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.

Reverse employee NI cut
Add 1p to income tax across the board
I think they could have still won the election if they had pledged these changes instead of pretending they didn't need to raise taxes.
NHS is a bottomless money pit. We need to start introducing charges.
1p off a pint of beer is an expensive and pointless insult to struggling pubs.
I also think some of the spending has been crazy. Particularly the carbon capture project and the train drivers pay increase. I don't want to see farmland covered in solar panels, they should insist that all new buildings are fitted with solar panels instead, paid for by the developer.

1. 10p on fuel duty, followed by restoring the annual escalator.
2. Scrap stamp duty and council tax and replace them with a 1% annual tax on house value. This would raise about £30 bn extra, more than enough to cancel the employers NI hike. It would also incentivise people in houses too big for their needs to sell up, producing a much more efficient housing market.

Stop topping up wages. That would save a fortune in UC. A proper wealth tax. Tax large businesses.

I think the advice given to MNers is usually work more than the 10 hours a week you're currently doing to maximise your income.

Therefore - maximise income - I'd suggest an extra 2p on higher rate income tax couple with a 1p decrease in the basic rate.

Rather then look at just ways to raise money how about saving it. The costs of all the infrastructure projects that have been planned and partially implemented with planning etc. All wasted money. Hs2, Stonehenge the new hospitals that are no longer being built. Money has been spent on all these for nothing to happen. Also the PPE waste.

The plan is to increase tax revenue but also increase borrowing. Doesn’t sound great to me.

Scrap employee NI and put the lot on income tax to to put the burden on all and not just those in employment (e.g rich kids, early retirees, rich pensioners.

Scrap Council Tax, make this a local tax based on income payable by all adults in the house. % set locally.

Just flaming well raise income tax.

Everyone saying stop topping up UC and such you do realise that would mean employers would have to pay more?

We are underpaid in the uk if you don't want employers paying more NI then they certainly won't pay more...

A lot of you just want more austerity

Online sales tax so that the gap between profitability of actual retail shops and online giants is smaller.

Find a way to tax Amazon and others on their activites in the UK.

Council tax means that nobody is ever a land or home owner, everyone is a renter.

Get rid of the pension triple lock and put pensioners on a level footing with other benefits increases.

Er look at the outrage over WFA, there would have been a revolt!

A lot of you just want more austerity

Which worked so well 🤔

That stopped with the UC rollout. So you're several years out of date.

Just flaming well raise income tax.

thresholds have been frozen for years & wages are crap. Plus it doesn’t help younger people as it doesn’t target wealth.

She could have looked through Vol. 1 of ‘Unpopular Taxes of Yesteryear’ for inspiration. Perhaps a re-introduction of the Window Tax.

A refund from Michelle Mone.

THIS!

The 1p saving on draft beer has sorted it. Rach has it covered for voter confidence! Nothing else matters.

I agree with PP. massive welfare/immigration overhaul but more importantly, don’t chuck more money at a very, very wasteful NHS. Overhaul & streamlining of this would save millions.

tax on foreign investors and offshore billionaires extracting dividends and interest from the uk - currently tax free - absolute disgrace

There is a lot of waste with grants also. I saw a list on Twitter, research into the most bizarre things and we fund it.

I have to agree with this. Unpopular, maybe, but at least everyone
(well, most) then bears the burden so it would at least be universally unpopular! And just a penny increase would bring in billions. This targeting of individual groups who are not their voters (agriculture, pensioners, private schools, businesses) is so blatant - everything feels so tribal now with everything being us v them.

I'm not a fan of the tories, and I'm glad they're out because they deserve to be, but I can't get at all excited about what we have now.

They could have say three months of "total tax" where no person or business is allowed to have ANY spare money or profit just for those 3 months - it ALL has to be taken out of the bank automatically and paid to the taxman. So if you have zero in the bank, your wages goes in, say £2500, and at the end of that month once your mortgage, bills and groceries etc are paid for (essentials only), there is say £78.43 left in your bank before your next wage goes in - the banks are instructed to pay that £78.43 to the taxman. First, the bank must check for any unnecessary outgoings (paid out just to avoid that tax) and add that amount on to the tax payment. Same with businesses. After they pay their employees and suppliers, any cash left over is 100% tax. Just for 3 months.

Plenty of ways of raising more tax if needed but you won’t like them, I too question the spending of billions on unproven environmental projects. The6 are planning to borrow a lot more than was originally planned.

If the plan works it will be great

Agree with everyone suggesting an extra percent on income tax. VAT another logical source - a small rise would be massively productive. Basically a small rise on a tax everyone pays would have raised more while also signalling we are in this together - instead they have chosen to hit a few groups really hard, which feels very tribal.

i am all for investment, but I think the amount they have raised is a drop in the ocean relative to their wish list and also question their vision / priorities for this investment. A great deal of it seems to be directed at simply keeping nhs afloat, for example, without any real strategy for making it more productive/ effective / efficient in the long run.

😮

Are you serious?!