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.

I’m a Labour voter who’s also a pensioner and I’d have been happy with both of those.

Both Labour and Tory politicians absolutely hate small businesses.

I suggest you research - the Excluded UK website is a good place to start which explains all the different reasons why over 3 million were excluded. Many of those excluded were excluded from the SEISS scheme, mostly due to the crazy 50-50 rule which didn't even apply to the covid year, or the £50k limit which didn't apply to furlough nor other support schemes, and of course those who started a business in the year prior to covid were automatically disqualified from the SEISS scheme, so three huge "exclusions" that were completely unnecessary and grossly unfair.

Money acquired by breaking the law often by selling drugs, selling sex, selling guns, trafficking, etc. So any tax paid pales into insignificance compared to the vast sums spent dealing with the societal consequences of such crimes. I am going to assume you have never had anything to do with meeting money laundering regs in the City? I sort of feel for people who are so simplistic in their thinking.

Money laundering is usually accompanied by illegal employment - often illegal immigrants with no right to work in the UK, often "living" in squalid conditions above the shop/takeaway.

And not all of the money is taxable either. There are various "scams" where bogus suppliers are set up to charge for fake services, so whilst the money does go through the books, there are false expenses set against it, which reduce/eliminate the profit and therefore reduce/eliminate the tax paid. A common one is false invoices for shopfitting - the money laundering places regularly get a "refit" for which grossly inflated bills are raised and paid, thus moving the "cleaned" money elsewhere. Same happens with shops that are regularly re-sold, money flowing between buyer and seller.

I agree, I think people need to become informed and educated about how money laundering, drugs gangs, and illegal employment actually works in practice - completely different to economics courses!!!

Have to agree. The societal problems and human misery caused by the organised criminal gangs is abhorrent and needs tackling. The tax side of things is pretty insignificant compared with the human misery and crime involved.

I suggest you research it also using hmrc website all the info is on hmrc website still. There was a limit on furlough that could be claimed from hmrc under cjrs, it was limited to £2500 which is far less than £50k limit for self employment. I’m not saying either scheme was perfect, far from but it was very much a balancing act between providing support and the scheme not being taken advantage of more than it already was by putting some safeguards in place. Within the people that were excluded were also people who were on paye that had changed jobs and weren’t processed on a payroll prior to the cut off date. The main people who lost out were director/shareholders thst were paid through paye/ dividends as their furlough was limited to their small salary and dividends not taken into account, whether they should have been or not is a different discussion, There were lots of losers but the post I initially replied to of yours said that self employed people were excluded from support and they weren’t

That's exactly what Ukraine did, unilaterally gave up their nuclear weapons.

Look where that got them !

So perhaps not.

How would that maximise income? Economists have already said, again and again - our highest earners are some of the highest taxed in the world. It’s our lower and middle earners that aren’t. It’s our obsession with taxing a small minority of higher earners, over and over which means we don’t take enough tax. An increase on a tiny minority will not increase tax take. One when this cohort are changing behaviour already and two when the overwhelming majority will pay less tax. It’s basic maths.

Unfortunately, we have relied on over taxing such a small percentage of workers, there now isn’t enough money. They are leaving and dropping hours. Meanwhile, those with wealth do ok. Lower earners pay some of the lowest taxes in the Western world.

The uncomfortable truth is that the personal allowance needs to go down, tax needs to go up at every level. Welfare state need to be cut so more are earning full time. It’s how comparable economies with better outcomes do it.

Close al the tax loopholes that the rich and big business use to avoid paying tax.

Reform the NHS (genuinely reform) so that hospitals are run effectively and efficiently by people who understand what matters in medicine. The wastage in the NHS is mind boggling.

Stop with the ridiculous shit of pointless surveys and stupid projects and shit.

Go after those who ripped the country off during covid. The false £ claims, the useless ppe.

Put a stop to all the consultancy bullshit contracts people in governments give to their mates.

Take a good long look at the MOD and the scary amount of wastage there. Billions.

Go after the REAL money lost through loopholes, incompetence and dodgy shit rather than going after pennies from those that have the least.

But they won't do that and we all know why.

So nothing will change. Evenr. Governments will always fight to take pennies from the poorest while chucking pounds at the richest.

The thing that really pisses me off over the last few years was Rishi Sunak KNEW who the fraudsters were who stole taxpayer cash during Covid. He signed the cheques for gods sake.

the fact that there had been no attempt from the last government to recoup that money, nor pressure from the media or even social media was staggering.

the likes of Michelle Mone should absolutely be pressured into paying back what she essentially stole.

compare it to companies like Octopus Energy who gave BACK the money they were given to rescue the situation when Bulb went under shows that there are some good people still around.

if only we the country was run by Greg from Octopus with Martin Lewis as chancellor…

Raise income tax in England to the same level as we pay in Scotland.

Oh god please please do not put doctors in charge . You’d be horrified if you knew the level of waste and fraud being committed by doctors in the NHS!

Exactly. They can’t even run a small GP practice efficiently. God help us if they were in charge of the whole shebang.

I work in tax and this thread is scaring me.@GreengrassofW per your comment on p3 Labour HAS abolished the non dom regime as expected and thousands of wealthy people have already left the country.
@fruitbrewhaha I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic but tax evasion is literally a form of money laundering. That’s not my opinion, that’s the legal definition and the reason why my tax firm is regulated the way it is.

I've seen doctors trying to manage operational processes and it's an utter disaster, fuelled by some of the antiquated 'god complex' cultures that still stubbornly persist. Apparently both the cleverest people in the world whilst also completely unable to locate the 'accept' button an on outlook teams invitation.

Increase tax on alcoholic retail drinks to reflect the true cost to the country, so add at least £1 to a bottle of wine, £2 or £3 to spirits, etc. Allow restaurants to avoid this to ensure that the hospitality trade is not as impacted. This would raise billions, and save NHS and police resources, and reduce violence/injuries. Win win.

But this works in HMRC’s favour as often as the taxpayer’s, in fact one of my clients once paid monthly bonuses to weekly workers to take advantage of NIC rates.

Our local hospital was a DoH franchise trial with an obs/gynae consultant appointed as chief executive. He decided to do it part time and spend two days a week doing clinical work. Needless to say it was an unmitigated disaster and he lost the franchisee millions.

Yes!!

god I bet we work together 👀

I would definitely bring forward some big purchases just for those three months - buy Xmas presents early etc the money would get spent 😂. How would they police that?

I think what the question doesn’t really get at is raising money is not just about taxing and taking it from people. It’s also about stimulating growth. And a lot of what has been proposed simply does not stimulate growth. There is a huge spendathon coming in the next couple of years and then they will need to raise the taxes again. I for one am a small business owner and will be letting go of an employee in the coming year rather than taking the risk of trying to grow the business and employ more people

@Morph22010

I suggest you research it also using hmrc website all the info is on hmrc website still. There was a limit on furlough that could be claimed from hmrc under cjrs, it was limited to £2500 which is far less than £50k limit for self employment.

Helping excluded small businesses to actually survive covid was my job for nearly two years, so I know all there is to know about it. I lived and breathed it for a few dozen clients who were barely surviving.

Mixing a monthly figure with an annual profit figure doesn't help your case.

Employees earning over the limit still got furlough based up to the limit. Self employed with profits over £50,000 got bugger all - they were excluded completely. An employee earning £51k per year got furlough based on the limit of £2500 per month - a self employed person earning £51k per year got zilch, nada, nothing. Common sense would have said it would be based on £50k but no. Anyway, the same £2500 applied to self employed too - if their profits were say £40k p.a. their support was limited to the same £2500 as employees, so they got no more than employees under furlough, so your assertion is false that they did better, they didn't and like I say, those with profits over £50k got nothing at all.

That was one of the many things that Sunak constantly lied about, Starmer and Reeves were too thick to understand, and the media just lapped up the lies.

And I never said the self employed received nothing as you allude. I said 3 million of them were excluded, not all! The reality is, though that higher earning self employed were shafted and virtually everyone who set up a new business in the year or two before covid, or who had a part time self employment, were shafted. Whereas employees were largely protected as long as they were employed in February 2020, they were entitled to furlough.

Lots of exclusions had no rhyme nor reasoning, the Govt clearly wanted to provide no support at all, but cobbled a half arsed scheme together to fool the gullible that they were supporting small businesses - the gullible including the Labour party, the media, etc.

Introduce national id card to clamp down on black economy
Right to choose- euthanasia for those with dementia or other life limiting diagnoses.

How can Rachel Reeves raise/save more money? By Euthanizing people that need expensive care?