If Labour raises taxes what will you think?

[functioningagain]

Typing on my phone so not sure I can do a poll? But, if the government raises income tax or NI at the budget, will you think:

A - let’s get real, they had no other choice
B - those duplicitous / inept bastards

@Araminta1003

What we do not want is Farage getting in, which looks likely now, and deterring even more skilled immigrants who pay a lot of taxes from staying, because they are scared of racism and the general vibe.

Several comments on the above:

Who is we? Do you speak for the entire UK?

I don’t have much confidence in polls, but Farage is well ahead apparently.

Watch the 5 December 2024 episode of BBC Question Time. Both Nigel Farage and Alastair Campbell agreed that if migrants entered the UK to work, there are no issues whatsoever.

Both an ageing population and declining birth rate make working migrants essential.

It’s illegal migration and the cost of housing paid by the UK taxpayer that people have objections.

It depresses me so much that many people judge other peoples' contribution to this country purely by the amount of income tax they pay. Their actual work is not valued at all. Most care workers, healthcare assistants, teaching assistants, manufacturing operatives, catering staff, agricultural workers, delivery drivers, cleaners and refuse collectors are not "net contributors" and yet society wouldn't be able to function without them.

@Cattenberg - I do not think it is not “valued” per se, the hard work of all the essential but lower skilled workers. It is simply that they are easily replaced by keen migrants from all over the world. It is the most skilled that are the hardest and most expensive to replace. A doctor can do care work and low skilled work any day if they had to, but not vice versa. It is a simple function of economics, not morality.
In an ideal world, if housing and energy were cheap here and transport universally good, we would not be arguing about any of this. The minimum wage at current levels would afford most people a decent life. But because there are such distortions including regional differences, pretty much everyone is now being failed by the “system”. And for the young, educated and talented it is easy to get out.

@Cattenberg

Most care workers, healthcare assistants, teaching assistants, manufacturing operatives, catering staff, agricultural workers, delivery drivers, cleaners and refuse collectors are not "net contributors"

They will be earning as opposed to taking money for doing nothing. So, I would consider them to be contributors.

Farage will be a disaster, and I certainly won’t vote for him. Whether in a Tory coalition with Reform, or on their own; they won’t do what is required to (ironically)?reform state spending.

My prediction is an IMF bailout either at the end of this Labour government, or at the start of the next, will happen. As we slide down the rear slope of the Laffer curve.

The Greek IMF bailout shows what is likely to happen when the Technocrats arrive.

• Fiscal austerity: Conditions included strict government spending cuts and efforts to increase state revenue through measures like value-added tax (VAT) increases.
• Privatization: A significant program was put in place to privatize state assets to raise funds.
• Labor market reforms: Conditions required the reversal of certain labor protections and a freeze on collective bargaining rights until a review was complete.
• Pension and social spending cuts: Austerity measures often involved cuts to public pensions and other social programs.
• Structural reforms: A broad set of reforms aimed at improving the long-term competitiveness of the Greek economy, including changes to tax and social security systems.

I wish I could vote for the IMF tomorrow!

I'm glad you would, but there is a theory going around that anyone earning less than about £40,000 is a "net taker". Even if their work saves other people money.

Financially they are net takers. We cannot ignore that economic truth.

If the average wage is less than £40k that means half the working population are not earning enough and mot paying enough tax to cover their welfare and benefits in kind (NHS, police, state education etc).

The £12.5k personal allowance is far too generous. We should cut that and get more low earners contributing in tax.

The problem with the importation of cheap labour is it keeps the wages of this sort of job down. It is ridiculous that anyone in work needs to be subsidised by benefits rather than being paid a proper wage.

It is very difficult to generalise on what is a proper wage though. If you own your house outright and have no children and your house is energy efficient, then 23k a year on current minimum wage in a not expensive region of the UK would probably give you a relatively decent life. People have very different outgoings especially as regards housing.

It is also exactly why so many higher earners with kids living in eg London are complaining so much at the moment. It is because their mortgages or rents and childcare are huge costs, completely unimaginable to someone who is living in the regions somewhere retired with a smallish pension and no mortgage, but living a decent ish life, still in relatively good health and time on their hands. If you are doing a high stress job with multiple kids and no time on your hands to DIY, everything is more expensive too.

They are only net takers if you only consider the income tax they pay and disregard the economic contribution made by the work itself. Not to mention the fact that lower-paid workers pay more of their wages back into the local economy than high earners do.

Right-wing politicians have been very successful at pushing this selective version of the truth.

“Right-wing politicians have been very successful at pushing this selective version of the truth.”

Do you mean Johnson style Tory by “right-wing” politician?
Because Farage wants to undercut the cheap importation of labour. Farage is more Trump style, right, make Britain great again and celebrate the indigenous Brit from bottom to top level?

The lines between left and right are increasingly and confusingly blurred. Are the Russians and Chinese autocrats left or right? What exactly is going on.

I voted Lib Dem in the last few elections, as did most of my friends. I wasn’t going to vote Labour, it was obvious to me it was too close to the Corbyn era for my economic liking and I have been absolutely right. But a whole lot of people got tricked because they thought it would be the return of Blair New Labour style.
In the next election, I will be voting very strategically for the party with the best economic promise, regardless of any ideology. Except I will never vote Farage because I will never forgive Brexit, that is my red line.
My preference would be for far more local authority control and Swiss style absolute democracy and for us to pay most of our taxes locally and look our politicians in the eye. I would much prefer central government and all their bullshit to be an afterthought - let them deal with the rest of the world and foreign affairs. I would much prefer education, health etc managed on a local level, according to local needs.

But a whole lot of people got tricked because they thought it would be the return of Blair New Labour style.

Were they though? Labour only got 20% of potential votes and less votes overall than they got in the last election when the Tories had a large majority. They didn’t so much win as were the party who lost less. The large majority they got in parliament hides the fact they were unpopular from the start. Just less unpopular than the Tories.

I don’t think it is a particularly right wing thing to focus on just high earners. People at all levels of income want to be rewarded for what they do and at a certain point will have an issue with very high welfare.

At £406.2 billion on welfare by 2030-31 people will start to feel it. They might not know the figure but they’ll see the general burden. That goes for a supermarket worker, bricklayer anyone earning.

No. As the HMG chart shows, high earners contribute more of their net salary in taxes proportionally than low earners and in nominal amounts, vastly more.

Yes low earners might contribute some tax, and non fiscal contributions too. But without high earners doing the very heavy lifting our economy would be bankrupt.

@PinkFruitbat

The £12.5k personal allowance is far too generous. We should cut that and get more low earners contributing in tax.

I would say the opposite. Without freezes, the threshold would be approximately £20K.

I would also say that someone who receives the minimum hourly rate should pay NI, but not income tax.

Quite happy to accept that, but on a basis of taxes paid = number of votes in general elections.

say £5k of income tax paid per vote. so if you are on the national average wage of £38k, that would get you one vote. If you earn £125k (where you get no personal allowance) that would get you eight votes. And if you earn £380k, ten times the average wage, your income tax would get you 31 votes.

That sounds fair.

@PinkFruitbat

That sounds very Victorian.

But the current system clearly doesn't work either. When the majority of voters pay minimal tax - and the UK has the most extreme redistribution in Europe - the many can vote to extract any amount of money they want from the few who actually pay tax. And that simply isn't sustainable and will result in the Welfare state collapsing.

@strawberrybubblegum

If you increase taxes for those on lower incomes, would they not seek more in benefits?

Many work 16 hours per week to fit around school times and can claim both child and working tax credits. However, if they work more than 16 hours per week, the tax credits disappear and they are worse off even though they have worked more hours.

So, the 16 hours per week needs to be adjusted.

I was going to say exactly the same. I'm a truck driver and pay taxes where as someone on benefits is contributing zero yet gets absolutely everything for free.

A Labour MP was on the radio yesterday saying but hay workers we have frozen prescriptions and train fares. Both of which don't help me in the slightest.

If your paying taxes you need a bigger voice in where taxes are spent. Even if it means a tax payers only vote.

The priorities should working people paying taxes whilst struggling to live, youngsters and not straddling them with massive debts and paying back the uk debts so we are not paying billions in interest payments

All the cliff edges need to go: but benefits need to go down to be lower than people can get working, not be increased even more. It is utterly morally wrong for anyone to get more on benefits than they would working.

It also distorts everything: the only reason housing is so expensive for non-benefit-claimants is because the government props up rents by paying rent for 5 million households: a third of all renters.

@strawberrybubblegum

It is utterly morally wrong for anyone to get more on benefits than they would working.

This point has been made several times BBC Question Time, but nothing seems to change.

Yet once again in the Labour budget, the government has increased taxes on working people - which it now turns out was not required by the economic situation - purely to increase benefits.

It's getting worse, not better.

The UK's future prosperity is looking pretty doubtful at this point.

@strawberrybubblegum

It's getting worse, not better.

I agree. Taxes up, unemployment up, growth down….

Kemi Badenoch’s reply to Rachel Reeves budget summed things up well. The OBR has stated the budget does little for growth.