To ask how much you think income tax will rise by?

[Wonderofwimbledon]

We’re absolutely financially at our limit… I’m so incredibly stressed. An income tax rise will break us and we won’t be able to afford it. We won’t have money to eat.

What do you think it’ll be? I just want to curl up and cry- we can’t take anymore increases our bills , mortgage everything has increased we have no spare money at all

And im saying as someone who does that, it isnt as easy to achieve as you make it sound.

You find the employers who want weekend shifts will also decide they want a random midweek night, which clashes with your committed night shift at your other employer.

Working hard is what you make of it.

Some people do, others don't, while preaching about the sixth biggest economy in the world.

If they are desperate why can't they hustle and find a way to make money?

Facts really trouble some people, don’t they? The UK is the sixth richest country in the world regardless of that not suiting your agenda. Your insinuation that I don’t work hard is contemptible - you’ve read enough of my posts to know that I worked for the best part of five decades.

Yep. 1.1 million according to DWP.

Means testing is very expensive. It would mean more public sector jobs would be needed, those jobs which some on this thread so despise.

https://news.sky.com/story/attendance-allowance-the-helpful-weekly-benefit-more-than-1m-britons-are-missing-out-on-13463284

Oh sorry, is that you again?

When I post in reaction to another post I look at what's been written, not who has written it.

I play the game , not the player.

Don't you?

Some will, some won't.

No need to means test it: cut it out entirely.

Local councils started paying direct home care through direct payments in April 1997, following the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996. But surprise, surprise Attendance Allowance wasn't removed. Benefits only ever go up.

Councils also provide help with energy bills through the Household Support Fund and grants for necessary modifications like ramps or stair lifts - all means tested.

That's enough.

It is far cheaper for the state to pay a few hundred pounds a month to help people stay in their own homes than it is for the state to fund residential care.

AA isn't paid on the basis of mobility needs, so not sure what relevance ramps and stairlifts have. Although sadly, installing those doesn't mean a person's disability magically vanishes.

Clearly you don’t. And disingenuity is pitifully transparent.

You again.

Taxpayers pay more than enough already to support others with help they will never recieve themselves. That's the relevance.

Isn't that the whole point of a civilised society? That we each pay tax to fund services/support/benefits that we might personally never need or use.

Well obviously and that was the point 🙄

I think Labour's rhetoric around the £45k 'working person' is a mistake. They clearly think it is a polite way of referring to the working class, but they've chosen the wrong term.

Your post is really confusing and contradictory. On the one hand you seem to suggest the tax changes that Labour have made / are possibly making which imapct lower and middle earners are bad and then suggest that Labour ideology is railing against some imaginary evil- although I am not clear about what you think that evil is.

That lower and middle earners continue to be squeezed, paying a much higher proportion of income in tax, while those who hold the majority the countries wealth pay a much smaller proportion of their income and wealth in tax.

10% of people own 57% of this country's wealth. The bottom 50% own just 5% and that gap is growing. That is reality, not some imaginary evil.

That 10% continue to increase the proportion of wealth they own, often at the expense of our public services through asset stripping and then use complex mechanisms to avoid paying as much tax as possible.

The Cayman islands reference was an extreme example of that but Michelle Mone and the PPE scandal is a real example and sums the situation up perfectly. She is not some aberration - the situation is a glimpse of a much bigger issue.

But Labour aren't fighting against that are they? If they were, they wouldn't continue to tinker round the edges instead of making real changes.

People are encouraged to believe that asylum seekers and benefits claimants are the route of all evil - as if reducing those things will solve all of the countries problems, or to bicker among ourselves as to whether someone who earns more than £45k is a 'working person' or not.

But it is all a smokescreen to enable wealth to continue flow upwards and out of the country.

The contradiction lies in using someone with 100 million in the Cayman Islands as justification for Labours deranged tall poppy syndrome. Basing your life around trying to stop other people achieving rather than encouraging them and trying to achieve something yourself will just continue to feed back into your life with more envy, spite and anger. Basing governance around the ideology of achievement punishment and politics of envy will simply lead to…well what we have now. Just don’t worry about that crab escaping the bucket, you may even escape the bucket yourself one day if your didn’t focus all your energy on pulling everyone down.

Only up to a point - which has been surpassed.

I don't think there's anything civilised about a government using their might/monopoly-on-force to steal from people they don't like. That's what a mafia state does - and that's what the UK has become under Labour.

Exactly. You need to be responsible for your own income and jobs and stuff. You can't expect to be on UC forever because "I'm too dumb to get a high paid job, all I can do is stack shelves at Tesco everything else is too hard for me"

Hmm. All governments take money from us. Let's see what is actually in the budget. There is so much speculation at the moment.

Is there really any need? You can be critical of the welfare system and its recipients without resorting to this.

The figures I am quoting are ONS but they are Net Domestic Product:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/mwb6/ukea

(I have just noticed the legend on the graphs says GDP which is incorrect, but the title correctly states net domestic product)

NDP is a better measure of the resources available to support public services than GDP. GDP can increase without making the country better off. NDP reflects growth in resources that are available to invest in public services or to reduce tax etc. The ONS definitions are clear

• NDP is a better measure of growth from the perspective of how much is available for public services in a sustainable way. , the income that is earned from that production, and the expenditure on final goods and services that are produced domestically; gross national income (GNI) is a measure which includes the income earned by a country, regardless of where it is earned.
• Net domestic product (NDP) reflects the level of resources that are available for consumption, where it is a proxy of the level of consumption that can be maintained while leaving capital assets used for production intact by taking depreciation into account. NDP is more appropriate than GDP from a welfare and sustainability perspective.

• There are some activities that increase GDP but do not make a country better off. Likewise, there are some activities that reduce the level of resources that are available for future consumption. For example, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest would lead to higher levels of GDP from a production perspective, reflecting the sale of timber. However, this change in GDP would not reflect the environmental cost of reducing the stock of natural capital, which are of relevance from a welfare and sustainability perspective.

But we can stick to GDP - just don't cherry pick two quarters because they show what you want them to.

The real GDP growth figures since Q1 2022 based on the most recent ONS publication for Q on Q growth and Q on Q4 growth are in the attached picture. I assume this is what you were quoting - although they figures do appear to have been revised

Source:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ihyq/qna

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ihyr/ukea

These show that Labor have had four quarters of consistent growth compared to two quarters of contraction and two quarters of growth under the last four quarters under the Tories.and that year on year growth is improving.

If you still think these ONS figures are incorrect, it would be good to know which source you are referencing.

Have a look at the Scottish tax bands…possibly it will be similar. It pisses me off as I’d pay the increase if I actually saw any bloody improvements from it but I see absolutely fuck all!

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding what I am saying

I'm not justifying 'Labours deranged tall poppy syndrome' quite the opposite in fact.

I am a higher rate tax payer from a working class background - I have already escaped the bucket as you put it. I have no anger or spite for the people who work hard and contribute to society to make a better life for themselves and their families because it's exactly what I have done.

But I am also not going to punch down and blame people who claim benefits and asylum seekers when the government decide to raise my taxes, I am not going to blame those groups for years of public sector decline which has happened as a result of the top 10% asset stripping them to increase their own wealth.

I'm saying that by going after people who work, including those who are higher rate tax payers, without similarly looking at the 10% and how to reduce the wealth gap is wrong.

The top 10% of wealth owners is not the same as the top 10% of earners.

I am in favour of tax cuts for anyone earning less than £200,000 a year (99.5% of the population) through changes to the tax thresholds and tax rates, while increasing tax on unearned wealth and closing loopholes which enable the very wealthy to avoid tax.

What part of that do you disagree with?

I'm sure you are grateful that the people you're sneering about do those jobs.

In terms of outcomes, what would a ‘good’ budget look like, from your perspective?

That all sounds entirely sensible and I agree completely. What happened? Were you visited by 3 ghosts or something this morning?