To ask what you'll be doing to avoid the Labour tax hikes

[OptimismvsRealism]

Pension contributions
Gift aid
Selling my shares now while CGT is relatively low

What really worries me is that all the professionals we actually need to want to be here will just fuck off elsewhere, though.

It's not like we're knee deep in hospital doctors.

No and people in the SE are always very surprised to find out that there are indeed other parts of the country that exist and it’s not the centre of the universe. Where I am £67,000 is a lot of money.

Hopefully Labour has a plan to get universal credit socialists off the sofa and paying their share of services/taxes. Penalising those who work hard (to cover the costs of those choosing not to) will surely only serve to decentivise their endeavour, or find an environment where it is rewarded.

In a capitalist, market driven economy exactly how is any government of any political colour supposed to “fix” the housing market? Clearly houses aren’t “unaffordable” because the market would collapse if they were. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next ten to 15 years as boomers die and relatively large numbers of houses hit the market.

Do you need ketchup with that? I worked in the NHS from Thatchers time through to Cameron’s. The only time it’s been properly funded was under a Labour Government. Within months of them being elected, it was like the sun coming out!

We know areas outside the SE exist. But jobs need doing as much in the SE as anywhere else; jobs should pay enough to live on in the area the job is located.

This

I disagree on this.

The discussion has moved to pensions relief (or CGT IHT etc) simply because Labour, in order to get elected, backed Hunts NI tax cuts, they then doubled down on this and said they'd be no tax VAT or NI increases.

This has stifled their room to rise money to pay for the PR body wage rises and the NI cuts.

Pity is, Labour would still have won, even if they'd opposed these, the country were tired of the Tories.

TBH i don't really know what Labour (or the Tories) believe in anymore e.g Starmer was once the most pro EU politician going, now listening to him, you'd think he'd once been in UKIP.

There has been a lot of talk of moving away from council tax to a proportional property tax. If they did this it would keep house prices in check to some degree in the south east and London.

I think the bands I heard were around 0.5% for most properties or 0.88% for 1m+ homes.

So someone in a 4 bed semi in a nice bit of Zone 3 would pay ~£13,200 a year instead of ~£3k council tax.

But someone in Wolverhampton in an average C band property would go from paying ~£2k to ~£1,250.

40% of people who claim UC are in work.

37% of people who claim UC are unfit to work due to disability, caring responsibilities etc.

The numbers of people that you think are claiming UC to sit on their arse is actually very small

I realise that certain jobs require living in London, but many don’t. You do realise that property prices are nowhere near as high ‘up North’ and we don’t walk around with Whipets and flat caps 🙄

Our country is currently not functioning properly due to years of cuts. I am happy to pay a bit more to ensure we have functioning medical services, a state education system and police force etc. These things cannot be fixed with no money to pay for them so paying a bit more is just what we have to do.

Over 40 billion was avoided in taxes last year by moving money out of the UK.

There is plenty of money to address spending shortfalls without taxing income.

But as usual, the wealthy will scream how unfair it all is, 700 billion was poured into the economy during Covid, where has it gone?

You do realise that UK house prices are largely propped up by London and the South East?

Yes - a large proportion of the 40% choose to minimise their hours (gamifying the system) so they are eligible for UC. You could say it’s a tax break of sorts.

They’re really really not. The South East is not the be all and end all of the country. Have you ever left it? I’m in Scotland and nobody gives 2 shits what the house price in Tunbridge Wells is.

And you refer to a “dense population.” The uk is the 21st most densely populated country in the world so hardly high up the rankings.

The population is dense, just not in the way you think it is.

Do you have any evidence for this please?

Quite. Hence the low skilled jobs and UC reliance.

Just have a quick search on MN - you’ll find a hive of middle class benefits theft, most brazenly asking for advice on how to milk the system for all it’s worth. This lack of ambition is perpetuated by people who don’t make a sufficient contribution to UK services. Being a mum/dad/having an elderly parent doesn’t make you exempt from work. Families should expect to pay more for the services they need, having children is a privilege not a right.

So that’s wrong but tax dodging is absolutely fine. Got you.

The stats say you are incorrect: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1168072/uk-gdp-per-head-by-region/

London and South East leading this, by quite some distance.

It would be true to say Scotland is leading the North, but the numbers speak for themselves.
www.statista.com/statistics/1168072/uk-gdp-per-head-by-region/

I’m not wrong. WTF does GDP have to do with house prices? You said the SE was propping up house prices elsewhere. Where is your evidence that the housing market in the SE influences the housing market in other regions!?

What do you suppose people buy houses with? Earned income and mortgages based on this? Or does Scotland accept buttons and string in exchange for houses? The housing market is driven by affordability, which is driven by wages.

Also just so you know Scotland is not “the north” we are a separate country and not an English region.

Right but how does the high price of houses in the south east influence the house prices elsewhere? You can’t answer this.

If GDP in the SE is high and house prices are high that doesn’t mean that the SE is influencing the house price in North Wales.