number of people advocating cuts to the small perks that pensioners get.

How about cutting some of the payouts that familes get rather than taking away granny's free bus pass?

What about capping CB at 2 children? Don't suppose that would get much support on MN though, would it.

"Clamp down on tax avoidance by corporations and the rich. Then we wouldn't need to cut services."

That wouldn't work. The Revenue's own estimate is that tax avoidance by everyone (not just companies and the rich) amounts to around £12bn. Not nearly enough to prevent the cuts.

Illegal evasion is much bigger according to HMRC - about £23bn. And it's almost exclusively the preserve of small businesses and sole traders (again, according to HMRC). Very hard to counter and still not nearly enough.

Only 3 taxes in the UK are significant - VAT, national insurance and income tax. Everything else, including corporation tax and inheritance tax are dwarfed by the Big 3. So if I were looking to raise money quickly I'd add a tuppence to the basic rate of income tax (which would raise c£5bn per annum), 1p on VAT (£6bn) and 1p on NIC (£10bn). Personally, I think all of those are painful but probably affordable.

But my main policies would be to remove the government sanctioned and egregious preferential tax status of non-doms (foreigners who live and work in the UK but pay very little tax here) and private equity partners (who pay less than 18% tax on the millions they earn).

cinna resident non-doms have to pay the same taxes as everyone else these days (worldwide income), you are a bit late with this suggestion