AIBU to want spending cuts rather than more tax rises?

[PinkFruitbat]

The foundations are being laid for more tax rises in the October Budget.

https://www.ft.com/content/6d43b599-3d7c-471c-88c2-0f056475a840?syn-25a6b1a6=1

AIBU to ask for savings in spending to help balance the budget rather than more taxes.

With welfare spending at nearly £1bn each day, when is enough, enough?

Getting rid of benefits staff will cover UBI?

A single lock to average earnings or a double lock to higher of earnings or 0% would be fine. The thing that really broke the triple lock that wasn’t costed properly was the recent disconnect between inflation and earnings. So we’ve had multiple cycles where one year inflation is really high, but earnings growth doesn’t come through until the following year. So pensioners get the bump twice. Similarly when earnings / inflation have gone negative the pension is protected from any downside, but when the rebound happens they get all the upside.

2% of tax payers already give 40% of tax revenues.

This group earn over £125K - not a fortune in the south east - and don’t get childcare help etc.

Make them pay even more and you will see a brain drain as they move their tax receipts to another country.

This

Younger generations are having to do this though.

As you say to make any difference they have to target older people. But we have an ageing population which makes changes that impact them harder to get through.

I have a suggestion - I would start from stripping council housing from foreign heads of state - Fatima Bio: Council takes possession of property linked to politician - BBC News

And go down the list - those who live abroad and rent privately their council housing, etc. etc.

Then no treatment on the NHS to foreigners - Dr Meiron Thomas raised objections to treating Spaniards at the Royal Marsden - they have a perfectly well functioning system in Spain. And then go down the list.

No, the vast majority of inheritance is from huge gains in house price growth which hasn’t been taxed.

the trouble with the Labour loving lefties on here and their 'off you trot then' mentality is it will be too late by the time they realise there is no-one left to pay for all the benefits they insist on

I mean surely that's on you for not saving up privately for retirement?

I think people should get something for what they "contributed" via NI. But we need to move on to people saving up for their own retirement.

I think people need to wake up, we’ve ran out of road. What do you think the Tories were doing in power except raising taxes and borrowing more?!

This isn’t an issue that will be solved by putting one person or party in power. We are in a doom spiral.

We had to be because of COVID..but the Tories didn't want to do it. It hurts a Tory to their soul to take more money from those who work.

The vast majority won’t have paid enough NI to fund their own healthcare, education, etc

The problem is demographics and years of little investment.

This is no different to a household living beyond its means
the choice is either working harder / longer
such as weekends or an evening job
or cut household spending , takeaways ,sky tv etc

some hard choices are going to be needed to be made that may not be popular

if I was chancellor ( head of the household) I would cut foreign aid , appoint someone dedicated to identifying wasteful spending among the civil service , cut the bbc spending and have a real look for wasteful spending
The government cannot be all things to all people

@Gootawe never recovered from the 08 crash growth wise & we stopped investing in public services.

We cannot keep increasing income taxes on higher earners.

Lower & middle earners actually pay less vs other countries but the problem is housing costs are too high for many.

The reason we and other nations in the west are in so much trouble is the declining birth rate along with people living longer in poor health. Obviously ther are other contributing factors ( Climaye change, AI, illness. wars, the Internet and declining human connection etc) but that is the core of it

Instead of fiddling while Rome burns, we should obviously tackle the root of the problem Enforce Encourage marriage and child-bearing in the young, along with mass culling of the elderly. How about this ?

Say anyone over 80 stops receiving all benefits, pension and and health care and has to pay for everything they need put of their own funds.

Most of them would die quite soon after that. Any who do have enough money to survive for long could be bribed by the govt with no inheritance tax for their beneficiaries if they take voluntary euthanasia

That does not need anyone to actually directly kill them or anything and might solve our massive welfare bill quite quickly since the vast majority of it is spent on the elderly

Maybe 30 years of this and we can go back to democratic society society where we try to take care of our vulnerable.

This was sarcasm for anyone who is in doubt. Though I suppose at least we wouldn't t have to live with a slowly degenerating society where the majority are getting poorer whilst a tiny minority hoard what wealth there is in their grubby grasping little hands.

Get used to it people, no amount of fiddling with welfare cuts and tax increases will help. At some point some Trumpalike will take over and decide polices like the ones in my sarcastic comments might work and if it benefits them personally, they may just try it.

Ok so you’ll need a party that stops hiking taxes and borrowing, ie not Labour.

Which is why people should save up privately for their own retirement. Build your nest egg.

I think that the model of treating earned income as a priority for taxation is out of date in a society with increasing inequality where total income for the more wealthy might come partially from earned income but increasingly comes from rental, asset and investment income in addition.

The employed higher rate tax payers with no assets struggle whilst those who are not employed as high rate full time employees but are wealthier pay lower taxes on assets/rent even if they don’t use legal vehicles to lower their tax burden. This is not fair. We need to tax income from all sources at proportionate rates.

The recent experiences of pandemic and war have taught us in the so called civilised west that better life outcomes came from struggle to improve life for the majority. Disaster capitalism is live and kicking and only cares about increasing the wealth of the already wealthy and will destroy social cohesion to do so.

I would probably means test all benefits eg state pension and disability. Not ideal but I think we have little other choice now.

Labour economy run amock

And we do and will need to increase our defence spending.

VAT is not double taxation because you’re not being taxed for same financial event twice. You are being taxed for your income, that is one tax and then when you buy goods or services that is a separate tax

That doesn’t solve today’s problems though.

The big issue is demographics;

Over 65s outnumber under 15s which makes our pyramid models of taxation impossible.

@PocketSandis correct, that the heavily weighted tax model is outdated considering housing costs and how much of housing wealth is tied up with older generations.