Where is the money going to come from to meet the UK people expectations?

[Pandersmum]

So assuming that:

• everyone who receives disability benefits needs them and may actually believe they should be entitled to more
• pensioner benefits are non negotiable and again many believe they should be greater than current
• working people (most) believe they are already taxed highly and believe they cannot be taxed any more without further impact to their feeling of unfairness and resentment of the system
• it is unreasonable to expect young people with ADHD or other similar ND disorders / mental health challenges to work, even if they have qualifications and therefore they must be financially supported by the state
• Mental health challenges are very real in any age of person and therefore they must be financially supported by the state and if in work, by their employers
• rent (whatever level) should be supported by the state because it is a basic right to have a home
• NHS treatment (& the best treatment) should be free be all, no matter how expensive it is or whatever their age because people pay their taxes
• businesses are businesses and are there to make profits for their owners - therefore they can choose which country they operate in / pay their taxes in - if they don’t like the UK tax system, they can move somewhere else
• ’in work benefits’ are necessary to support ‘low paid workers, often in essential jobs’ to gain similar amounts of financial remuneration to those on benefits
• high net worth individuals can move if they don’t like the UK tax system

So just where is the money going to come from to fund the UK population of financial expectation of what the state should provide?

To be fair the highest interest rates ever went was 17% and that was for a very short period of time.

Are you sure? How about Google moving to Ireland? Argos has outsourced all admin and call centres to India, I'm sure there are many more.

The only way we are all better off is if businesses thrive and the economy grows. Public sector services like nhs and education dint raise any money, they cost money and we need private businesses to thrive to fund them. Penalising them hurts everyone in the long term. And where does it stop - computers do jobs some people used to do - do we charge every company who uses a computer extra?

@Pandersmum surely you make work pay by increasing the benefits of work though, not by pushing people who are out of work into destitution? Our unemployment benefits are already some of the lowest in the developed world.

@Katypp
The point is that if you force landlords to sell, the price of their properties will fall low enough that their tenants can afford to buy them. The vast majority of people renting would buy instead if prices were low enough.

The vast majority of people renting would buy instead if prices were low enough.

Only if lending criteria were changed. Lower deposits and enabling people to buy if their mortgage repayments were in line with or lower than the rent they pay would be game changing.

@Bushmillsbabe but our economy is the biggest it's ever been - and people's lives are worse than they were 25 years ago. So clearly economic growth doesn't necessarily make things better, especially if the benefits of it mainly go to people who are already rich.

Yes of course we need to tax companies that use technology rather than workers. A thought experiment at the extreme makes this clear - if a company invented a machine that could do all the work in the world, and no workers were needed anymore, then it would have to be taxed and that money redistributed, otherwise there would be no market for the stuff the machine made, and people would all starve and die.

But if prices fell to, say £10k for a one bed flat, then lots of renters wouldn't even need lending criteria to change - they could just buy somewhere without a mortgage.

UK corporation tax isn’t low. ROI was very low and got a surplus from how many multinational companies set up there. It’s a bit higher now but still lower than here.

We do need to tax automation and AI though as fewer workers will be needed.

And that would mean we were in the worst depression the world had ever seen and a loaf of bread would cost about £100.

To be fair the highest interest rates ever went was 17% and that was for a very short period of time.

And no one ever mentions MIRAS

I like the idea of a robot tax.
People constantly moan about my local town not having enough ‘decent shops.’ By that I think they mean boutiques and quaint shops or independent diy shops or something like that. Yet the same people moaning are the same people who buy from Amazon or Shein. You need to be prepared to support such businesses.

No, but all the mortgage payments were made from taxed income. Also, the value of the property may roll into care home fees for many.

Fair assessment.

I’m a Labour supporter but it’s an impossible task. Oh, I am happy to pay more tax. Or even something towards nhs treatment. But as an ordinary rate taxpayer I’d like people to do their share too …

Why would a decrease in the price of housing result in an increase in the price of bread?

Also, the value of the property may roll into care home fees for many.

Only if they put a charge on it (which perhaps they should) for care in the home, most people don't end up in an actual care home.

Doesn;t even need a massive fall in house prices. Landlords often get "first dibs" on houses coming on the market as they're known to the estate agent, often have funds already in place, either by savings or existing loans, so often don't need mortgages, so they're an "easy" sell. By contrast first time buyers are riskier especially if they're self employed or freelancers, or trying to borrow the maximum mortgage possible, where a slightly lower mortgage valuation can scupper the deal, whereas someone not requiring a mortgage wouldn't worry about minor work required on the survey, some don't even get surveys!

Irrelevant as people pay rents out of taxed income too!

Then the entire housing market would crash
Homeowners with mortgages would be in negative equity impacting mortgage providers and the Bank of Englands base rate
Higher mortgages and negative equity would force people out of their home through repossession so more people need rented accommodation
Pension Investments in the private and especially public sector would suffer to a degree where private pensions would be lost putting ever more strain on state pensions going forward
Everything would go up in price due to interest rates with the Bank of England desperately trying to shore up the £££ market
Jobs would subsequently be lost meaning more people need to rent and help from the tax man to do so
More people would be unemployed leading to increases again in benefits

You see
Nothing happens in isolation and to say let’s make/ enforce financially landlords to sell up shows tbh a lack of forward thinking.

YOu don't need "robot" taxes to do that. Governments and councils could just as easily stop penalising and taxing small businesses and start giving grants etc to help them start up and survive.

I’m not a pensioner but slating pensioners who own their own home is shortsighted. Life was different then. Many people who saved up and bought their own home sacrificed other things. Where I grew up people had roughly the same opportunities. Those who saved into a private pension or paid a mortgage did not spend that money on other things. I look at relatives of mine and they were poor. They did without things. They did not eat out or buy takeaways. All meals were made from scratch and created using the cheapest ingredients. Lots of things were home grown. So if the rhubarb was ready you made a rhubarb crumble and that was what was on offer. Likewise if meat was expensive you didn’t buy it!
Things such as a dinner service, toaster, bedding, towels were all given as wedding presents. Nobody asked for money- you needed as much as you could get. People wore hand me downs. They didn’t even have a landline phone. They spent their money on their property.
People genuinely didn’t have a lot of money. They prioritised.
Why then should anyone who chose not to buy a property or invest into a private pension be rewarded for it? If you piss your money up the wall as the saying goes that is your fault and you shouldn’t be rewarded for it.
I am speaking from experience. We grew up poor. My parents hard work should not be penalised whilst those who chose not to save or sacrifice get the tax payer to bail them out.

It makes no difference. Just to give you our example - we bought our current house in 1999 for £159k. The lowest current Zoopla valuation is £695k. That’s an increase of over half a million, all completely untaxed. If we hadn’t bought it and we’d rented we’d still have been paying for a place to live out of taxed income with no return on the money.

If we’re part of the unfortunate 10% who need a care home the house might - depending on how long we live - need to be sold to pay for it. There will still be no tax to pay on that profit.

Such a company would make mega profits and thus would pay mega tax on it's mega profits. (As long as we finally tackle tax havens and have a Worldwide agreement on taxing profits etc).

Sooner or later it comes up on every thread. The real question is mortgage rates wackering around between 10-15% for a couple of decades with MIRAS on a portion of the mortgage vs mortgage rates of 2-5% for a couple of decades without MIRAS.

I know which I’d pick.

If the housing market crashed the negative wealth effect would put downwards pressure on inflation. The bank of England would indeed lower interest rates, and restart QE, or perhaps consider a helicopter money scheme a bit like furlough, rather than the previous version of QE which mainly benefited the wealthy holders of existing assets, but there would still probably be downward pressure on prices.

Pension funds tend to suffer when interest rates unexpectedly increase (see the Liz Truss debacle) because bond prices fall, and pensions are generally more exposed to that risk than they are to property investment.

You can disagree with my chain of reasoning if you want, but it's intellectually dishonest and frankly a bit rude to accuse someone of not thinking an idea through just because you personally don't like it.

If the housing market crashed the negative wealth effect would put downwards pressure on inflation.

That isn’t what happened in the early 90s.

The other thing that is always overlooked is that in the 70s, you couldn't just pop into a bank and sign up for a mortgage. There was a queue, sometimes waits of years to get a mortgage. So even if you had managed to save a deposit, there was no guarantee you could buy a home.

And women weren't allowed to have a mortgage on their own until 1975. Until the sex discrimination act of 1975, women needed a male guarantor (father) or were told they were a bad risk because they'd get pregnant or not be able to tell the difference between a mortgage payment and the milk bill. That they should come back when they found themselves a husband!

If I hear one more ignorant comment about 'boomers having it easy' I'm likely to punch someone.