If the mega-rich who caused this crisis paid the same level of tax as you and me, we wouldn't have a deficit.

[TapselteerieO]

U.K Uncut

An interesting article?

Nothing new there so, no, not really.

In your humble opinion Mingg.

"And I've tried explaining that public services aren't a cost to the economy but an investment in the civilisation which makes our economy possible."

Simplistic drivel. If you put more money in, do you get more out? No: you get lazy, self-important Government employees doing non-jobs. I remember how inefficient we were under Labour in the 1970s. We were known as the sick man of Europe and were a joke.
Yes we need public services, but the arguement is what level of services.

Work in NHS and think that SOME jobs could be cut to improve efficiency.We are in a shitey economic position,lets be realistic.Like any public sector area the nhs is weildy,cumbersome and topheavy but hope the cuts won't come down to the people who are really on the frontline at the coalface as it were,we are stretched to the max already.

I'd rather have the lazy self important government employees than the massively overpaid unaccountable and irresponsible bankers, personally.

If it's bankers the OP is referring to, in the title - most are taxed on PAYE.

Is the suggestion that their tax is reduced from 50% to 25% or 40%. .?

Not much to comment on in the UKUNCUT rant - except to say some of it appears almost word for word in more recent Guardian articles! So is this where Polly Toynbee goes for her economic and finance knowledge? .

If the people who caused the crisis (ie the mega rich and the banks)!had to pay for it instead of being bailed out by us, we wouldn't be in half the mess we are now. Instead, we are screwed.

Yawn. Yet another one who fails to see that the banks were not the root cause of the crisis but just the trigger.

The uncut article is just biased claptrap with absolutely no evidence or numbers to back up their point of view.

My son works as a porter at an NHS trust headquarters. He is rostered to work every other weekend even though there are no office staff working over the weekend. He would prefer to work monday to friday but he is contracted to work these ludicrous shift patterns.

The behaviour of the financial institutions caused the crisis. What do you believe was the root cause, Niceguy? I'd be interested to know.

OK, let's be a little clear as I don't think I was clear enough earlier (hadn't had my morning cuppa yet!)

There's our deficit and there's the banking crisis (and its effect on the deficit).

The deficit and the cuts we are now facing have very VERY little to do with the banks. And more to do with the fact that as a nation we've overspent for the last three decades. Read here for more info on our debt. UKDebtbombshell

Like a cocaine addict, as a nation we've spent and spent and spent, barely caring where the money comes from to pay for our benefits, hospitals and police. Just as long as the money was spent. In fact the money comes from our children and their children because the government borrowed it.

Then the banking crisis came along. And where upon once upon a time, it was thought that sovereign nations could never go bankrupt, we saw countries like Iceland effectively go to the wall. Shortly followed by Greece and then Ireland. These countries are all but in name only bankrupt.

So people thought, hang on a minute.....look at all the debt the UK owe and how much they continue to need to borrow!?!?!? And confidence evaporated.

All of a sudden people are waking up to the fact that when you borrow money......you must pay it back. And now is the time to pay it back. Make no mistakes, all this guff about cutting the deficit is all about reducing our OVERSPEND. We haven't paid a penny of our actual debt off yet. That will start probably when my child is working and paying her taxes.

Did the banks add to our woes? Undoubtedly. But are they the root cause? No. Because had we been running a healthy set of books, confidence would still be here. And ultimately that is all money is nowadays. Confidence.

Who are the real villains? Well I for one think its our politicians who year after year promise to spend without the means to back up their words and have borrowed the cash on the never never. And its the best sleight of hand they've done to let the banks be the bogeymen when its their reckless overspending which has brought us to our knees.

Does that answer your question?

The deficit and the overspend are a big problem. But tiny in comparison to what it is costing and will cost to shore up the distorted financial system created by the financial institutions, and to shield them from facing the consequences of their actions.

Regardless of who caused the deficit our country would be in better shape if the "super rich" paid their tax.

The question is who are these 'super-rich'? Is their responsibity for our problems down to them merely being 'super-rich' or have they done something against the law?

If it's the former then carry on with the 'anti-rich' rhetoric and they'll leave eventually.

I have no problems with people being super rich. I do have a problem that most of the rich people I know ( multi millionaires so perhaps not super rich) fiddle their tax - it is like a competition to see who is the best at it.

The tax is the least of our worries. More the fact that your money is being used to protect their wealth by shoring up the banks.

I think we should just start by enforcing the law as it stands tbh

Meaning what? Tax avoidance is not a crime so which particular law(s)are you referring to?

£85bn of public money was spent shoring up the banks by buying shares in 2008. NB.. When the government sells our shares in banks like RBS once they are back in healthy profits, we will get back that £85bn plus more. Another £650bn was put up to guarantee short term borrowing but that has not been 'spent' but was made available to be used (with interest) when the global markets went bang. Those in charge at the time have been replaced...

At the moment we spend £150bn every year more than we get in tax. Even if the banks gave back every penny of our £85bn it wouldn't pay off the deficit for this year... and it wouldn't reduce next year's deficit by very much at all.

I don't think we have enough very wealthy people in the country to pay off the deficit even if we taxed their income at 99%. It's just not that simplistic.

The reason we are spending more than we get in tax, is because companies and banks are avoiding paying billions in tax and getting away with it. If everyone was taxed fairly, including the banks that tax payers bailed out, and companies that earn massive profits every year, than we wouldn't have such a big deficit.

poodle You have to do some impressive number crunching to convince me that there is a potential £160bn PA in tax, ready to be collected by the tightening of some tax loopholes.

It also begs the question - why didn't the last government do it? Easier at a time of economic growth and surely better than borrowing.

Tax avoidance isn't but tax fraud is.

Then report whoever you know is frauding - if they really are, they will be prosecuted.

The deficit and the overspend are a big problem. But tiny in comparison to what it is costing and will cost to shore up the distorted financial system created by the financial institutions, and to shield them from facing the consequences of their actions.

See that's where you are wrong. Firstly deficit and overspend are the same thing. The national debt is THE biggest problem our nation has and in my opinion is now a matter of national security.

According to UKDebtbombshell which I find fairly impartial, by the end of this year we will owe £1.1 trillion pounds. And remember a trillion is a million million. Actually I think that's a conservative estimate but lets go with it.

So we owe £1.1 million million pounds and how much are we repaying each year? £0. Why? because we're borrowing more than we spend.

Yes, the banking crisis was unfortunate and has had a big impact. But we didn't get that trillion pound deficit because of them. That was rampant overspending. It was there before the banking crisis and the "cost of fixing the system" will be barely a dent on this figure. And that's before you even consider most of that responsibility will fall upon the banks themselves.

Niceguy2 - a trillion is a thousand million. We switched to the short scale in 1974.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales