What other ways could Rachel Reeves have raised more money?

[Katypp]

As a former small business owner (thankfully former!), the additional costs would have crippled our company.
But according to some posters on MN, we should just have sucked them up from our profits and if we could not afford to do so, should not have been running a business in the first place. If only life were as simple as some (who clearly have never run a business) seem to think it is.

Anyway, I wondered if any other posters would like to contribute to a thread of suggestions of alternative ways money could have been raised. Specifics if possible, not general Tax The Rich type posts.

I'll go first ...

1. Restore employees' NI to the level it was before Jeremy Hunt tinkered with it last Budget. We've only had the uplift a few months so the pain would be minimal
2. Get rid of the pension triple lock and put pensioners on a level footing with other benefits increases.

It’s true, not everyone learnt economics. I’d love to learn, could you recommend some proper resources? Thanks!

One income stream might be to increase gambling taxes. Online firms in UK pay only 21% on profits whereas in Europe can be as high as 40% or so I understand. Anything to deter gamblers. As an aside,
I would ban all gambling adverts on tv too!

"Welfare" includes state pensions: they is the majority of the expenditure classified under "welfare" in that breakdown. So yes, reforming the healthcare and pensions systems are essential priorities in order to have sufficient money to maintain infrastructure, fund education and defence properly and not impose such punitive taxes that there is growth and debt and stop increasing, that's why I suggested solutions to pensions and healthcare in my list: until those are fixed they'll drain an increasing percentage of national resources every year to the detriment of everything else.

Perhaps OP can clarify. @Katypp were you asking what could someone have done instead ot what RR has done i.e. other ways to raise similar revenue and actually improve growth whereas her measures won't, or were you asking as @Cesarina thinks for suggestions about trivial grievances of unfairness and tax changes/ policies that would address these personal hobby horses but would raise such miniscule amounts of money that they wouldn't substitute in any way for what Reeves has done and would have a miniscule measureable effect on the economy?

If the latter, I apologise as I clearly misunderstood the purpose of the thread.

I think Reeves' policies are as stupid as those of the last Government, but I thought your thread was about economic solutions/ viable alternatives not just people airing their personal bugbears.

I will continue to moan and disregard your massively simplified list, if it's Ok with you.
But what I will say is that most of the jobs yon your list will exist in the public sector as well as the private sector, such as marketing, IT manager etc.
I am also somewhat bemused by your suggestion that simply working for the public sector - in any capacity apparently - makes you 'more valuable to society, risks their life and mental health?'
What a silly and ill-informed post.

The former @TheWildRobot
Although we did get fairly far in before someone suggested getting rid of subsidised meals for MPs, I'll admit.
No I wanted ideas to raise the money that RR will raise from the unpopular measures in the budget if they were cancelled.
So really, tax and welfare reforms are they only ways to go to raise the sums required in a timely fashion. Going after Amazon, Michelle Moan and covid fraud are likely to take for ever and cost as much as they will bring in, I would have thought.
I have got somewhat sidetracked on my own personal gripe of public sector pensions, I'll admit, but fairness for all and all that..

If welfare and health are the biggest drains then we should completely privatise the NHS as it’s no longer fit for purpose. I think that single measure would significantly help ‘stopping the boats’ too.

We don't need to "completely privatise" it AKA US model, if that's what you mean. Their health system is the most expensive for the outcomes achieved in the world.

But there's also a reason why no other country is emulating our health system: it's unsustainable and has incredibly poor health outcomes especially considering that we spend a similar % of GDP on it as other European countries spend on theirs yet they don't have people stacked up in hospital corridors on trolleys or waiting hours at A&E or waiting months or years for essential surgery or tests or even assessments and diagnostic services. If you need to see a doctor you just go and see them that day or the next day at a mutually convenient time (often a paediatrician for children's GPs). They have more hospital beds and doctors and nurses per person and lower waiting times and far superior survival rates and health outcomes for comparable level of spending. Why can't we just implement the model of a perfectly civilised country like France or Germany, for example, that actually works?

@KatyppMost of the suggestions on here are stupid.

Labour promised not to increase vat ni and income tax, to then increase these would be electoral suicide.

Disability benefits? oh right when people have to wait years for operations or MH treatment, lets take money off them, we'd just pay more further down the line.

Wealth taxes? you'd see Gilt Yields explode, as we would if borrowing rose...

Sorry but Labours room for raising tax take is very limited.

The one thing they could have done is change the higher rates of council tax banding, with some exemptions for the asset rich cash poor.

As the IMF have said, they've done the right balance, even if that does impact business and wage rises.

We need growth, jury's out if their policies will work but we do know the Tories plans never did, just increased tax and borrowing with no upside.

@TheWildRobot We don't spend the same per head of population and thats the important bit.
Europe chose to spend more than we do on health and they have done for over 50 years.
Thats why they have more of everything.

No European country copies the other, they are all different and having lived under the French system, its extremely admin heavy.

Germany relies on district insurance models, again, very top heavy admin.

All rely on increased employer contributions & we've all seen recently what happened when business is asked to pay more... the world is about to end.

This!!! 👆 Also scrap Milliband’s net zero wet dream immediately! And people living on handouts (who are not genuinely disabled) should be paying back into society through service whilst they’re looking for work. Much better for their self esteem as well as the fabric of society. What are we now? 4? 5 generations in living on benefits? Totally unsustainable.

I wouldn’t mind paying more tax if I didn’t think it was going to instantly evaporate!

Growth!! 😂😂😂

Pension is 42% and it’s vital that people can have decent elderly lives, after loooong years of working. It is vital for current workforce to be able to work rather than give up work to care duties. State pension is pitifully small already. The other 58% needs to be cut substantially.

The fact remains in many places in Europe it's higher wages, much higher levels of personal taxation and far less dependency on welfare for a variety of reasons.

I personally think Our whole model is broken -

Pension is 42% and it’s vital that people can have decent elderly lives, after loooong years of working.

Yes, it is. That doesn't mean it should be funded from current taxation though. That is a ponzi scheme that would clearly be and unstable unsustainable with the entirely predictable (and predicted) demographic changes. There are other ways of structuring pension systems so that they aren't so ridiculous and draining over £100bn of unfunded liabilities per year out of current tax revenue.

Would the reform mean current working force age people can have a lower pension age rather than 68? How would you change it? It currently feels like a scam, paying in, and be dead before pensionable age 😂

Pension is 42% and it’s vital that people can have decent elderly lives, after loooong years of working. It is vital for current workforce to be able to work rather than give up work to care duties. State pension is pitifully small already. The other 58% needs to be cut substantially.

What would you cut from the other 58%?

I wouldn’t know before researching into it properly. It doesn’t make sense for anyone who are able to work full time & being able to apply for pip at the same time, for example. But I must admit I have not looked into these to have deeper understanding to have an opinion yet.

Why doesn’t it make sense for someone who works full time to be eligible for PIP?

I wouldn’t know before researching into it properly. It doesn’t make sense for anyone who are able to work full time & being able to apply for pip at the same time, for example.

PIP is deliberately nothing to do with employment status. It is designed to level the playing field between disabled people and non-disabled people due to the very significant additional costs associated with most disabilities that qualify. This would be the very last item on the list of welfare that I would consider reducing.

There is a huge issue with people being economically inactive due to sickness, but that has nothing to do with PIP which as you note is nothing to do with whether someone works.

Also that 58% will include other benefits for pensioners

Would the reform mean current working force age people can have a lower pension age rather than 68? How would you change it? It currently feels like a scam, paying in, and be dead before pensionable age 😂

Massively increased auto-enrollment pension contributions ratcheted up over a number of years so people are actually funding their own pensions. This should have been done decades ago like in Australia, abolishing unfunded public sector DB schemes at the same time for the same reason. The liabilities are literally unpayable, especially as population ages and birthrates are falling off a cliff. Unfunded state pensions would then be only a basic level of support for people who have good reason to have never been able to work throughout their lifetimes so have no other income.

If the cuts have to come from somewhere, then maybe decent earners with pip could consider to be less priority, given nhs is free.

And yet they’re now incentivising people to burn through and spend their private pensions, which insulate them from future reliance on the state. You couldn’t make it up!!

So in a way it has been acted upon, just not rolled over yet. It is most unfair to change on pension as it is long term plan that people made. A change for pensioners now would be a promise broken badly. It will put burden on family and will discourage pension contributions.