To be sick of politicians using 'fairness' as justification for tax rises?

[Itchthescratch]

Fairness is completely subjective and I notice that this is often shorthand for giving more money to those that contribute the least.

Of course there will always be those that can't contribute much due to factors outside of their control, but we are kidding ourselves if we pretend that there aren't already lots of people that are scraping by doing the bare minimum (sometimes even less) and making completely irresponsible decisions knowing the state will ultimately insulate them from the consequences.

I personally know people that have had lots of children that they can't afford and can't parent properly simply because they wanted to. They are now on an incredible amount of money as the two child cap has been lifted. I know people that have stopped working because they weren't much better off than being on benefits and they couldn't be bothered with the hassle. I know young people that are already planning to stay on disability benefits their whole lives for mental health issues as they want to stay home and game.

Is it really 'fair' to charge the rest of us more to subsidise all of this?

I don’t understand digital ID being scrapped. It’s one thing that can help with benefits abuse, NHS fraud, and immigration fraud / abuse (not to mention general fraud!) and it is being scrapped

I really don’t understand British national hysteria about it

what a ridiculous decision

I do agree that, when complaining about the lower taxes self-employed people pay, people aren't realising or taking into account how much less shielded from ordinary and extraordinary life events self-empmoyed people are.

Agreed and people need to wake up and see this instead of tarnishing us with the same brush as the big corporations. We are the backbone of the UK economy and for some weird reason this country is currently very anti-business. My rates bill hike alone this year meant one less employee, but don't worry, we pay less tax than everyone else, so it's fine that we can't provide job opportunities.

Yes and people are shooting themselves in the foot with the constant attacks. From Labour too.

What do you mean by the bare minimum? I’m a 50% tax payer from my comfy office/ wfh, get a company car private healthcare etc. I think what I do is about a billion times easier than raising 3 children in a council flat on benefits. I feel better every day that I’m not doing that. I think I’m closer to the bare minimum tbh 🤨

I think this really depends on the kind of business you're running. I'm not a freelancer or a one-man band, the vast majority of the money going out of the business is on employees and other expenses. All of that incurs tax.

I'll pay myself a salary and dividends but I have to declare all of this in my self-assessment. It's more tax efficient than taking it all as salary but not by much. Especially when you consider I get none of the benefits of being a salaried employee (e.g. financial security, sick pay, pension etc.).

And yes I'm sure there are tax breaks for selling the business but you have to actually sell it first!

Agree. I don’t think you’re correct on this one @illbeyourperfectmrs

I agree, I'm not against ID (most other European countries have it), and as you say, it could help reduce illegal and fraudulent behaviour.

Yes- we really enjoy worrying about making enough money to pay our employees every month so they can pay their mortgages - thanks to the high cost of energy and fuel these days.

Also it does make me laugh when people say things like "if it's so hard running a business why don't you just get a job". If we all packed up our businesses and decided to get a job there'd be no jobs!

i’m self employed. I pay exactly the same tax as everyone else!

Op what do you mean by ‘cover our own costs’? If I am struck down by some catastrophic illness that costs hundreds of thousands to treat, must I be on the hook for that misfortune? Wealthy individuals pay a greater share of tax revenues: does that mean they get a bigger slice of the public sector pie? If I don’t pay taxes, or I’m exempt from council tax, do my bins not collected, or am I not allowed to step into a public library or on a park? As a pensioner, should my state income be guaranteed to rise at a rate that outstrips the rise in earnings of the working population paying for my pension? There are many anomalies and asymmetries in a system that has grown over time to please different interests but which in general exists to pool risks and provide some guarantees and safety nets. Of course it’s going to cost a lot and always require reform and change.

You put your employees first to make sure they are paid. Then then spend and put back in. I can imagine sometimes you hardly feel it's worth it for you. There should be more incentive for business owners, not less, for the obvious reason. We know that helps not coming from Burnham.

Tarnishing small businesses with the same brush as large corporations?

Small businesses make up 62% of the unpaid tax. Large corporations make up 12%.

(For context, 32% of total tax comes from small businesses, 40% comes from large, so the unpaid tax from small businesses is disproportionately larger, as well as objectively larger)

I don’t want to pay tax to give as foreign aid. I don’t want to pay tax to house and feed immigrants.
isn't it fair that we can choose what we are willing to pay tax for?

in the interest of fairness, let me tick boxes about what my tax, that I pay, is used for.

My thoughts exactly. A few days ago I read AB is planning on borrowing to increase foreign aid at a time when the Navy is being decimated.

If your username is correct aren't you an immigrant?

What tax rises?

For someone who has such strong opinions you clearly know nothing about the tax system. None of the tricks you suggest relate at all to the taxes @VanessaFence was referring to and there’s nothing an accountant could do to reduce them. @VanessaFence was referring to taxes paid by the business and its employees. Your suggested measures were about lower tax ways to get capital out of the business after it’s already been subjected to all the taxes mentioned. It’s not at all a fact that small businesses owners pay lower tax rates than employees. They might in very specific circumstances. I would put money on @VanessaFence paying a lot more tax than you.

Oh dear. I expect you think you’re a clever Sherlock.

I'm sure there's all kind of dodgy cash in hand stuff that goes on that leads to massive losses for HMRC. But many of us are not in that category and don't have expensive tax lawyers like the big corporations do. I run a tech business so it's hardly like we can be bunging cash in envelopes!

That is mostly corporation taxes. A lot of us aren't limited companies. On the contrary, there are more sole traders in the UK than small limited companies. We are one man bands with sometimes, like me, a handful employees. All 3.2 million of us. You are definitely trying to tarnish us with the same brush as multinational companies.

I meant that generally we should look to cover our own costs and contribute as much as we can to that end. This is how we can encourage personal responsibility, sacrifice and wise choices. Like it or not, in our current system there is very little incentive for many to do any of this because they feel that they are entitled to support from others irrespective of what they do or don't do. Why grind away in a minimum wage job when you can get a similar standard of living on benefits? Except society needs these jobs to be done. Even the old socialist mantra was:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

The latter part is relevant. Everyone should get their needs met but it relies on everyone contributing what they can according to their abilities. Obviously some people can't contribute much at all as their abilities are severely limited, this is built into the model. What we can't have is lots of people opting out of contributing at all and then those that are contributing being told they aren't paying their 'fair' share and need to pay more.

Just asking a question. No need to be so defensive.

What, like Amazon?

I'm not talking from an ivory tower here - I buy stuff that's cheaper than it should be, because every single person in the supply chain was screwed over to get it to me.

My wildcat law would be that you only get to be a billionaire if everyone in your supply chain gets enough to live on. Otherwise, you just have to cope with being a multi millionaire.