A 1p / 2p raise to income tax should lawfully trigger a general election

[TesChique]

There are vague promises in manifestos, and there are those which are explicit and should be binding except in exceptional circumstances (war etc)

If labour, or any party reneges on a core manifesto promise it should lawfully trigger a general election

They have lied to the public.

AIBU to think we need to see this change in law?

They are 'stuffing ridiculous amount in' because of our ridiculous cliff edge tax system, where people are worse off when earning more. Given a choice between putting money in pension, (in knowledge that state pensions will only be for a small number in future so putting money aside as a safety net) or cutting hours to get below threshold, or giving a chunk to hmrc, then most people are not going to chose the last option - why should they prop up a tax system which discriminates against them

This, very well said

Why does it make any difference if is only you paying extra? If it would make you happy to pay more, why would you make yourself less happy by not doing it? We all pay different amounts anyway.

@EasternStandard Tax is good, our current taxation system definitely isn't.
We have a stupendously complex tax code with myriads of tax breaks and loopholes. Tax lawyers and accountants make a fortune and it often does very little to nudge the behaviours we would want to see and sometimes perversely incentivises shit we don't want.
Some of the tax relief schemes and instruments/structured that can shield assets from have huge benefits for exceptionally wealthy individuals
Some taxes are just unhelpful. Take stamp duty- daft deters mobility get rid of it.We have: tax relief for second homes, year tax hike owners to move 💁go figure....
Arthur Laffer (the economist behind the Laffer curve) makes an interesting case that in the UK you could probably reduce income tax (especially at the top end), but still have an increase in the tax base if you got rid of all the loopholes and tax breaks and and taxed all income effectively say the same rate (so capital gains, non PAYE etc).

It was a very explicit election pledge.

They could have taken steps to fix something though? They started with the right intentions but then their back benchers made them roll back the wfa, and the roll back the benefits reductions. Taxing jobs was a stupid idea when your borrowing against growth.

It's also not just one 1p. They talk about pennies because that makes it sound small. It is 1p in every £1 you earn. That's £100 a year for someone on the minimum wage. For someone on £100,000 it is £1000 of extra tax every single year.

They should never have committed to no tax raising. Whichever government is in power needs to raise money somehow due to our debt interest and lack of investment in public services over the last two decades. They already raised tax by raising NI for employers which was a stupid move and has led to job losses and a stagnant economy along with Brexit. I don't think there should be a GA everytime they have to do that or we will have constant instability.

Are you really telling us that this was a core issue in the last GE? People wanted conservatives out and the conservatives were telling us Labour would need to raise taxes because they knew they should have done it years ago after Brexit and Covid and were too cowardly.

If they do raise taxes they need to do it fairly so the ones at the top get hardest hit. An extra 1p on basic and 2p on higher earners would be my preference. I also think they need to look at limiting tax relief on pensions for higher earners to the basic rate. High earners have a massive incentive to pile loads in their pensions due to the tax relief.

The labour government are a disgrace and should no longer be in power. Starmer doesn't listen to anyone, he has not carried out anything in his manifesto anything, always blaming other parties is getting us nowhere.

You cannot be serious? What party would pass a law that would handcuff a future government in such a way??????

I think they should cut the personal allowance back to £5k then more people would contribute something. The amount of tax free income people get these days is just not sustainable.

It's not 1p. It's 1p for every £ you earn over a certain amount. Characterising it as 1p is wrong.

But, no. The last thing we need is yet more disruption. Let the government get on and govern.

They shouldn't have done, they didn't have to, but they did in pretty explicit terms - so they should stick to it.

They talk about pennies because that makes it sound small. It is 1p in every £1 you earn. That's £100 a year for someone on the minimum wage. For someone on £100,000 it is £1000 of extra tax every single year.

Add in fiscal drag & inflation & it's a considerable sum

Quite and that is on top of the 32% they already take so someone on £100,000 loses 1.5% of their net income, and nearer 10% of their disposable income.

Tell me two of them.

I am definitely not in the higher income bracket, but I don't see why the people who are, after working hard to get it, should pay extra. Its unfair and this government have done nothing but take from everyone

I don’t mind some of this and agree about tax impacting behaviour and I’m aware of Laffer.

I still wouldn’t frame it as tax is good because sometimes it brings disincentives and really it’s a sell to far to put it as a nice thing.

If I were to go for a tax saying I’d go for the plucking the goose one, that still holds true.

There’s also a good saying about the largesse tending to vote in spending I think @1dayatatimequotes it

It's not really an 'adage' as an adage has to have some truth to it; it is a quote from Margaret Thatcher and she thought poll tax was a good idea!

Now, don't be talking common sense like that, it might annoy all the 'Robin hood' economists out there.

Time and time again it has been explained that increasing tax does not raise more money, it stifles the economy, sends the highest contributors abroad and reduces spending power. But still people call for 'tax the rich bast**ds', pretending that we don't rely on them to prop up our bulging public spend

Love the Robin Hood film from the 90s- I thought we were supposed to think Kevin Costner (Robin Hood) was the good guy like Han Solo in Star Wars, did you watch those films and think the Sheriff of Nottingham (even with Alan Rickman's superb performance) and Darth Vader had a point?

"Tax is good".

This is silly. If tax is good then taxing us more and spending the money on anything (faster HS2, more useless PPE gear, 5* hotel rooms for every MP in London, ID cards that are never implemented, a giant pyramid for the royal family, a super expensive rocket ship) would be a great idea.

It clearly isn't. In fact it's better for that money not to be taxed and therefore it is free for the private sector to allocate it more usefully, which it frequently does.

In my mind there are some things that are better funded collectively through taxation, and some things that are better funded privately. Which those are are up for debate.

In fact most governments recognise their own incompetence, in the respect that when they talk about spending and taxation, they nearly always talk about reducing spending through "efficiency saving", acknowledging the fact that things are done inefficiently (this usually translates to anything but, but that's another issue).

In fact IIRC this was much of Labours line throughout the election, that they were not going to raise taxes, or reduce spending, but achieve improvements through "efficiency saving" and "growth". This doesn't seem to have turned out particularly well. So now the usual line is being followed, that it is something else out of our control that was done by our predecessors.

Rather than the fact we lied in the first place.

IIRC this was much of Labours line throughout the election, that they were not going to raise taxes, or reduce spending, but achieve improvements through "efficiency saving" and "growth"

Slight problem with that. @GasPanic ... the only growth Labour are really interested in is the size of the public sector (in other words their key voters) and IME that's the very last place to find efficiency

ok... for the 6th formers- Having a taxation system is good (short handed as 'tax is good') because having a taxation system means you can have many many many things that would be left down to corrupt local provision that would cost you far far more and would quickly be taken over by war lords and militia. Without a taxation system we would all be clubbing together in unstable localised coalitions to fund roads, schooling, emergency services, blood banks, rubbish removal, water, sanitation etc etc. Riots and wars would ensue because something like water has to be moved about (If I can't 'buy' it locally). A taxation system also allows us to distribute risk and have economies of scale.
The private sector is completely incapable of allocating resources more usefully at a society wide level. Baked into the rules of incorporation is the demand that private companies serve one thing and one thing only- shareholders. A UK company is required to maximise profit. It is not in any way required or interested in whether looked-after children are cared for appropriately, or whether clean water is supplied or in preventing disease (we are about to hit an antibiotic crisis as it is not profitable to develop new ones). If a private company is invovled in any of those 'businesses' the only thing that makes sure it does those things is legislation and good oversight and governance (which we stopped doing well becaue- hey the market will sort it and stop all that red tape nonsene). The 'market' demands superseed human CEO's- a benevolent CEO who wants to provide clean water and make some money for shareholders will always be ousted for one that returns bigger profits whilst escaing the non existent scrutiny of regulators.
And my prediction of the 6th form level of debate has indeed been proven by this thread....
I refer you to my previous post- the boring middle ground is in fact the boring but most fruitful path- managed capitlalism. Companies and capital appropriatley shackled for the good of the nation, entrepeuneurs and risk takers still get to make much more money than wage slaves, but within limits and the private and public sector work in tandem to create better living standards for all. Not all this rabid nonsense about 'reduce tax' money will flow to the private sector and they will fix all ills (a reminder for those at the back we've been doing exactly that more or less since Thather and the big bang and I am still waiting for the promised land- plus we maanged to sell of all the family silver too). Not the other rabid nonsense of tax 'the rich' (whoever they are) and natioanilse everything and it will be nirvana.