To be scared of Labours Land tax

[Dragongirl10]

Just read about this, Labour are proposing a Land Value Tax on any land owned, could cost thousands a year for anyone even with a small house, not just the rich....they have not publicised this at all.

People with modest homes could be forced to sell or go into debt, or be repossessed...

I work in the public sector. I stuff envelopes because we have no admin staff.

My DP and many people I know work in the private sector, company cars, lunches on expenses, entertaining clients, boxes at sporting events, massive payoffs for incompetent, sexist, racist staff. Does this represent the company you work for?

I hear about all this public sector waste but what I see is colleagues using their own money to buy pens, paper and treats for the students. We have 'parties' regularly and we use them as an excuse to feed some of the students.

Only my own experiences, but what I see does not reflect the public sector waste rhetoric you read about.

I've seen waste and excess in public, private and the third sector. I find all waste infuriating.

That said, I've seen civil service and local government pissing about with meetings that achieve nothing other than wasting time.

I am cross about that and I'm cross that teachers are stuffing envelopes.

I'm cross that our schools pay for outsourced services such as HR and finance which would be more efficient and cheaper run centrally. Every school in the country doing their own specific policy for complaints (or whatever) and paying a company for the privilege of supplying it when it would be so much quicker and cheaper to just have it written centrally and sent out to all schools (they can tweak them if they want but the main points are universal). Bonkers.

I am cross that we pay a fortune to rail franchisees who bugger off when things get tough and we (the state) have to take over, then when it's all running smoothly (well as smoothly as it ever does) we hand it over to another profit making company.

I'm cross that when my shed was broken into the police didn't have enough resources to investigate even though the whole area was being subject to a mini crime wave.

I'm cross that we have foodbanks in this country. That is a fucking disgrace and we should all be ashamed and doing something about it.

I'm worried we'll fuck up Brexit (and I say we because I'm not hugely confident in any of them not to make a hash of it) and screw over the things that do actually contribute to this economy.

I worry we'll focus on the wrong things and stop being innovative and competitive and we'll have lost the industries that do make us money.

I like this idea of sponging tax-dodgers threatening to leave the country.

Viscount Rothermere: I maintain a mansion and a country estate here for, y'know, parties with my chums, and the theatre and opera, and the schools are great. If you try to make me pay some tax I'll leave and then you'll be sorry!

Me: Why would I be sorry? You don't pay any income tax and you don't pay any corporation tax. You drive on the roads my taxes pay for. If your mansion catches fire, our fire brigade will come and put it out. If you valuable art collection is stolen, our police will try to get it back. I pay for them, you don't. How's about, next time you have a fire or a burglary, you phone the fire service in Nice to help you?

Maybe that's hilarious. But it won't be so hilarious if the high tax payers who are actually paying tax follow suit!

My absolute favourite is "We can't afford a nationalised rail service!" - well we clearly fucking can, because we're subsidising Germany, France and Holland to run ours so badly.

Their nationalised rail services are so brilliant over there because they can't believe they've got such a good scam going over here. The UK taxpayers actually pay insane amounts of money to them to run the franchise, and then extortionate rail fairs. They then take those profits and use them to make train travel really nice and cheap in their own countries. In the UK, they don't even have to maintain the track!

It's the same with our rip off energy companies. No wonder they're all queuing up in Europe to run our services.

Sionella is right. Because if they all follow suit then who is left to cough up for the big bills Corbyn is asking for?
Will income tax go up for those under £80,000?

I have to agree littlemouse. Were able to leave pretty easily in our jobs, the tax burden should be spread a bit more evenly if you need to raise taxes. Im not going to vote for them (i live in a labour/tory marginal and disagree on many other issues) but the lib dem's policy of increasing everyones taxes a little bit is probably more sensible.

If you are interested, here is a calculator that will tell you the take home pay under different parties manifestos. www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/election.php

Littelmouse and Sionella...hmm, maybe if all those freeloaders bugger off, the bills will be lower in real terms?

Without such a distorted economy, with lower house prices, lower costs of living, things will likely become more affordable in real terms for normal people. If house prices stall or drop, that's a good thing. Think of the amount of pressure put on public sector wages and public sector workers by house prices. And if people are paying a lower proportion of their income in housing costs, any rises in e.g. Food prices (due to increased wages) will be not be as disruptive as they are in a low wage, high housing cost economy.

Tax does need to go up. Across the board. You don't get good public services on a 20% tax rate.

RhythmAndStealth

Its not quite right to think that these super asset rich, income poor people dont contribute because they probably have staff who they pay employers NI for, they pay VAT and sin taxes on expensive wine, fast cars etc.

There probably aren't enough of these "lord snootington" people to make much of a difference if they were to leave, most of the asset rich income poor people are pensioners who have benefited from an increase in house prices and you saw how well it went when the Tories tried to get them to pay more tax...

Im more worried about the people earning 100K who go part time after maternity leave or "semi retire" and then people like DH and I who are young high earners who decide it would be more fun to go somewhere else and pay less tax while experiencing other cultures.

What's wrong with going part time after maternity leave? That's not even vaguely the same as being an economic migrant leaving the country and taking their skills as well as tax paying abilities with them.

Presumably if there's still work to be done with the part time worker? If so, that's another job for someone else and double bubble for employer's NI. Marginally less on income tax because of two nil rate bands but both earning, both spending, both contributing.

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut

Because 2 people doing a job 2.5 days a week each pay way way way less tax than one person working 5 days a week.

Just 1 example, lets say the job is 50K for simplicity for full time. 1 person would take home 36,779, paying 13,221 in tax and they wouldnt be eligible for tax credits.

Let's say that two single mothers share that job and earn 25K each. Together they will pay 9441 in tax. They both have 2 kids who are in childcare on the days they work. and therefore receive about 10K tax free each in child tax credits because of their low salaries. So the government makes 9441 in tax from them but pays out 20K in tax credits. Even if they both had 1 child each the tax credits would be more than the tax paid.

I went part time after mat leave because the cost of childcare, tax and student loan was higher than what i would make for working the 5th day. The higher you have the marginal rate of tax the more people will do this, and you might be creating jobs, but your just creating jobs that pay very little tax and are propped up by tax credits.

Im just talking here from the perspective of Labour who think that raising tax rates will raise vast sums of money, because it wont.

They would both have to be single parents to get tax credits and earn £25k I would think? Certainly I earnt a lot less than when I went back to work and we were not entitled to anything. My husband earned just enough our child benefit stopped too. Also, in the example you gave the salaries were for £100k so unlikely to be in receipt of tax credits.

I'm out at the moment so haven't checked your figures but I didn't see either employer's NI or employees' NI mentioned. I assume the latter may have been included in the total tax figure.

Besides, I don't know of anyone who has gone part time after maternity leave to avoid paying an extra 5p in the pound of tax.

I didn't include employers NI but i did include NI. The figures are correct i used an online salary calculator.

They would have to be single parents to get tax credits but its just an example i pulled out of the air. The reality is that because we have a marginal rate of tax that gets higher and higher as you earn more, people will find that its not worth working full time or overtime and the government will miss out on those high rates.

Under Labours new tax system, if you earn 80K you will take home 54,179. If you do 10K worth of overtime you will take home 59,479. Only 5,300 extra for what must have been a lot of work. There is a point at which is just not worth it, especially if you are paying childcare.

If you earn 125K you take home 72,754, a 10K bonus and you would see 4,800 of it.

Total tax receipts went up for additional rate tax payers when the tories reduced the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p. Nobody knows the exact shape of the laffer curve, but everybody acknowledges that it is a real thing and there is an optimum tax rate. Too high and people just dont bother (or leave).

I don't disagree with your point about tax receipts but I think your example is flawed. Not least because your hypothetical women earning £50k wouldn't have been stung by the tax increases and women in general go part time (ime and this is my field) because the cost of childcare is prohibitive. One of the things the tax increase are designed to fund is increased childcare. Also, women returning from maternity leave may be more likely to be in a dual income than less likely?? I don't know.

In many ways women going part time is a positive because it's two women in work where it would have been only one before - so I would argue any example of women being part time as well as including employer's NI, should include a worked example of the net contribution for two women where only one is working if we want to be completely accurate. If we're going to be ultra pernicky we could include something about work related personal spending (including childcare)... but then we're getting super complicated and beyond my limited capabilities.

Now if we're talking tax receipts much more likely scenarios (assuming no mass exodus overseas) is people reducing their tax liabilities by putting more of their money into a pension or another (legal) tax avoidance scheme or taking semi-retirement (the latter being relevant because they don't seem to come back after a while unlike women who go part time after the birth of a child). Your point about contributions going down as thresholds go up was a valid one.

*pernickety. Flipping iPhone

Realistically, what percentage of higher earners would actually be able to find similar employment in a country with lower taxes?

Also, do many high earner actually get overtime? Because in my experience they tend to be salaried.

On the figures above I've just done a rough calculation - if you earn 80k you earn £38.46 per hour (40 hours a week). To earn an extra £10k you'd need to work an extra 260 hours a year - around 5 hours a week. Fewer hours if it's an enhanced rate. I wish someone was paying me for my unpaid overtime.

Jdoe8 you do realise landlords are in business and if there costs go up then the rents go up.

Moussemousse there is a whole world out there where you are taxed the same or less but the weather is better. You are not going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark and for some the work life balance is better.

I asked up thread where Labour were going to get the billions that they intend to spend on anything and everything that they think will get a few more votes if the very people who he has his eye on to foot the bill all leave.
In my first job I was taxed 30% on my tiny salary because all the rich had gone and the Labour government had to pay for all their spending

All the rich? Where on earth had they gone?

America the Channel Islands Switzerland Spain France.

people who see their hard earned money going on higer rates of tax - tax which they have no control over how they want spending - will leave or downgrade/ live more cheaply to go under the tax band

Some people will undoubtedly do the above, lots won't

Bahamas Dubai Australia

Are you genuinely saying that every single rich person in the UK went to live in the aforementioned countries?

In which year was this?

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut

Yes my example of the 50K job being split was a bit of a random one, but any job that is split will have a lower level of tax paid on it unless its a job that doesn't pay tax at all, like 10K being split into 5 and 5. The maternity point is a little bit irrelevant, i actually know mothers who went part time after getting divorced but had children who were a bit older (still primary). I guess people with any age family or even no family could decide its not worth their while.

Let's do an example that is in the tax range that would be affected, a 100K job would pay 35,221 in tax under labour but two 50K jobs would pay 26,442.

As you have mentioned there may be some social reasons why this is a good thing but just thinking about tax receipts its not. The 50K earners (assuming no partner or a partner on the same salary) would also receive child benefit but the 100K would not. Actually the 100K wouldn't receive 30 hours free childcare or 20% off their childcare bill either. -- i know that in reality anyone who is on 100K would increase their pension contributions to keep the 30 hours!

GlitterGlue

I dont get paid for my overtime but I do receive a small bonus which is meant to reflect the extra time and effort i've put in. DH doesnt get overtime but in his industry your bonus varies wildly depending on performance in that particular year - so it could be 30% of your salary one year and 150% the next if you have delivered loads of really good work - it's quite easy to prove how much value he has made for the company in his role, and it's quite difficult for the company to deny him a fair share of what he has made when it's written in black and white.

He was paid 1.5X overtime in his last role (also finance) but the bonuses were much smaller (around 10%) and similar from year to year.

If you are interested, here is a calculator that will tell you the take home pay under different parties manifestos. www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/election.php

Interesting. Apparently we would be much better off under UKIP

We would pay 200 per year extra tax under Labour. I am definitely willing to contribute a little more for a batter education system and such. And even if our personal income doubled, I would never vote UKIP.

This Brexit thing IMO is a bit of a poisoned chalice. I do not see why anyone would be wanting to be in charge of it. I really think whoever is in this time around will be out for at least 12 years, maybe more. I think it will be a disaster whatever the deal, and be ridiculously expensive. But again, this is what people voted for So its what 'the people' want.

If the Tories are in, all the fallout from Brexit will be largely ignored and it will be all 'its this bad now, imagine how much worse it would have been under Labour'
If Labour are in it will be 'Look how much they are borrowing! If the Tories were in they would have sailed this ship perfectly and the country would be perfectly fine'

Corbyn can't win no matter what he does, and the focus will still be on Labour no matter what. IMO of course.

horny

According to that we should be voting UKIP as well