Dave's cuts are going be deep and they will hurt

[FellatioNelson]

I've been hearing this all day on the radio. I can't take the suspense any longer. They are going to affect the lives of 'every one of us'

I feel like a person wincing and clenching my teeth in anticipation of the big fuck-off needle the school nurse is wielding, and I'm next in the queue....

Come on then, what's it going to be?

cedarcottage - we don't pay a particular tax in return for a particular set of services. We pay tax to the state that then provides all state services to everyone.

Riven - do Non-doms OWE it, or is that what they would be liable for if they weren't non-doms?

You do realise that George Osbourne is reading this thread and taking notes don't you? After all, he's only got just over 10 days to come up with some pretty good ideas.

Someone mentioned the EU. Is it still true that we are paying huge sums to subsidise French farmers?

we do pay tax in parts to particular services

NI for hospital and pensions

council tax for roads, police, bins, library, schools

water tax for water to tap and drainage

death duty and capital gains yes agree are different

income tax no idea- general pot

ruckyrunt again that one is worth a thought.

The amalgamating county councils I mean.

That's tax avoidance though Riven so apparently it's OK

cedarcottage, I do know that thank you, but I when I 'spouted off' I was specifically thinking of every time I have met a plumber or a window cleaner who'll do me a deal for cash, a cleaner or hanyman who wants paying in cash because they are a benefit defrauder (who apparently can't find work), a friend who has grabbed the bill at lunch and said 'I'll get that, I'll put it through the company as client entertainment' a friend who built his extension without paying any vat on the materials or the labour because he put them through his business books, .... blah blah, need I carry on?

Look, I'd no doubt do the same if I could! My point is that we get our knickers in a twist about a tiny handful of 'super-rich' supposedly stitching us up, when all around us billions is being lost through tax evasion by ordinary people, thinking they are just a 'harmless' drop in the ocean.

I have always thought that de-crimalising drugs should be thought about very seriously. The stuff sold would be quality tested, it would be taxed, get dealers off the street.

In South America alone the drugs trade is worth $6 billion dollars a year, that is like asking Bill Gates to shut down Microsoft. Tax it and save all the bloody money spent on jailing, tracking and prosecuting dealers.

Just because you could go to the chemist and buy a gram of coke doesn't mean there will be a stampede. Anyone who is shovelling that crap up their nose is indirectly funding many wars anyway. At least let them fund them legally.

The same with the sex trade - legalise it. All workers will be health checked regularly, some things necessary to their prefession will be tax deductible. Maybe I am being naive but if as a business it is subject to the same stringent rules and regulations that other businesses are subject too then it may cut down on people trafficking and the appalling treatment of the girls forced into prostitution.

The law takes money more seriously than lives and that has been proved time and time again.

[ducks to avoid the flaming]

fellationelson - I think you are right - I don't think people equate this type of activity as stealing.

On severla occasiions as a barmaid in the early 80's I was asked to double the amount on the receit - a scowl and I am not getting involved with your business was often left with an empty plate - but i would rather that than colude

No flaming from me on that one, lamplighter and alouiseg bring it on, I say. Yes there will be the inevitable tragic casualties in the first few years, but after a while it will be to everyone's benefit.

People on PAYE have maternity benefits, unemployment benefits,redundancy pay, etc, that the self employed cannot access. Whilst I don't agree with cash in hand deals to avoid paying tax, self employed people get a raw deal in other ways.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on the point of the widespread tax evasion by the self-employed and owner-managed businesses.

The trouble is that HMRC has decided that it is not cost-effective to pursue these cases. And if you look at this on a case-by-case basis, that's undoubtedly true. But just a few prosecutions of self-employed tax evaders would do miracles in the way of 'encouraging' others to pay tax. The IRS in the US don't allow this sort of evasion. Why should we?

I am paid by my employer through PAYE. This means that all of my income is declared to tax. Why should those people who declare their own tax have a free ride?

That's ridiculous to suggest someone not liable to pay a tax is due it. You could just as equally say everyone even in bbenefit sshould pay 50% of their income as tax and therefore idle claimants "owe" 50% of their benefits as tax for the last 20 years.

There is a fundamental principle that the law is respected and that if a tax rate is say 21% then you aren't obliged to cough up 90% or that if you have a single person allowance and claim it you are not a tax evader you are a lawful avoider etc etc. let us not blur th line between perfectly lawful laiming exactly what you're entitled to and what are criminal offences and if anyone wants to take on the self employed risky route which I am in most of us do pay all the tax we're due to pay and we certainlyi don't get a penny if we're off sick, we get no maternity rights of any kind no holiday pay - if you go on holiday you don't eat etc etc .
(Mind you I bought BP shares today and been looking at the price with a nice feeling of comfort all day when time allows so things aren't that bad... but you can all laugh when it goes bust)

Good point Flock

We all do what we can to hold onto as much as we can. I can't blame anyone who will give it a try, unless they are telling blatant lies in order to leech off others. But I get a bit tired of the constant villifying of 'the rich' as though they were a breed of criminal apart from the rest of mankind. If they are taking advantage of a legal loophole, then darn the loophole! If they are acting completely within the law then I'm afraid we must live with it, however jealous we may be.

I could say to cedarcottage to get her facts straight - Scots do pay prescription charges (just less than in England) and only the nursing care element is "free", so it still costs a fortune if you are unfortunate enough to need to go into a nursing home (I know becasue my dad is currently having to look into it for my mum ).

We get "given" a block grant and it is our choice as to how we choose to spend it.

The alternative is to allow the Scots the revenue from the taxes (company and personal) that it raises - including the oil revenues

...but there again, can I be bothered?

strandedatsea I bloody well hope George Osborne is reading it - the more politicians read things like this the better it would be for everyone. At least they could say that a day spent on Mumsnet was genuinely productive, which is more than I can say for me.

ruckyrunt - "we do pay tax in parts to particular services

NI for hospital and pensions

council tax for roads, police, bins, library, schools

water tax for water to tap and drainage

death duty and capital gains yes agree are different

income tax no idea- general pot"

Unforntunatly this is just not true.

Politicians might pretend it is to make a particular tax more palatable, but there is (generally I don't know if there are a few exceptions) no legislative allocation of particular sources of funding to particular projects. NI is not enough to cover Hospitals and pensions. Council tax is not enough to cover roads, police, bins and libraries.

Is there a water tax? I pay a water bill to a private company, I'm not sure if a tax is hidden in something else I pay.

lol at the 2 princes. "who has been guaranteed a well-paid job regardless of any sign of talent or self drive".

Fellatio, it's been proved, I believe, that in the last 20 or more yrs social mobility hasn't increased. It means that the privileged stay privileged, etc etc etc.

I also know lots of people whose very comfortable lifestyle wouldn't change much, even if they had to pay more taxes on their generous incomes.

I'd argue that social mobility pretty much stopped around 1997.

Still don't know who is guaranteed a job regardless of talent or drive though.

Thinking seriously about the burden upon the exchequer of the two princes ... I mean we do still have a tower, don't we?

It may well also be that there have been so many opoortutnities that those at the bottom are simply those with the low IQs and few talents who will stay there.

Once you get full ability to achieve social mobility surely that inevitably happens and if we have reched that point we should be patting ourselves on the back at the lack of mobility because all the cream has risen already... (although I don't agree we have reached that point)

Great Quattro, so every other member of HM Forces is a burden on the exchequer as well?

Afraid I don't agree about merging the county councils. Cornwall is one of the poorest regions in the UK and we get European funding because of that. Cornwall has also recently become a unitary authority scrapping the 6 or 7 district councils we had before, so I think the restructuring has already happened. You have such wide area to cover if you combine Devon and Cornwall let alone adding in Somerset that people would feel divorced from the County Councils. It's bad enough in Cornwall already with everything being run from Truro which is ages away from the Devon/Cornwall borders where my house is.

...and yes, we are paying to subsidise French farmers as we gave up the rebate for reform of the CAP, which Sarkozy has refused to implement. You are also paying for the fonctionnaires in the EU to get an 8% pay rise this year and for their children to go to the European schools specifically for fonctionnaires kids.