Income tax - top 45% rate scrapped! Bonkers!

[HoppingKangaroo]

The 45% top rate of tax (which currently applies on earnings above £150,000) will be scrapped entirely. How will this help the economy? It will just add to the government debt and it just helps out the very weathly.
Why not have more help for the poorest in the country and not have tax cuts for the very wealthy.

That wont happen - they will charge taxes to the likes of Shell and Amazon - it's time they paid their fair share.

lol

The currency markets are the Wild West, they know nothing

Paradoxically to your world view, though, many of them get paid a ton.

On the chancellor and intelligence, it’s not really about that after a certain level. it’s about your worldview which is driven more by your personality type - lots of research on this.

I’m sure he is intelligent (although going to Eton isn’t exactly known for limiting your life chances)

They managed to blame Labour for the global financial crisis and it stuck.

They've had 12 years to tax Shell and Amazon... what's been stopping them?

I don't understand why people think Shell aren't being taxed. It's paying corporation tax like other U.K. companies plus a windfall tax (subject to capital investment).

It's made large profits because it's selling its oil and gas at a time when wholesale oil and gas prices have shot up. These are set globally as a function of supply and demand. If you want to blame anyone, blame OPEC and Putin who've both limited supply. And whoever started covid as it also disrupted supply and demand.

I'm not sure what people want Shell to do - sell its products at a below cost price? It moved its HQ from the Netherlands to the U.K. last year. Do we want to impose a tailored and punitive corporation tax so they reverse that decision? There's a bigger picture in terms of the U.K. being an attractive location for multinationals which creates jobs and other benefits, particularly after Brexit.

I won't get into Amazon as their transfer pricing policy is debatable.

**Coucous · Today 03:34

I for one am looking forward to it. I wish it was all effective immediately. There's no incentive to work hard when you don't see most of your money.**

But I already work hard. Where's my incentive? My job will never be lucrative but it's absolutely essential to keep you safe. Do we just scrap the jobs which have no high earning potential? Genuinely interested to understand as this.

It doesn’t make any sense at all unless you look at it from a “slash and burn” perspective. The government’s wealthy backers want their money before the Tories lose the next election and the money stops flowing to them. That’s the only justification I can see for giving massive tax cuts worth tens of thousands to the very very wealthy, and virtually nothing to those on low and middle incomes. It may not be what is best for the country, but surely we’ve realised by now that the government aren’t interested in what’s best for you and me. They only need our votes, so will say and do anything (and lie lie lie) to get them, even if what they say is entirely divorced from reality. If the prospect of being voted in again is slim, they don’t even need to pretend to care. They don’t govern for us, but I was never under any illusion that they did.

Absolutely this - that is what is more disheartening. There is no deviation from the premise that if you are not wealthy then you are not trying hard enough - you are not a 'go-getter' or a 'striver'. There is a level of disdain from those politicians, who forget that the success of any business is built not just on someone who owns it but those who keep it going- the workforce itself. Unfortunately it is hard to make these politicians understand that because, to come back to your point, it's a built in worldview that stems from their personality and they are just incapable or unwilling to broaden/expand their views.

They don’t ‘forget’ they just done give a fuck.

The ideology behind the hard right Brexit ambition was to turn the U.K. into a low tax, low regulation, low social protection economy.

The reason Truss and Karteng were voted in was because they are onside with the hard right Brexiters. And Truss in particular is seen as easy to control.

We would have been better off with Sunak for all his millions.

We'd have been better off with But Jeremy Corbyn, my pet snail, or My Blobby, but that is really not saying much.

That is very

I have good news for all the high earners on here that want to pay more tax. You can, it’s easy.

www.taxjournal.com/articles/want-to-pay-more-tax-

Oh pressed post too soon. On reflection I can't be bothered arguing.

@jgw1 could we have a picture of your pet snail? It might cheer us up.

I don't have a pet snail, I made it up, based on no evidence, much like the budget yesterday.

It's not my pet snail but will this do?

I'm still slightly traumatised by almost stepping on a massive slug this morning luxuriating along my path (the slug, not me).

This!

So is my job it's essential to keep you safe - I have to work extra hours to make ends meet. Zero hours contract - essentially self employed but being taxed like an employed person without any of the benefits.

oh yeah I'm definitely ignorant about exactly what very high earners can do (legally) to reduce their tax burden. But I am confident in saying they have many strategies that aren't open to ordinary or low income people.

Funny enough, friends on very low household income (£14k including child benefit etc, when tax threshold was about £8k) had an accountant to support the running of their company partnership, so they also paid nearly no income tax. I suspect an accountant is unusual at such a low income. They were entirely self-employed.

Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor, has a PPE degree from Oxford and an MSc in Economics from LSE (from her Lindon state school rather than Kwarteng's private prep and Eton background) as well as having worked as an economist for the BoE and the British Embassy in Washington. She's clearly just as intelligent as Kwarteng. I'm doubtful she's in agreement with his economic theory here.

Are we measuring income inequality or wealth inequality?

Italy has higher income inequality than the UK.

The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Ireland all have higher wealth inequality than the UK.

It is clever timing. Most FS bonuses are paid out before April and so the impact of a 5% tax cut over £150,000 wont be felt as much until 2024.

I would imagine that to change bonus dates/structure needs shareholder approval and it would be a brave company that did that.

The pound has lost 21% of its value in the last twelve months and 8% of its value in the last ten days - 4% yesterday. The government have messed up big time.

Liz Truss has done something truly remarkable in the sense that pretty much every policy decision she has made since becoming PM has been the wrong call....

Uncapping bankers bonuses
Income tax breaks for higher earners
Allowing fracking
Reversing increase in NI

And don't get me started on the clowns she chose to be in her cabinet....Terese Coffey ffs!

She has such monumentally bad judgement, it's unbelievable.

It’s not bad judgement though, it’s worse than that.
She is coming good on all the back room promises she made to the people who backed her.
In some ways incompetence would be better

It's the last gasp of a party with no ideas left.