To ask what one or two policies you think could make the biggest difference to the U.K.?

[whatkatydid2013]

To me the big one is social housing. I feel like if we could build up a large supply of social housing at reasonable rates all over the country the benefits would be massive. It would make life affordable for many more people and lead to them being less likely to need in work benefits. The affordable rents would cover maintenance and could keep large numbers of people in stable employment doing said maintenance (as well as creating administrative roles). It would make it less challenging to staff key worker roles in more expensive areas. In the short term I appreciate it would be a massive expense but it seems like in the long term it would cost less than our current system on a going basis and it would make many people a lot more financially secure. I find it disappointing that all main parties seem so focused on home ownership in their policy statements. I know there are many important policy areas but this just always feels like one that’s very central and totally glossed over by all parties. Maybe because there isn’t a quick, easy fix?

I think this was the case under the old benefit system, but not with Universal Credit. I did not support all of the benefits reforms but I reluctantly hand it to the Tories on that one.
You could argue the taper rate is too high - once you're earning a certain amount benefits get reduced by 55p for every £1 you earn, but there's no longer the sudden withdrawal of benefits at 16 hours.

I don't know the ins and outs but it must be similar. I know too many people working a couple of days or 3 hrs a day for 5 days Who don't want to work more because it affects their benefits.

I would also tax the rich more. Amd companies.

@marmaladeandpeanutbutter

And who would you define as rich?

The top 20% of earners, the top 10%, the top 1%?

The problem is that once you get to a small percentage of earners then you have to make a massive increase in taxes in order to raise any significant tax revenue and the moment you do that then they either reduce their hours or move abroad.

As for increasing company taxes then they either just add the cost in to prices leading to higher inflation or they also register abroad like Amazon does.

@1dayatatime one can either look at how to ensure those with the most pay out the most, or one can look for problems in doing it. Depends where one's sympathies lie, really. I'm sure that, with a will, it's achievable.

@marmaladeandpeanutbutter
Taxing the 'rich' really means middle income - the handful of super rich have accountants to exploit every loophole and use offshore if they need to.

The employed high earners are already being squeezed to the point of why bother working full-time, consider moving elsewhere, I'll not bother going for the next promotion.

We need more people being net contributors to the system not a few paying a hefty burden.

Getting teachers, nursery staff, and people involved with dc all up in sen, how it presents, stragety to deal with it and more Ed psychs, dyslexia assement and so on in nursery and primary school... Sorting out sen will break cycles of illiteracy in families.. It will stop damaging young dc and causing low self esteem.
It will feed back into society with more people actually able to reach their true potential, less drug and addiction issues, less peooleIn prison

'* ie stop focusing on grammar and private school and sort out the issues in state

I don't think anyone would disagree with the concept that "those with the most pay out the most," and indeed that is how the current income tax system works with the top 1% of income earners paying 30% of all income tax revenues 48% paying no income tax because they don't earn enough and the remaining 51% paying 70% of income tax revenue.

If your suggestion is to tax the top 1% even more then you really have to hike it to make any difference in tax revenues because mathematically there are so few of them (1in a 100). Year f you make this the top 10% then the hike has to be less so and so on.

I'm curious because I don't often see on these threads that the answer is to the rich more but nobody ever defines what "rich" is. Is it the top 20%, 10%, 1% or 0.1% for f income earners?

I think it’s not income earners or at least not salaried ones that many people mean when they say this. As someone posted upthread more taxes linked to wealth and less to income might be beneficial. If I personally were choosing to restructure I think I would also want to understand where we stood to make the biggest tax gains. Just targeting the very wealthy doesn’t necessarily raise that much compared to everyone paying a little bit more. As an example reducing the personal allowance to £10k would raise billions across the whole workforce and would cost someone on lowest rate of tax about £40 a month. To raise the same amount by targeting the top 5% you’d be costing those people about £800 a month. Even on a high salary that’s a big difference. Yes for some people £40 is also a significant difference but for many of them it would be quickly offset if that money was invested in things like social housing for more affordable homes, NHS dentistry, better public transport etc. If everyone paid more tax rather than just the top 5% you’d have enough to provide better services and those better services would likely most benefit those in lower incomes proportionate to the cost.

I would like to see NI & tax combined and everyone paying same rate on earned and unearned income, marginal rates abolished (personal allowance for all or none at all and replaces with a lower rate on first slice of income), IHT thresholds abolished with only estates not liable to tax being those left to a partner whose main residence was with you (Tax should be payable at point the estates assets are sold capped to a timescale of a number of years to give anyone else living in parents/relatives house time to identify alternative arrangements with the part of the estate they will inherit), capital gains thresholds to be eliminated.

Tax free schemes exist to incentivise people to save/invest even outside pensions (share schemes in work place, ISAs, separate allowance for interest on savings). Is this a desirable behaviour or would spending benefit the overall economy more? If the latter then eliminate the schemes.

I think top earner in a company only being able to earn a maximum of a multiplier of bottom earner is nice in theory but in practice might lead to minimum wage/low wage type jobs being subcontracted so they were officially in a different company or high earners moving to being part owners of the business with a lower salary and rest made via their stake in the company.

We don’t pay higher rate tax currently as, being borderline, it’s better for us personally to invest more in pensions and keep our child allowance. Unless and until we need what we earn above the threshold we will just keep putting more in pensions for next 10 years. It’ll help us retire earlier if we want and leaves us better off overall. If we would keep the child benefit regardless we likely would spend at least some of that money. I can well imagine those on around £100k have a similar approach to avoid the marginal rate.

The pension age is already 67. I'm 64. My job is very physical. I'm on my feet for the whole of my shift and often walk around 15k steps. I am already exhausted. How long should I work? And don't say change jobs. I'm highly experienced in what do. I'vebeeninthe same industry since I was 20. No one will hire a mid 60s age person in an industry I've never worked in before.