To think the 'Net Contributors' argument is just wrong?

[Yetmorebeanstocount]

Just been reading about "Net Contributors" of tax and how it supposedly is a bad thing that we don't have enough in this country.
i.e. - that most people receive more, in cash benefits, social care, NHS, police, education, roads, bin collections etc. etc. than they will ever pay for via their taxes, so they are 'net recipients' of the system rather than 'net contributors'.

My reaction is - well yes of course. That is how it should be!

Take a very-over-simplified example to illustrate the maths:

Say there are 100 people who earn £1k, and one person who earns £200k. Say the 100 pay no taxes, and the one person pays tax at 50% of £100k.

That tax gets re-distributed to the 100 people in the form of services and benefits and pensions, so that the 100 now have the equivalent of £2k each and the one person still has £100k.
What is supposed to be wrong with this? It is just basic re-distribution of income, which is something that every civilised society should do.

Of course in real life people earn all sorts of amounts and receive different things, so it is not so simple, but the principle is the same - a few at the top are 'net contributors' and the rest are 'net recipients'.

And of course, those at the top still get something back as they drive on roads and have their bins collected, and have the benefit of living in a civilised society which is policed and (mostly) does not have people dying on the streets.

Yes, really I paid for them so I know. Also, resent it and leaving soon before the commies come with a pinch fork to get their hands in what we have which is not that much and we are middle class not super wealthy but yes over 50 with a house and pension as I said.

Ok, bye then 😂

You again?

God, its the like the bonfire of the uneducated on here.

Stop posting about things you do not understand.

This.

Better productivity, better training and investment in staff, better wages. Everyone benefits.

The limitless supply of cheap labour is not an alloyed benefit for the economy as a whole, just a handful of the big mass employers.

Read the entire thread and there are so many pie in the sky comments.

Income taxes will not be coming down anytime soon (due to demographics)

Corporate taxes will not be going up (what planet do some of you folks reside in?)

That leaves....

Land value tax (similar to US property taxes) as the only realistic option for the UK

If you want to fund local authorities, social care, healthcare etc.. its the only avenue with enough revenue potential long-term.

Obviously, you can't just hit everybody with a nee tax right away, so it will have to be phased in over 5-10 years. How viable this is given UK politics (pensioners, NIMBYs, aristocracy etc) is another matter.

@BouncingJAS

Your imperious hatred wins no votes. I can see you identify as educated, but you have not yet learnt that democracy is more complicated than simply shouting I am the cleverest do as I say!

How have the Tories suppressed pay? The minimum wage is the reason for pay suppression, and the unintended consequence is the abolition of individual and collective bargaining. However, pay is currently outstripping inflation in some sectors.

The Mac study analyzed data from the EU using different methodologies such as labour productivity, CES production function, and total factor productivity. According to the study, if two workers are doing an identical job, the economic migrant will be significantly more productive across all sectors, both in low-skilled and high-skilled positions.
Empirically this is why the Eastern Europeans were so popular, their motivation was entirely different to an indigenous worker. Some of them have settled, some have gone home.

Actually,

Its "I am the most experienced and educated" so "do as I say".

As it should be in complex policy matters.

The UK has far too many uneducated and inexperienced people having opinions on policy because of "reasons".

Look at the result: a much poorer country.

@BouncingJAS Who are you calling uneducated? “Stop posting about things you do not understand” Why is it that we do not understand? You are the ignorant and part of why people stay clear of the Labour Party. Full of pseudo clever people LOL 😂

I don't vote Labour or Conservative.

Neither of those parties are competent.

The only difference now is that the Conservatives have shifted the overton window so far to the right with their unhinged rhetoric, that the only logical votes are Labour or LD using tactical voting.

Thats what the UK has come to. It really is a sad state of affairs.

The reason is democracy.

I'm in favour. If you're so smart, make your case. You're not showing it here. You're carrying on like a petulant child, @BouncingJAS

And yet, Richard Feynmann could explain physics to children.

I am a physicist. One of my four advanced degrees.

The UKs "problems" are obvious.

1. Demographics (increasing long-term pensions and healthcare liabilities)
2. Unbalanced tax structure (to reliant on PAYE higher earners)
3. Lack of public investment due to a byzantine and highly stupid planning permission system which allows anybody to block critical infrastructure like housing, renewables, trains, roads etc.

You can fix these things easily enough but people keep lying to each other (and to the wider world) about these problems because they themselves are being impacted.

Revenue vs liability (cost) imbalances like what you see in the UK don't magically correct themselves. So you need a tax that won't damage productivity (like income taxes). And that means you have to use a land value tax.

A land value tax also makes sense because it will nudge capital away from property speculation, and more towards real productive investment such as infrastructure, education, childcare etc. Thats how a country becomes more productive, wealthier, ad well more balanced when it comes to revenues vs liabilities (long-term).

Your nasty vituperative personal attacks might be more effective if you made it clear who you were attacking.

“Your nasty vituperative personal attacks might be more effective if you made it clear who you were attacking” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I think it's pretty clear it's everyone. They are attacking everyone. The attack if the whole point.

Please, please can we stop this? Just stop rising to the bait.

I think we have seen BouncingJAS before, under a previous name. IIRC not a party political player, but a City actuary with decided opinions. Not all of them wrong. But tactless!

It’s true. People also don’t understand the nuances of the tax system. People effectively being taxed at over 100% is ok as long as it pays for them to sit at home all day. Deluded, entitled and uneducated.

It isn't a coincidence that many of the wealthiest countries in the world have the lowest taxes. A smaller state and lower taxes are in my opinion the best way to generate wealth.

The socialist approach of higher taxes, greater welfare state etc. doesn't make for a productive country as many around the world discovered to their cost and most of these countries are now considered capitalist rather than socialist. Even the Scandinavian countries have moved to a more centralist model over the last few decades.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/27/nordic-countries-not-socialist-denmark-norway-sweden-centrist/

Unfortunately, getting there from where we are now is difficult as it involves taking things away from people (NHS, free care, tax credits, higher pension ages, etc.) to reduce the burden.

No. Per capita, the richest countries in the world mostly have modern welfare states and moderate to high tax burdens. You can easily check this at the IMF:

https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/WEOWORLD

Haven’t rtft and see there’s a bit of a barney going on over some pp but this doesn’t seem far off tbh

We've maxed income tax and CT will not go up, we do ok given other countries are much lower but that will not increase, madness to

Not sure a land tax will ever be introduced but whatever tax it is it needs to actually get tax receipts not drive people and companies away

GDP is a very general indicator of wealth and obviously we are wealthier than a lot of countries worldwide, but other measures are much more nuanced.

https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

Also, to remind those calling for a land tax, Development Land Tax that taxed development gains was abolished in the 1970s as it was thought to be stiffling development. It is thought that any reintroduction of a land tax targeting land for development would in theory reduce new residential housing pushing prices even higher.

I do think we should control who can buy land in this country. The high price of land is currently impacted by large numbers of Chinese investors buying up large swathes of our countryside as they view farmland as good long-term investment. Maybe widening the scope of council tax to include land but providing reliefs for owner-occupied land/small farms would be more appropriate.

Help me understand how anyone is paying 100% tax. Obviously someone who works and has a bottom line of £0.00 on their payslip would feel hugely aggrieved so clearly I don’t understand. I’m more than willing to be educated.

Sure, call for a land tax - if you want to live in a concrete jungle like inner Hong Kong. Farmers and aristos leaving fields fallow or reforesting them is a huge part of what your average person would call the countryside, & it is a win for carbon removal & mental health. If they all get hit with an extra tax and sell up (especially the aristos, land rich but cash poor), it will go into the bottomless pit of housing development.

I used to live in the North West, in the strip of towns between Manchester & Liverpool. It's just unrelenting brick and tarmac, sprawling housing developments and out of town shopping parks for miles, thanks to the industrial revolution & urban "regeneration" schemes (mainly chinese-owned shopping centres) - it's shown as grey on most maps, and it's depressing to live in. No nice areas locally to go for a walk, even the protected nature reserves are tiny, but ironically still few jobs or public services outside the cities.

I now live in a town in a Southern area which is mainly AONB and farmland - places to walk, fresher air, and more doctors and dentists, because it's a pleasant place to live. There's no way I would want the landowners around here to sell up, even if it means I don't get a redistribution of their "wealth" - we benefit in other ways for quality of life.