Please convince me that the Tories WON'T create wider divisions btween the rich and poor and haves and have nots?

[poshsinglemum]

I'm not great at politics but I am under the imptression that things like inheritance tax and tax breaks for married people are going to widen the gap between the rich and poor?

Am, I wrong? Would anyone like to explain how the Tories would improve my lot as a single mum. Would they find me a nice man to marry for example?

I'm under no illusions that my children will remain in the UK beyond childhood, so I see what you mean, Lit.

Didn't Ireland have tax free status for artists/writers at some stage?

A UK publisher? Smiths as in WH Smiths on the UK high street? So where are all these potentially unemployed staff you're talking about?

Sorry, that sounds impertinent, I know, but I was thinking you had a staff of hundreds all risking being thrown onto the dole when you moved your business overseas to avoid the 5% tax increase on earnings over £150,000.

Why I'm still here?

I don't mind paying 40%. I'll stomach 50% - though I do think there's a tipping point where paying more than half of an earned pound to the governemnet feels grossly unfair.

I was just pointing out that it's too simplistic to say people can't or won't move. Or that if they do their tax money will be paid by a replacement. That's not how many businesses work these days.

I'm not moved to leave...but I know others are.

Can I ask why it has been so conveniently forgotten that the Tories supported Blair taking us to an illegal war with Iraq?

Labour are always (rightly) vilified for doing that, but the Tories would have done exactly the same and supported the action fully. I remember thinking at the time that this was the opportunity Conservatives could leap on, to support the public who didn't want a war. I should have known they'd be as keen as Blair to get someone else's hands dirty.

It's not a reason to vote Tory, it's a reason to vote Lib Dem though (opposed to it throughout)

Well to be fair - I don't just write books, that was an illustration.

How to share it out then, Lit?

I mean, you can't just cut and cut, it won't be enough. Taxes have to be raised as well.

So who goes first?

Yes, Ireland did have tax free status on the earnings of art. Many musicians, writers and artists moved there.
I don't believe that's the case anymore.

As I say, the current tax system doesn't move me leave anyway.

The debt my kids will be saddled with - now that makes me consider it.

Mine will be off like shots.

I just hope it's not Australia or NZ or too far to the East.

Therein lies the rub, Ex-pat.

I'd need a deeper look at the figures. No doubt there are MNers who have greater working knowledge.
I'd need to know what tax rise would recoup the biggest amount? Would it be a raise from 40 to 45%? Would it be a raise to basic rate tax of a per points?
It has to be what will work most efficiently, not only in collecting, but in ensuring it stays in the country.

As for the cuts. This will always be tough. Everyone will want to protect their own slice of the pot.
For my own part I would say prority must go to the sick and the disabled. People who cannot look after themselves must surely be looked after by society.
After that, I think every public service would have to be looked at.

I just can't see any way round it.

I wish it were different.

Wubbly - if you calculate it, those who pay 40% tax also pay an extra 11% in NI (note in my earlier post I did state it was tax and NI that makes over 50%). There will be no NI reduction for those who pay the 50% tax, so they will in effect be paying 60%.

If a large firm with a staff of hundreds pulls out of London say, like Goldman Sachs or a hedge fund and moves their top execs to Switzerland, there is a reduced tax bill for said execs. Those that ran the admin/cleaning/catering/typing etc will be unemployed as local staff will be recruited at the new location. This will have a knock on effect on the surrounding economy, sandwich bars, taxis, dry cleaners, newspaper sellers etc. It will also effect the economy where those who are now unemployed live. It is like throwing a stone in a pond - the ripples spread outwards.

We also live in an age of rapidly improving communications - if it is more advantageous to some of these firms to move, then they will, and there will not be firms coming in to replace them if the tax regime is too punitive.

Expat - cut the quangos, the databases, the money paid to Govt PR advisers and spin doctors. See what that saves first. Then look at cutting public spending, without any of the sacred cows such as the NHS or the Benefits budget or the overseas aid budget remaining untouched or unexamined. I bet there are savings there that could be made. Freeze public sector wages, or say that there won't be any pay deals, just the normal scale increases to be paid. Keeping the tax allowances as they are, although I would like to see them raised to a reasonable level, will pull more people into the higher rate bracket and therefore more revenue.

What frustrates me is people saying they want to cut public sector wages but not private sector wages. So they think teachers, nurses (and their bosses who make life and death decisions) and so on should be paid less but not bankers or new media image consultant solution managers? (or whatever the latest daft job is)

How come taxing the private sector would result in dire consequences but not reducing the pay of the private sector? Do we really want people who can't get the better paid private/foreign jobs running the country?

I honestly can't see what you could even spend a salary of over £100,000 pa on. With tax credits etc, we probably have about £20,000 pa coming into this house and we are pretty comfortable, could obviously do with more, but then we are four people living on less than the average salary of one person. Surely people on hundreds of thousands must just have piles of money sitting about doing nothing? So they start looking for things to spend money on - private schooling and healthcare, flying about on pointless trips to look at bits of the world that won't even exist soon if people carry on flying so much, buying overpriced stuff so they can wear a big label basically trying to say they are better than poor people, driving about in stupid big cars and parking them where they see fit so that the buses carrying the normal people can't get through, and so on.

If the rich were just rich, I wouldn't really mind, but it is the people on daft money that use it to swan about doing what they like with no regard to anyone else that do my head in.

Scaryteacher, you suggest not cutting the benefits budget, but we have a system currently that we cannot afford to keep, and that may require looking at some of the benefits and incentives.

For example, my ILs who are 80+, have had their boiler replaced, and last week had £250 of insulation in their loft. All free of charge. This is a couple who gift money to their children to make best use of inheritance tax laws, and who are making these improvements to their house because they are about to sell it and they want a good energy rating on their home report.

I don't begrudge them the money they are entitled to, and energy conservation is a wider issue anyway, but sometimes we are paying for things like this for people who can afford them.

I think I will be keeping an eye on what the Tories plan to do with regard to child poverty. There was an article in the FT about the Tories wanting to change the benchmarks by which child poverty is measured. There are a lot of factors that contribute to poverty in this country - low income, lack of social mobility, poor housing and many more - so the party that serves the country in the next term does need to take the long view on these factors. However, my fear is that there are so many different measurement criteria that any progress (or lack thereof) in tackling child poverty might be buried under spinned figures.

What do you think?

venus - the thing about universal benefits (I know you aren't talking about actual universal benefits, but non-means tested ones, but anyway...) is that if everyone sees the benefit of a policy, they are less likely to object and it creates more of a sense of community and puts less stigma on people who have to claim more benefits. Child benefit is always the one used as an example. £20 a week is loose change for some people (I have even heard of people not even spending it, just saving it up and presenting it to dcs when they leave home!) but it is life changing to others. By putting it out to everybody you ensure no-one is missed and that everyone with kids is "claiming benefits" so they are less likely to argue for benefits to be cut. It is also paid to the main carer (usually the mother) so ensures they aren't totally reliant on the wage earner in a one-income house.

The NHS and education work in a similar way. Nearly everyone (private versions are a different argument) has a stake, so everyone works to make them better, thus helping society as a whole. People are less likely to begrudge paying tax if they see some of the benefits themselves.

I'm of the impression that no matter what government gets in, the rich will carry on getting rich and the poor will carry on being poor.

What has done untold damage as far as I'm concerned is the abolishment of student grants and the introduction of student fees - a Labour decision, although I've no doubt the Tories would have done the same.

Children from poor families could have their tuition fees waived, but only in exceptional circumstances and even then, how can they afford to see themselves through Uni?

I got no financial help from my parents, they couldn't. I had 2 part time jobs whilst doing a full-time course and I still had to take out a student loan. I'm now 37 and I'm still paying it.

Therefore what motivation is there for children to do well at school and go to University? Only the children of well-off families can now afford to go on to higher education.

David Cameron's office once sent me a reply to an email I'd sent asking them NOT to cut tax credits if they get in. Their response was that benefits actually break down family units as many couples pretend to live apart so they can claim more.

That was so insulting on so many levels. One, that his office think tax credits are benefits. Two, that they assume people who claim benefits are cheating the system. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the tax credits system and of people on benefits. The Tories have this attitude that if you claim benefits you are therefore a scrounger.

dh and I are now looking into getting onto the shared housing scheme so we can move into a home of our own. No doubt the Tories would cut that scheme too.

I have no doubt that under the Tories, my family will be worse off and a lot of other families just like ours.

clever1- the tories are just going to sneak back to absolute definitions of poverty - ie starving to death. Even Camerons statements lean that way, only with the absolute level set a little bit higher than starvation. He doesn't care about the people slightly above the breadline (he doesn't care about the people on the breadline either IMO, but you can't have people starving or shoeless, it looks bad on the news)

Labour has an excellent record on both financial poverty and social poverty. Just look at CTC and surestart.

Rhubarb - how are tax credits not benefits? I am completely in favour of them, btw, but they are benefits - to me that means money from the government due to your situation. So the benefits I get are Child Tax Credit, Working Tax credit, Disability Living Allowance and Child Benefit. None of them would stop if I was working (am a SAHM) although the means tested bits of the tax credits would change. We actually get more off the government with DP working than we did when he was out of work. Not sure how they aren't benefits.

Butterpie, they are not officially classed as benefits. It's claiming tax back that you've paid because you are low income.

We don't get any concessions through claiming tax credits like you would if you were on income support.

You can get concessions through tax credits though - I get free prescriptions for example (and, actually, we got free insulation a couple of months back). Plus we get almost as much in tax credits as DP gets paid (he is on minimum wage) so it is definitely not just a tax refund, unless you count all the tax we have paid all our lives, in which case it is just like benefits anyway...

But some claim more back than they pay, so that's just a fallacy isn't it?

Not against it by the way. I think it's an excellent way to help the working poor who could not increase their income by any other means.

Butterpie: "What frustrates me is people saying they want to cut public sector wages but not private sector wages. So they think teachers, nurses (and their bosses who make life and death decisions) and so on should be paid less ? I honestly can't see what you could even spend a salary of over £100,000 pa on."

Erm, do you realise how many public sector jobs get paid over £100,000? How much do you think doctors and dentists get paid (and who was the incompetant Govt which paid them more to do less work?) Don?t you know that senior Headteachers get paid more than the Prime Minister?

The professions in the public sector have done very nicely out of this Govt. Doctors etc have played NuLab for the fools that they are, just like the bankers have. Labour haven't got the balls to stand up to them.

I actually think that all high salaries need reducing, but my point is that you can't just reduce public sector salaries. You need to do the same to everyone, and the tax system is the way to do it. If you just reduce public sector wages then the best doctors, for example, will go private. Thus making the gap between rich and poor even more because suddenly the poor have worse healthcare.

I always thought ctc and wtc were a tax relief for young families and to be honest I did raise my eyebrows when I realise people who did not work could claim it (apart from working tax credit that is) I am in no way judgemental though, I lost my job last January and it took me 5 months to get another job. The job I did get was applied for by 900 people. It is hardly easy