To think there is no more money?

[Rainbowsponge]

And Labour have admitted this.

So many threads saying X or Y needs to be ‘properly funded’ (even though most of the time our spending is actually in line with comparable countries), but no acknowledgment of the fact there’s no money to spend.

And when you bring it up, posters completely ignore you or accuse you of being Jacob Rees Mogg

Wouldn’t the quality of debate be improved if we stopped burying our heads in the sand?

It's not wishful thinking, it's what I would do.

I am fully aware that I think and behave differently to the majority, but I also know that we never know the full picture.

I would expect given knowing OBR info and stating no tax on working people those should be met

We’ll see re statements and budget if they do

Posters on here have been saying labour are ‘keeping their powder dry’ by not revealing some stunning plan to tax the super rich for about 4 years now. There is no stunning plan -options for taxation are widely known and there aren’t any maverick solutions. They’re been in power for a few weeks and are sticking by the fact there will be no large funding rises.

A thing we do know, however, is that the Tories were "contracting" out to private firms for a lot of public things.

If it were me, I'd be reviewing those contracts, looking at the costs of them Vs what needs to go where and reallocating if possible and appropriate. But that takes time to review and put into action.

When I knew what could be reallocated from that, I'd be looking at the allocation of funding to public services, checking on whether that's appropriate or if any reshuffling could be done. And then slotting the money I'd freed up from the Tory backhanders into the budget that way.

Give it a bit more time. They might surprise us. They probably won't, but three weeks in we can't be deciding it's all rubbish before we've given them any actual chance.

@SundayBloodySunday

"Productivity does need to increase but that will come through investment in infrastructure, house building etc. Good economics , not this failed idea of trickle down.

There seems to be a bizarre concept of the lazy workers not working hard enough and therefore need to be punished into working harder."

Whilst you are right that comparatively low investment levels in the UK compared to say France or Germany has a major impact on UK productivity the low productivity story is much wider than this.

Increasing investment levels needs to come from the private sector as well and not just the state. Tax breaks to encourage companies to invest would help on this.

However even accounting for low investment levels the US is still some 20% more productive than the UK.

De regulation in the early 80s and reduction of union power significantly improved UK productivity at the time. But this was unpopular with workers at the time.

Similarly other countries especially the US operate in a far more competitive corporate environment than the UK which again raises productivity but makes for less job security which again would be unpopular with voters.

Lastly the move towards working from home even now post Covid has and will continue to adversely impact productivity. Any clamp down on this again would be unpopular with voters.

So yes there is definitely more to be done by corporate investment to improve productivity it equally there is more that workers can do as well.

I have friends in the super rich category, they have been advised to move their money off shore due to a labour government, they have already left the country. We are about to do the same, where is the money going to come from then? High earners already pay a significant larger amount of tax, they shouldn't be robbed for being successful. Go and start your own business, have sleepless nights worrying about how you will pay salaries, going without in the early days of a fledgling business. Worry about whether you might have to make redundancies when there js a down turn in business. Once you've become successful, then see if you feel the same about having to pay more tax. You will have private health insurance, so you certainly won't be needing to wait on the NHS and won't see why you should be paying more. You probably won't be happy for your taxes to go to people sitting at home with their hand out either. Once you see it from the other side, you will feel very differently.

I get updates from a few law firms that deal with HNWI - only because I do completely different work for the firms, I don’t do private client, tax or estates work.

They are all absolutely confident that any tax increases on the richest can be avoided if the targets are willing to adjust portfolios and/or domicile.

My guess is that the upper middle income bracket will get hit via thresholds and CGT will again be used as a cash cow.

Of course they have & you are, funny how they/you never left after the Tories increased Corp Tax to 25%, froze thresholds and gave us the highest tax burden for 75 years.

Considering the UK is a relatively low taxed economy, where are you all going, that has culture, private schools etc etc

https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2024/a-January-2024/super-rich-unlikely-to-leave-uk-for-boring-and-culturally-barren-tax-havens

@Rummly you're right. It's never the "super rich" Jeff Bezos types that take the hit. A) not enough of them, B) they'll move themselves/assets out the country.

It's those upper/middle class earners who have worked incredibly hard & saved the state a lot of money & who have made sensible decisions, gone without, saved for a rainy day etc who will be expected to shoulder a bigger burden.

• for young people, it kills ambition to see this.

They've already gone, to countries that have the same private schools as this country, so their education will be good and the teachers rotate too. Not your bottom end private schools, close to the top. The children are thriving and the families are living a wonderful life too.

Didn't the Labour treasurer famously leave a note saying 'there's no money left' when the Tories won 14 years ago?

On highest tax burden for however many years those additional taxes Labour are planning can add another year and highest amount

What taxes are Labour planning to raise? because as far as i can tell, nothing has been announced or even hinted at.

Any sources? or is just made up stuff.

What countries are these?

No taxes on taxes for working people

I wonder why they didn’t just say no tax rises at all

I guess we’ll see what they’re pitch rolling for

Maybe it’s the public sector pay issue

Judging by the CQC debacle, there is plenty of money to be saved in Govt quangoes (think all these ombudsman, EA, numerous regulators) and private sector involvement.

Back in the day, there was no government being involved in welfare and hospitals and it was entirely driven by philanthropy. Now the state is much bigger. It's not obvious how a rich person would build a hospital or a road nowadays anyway - would they even get planning permission?? (Town and country planning act: piece of legislation that probably has caused a lot of economic damage!)

I visited Mumbai earlier this year and they managed to build an entire tunnel under the Arabian sea to take traffic from downtown to the airport in 20 minutes. It only took 5 years. Singapore built an entirely new underground since I was last there 6 years ago. Could either of those things happen in the UK? No.

What is even funnier is that I asked someone how welfare was funded in Singapore when taxes were low and they said "oh we have a sovereign wealth fund" - so our tax is paying interest on borrowing which goes to fund welfare in another country.

Our political system that is just so class ridden and envious that it doesn't engage with the bigger picture or think long term. The world with sovereign wealth funds must be laughing at us whilst taking our money.

None are appealing. But something has to be done and it should have been done years ago. Now its practically broken.

Spending cuts coming https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/key-things-to-watch-for-as-chancellor-announces-spending-cuts/ar-BB1qMG2f

So the NI cuts Hunt and Sunak gave us as an election bribe were unfunded and mean cuts to our already crumbling NHS, roads, care services.

How utterly wrong of the Tories to do this.

They knew what the state was from the OBR

All this story telling is strange. Although anyone pointing out they’d not have this imagined money got loads of backlash something about there being the money there

I guess we’ll see what they really meant to say pre GE if they were honest

You obviously believe blindly what the new administration tells you. The cuts were not given as election bribes. However, for each person or family is peanuts if they were bribing they could have given substantial money. Wherever you want to delude yourself with is your issue.

The IFS made it very clear that Hunts NI cuts would lead to either other tax rises and/or spending cuts and so it has been proved.

Where did you think the £31 billion worth of NI employer and employee cuts was going to come from from?

Of course it was a bribe, the two cuts went hand in hand with GE talk, indeed one of the cuts came in January, convention would usually mean the tax cut would be introduced at the end of the financial year but the Tories wanted it in people pockets asap.

Independent monetary experts do say that both parties did not acknowledge the public spending black hole BUT they also agree that the full extent of this short fall was not fully known by Labour.

Also, the bottom line is that its was the Conservatives that caused it.

As for your name calling... soooo predictable, run out of argument = insults.

The new chancellor just told us that tax rises are coming because Labour have decided to award billions to their paymasters in the unions by giving mammoth public sector pay rises. Labour lied and took the public for fools. And didn’t even take more than a few weeks to put themselves

Did you read the article? It was clear that some of the 'black hole' is created by the recently-agreed public sector pay rises. Not sure the Tories can be blamed for that! (Not saying they can't be blamed for anything, but context is all.)