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

Calculation that if labour had tackled tax evasion in its time in office there would be no deficit

Over Here

See what you think.

Tax evasion has been going on for centuries! You can say the same thing for every Government that's ever been in power.
It's much more difficult to say how it should be tackled and to propose strategies that would work.

I think the quantum of tax evasion - £400bn odd over more than a decade - is about right.

The problem is that evasion is almost exclusively the preserve of three classes of tax payer: a very large number of very small fish, each of whom evades a few hundred pounds of tax per year; organised criminals who indulge in smuggling and VAT fraud in a very sophisticated way; and a very small number of very wealthy individuals who hide their funds overseas where HMRC can't see it.

All three are notoriously difficult to spot. The last two because of their sophistication and the first because of sheer volume.

The two classes of tax payer who very rarely, if ever, evade tax are employees and corporates. It's just too hard for employees to fiddle payrolls (although no doubt plenty of employees over claim expenses that's not tax fraud) and corporates are subject to too much scrutiny from auditors, shareholders, banks and lenders and pension funds.

Lets be honest its not aid its greasing the palm

India have enough to support their poor they choose.not to continue with the cast system and over fund their army

I saw a report on Channel 4 news a few weeks ago saying that only 2 of the FTSE top 100 companies paid tax in the UK. I think we could raise a few bob there.

Not sure how stopping CB at 2 children would work - say you had one child, then got pregnant with twins.

On the other hand my parents are going on a cruise next summer. They don't need to get the bus for free or help with their heating bills.

I would take winter fuel allowance and tie it to means tested benefits. This will help both OAPs and children living in poverty who cant afford to put the heating on. :(

Actually I would do this with most benefits/free things. Ideally, my goal would be to take those people out of poverty completely and then let them choose how to best spend their money.

There are some things which have wider aims, such as free bus travel - this helps maintain services, and is particularly impostant for people who are too old to drive safely.

It's simply not true that only 2 of the FTSE 100 pay UK tax.

I think you're getting confused with a report that said only 2 of the FTSE 100 don't have subsidiaries incorporated in tax haven jurisdictions?

In 2009 I co-wrote a report for the Treasury on why companies use tax havens and how much tax is lost to the Exchequer as a result. I did a huge amount of research and was given access to a LOT of confidential information by companies. I concluded that although saving tax is one use, it's not the only use or even the main one.

Where taxes are being avoided it's typically stamp duty. Which is (relatively) insignificant. Other reasons include to access different company law, because there is local demand for the corporate's services (people in Jersey and Guernsey need bank accounts and why shouldn't they bank with RBS or Lloyds?) and because there is
genuine employment by the corporate (for example a factory).