Which taxes should Burnham put up?

[Toohotforwork]

It seems pretty clear that in the Autumn we are in for another massive tax rising budget. Starmer has done of the ground work to show what we need to spend and how there isn't any money, I'm sure the "blackholes" were co-ordinated with the new team for messaging. Labour don't have it in them to cut the welfare bill and to be fair the Tories didn't either - so I can't see that changing.

Which taxes would up increase to fund the country properly?

Personally I'd go the easy route and put 1 or 2p on the basic rate of income tax. It would break the manifesto but one short sharp initiative has got to be better than death by a thousand small increases.

I think the care proposals of getting rid of inheritance tax and replacing it with a 10% charge on everyone is very sensible.

Equalising income tax and capital gains tax seems an easy win as well.

Charging for missed appointments will require the nhs to communicate appointments to patients in a timely manner: letters sent out second class over a bank holiday weekend inevitably results in missed appointments

I think also replace student loans with a Graduate Tax. It could save so much admin and be collected through the tax code system. It seems odd that currently the more earn after a degree the less you pay.

Thank you for pointing that out, I didn’t know that!! (That wasn’t sarcastic by the way, I genuinely had no idea 😂).
Hmm. And yes I just want useless sperm donors to be held accountable. I don’t know why it’s just become accepted that they can move on and allow the RP to shoulder the financial burden alone without a second thought. It’s disgusting.

A prime example of inefficiency. How many businesses today communicate via letter? Use text messages and or/email?

I really can’t see workers being happy to keep paying more and more tax, while benefits keep ever increasing.

Round here it is all done online. When you get a letter from the hospital it just pings a text and can read it. It is incredibly easy and prompt Maybe they need to role out that sort of system nationally.

The reason child maintenance isn't taken into account for benefits is because the paying parent would just stop paying and it took too long for the benefits payment to catch up children were being put at risk and being pushed into poverty so they unlinked it

I agree more should be done my ex is currently under an enforcement order he has to pay them they pay me he has still managed to skip months here and there with zero consequences

This I agree with.

The government like to speak encourage us to think of it as a tax but it isn’t at all because your parents can stop you from ever incurring the cost at all. A smaller amount that every graduate pays would be much more acceptable than a system whereby the less you can afford, the more you pay for education.

But unless they vote in MPs who are quite thick skinned. It will always be the case. I imagine it is hard for MPs to hear of hardship in their surgeries knowing that they voted for it. I guess that is why politicians of all stripes struggle to take things away once in power. The Tories weren't any better.

Our postman has said the Royal Mail boss has told them to prioritise parcels over letters so most people here are only getting post about once every 10 -14 days!! So any hospital letters are not getting to us in time anyway. They need a new system coz the postal system isn't working either.

@Theunamedcat i did wonder if it was to do with the reliability of the payer.

and how? Just how has been allowed to just skip months? Imagine if you just decided to ‘skip feeding’ your dc for a few months? You’d be imprisoned for negligence. Sorry for you and the thousands and thousands of others at the mercy of this inefficiency 😭

Letters for those without phones. Text message for those with.

"Published data shows that of 124.5 million outpatient appointments across the NHS in England last year, eight million (6.4%) were not attended by the patient. It is estimated this level of missed appointments has an annual cost to the NHS of £1.2 billion". - NHS England 14.03.24

I am sure much of that money could have been been put to far better use. That's before we even get on to the number of people still waiting for an appointment that could have been seen.

UK needs to rethink benefits.

You could take the whole system out into central control and have CMS payment made to the parents from government as they should with the government then reclaiming the amount from other parent. The government could then either recover at source for payments or use the same debt collection approaches it does for other taxes. It would be far easier for the government to recover the funds than a private individual.

None. They need to stop wasting our money on unnecessary projects and giving it away to all and sundry. Government’s profligacy with taxpayer money is out of control.
According to The Guardian, in the 2024-25 tax year the Public Accounts Committee estimated £6.6 billion was written off in scrapped schemes. And then they have the cheek to take even more from the tax payer.

Scrap the triple lock on pensions.

and the elderly and vulnerable who struggle with text/email but need to use the NHS?

I have not read all suggestions, here are a few of mine.

Start by ending a lot of exemptions instead of putting up rates, before any other changes.

Delay some age related benefits, say until people are 70, things like the winter fuel allowance, bus passes, free prescriptions.
End any temporary reductions that were introduced in times of Covid that remain.
For larger corporations, have a minimum level of corporation tax or turnover tax, regardless of profits. Even at 1% it would raise billions.

CGT if fully indexed, I could get behind. The sensible least-worst would be 1 or 2p on income tax.

But he must, must, must go for growth. Without it everything is zero sum, ungovernable politics and a demographics doom loop.

I’d do massive supply side reform, camouflaged as Manchesterism or whatever he need to sell it, to try to drive down borrowing costs, boost real wages and give the under-50s some optimism back. (I say 50s becuase anyone younger has had most of their working life in the post-2008 doldrums).

Personally I think we should stop attacking people on benefits its doing no good going after poor and disabled people

We need to tighten up our borders we cannot have people being bought in from overseas to work in a kebab shop its not a professional job anyone can do it we need to promote British people for British jobs we dont need to bring nurses from overseas we have ones training here same with drs hire internally first IF there is a shortfall try overseas stop paying people to hang around while we decide if they can stay or not i read the article about the family came here dad worked as an uber driver the visa ran out they applied to stay but of course now he cant work so they put him in a new build house hire security and pay them £289 a week while they decide if they can stay or if they have to go back to Pakistan in those circumstances I would give them a temporary visa so he can still work and process claims faster they are just so SLOW we are wasting time and money on this

We need to negotiate harder with countries refusing to take their people back we need to sort out the France situation better we are paying but people are still dying coming over

Basically stop pontificating bitching and fighting and get on with the job

These governments just seem to like wasting money why spend £5 when you can spend £50

And they all need to attend work its fucking outrageous that they done even need to turn up and vote to get paid if I didn't show up I would be sacked

I don't think you can say all scrapped schemes are a waste of money. Innovation inevitably leads to some failed projects that need to stop. But without innovation you don't make progress. £6.6bn is less than half of one percent of government spending.

Exactly!

Absolutely this. Or at least have a lower couples rate. In my last job I saw many couples where both were on it and getting near on 1k a month between them. Most people use it to pay for cleaners, gardeners etc but a couple don't pay for that twice. The vast majority were not using it to pay for carers either.

Am still fuming about the failed NHS IT project which wasted £10 billion by 2013. It was described as the biggest IT failure ever seen. And then there is HS2…..

Ask people for their preferred method of communication. My dm was 82 when she died and perfectly able to use email, texts etc.