Right I get it, the nation is in debt and we need to claw the money back but really

[NearlyMrsCustardsHardHat]

Do they need to keep hitting us as individuals and families? Why on earth are they not hitting businesses and corporations and taxing them properly? They won't ALL go abroad if taxes rise will they? Surely there's always some business to be done in the UK even if they did?

I don't as a general rule object to being taxed because there is a need for it but I am getting increasingly angry with Labour for their reckless spending and increasingly angry with the Con-Dems for their ruthless unfair clawing back of funds.

Businesses are struggling too though, and we need as many of them as possible to create jobs to pay tax to be able to stop making cuts.

Oh dear here we go again.....

Basically we need businesses in order to create jobs. Taxing them higher means less money to create jobs, encourages more companies to offshore and you only need a few big companies to move abroad to leave a massive hole in the nation's finances and thousands jobless.

What the govt should be doing is lowering taxes for businesses and making life easier so more come to our shores. But politically it's hard to do in the UK when so many are economic illiterates.

Busineses create jobs that pay wages so people can pay taxes, that pay civil servants and benefits.

Kill businesses and the whole thing breaks down.

But i agree they should go after those that are playing huge tax avoidance games.

i remember my husband moaning a lot under labour because his business tax increased. Increase this over a certain level and you will find people closing their companies and taking standard jobs instead. how will this help reduce unemployment - its the small businesses this gov is looking at to employ ex public sector staff. having your own business is hard work and risky. owners also pay tax as individuals and families. why is it unfair if the funds are clawed back from individuals and families but increasingly taken from businesses?

Tax avoidance loopholes are being closed. For example VAT exemption from channel islands which are used by Amazon, Tesco & play.com

The stamp duty avoidance by buying in a company name, to name two off the top of my head.

Only a small amount of the nations finances cOme from business. The majority is from income tax and VAT. We could double corporation tax tomorrow and even assuming businesses don't flee or die we'd still have our deficit.

really niceguy2? I would have thought the government would have more earning potential from corporation tax etc than it would from taxing individuals and preventing them getting to work (by increasing fuel duty to ridiculous levels) or preventing them from being healthy (by threatening the NHS)

Sure I heard that it would take each adult in the UK to pay around £27,000 each to clear the debt we have....

We ain't seen nothing yet.

I think some of the clawback measures have been badly implemented and are unfair, but on the whole I agree with niceguy2.

Everyone has a 'good' idea about how someone else should pay for our debt!

I'm sure the majority are like me and don't mind SOME increase in taxation/NI contributions/Fuel Duty etc but when it comes to the point that people can't afford to work, or even get to work in order to earn the money to pay the taxes then things need to be readdressed don't they??

Everything's just too bloody expensive!!

If you go back to 1997, a certain new Chancellor of the Exchequer said (and I precis) that there was no need to change anything at present. Because he had inherited a VERY healthy economy.
Unfortunately socialists are very good at spending other people's money whilst lining their own pockets.

MrsCustard. The govt raises about £134 billion in income tax, £95 billion in NI. Corporation tax is only £33billion.

Our deficit is around £150 billion.

The problem is that there are not actually that many corporations around to tax. Very few make billions of profit. Most companies are small to medium enterprises which make very little.

Tax those too heavily and businesses fold, work relocates and soon people are out of jobs. You then get a triple whammy effect of having no corporation tax, no income tax/NI and having to pay out more in benefits.

That's why even countries like Ireland who are effectively bankrupt (unlike us who are just near bankruptcy) have clung onto their beloved low corporation tax rate.

The real problem in my mind is we've grown accustomed to living a lifestyle we cannot afford. The government has given the illusion for far too long that it can do anything and everything. It can't. We need to accept that there are limits to what the govt can do and if we do want world class welfare, health & education systems then we need to have a world class economy to pay for it.

And right now we don't. Economically speaking we're having our asses handed to us by the Asian's.

The real problem in my mind is we've grown accustomed to living a lifestyle we cannot afford. The government has given the illusion for far too long that it can do anything and everything. It can't. We need to accept that there are limits to what the govt can do and if we do want world class welfare, health & education systems then we need to have a world class economy to pay for it.

And given we don't, guess what - we can't have the welfare, health and education systems we believe we deserve.

Hello. We're going to move this thread to Politics now.

niceguy2 , no need to sound so bored. We know austerity is tedious but did you know how duplicitous this rallying call of the elite is?

Some facts about corporations and Tax, profit and inequality

The 400 richest Americans got richer as a result of the banking crisis as
47 million people were plunged into poverty (thats 1 in 6 people)
G.E paid no taxes last year on $5.1 bn profit
2011 CEO Goldmans was paid $ 12.6 million
In the US 1 in 3 families is either in or near poverty
3.8 million children in the UK living in poverty 1.6 million in severe poverty
Many of these children live in homes where the parents work

So my question, do you really believe that allowing Zombie capitalism to prevail, markets to dictate, the rich to preside over government policy and escape all social risk in pursuit of profit, how will that feed our children? Has it ever fed our children? NO and it merely gets worse.

Socialism is often mistakenly assumed to be a race to the bottom but liberal economic policy and the tax avoidance of corporations and those that profit is socialising risk, environmental harm, welfare and health in pursuit of profit. The logical conclusion of competition is a race to the last man standing. Corporations pay low taxes, they avoid taxes, they make tax payers subsidise low wages, health and education through taxation in order to increase their profits.

I'm sorry your bored nice guy but those who persist in clap trapping the government and corporate line, will be bored.

Why not give yourself a break a watch a film

Do they need to keep hitting us as individuals and families? Why on earth are they not hitting businesses and corporations and taxing them properly? They won't ALL go abroad if taxes rise will they? Surely there's always some business to be done in the UK even if they did?

Firstly, simply because the Tory party are a party of the rich, for the rich. The Tories receive 50% of funding from the City of London. The cabinet is made up for Oxbridge millionaires.

Secondly, they'll keep hitting working families because it fits well with Tory small-state ideology. They are trying to continue the work of Thatcher. The ultimate goal is to shrink the size of the state down to absolutely minimum, regardless of the impact this will have on the welfare of the populace.

Since the 1980s, Western governments have been implementing neo-liberal policies of the promotion of a small state, privitisation, deregulation, and lower corporate taxation.

In fact, the total share of the tax burden has shifted massively in the past few decades away from corporations on to individuals. That's why people feel so shafted and overtaxed. Private taxes have had to compensate for the decrease in tax revenue from corporations - some of which pay little tax at all.

I don't as a general rule object to being taxed because there is a need for it but I am getting increasingly angry with Labour for their reckless spending and increasingly angry with the Con-Dems for their ruthless unfair clawing back of funds.

The deficit crisis we are experiencing, along with almost all of europe, was not the result of Labour's 'feckless spending'. The deficit was at 3% before the financial crisis. What has caused the deficit to shoot up to 11% is the financial crisis and bailout of the banks funded by taxpayer money.

Oh dear here we go again.....

I would keep quiet if I were you, you have no reason to be haughty in light of your repeated ignorant comments about the debt and deficit.

Basically we need businesses in order to create jobs. Taxing them higher means less money to create jobs, encourages more companies to offshore and you only need a few big companies to move abroad to leave a massive hole in the nation's finances and thousands jobless.

This idea that we need to keep taxing businesses at lower and lower rates is wrong-headed and, in fact, dangerous.

Firstly, many governments in europe have much higher business tax rates than the UK; the UK corporate tax rate is already very low. Germany and France both have much higher corporate tax rates. France's economy is doing better than ours, while Germany is the 'powerhouse of europe'. So it is indeed possible not just to survive, but to thrive with higher corporate tax rates.

Secondly, trickle-down economics has failed utterly. The idea that we should keep stealing from the poor to give to the rich in order that the rich will create jobs and spend, trickling back wealth to the poor has shown the be a pile of garbage. We've have decades of trickle-down economics, and wealth inequality has skyrocketed.

What the govt should be doing is lowering taxes for businesses and making life easier so more come to our shores. But politically it's hard to do in the UK when so many are economic illiterates.

The UK corporate tax rate is already very low. You are a fine example of an economic illiterate.

MrsCustard. The govt raises about £134 billion in income tax, £95 billion in NI. Corporation tax is only £33billion.

Our deficit is around £150 billion.

What on earth are you talking about? Do you mean the deficit is £150 billion annually? Or are you yet again confusing debt with deficit?

Where did you get the above figure from?

"Give me the control of the credit of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws." The famous boastful statement of Nathaniel Meyer Rothschild, speaking to a group of international bankers, 1912: "The few who could understand the system (cheque, money, credits) will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."

The IMF dictates the terms of repayment, it dictates government policy over taxation and freedom of corporate interests, it also dictates the privatisation of all state held assets and the sale of gold!!

Who stumps up the money and takes the risk of lending through the IMF?

Where the IMF gets its money It's a quota system funded proportionally by the members themselves. Outside of the IMF there are also investors that take on government-issued bonds i.e. financial organisations and other governments that are looking for a return.

The IMF purports to operate like an international credit union, you pay in and then you can borrow. Countries that have borrowed are being laid to waste, look at the pigs. Greece is on austerity measures which are not only preventing growth & therefore repayment but will most probably result in complete collapse and an over throw of their government.

Not all of the resources available to the IMF are raised through quotas, a percentage is provided by the same uber rich bankers who fund/control the US federal bank and these people have also held seats on the board of the bank of england.

Former chief economist of the IMF Joe Stiglitz was fired & he took a large stack of secret documents out of the World Bank.

These secret documents from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund reveal that the IMF required nations:

1. To sign secret agreements containing 111 destructive items.

1. To agree to sell off their key assets ? water, electric, gas, etc

1. To agree to take economic steps which are devastating to the nations involved.

If they do not agree to these steps they are cut-off from all international Import/Export. If you can?t borrow money in the international marketplace, no one can survive, whether you are people, corporations or countries.

After the war we nationalised and the debt as a percentage of GDP fell from over 240% to just 45%. When Maggies came to town she privatised (neo-lib economic policy) dictated by the fed and the IMF and our deficit climbed.

If the deficit continues to climb our AAA rating will be removed (by the same bankers) and we will be plunged into even greater austerity.

Whilst I can see Osborne et al have their hands tied and they have my sympathy on this! however it is time the rest of us, got tough, got clued up and started to hold the money men to account for the horror they are inflicting upon us.

My question is this, people are being made poor through globalisation and the free market economy, if the bankers lend the money, set the terms, lend us money to bail them out (strange circs) and then impose measures on countries that will not permit economic growth, remove AAA status, what is their over arching plan? Who is making money out of the economic disaster inflicted upon us? Someone clearly is.

....started to hold the money men to account for the horror they are inflicting upon us.

You know the best way to do that? Spend less than we earn. If we don't have a need to borrow money, we don't have to be beholden to the lender.

Otherwise it's like saying me saying I've taken out loads of loans from my bank but because I don't like the conditions he's putting on my new loans, I'll get tough on him.

If I didn't need to borrow money, I could do what I like and probably find HE came to beg ME instead.

We're in this situation because for whatever reason (insert your own reasons here), we're spending more than we earn. And whilst we do that, we will always have to dance to the tune of the person with the money.

I won't engage with what you have to say until you go back up thread and read everything Ttosca and I have had to say.

Sorry... thought you were asking a question.... didn't realise it was rhetorical.

www.pcs.org.uk/en/campaigns/campaign-resources/there-is-an-alternative-the-case-against-cuts-in-public-spending.cfm

Read this for another view

coalitionofresistance anticutsprotests