Tax system

[Cupcakes2024]

Watching some of Jamie dimon from JP Morgan and chase bank, speech's and one point he advocated is rather than tax the rich to raise taxes is instead its better to have a balanced tax system , basically is Jamie correct ?

Are you on crack it was Thatcher who killed productivity. As well as created a welfare state that kept many trapped in benefits whilst selling off the housing stock.

He actually saved the country from recession unlike Thatcher whose inept government many lost homes due to unsustainable borrowing. The recession she created was enough to plunge the country into recession for years.

His objective was to attempt to make it pay to work. Not trapping people in a benefits system for generations.

Sounds like Jamie wants to pay less tax TBH

Jackanory version of economic history.

Not at the same rates as income though

Give over with the pensioner myth / they are not on average rolling in it; pensioners not wealthier than any other group

They are though but this doesn’t mean every single pensioner is wealthy….

some pensioners are wealthy because they have worked really hard and saved. they have worked all through the childrearing years when they would have much preferred joining other mums for coffee mornings/days at the beach. Now they are reaping the rewards.

The same research calculated that addressing this an taxing all income and gains over £100k at 35% would raise £11bn in tax. I say yes please to that money for better public services

If it is true that pensioners as a cohort are wealthy it is due to pension schemes (many of which were hard fought over in terms of industrial action and paid into by employees for decades) and houses (something none of us boomers can have predicted when we started work),

We are being encouraged to blame older generations for the policies of previous governments. We are in this mess not because Doris has a million pound house but because of terrible housing policies since Thatcher's time.

The race to the bottom in terms of workers rights and conditions of service mean that many young people will never have a comfortable retirement. Young people should be raging against the system, their employers, the government and not Doris who might well be a WASPI woman herself.

Many of us oldies want better for the younger generation - for goodness sake they are our children and grand children so why would we not.

We are being conned into blaming other generations when we should be looking at the government (and past governments) and asking why they have not been successful in planning for the demographic change they new was coming or at making life better in the future rather than worse.

Yet every Tory Chancellor since 2019 made a pledge to lower taxes and instead the opposite happened.

Still the fools weren't able to grow GDP. Not sure what you'd call that but this bunch have stripped the NHS most public services.

This is fact not some sarcastic story you tell.

I know a little about personal tax but less about corporate tax. When people talk about tax loopholes which should be closed, which ones? I would say that the legislation is pretty tight.

some pensioners are wealthy because they have worked really hard and saved. they have worked all through the childrearing years when they would have much preferred joining other mums for coffee mornings/days at the beach. Now they are reaping the rewards.

Its exhausting & boring to have this back & forth.

🙄 A lot of these 'priviledged' retirees will have been contributing to the system since they started work at 16 or younger. They will have raised families with no help from the State except for Child Benefit and most likely no help from their families. They would not have expected to run cars, have foreign holidays or eat out / order in more than once or twice a year. New clothes were a rarity and they saved any spare money for their old age

As they age, they will be expected to pay for their care and those that do so, will also be subsidising those that can't afford to do so.

My parents both worked bloody hard and made huge sacrifices their entire working lives. They deserve to reach retirement with a bit of cash to finally be able to things with. They've paid their dues.

If it is true that pensioners as a cohort are wealthy it is due to pension schemes (many of which were hard fought over in terms of industrial action and paid into by employees for decades) and houses (something none of us boomers can have predicted when we started work)

It is true, the end.

We are being encouraged to blame older generations for the policies of previous governments. We are in this mess not because Doris has a million pound house but because of terrible housing policies since Thatcher's time.

You cannot have a debate about inequality & productivity with addressing housing as you said. You also cannot have a discussion regarding the economy without acknowledging changing demographics. We have more over 65s than under 15 yr olds, this is a problem when looking at public services.

Many of us oldies want better for the younger generation - for goodness sake they are our children and grand children so why would we not

But again you have to acknowledge the damage that Brexit has done to the economy.

I feel like any discussion even around statistical facts is taken as a personal attack, it’s reductive.

shielder - agreed it was very exhausting working a 12 hour day and then coming home to cook dinner for the family. Much more tiering than working a 16 hour week and getting benefits.

Sounds like Jamie is just another banker angling to make our tax system even more regressive than it already is by asking us all not to believe what we can plainly see with our eyes. When you factor in VAT and Council Tax, low earners are paying a higher percentage in tax than top earners. It seems that the discourse is focused on just considering certain taxes, but not others to try and argue that the tax system is top heavy. Of course top earners will contribute more to the coffers than others, but in our tax system they also get to keep more of their incomes as a percentage whilst doing so. We also have some utterly horrendous cliff edges in our tax system and a system that fails to recognise the existence of couples and families in the same way that the benefits system does.

So no, I don't think Jamie should be able to keep more of his bonus by getting lower paid workers to pay even more of their income in tax.

yep it’s all the fault of those on benefits. Of course anyone working 16 hours a week on benefits somehow stops ageing & doesn’t ever become a pensioner 🧐

Therea are still people working 12 hour shifts and doing domestic chores afterwards now. They are just facing exponentially higher housing costs, stagnating wages, a higher tax burden and much worse pensions than previous generations did. Your comparison with benefit claimants does not refute any of that.

Personally, I don't think there are many real "loopholes". The real problem is lack of enforcement of the tax laws which has allowed the black economy to flourish and grow. The "loopholes" people talk about are actually specific reliefs/incentives introduced by successive governments to encourage particular behaviour. Trouble is that everyone cries "foul" when someone for whom the relief/incentive wasn't intended often because they don't understand and a lot of people believe the crap they read on social media and the crap they hear as pub talk. No, the real problem is lack of enforcement of existing laws.

For example, only yesterday, phoned a local (reputable) long established garden shed/buildings firm to ask about re-felting a shed roof. They gave me a quote and then quite openly said it'd be 20% less if we paid cash as we could avoid the VAT! That was unprovoked and they hadn't a clue that I wasn't a tax inspector! It's so open these days!! A couple of years ago, we needed scaffolding and 2 of the 3 firms we got to quote offered "VAT free" for cash, again without prompting. Had a car accident a few years ago, bodyshop did the same, saying they don't need to add VAT if we pay cash! It's a bloody epidemic these days. All because Brown merged the different tax agencies then started the closure of local tax offices and redundancy of experienced tax inspectors.

Loopholes are the least of our worries. We really need to tackle tax evasion, and the billions in tax lost in the black economy, mostly due to VAT fraud!

People were slating older people for stopping work early. Whereas, my point was that those working the minimum hours to maximise their benefits are hardly adding to societies coffers.

That's because they've already been there and done that.

@taxguru thank you, that makes sense. I have experience of working in personal tax and I don’t understand references to loopholes. Sure pension contributions reduce tax but that is to encourage people to save for retirement and isn’t really a loophole. Even the non dom ‘loophole’ doesn’t look to me as if its abolishment will raise that much once you factor into in foreign tax credits

I think it depends on whether you see income tax as a personal punishment or a societal and moral obligation. We see it as a moral obligation to better society so we pay 47% income tax (North of the Border) very happy to do that. We have very few friends that don't have an accountant making sure that they pay the minimum tax they can, make sure cars are put through business, charging through the company for everything they can. All of it legal, just a loophole. We don't because a better funded country means a more productive and more equal society.

@dreamingofsun But the silver exodus is a thing & many are in that position due to health. The gov were not expecting this. What about this are you struggling to understand?

As mentioned upthread one of the big loopholes is gains not counting as income and being taxed at much lower levels with 28% being highest.

This is why Rishi Sunak paid just 23% on £2.2m last year. So basically the same % as someone earning £50k

I don’t get the 22% thing so people mean dividends?

If someone has a Ltd company they pay CT tax on all profits at 19% or higher if bigger and then dividends at 22%

If you changed that it would be hard to grow a small business and we definitely need small businesses for employment

The tax isn’t particularly low. Look at low tax for small businesses in surplus type countries eg ROI