Given that the Americans are the only ones in NATO with non-ballistic missile delivered nukes (the gravity bombs) responding to a Russian tac nuke without going strategic is... interesting...
Armée de l'air et de l'espace has ASMP-A delivered by Rafale F3.
Ah there you are. I have a question. As I was out on my Apollo Highway (or is it Highway Apollo) this morning I pondered the 18 gears. I use three at most.
When you are proper bicycling do people use each of those for 18 different types of terrain?
Kwarteng on his feet and goes directly into the energy crisis.
EDIT - oh dear, he has described insane £2,500 a year energy bills as "a considerable saving". Which is absolutely isn't, it is cementing into place a price which has doubled vs last winter.
This is the Tories problem. Saying something counter-factual to people's reality. Then sneering at them.
Its a huge saving compared to the figures you were personally bandying about just a few weeks ago.
Expectations management was set by constantly talking about £3.5k to £5k bills.
Great! The price hasn't gone to the moon! But £5k bills was like telling people they would be a £squillion - unpayable. For an awful lot of people, the capped doubling of prices is STILL unpayable.
You expect people to thank the government for doubling their energy bills?
That's why we need to have campaigns around how people can reduce their energy use. There will be very few cases where it will not be possible to find some reductions.
Absolutlely. The incentives are one thing, but people also need to know the sensible responses to those incentives. Otherwise you get people doing things like this; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-61478106
Truro Food Bank manager Simon Fann said: "[We have had] reports of children having upset stomachs, or, in worst cases, food poisoning because some parents are turning their fridges and freezers off overnight."
Now, it's to my professional shame that there are people out there who don't know the best things to do, because my colleages and I really did our best. But as with Covid (it's a germ, do the things we do to stop germs spreading), it's naive to think that public information is unnecessary.
Basically- heat is the thing. Turn the thermostat down, only heat rooms you are using, put on a jumper on.
Upset stomachs and even food poisoning might also be due to supermarkets removing "use by" and "best before" dates from food.
It won't. People intending to buy things like expensive watches have a choice where to buy them if they also travel. May as well take their dollah rather than somewhere else.
Yep! Maybe I’ll buy a watch in London this Christmas.
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
If you take it upon yourself to decide which charities to donate to rather than trusting the government with it, then in your actions you are vindicating Kwarteng's approach of letting people spend more of their own money.
No, I'm not - I am mitigating some of the effects of the massive cuts in public spending that we will see downstream as a result of today's announcements. What it won't do is deliver a better NHS or better schools or better infrastructure.
Massive gamble by Kwarteng with the financial stability of the nation.
If it doesn't come off, all he loses is the next election. The rest of us will be paying for it for at least a couple of decades. The opportunity cost of that money, is it doesn't result in the hoped for growth, will be the ability to invest in infrastructure, energy transition, education, and the rest for the next decade and more.
Oh dear oh dear. Tory Chair of the Treasury Select Committee tears Kwarteng a new one because he hasn't run any of these numbers through the OBR.
EDIT - no, the OBR have actually done the work. And he is refusing to release it.
That's because the OBR report is so damning it's unrealisable.
I seriously expect the IR35 change by itself to lead to a £xbn drop in Employer NI tax take - and I'm working out if it's worth starting an accountancy firm for personal service companies....
Labour are now put in the position where they have to promise to increase taxes at the next election. That's the political trap the Tories have created for them. The deficit created by this tax-cutting is so large that reversing some of these tax cuts, and/or putting up other taxes, is the only credible alternative to a massive round of public spending cuts.
I think it's shockingly reckless by the government - if you want to cut taxes in this way you really need to cut spending to be able to afford to do so - but if we make it to the election without calling in the IMF I can see how the politics can work for Truss and Kwarteng.
For a long time there has been a school of thought that lowering the tax rate will increase the tax take.
I am very interested to be part of a real life experiment to see if this is indeed the case.
Yes, this is a real life experiment of that theory. What's interesting is that bonus plans aren't locked in for another month and the uncapped bonus will undoubtedly increase bonus payments for very many people and may result in overall tax take going up quite significantly from the sector even with the top rate of tax coming down from 47% to 42%.
Remember Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation? OK, he was a comedy caricature of a libertarian. He didn't like government, but at some level he was mature enough to do things responsibly. Mostly.
What we have now is people who don't believe in government and so are treating it as a joke.
I think this is an utter fuck up. Tories know they’ll lose the next election and just spaffing whatever random policy to shore up the base
If it does all go to shit then the Tories will do to Labour what Labour have always previously done to the Tories. Leave office with the country in a mess. It will give a serious challenge to Labour as to what they can do to fix it. Just taxing the rich (their normal approach) would not work and they'd likely have to make cuts.
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
Ah there you are. I have a question. As I was out on my Apollo Highway (or is it Highway Apollo) this morning I pondered the 18 gears. I use three at most.
When you are proper bicycling do people use each of those for 18 different types of terrain?
In the traditional 3-at-front 6-at-back type gear setup, you aren't supposed to use them all -- combinations like outermost front with innermost rear or innermost front with outermost rear aren't good for the chain. For the rest, it depends on the terrain, but if you're anywhere hilly you will likely be wanting both the lowest and the highest gear you've got.
In other news - every social care temp worker and lorry driver will return to using a limited company within weeks. The IR35 changes are going to decimate Employer NI tax take...
Good.
Makes it cheaper to abolish that heinous tax rather than coming up with ever more convulted rules to protect it!
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
Excellent - a shift from the State to the third sector.
The third sector (including cooperatives and membership bodies as well as charities) needs to be a lot bigger anyway
Exactly this. Truss and Kwarteng are running a giant experiment, a test of the ideas of Reynolds, Laffer, Mundell et al with 67m participants. Seen this way, the initial popularity of those ideas don't matter: either the ideas work, or Truss and her allies are toast anyway. https://twitter.com/montie/status/1573238591496634370
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
If you take it upon yourself to decide which charities to donate to rather than trusting the government with it, then in your actions you are vindicating Kwarteng's approach of letting people spend more of their own money.
No, I'm not - I am mitigating some of the effects of the massive cuts in public spending that we will see downstream as a result of today's announcements. What it won't do is deliver a better NHS or better schools or better infrastructure.
If your primary concern is the effect on public spending then the only non-hypocritical action would be to give the money to HMRC and encourage others to do the same.
If you're not in an enterprise zone, then the effects on your business are going to be negative.
History hasn't shown existing business to suffer from enterprise zones, they tend to do better as the nearby zone brings lots of jobs and spending power.
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
Excellent - a shift from the State to the third sector.
I do get the feeling that some Tories miss the days of throwing a few pennies out to the peasants waiting at their gates.
£45 billion of tax cuts. This is biggest tax cutting event since 1972. Barber's "dash for growth" then ended in disaster. That Budget is now known as the worst of modern times. Genuinely, I hope this one works very much better. https://twitter.com/PJTheEconomist/status/1573238871705677824
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
If you take it upon yourself to decide which charities to donate to rather than trusting the government with it, then in your actions you are vindicating Kwarteng's approach of letting people spend more of their own money.
No, I'm not - I am mitigating some of the effects of the massive cuts in public spending that we will see downstream as a result of today's announcements. What it won't do is deliver a better NHS or better schools or better infrastructure.
If your primary concern is the effect on public spending then the only non-hypocritical action would be to give the money to HMRC and encourage others to do the same.
If the government want my money they can tax me. If they would rather make me more wealthy while poor kids go cold and hungry and the NHS falls to bits that is a reflection on their values, not mine.
VAT-free shopping for overseas visitors - I’m looking forward to my family Christmas trip already!
How does this work ?
Do you need to wave an airline ticket in front of the cashier ?
The way it used to work, is that you fill in a form at the retailer, and drop the form into a post box airside at the airport as you leave. The refund is provided a few days later by the retailer, to the card they have on file. If you want a cash refund, join a very long queue and hope your plane is delayed.
anyway great to see some recognition of the REAL victims of this economy, ie anyone earning over £150k, first time buyers who can afford a £425k flat, and bankers who need a bigger bonus. https://twitter.com/gabyhinsliff/status/1573241126378676226
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. 2nd Tory intervention says 'as city minister bankers weren't bothered about bonuses and the markets are very worried about inflation which this makes problematic'
I am sure we will get fawning lickspittle interventions from 2019 mince, but its clear the PM and her cabinet aren't carrying the party with them. As also reported from the briefing given to the '22 immediately before this.
In other news - every social care temp worker and lorry driver will return to using a limited company within weeks. The IR35 changes are going to decimate Employer NI tax take...
Good.
Makes it cheaper to abolish that heinous tax rather than coming up with ever more convulted rules to protect it!
But that doesn't make sense because it isn't being abolished, all that's happened is reopening a tax loophole where some people will avoid paying it. I could now set myself up as a personal service company and take dividends and pay thousands less per year in tax than someone doing an identical job for the same cost of employment.
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
Excellent - a shift from the State to the third sector.
You really think that's going to be a 1:1 shift ? It won't be a fraction of that.
That's emblematic of the real problem with this non-budget. The money being thrown at growth will be (IMO) extremely inefficient in achieving its aim. Which will further fuck the country's finances.
It’s quite a statement of political intent to remove the top rate of income tax and at the same time do nothing for those on benefits, apart from making benefit sanctions more likely. Will be genuinely fascinating to see how - if? - red wall Tories try to sell this to locals. https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1573242231946895360
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
If you take it upon yourself to decide which charities to donate to rather than trusting the government with it, then in your actions you are vindicating Kwarteng's approach of letting people spend more of their own money.
No, I'm not - I am mitigating some of the effects of the massive cuts in public spending that we will see downstream as a result of today's announcements. What it won't do is deliver a better NHS or better schools or better infrastructure.
If your primary concern is the effect on public spending then the only non-hypocritical action would be to give the money to HMRC and encourage others to do the same.
A single donation to HMRC changes nothing. As I say, you go off in search of perceived personal hypocrisies if you want. I will just remain unconvinced that making me or Jacob Rees Mogg even wealthier is going to make this a better country.
For a long time there has been a school of thought that holds that lowering the tax rate will increase the tax take.
I am very interested to be part of a real life experiment to see if this is indeed the case.
Even with these tax cuts the UK will still be a relatively highly taxed economy. I don't know what the right cuts are but I'm sure that paying even more tax would not be the answer. So I'm broadly sympathetic to the direction even if I might disagree with the precise choices.
Fundamentally the government are correct that growth matters more than arguing over where to slice the pie.
Given that the Americans are the only ones in NATO with non-ballistic missile delivered nukes (the gravity bombs) responding to a Russian tac nuke without going strategic is... interesting...
Armée de l'air et de l'espace has ASMP-A delivered by Rafale F3.
Ah there you are. I have a question. As I was out on my Apollo Highway (or is it Highway Apollo) this morning I pondered the 18 gears. I use three at most.
When you are proper bicycling do people use each of those for 18 different types of terrain?
The number of gears isn't that relevant as there is some overlap in the ratios - Shimano 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐀𝐜𝐞 has 12x2 so 24 distinct gears but more importantly has a 401% total gear range.
Cyclists generally produce their best power in a very narrow rpm band - for me it's 92-96rpm so to maximise your peformance you always want to be in that rpm band. Selecting a gear that gets you into that rpm range so you "Dance like Lance" is very important. A 401% range means you can be in that zone over a very wide range of road speeds.
I run 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐀𝐜𝐞 in Full Syncro because my left wrist is fucked from multiple motorbike accidents so that means my 24 speed 12x2 is operated as a virtual 14x1 but, and this is the crucial point, I still have the full 401% gear range.
In summary, find your peak power zone cadence and always use the gear that keeps you spinning it. If you do that then you will be using a very wide selection of your available gears.
In other news - every social care temp worker and lorry driver will return to using a limited company within weeks. The IR35 changes are going to decimate Employer NI tax take...
Good.
Makes it cheaper to abolish that heinous tax rather than coming up with ever more convulted rules to protect it!
But that doesn't make sense because it isn't being abolished, all that's happened is reopening a tax loophole where some people will avoid paying it. I could now set myself up as a personal service company and take dividends and pay thousands less per year in tax than someone doing an identical job for the same cost of employment.
And that is what every social worker and lorry driver agency will be doing come April 5th 2023.
Because it's the easiest and cheapest way of maximising pay and removes whole areas of pain regarding things such as Holiday Pay (which is now a grade A disaster following the recent Bazel supreme court judgement)..
The other thing worth pointing out is that under the old rules HMRC can't actually handle that many IR35 as everyone needs to be done individually. The whole point of the 2017/21 IR35 was to allow HMRC to take 1 case and extrapolate it to the other 5000 contractors working at that end client.
It’s quite a statement of political intent to remove the top rate of income tax and at the same time do nothing for those on benefits, apart from making benefit sanctions more likely. Will be genuinely fascinating to see how - if? - red wall Tories try to sell this to locals. https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1573242231946895360
red wall tory voters equally not keen on benefits (benefit recievers tend to not vote or vote labour still) nor bankers. So its a bit neutral in this respect - I think generally it signals ambition and intent and a clear break from statism conservatism - Not every potential tory voter will agree about all the measures but may agree with the overall ambition of less state taxation
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
Employers NI effectively binned in the enterprise zones. Looks like step one of an attempt to abolish Employers NI (and not replace the revenue).
This can only be paid for by means-testing the state pension, or reducing funding on the NHS.
It's the biggest political change in the country since the privatisations of the 1980s. Huge.
Ah there you are. I have a question. As I was out on my Apollo Highway (or is it Highway Apollo) this morning I pondered the 18 gears. I use three at most.
When you are proper bicycling do people use each of those for 18 different types of terrain?
In the traditional 3-at-front 6-at-back type gear setup, you aren't supposed to use them all -- combinations like outermost front with innermost rear or innermost front with outermost rear aren't good for the chain. For the rest, it depends on the terrain, but if you're anywhere hilly you will likely be wanting both the lowest and the highest gear you've got.
So are the interim gears just there to space out those ones you describe? ie from an engineering perspective there needs to be something there?
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
If you take it upon yourself to decide which charities to donate to rather than trusting the government with it, then in your actions you are vindicating Kwarteng's approach of letting people spend more of their own money.
No, I'm not - I am mitigating some of the effects of the massive cuts in public spending that we will see downstream as a result of today's announcements. What it won't do is deliver a better NHS or better schools or better infrastructure.
If your primary concern is the effect on public spending then the only non-hypocritical action would be to give the money to HMRC and encourage others to do the same.
If the government want my money they can tax me. If they would rather make me more wealthy while poor kids go cold and hungry and the NHS falls to bits that is a reflection on their values, not mine.
They want you to spend your money, which will be taxed. If you'd rather just count your wealth, that's a reflection on your values, not theirs.
Some interesting road and rail upgrades in there. On rail, a commitment to East-West Rail (which ?Shapps? threatened), and Midland Main Line electrification from near Corby to Sheffield.
Billions and billions and billions and billions of pounds of additional borrowing to make rich people richer.
Presumably you'll donate your share straight back to HMRC?
I will increase my charitable contributions. Many others will bank the cash. You can spend hours searching for personal hypocrisies if you like, but the simple fact is that this government is massively increasing borrowing so that rich people can have more money. You may think that will make this a better country. I am sceptical.
If you take it upon yourself to decide which charities to donate to rather than trusting the government with it, then in your actions you are vindicating Kwarteng's approach of letting people spend more of their own money.
No, I'm not - I am mitigating some of the effects of the massive cuts in public spending that we will see downstream as a result of today's announcements. What it won't do is deliver a better NHS or better schools or better infrastructure.
If your primary concern is the effect on public spending then the only non-hypocritical action would be to give the money to HMRC and encourage others to do the same.
Rhetorical whataboutery over an individual's decisions is a pretty damn pathetic defence of irresponsible government policy.
These tax cuts are reminiscent of the Trump tax cuts, they got the US economy growing but ordinary people felt none of the benefits of that growth.
I fear that in order to chase a higher headline rate the Tories have forgotten that people in the middle need to feel as though they are better off than they were last year. I'm not sure that someone earning over £150k counts as middle or a banker now able to get a 10x multiple bonus does either.
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
It got the the point where a consultant temp couldn’t even claim for their own hotel, transport and subsistence costs, making it almost impossible for the genuinely self-employed white-collar consultants to earn a living.
It’s quite a statement of political intent to remove the top rate of income tax and at the same time do nothing for those on benefits, apart from making benefit sanctions more likely. Will be genuinely fascinating to see how - if? - red wall Tories try to sell this to locals. https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1573242231946895360
Shows why Labour lost the red wall, the establishment fantasy that the red wall is a giant Job Centre stuffed with chippy flat cappers grovelling about in the mud.
If you're not in an enterprise zone, then the effects on your business are going to be negative.
History hasn't shown existing business to suffer from enterprise zones, they tend to do better as the nearby zone brings lots of jobs and spending power.
I would guess that will depend on the scale of this program. I'm sceptical; we'll see.
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
i think merging Ni with IT is difficult given that pensions are taxed - Relief on pension savings is only on income tax so if you start taxing pension income with what is effectively NI through a higher merged rate it would be unfair
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
IR35 as it exists now is a real mess after the recent reforms. What it has done is transfer responsibility for Employers NI from the end user to the contractor. The result is that huge numbers of people have just given up and there are now huge shortages of expertise and experience in many sectors of the economy. As long as we have separate tax and NI, some form of IR35 is absolutely necessary but it had become a millstone to businesses.
As you say, what we should do is merge tax and NI as far as the person doing the work is concerned (whether contractor or employee) and then have the end user company paying employers NI in some form on every person working for the company whether contractor or employee. Make it a head count tax rather than specifically an employee tax. Alternatively, you could treat it in the same way we treat VAT - have it levied on the contractor but then automatically added to the invoice as an addition to any dayrate.
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
It got the the point where a consultant temp couldn’t even claim for their own hotel, transport and subsistence costs, making it almost impossible for the genuinely self-employed white-collar consultants to earn a living.
A genuine consultant would have multiple clients and exist outside IR35, a "consultant" working 5 days a week for the same client should pay the proper rate of tax.
Ah there you are. I have a question. As I was out on my Apollo Highway (or is it Highway Apollo) this morning I pondered the 18 gears. I use three at most.
When you are proper bicycling do people use each of those for 18 different types of terrain?
In the traditional 3-at-front 6-at-back type gear setup, you aren't supposed to use them all -- combinations like outermost front with innermost rear or innermost front with outermost rear aren't good for the chain. For the rest, it depends on the terrain, but if you're anywhere hilly you will likely be wanting both the lowest and the highest gear you've got.
The Big-Big position has now be rehabilitated by Tony Martin and other TT specialists. It's an efficiency and therefore power gain because Big-Big minimises the articulation of each chain link and frictional drivetrain losses.
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
Quite.
IR35 has been a huge mess for HMRC. The original intent was sound, but the implementation was a disaster.
Fixing tax rates so there’s no tax benefit from ltd company employment is the only real answer. The problem of course is that this means putting dividend and / or corporation tax rates up & that’s anathema to the capital holding classes.
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
It got the the point where a consultant temp couldn’t even claim for their own hotel, transport and subsistence costs, making it almost impossible for the genuinely self-employed white-collar consultants to earn a living.
A genuine consultant would have multiple clients and exist outside IR35, a "consultant" working 5 days a week for the same client should pay the proper rate of tax.
If he’s working a couple of months for one client, then a couple of months for the next one? That’s how most work, including me when I was a consultant, and they’re being screwed in the UK.
Even if they work several months for one company, they’re taking business risk and have no holiday or benefits of employment.
I also don't see the logic of binning IR35. It existed to ensure people couldn't dodge national insurance, the solution surely has got to be merging NI and income tax rates in a revenue neutral way.
It got the the point where a consultant temp couldn’t even claim for their own hotel, transport and subsistence costs, making it almost impossible for the genuinely self-employed white-collar consultants to earn a living.
The original, real, reasons that IR35 was introduced was
1) lobbying by the big consultancies - who were being undercut by customers buying in individual contractors and 2) by the bizarre way that many areas of government, local and central, din't ban leaving your job on a Friday and returning as a contractor on a Monday.
The later occurred very early n the contractor rush (pre 2000s) in th private sector, but was quickly eliminated by putting a clause in employment contracts which banned the practise.
In other news - every social care temp worker and lorry driver will return to using a limited company within weeks. The IR35 changes are going to decimate Employer NI tax take...
Good.
Makes it cheaper to abolish that heinous tax rather than coming up with ever more convulted rules to protect it!
But that doesn't make sense because it isn't being abolished, all that's happened is reopening a tax loophole where some people will avoid paying it. I could now set myself up as a personal service company and take dividends and pay thousands less per year in tax than someone doing an identical job for the same cost of employment.
Then Parliament should take the next step and abolish or further cut NI and put it taxation on Income Tax or Wealth Taxes or Property Taxes or something else equitable instead.
Yes it's wrong that someone earning one amount pays more than someone else earning a similar amount from different employment, but it's equally completely wrong that someone earning that amount from paid employment pays more tax than someone earning the same amount from non employment means like letting homes.
IR35 didn't solve the problem, it just raised more revenue for the Exchequer. The problem is NI, abolish it.
For a long time there has been a school of thought that lowering the tax rate will increase the tax take.
I am very interested to be part of a real life experiment to see if this is indeed the case.
Yes, this is a real life experiment of that theory. What's interesting is that bonus plans aren't locked in for another month and the uncapped bonus will undoubtedly increase bonus payments for very many people and may result in overall tax take going up quite significantly from the sector even with the top rate of tax coming down from 47% to 42%.
These tax cuts are reminiscent of the Trump tax cuts, they got the US economy growing but ordinary people felt none of the benefits of that growth.
I fear that in order to chase a higher headline rate the Tories have forgotten that people in the middle need to feel as though they are better off than they were last year. I'm not sure that someone earning over £150k counts as middle or a banker now able to get a 10x multiple bonus does either.
£150k puts you in the top 2% of the earnings distribution so no it doesn't count as middle.
Given that the Americans are the only ones in NATO with non-ballistic missile delivered nukes (the gravity bombs) responding to a Russian tac nuke without going strategic is... interesting...
Armée de l'air et de l'espace has ASMP-A delivered by Rafale F3.
Ah there you are. I have a question. As I was out on my Apollo Highway (or is it Highway Apollo) this morning I pondered the 18 gears. I use three at most.
When you are proper bicycling do people use each of those for 18 different types of terrain?
The number of gears isn't that relevant as there is some overlap in the ratios - Shimano 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐀𝐜𝐞 has 12x2 so 24 distinct gears but more importantly has a 401% total gear range.
Cyclists generally produce their best power in a very narrow rpm band - for me it's 92-96rpm so to maximise your peformance you always want to be in that rpm band. Selecting a gear that gets you into that rpm range so you "Dance like Lance" is very important. A 401% range means you can be in that zone over a very wide range of road speeds.
I run 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐀𝐜𝐞 in Full Syncro because my left wrist is fucked from multiple motorbike accidents so that means my 24 speed 12x2 is operated as a virtual 14x1 but, and this is the crucial point, I still have the full 401% gear range.
In summary, find your peak power zone cadence and always use the gear that keeps you spinning it. If you do that then you will be using a very wide selection of your available gears.
Thanks. So no point slogging up the hill in a difficult gear when it sounds as though you want an easier one to keep the motion and aerobic energy going?
In other news - every social care temp worker and lorry driver will return to using a limited company within weeks. The IR35 changes are going to decimate Employer NI tax take...
Good.
Makes it cheaper to abolish that heinous tax rather than coming up with ever more convulted rules to protect it!
But that doesn't make sense because it isn't being abolished, all that's happened is reopening a tax loophole where some people will avoid paying it. I could now set myself up as a personal service company and take dividends and pay thousands less per year in tax than someone doing an identical job for the same cost of employment.
Then Parliament should take the next step and abolish or further cut NI and put it taxation on Income Tax instead.
Yes it's wrong that someone earning one amount pays more than someone else earning a similar amount from different employment, but it's equally completely wrong that someone earning that amount from paid employment pays more tax than someone earning the same amount from non employment means like letting homes.
IR35 didn't solve the problem, it just raised more revenue for the Exchequer. The problem is NI, abolish it.
Yes but that's not what's happening, binning IR35 isn't a precursor to binning employers NI or merging NI and income tax. It's just reopening a tax loophole that was closed for good reason.
Whatever else, all these changes are decisive & help Truss make the case that she is not just continuity Boris Johnson.
I also feel enthused that clearly there is a mood to shake things up, and agree that UK should be targeting higher economic growth.
Is there ever a time when we shouldn't be targeting growth? The previous Conservative administration talked about targeting growth, and the one before that. And the one before that. And they all set up special economic zones too.
For a long time there has been a school of thought that lowering the tax rate will increase the tax take.
I am very interested to be part of a real life experiment to see if this is indeed the case.
Yes, this is a real life experiment of that theory. What's interesting is that bonus plans aren't locked in for another month and the uncapped bonus will undoubtedly increase bonus payments for very many people and may result in overall tax take going up quite significantly from the sector even with the top rate of tax coming down from 47% to 42%.
In other news - every social care temp worker and lorry driver will return to using a limited company within weeks. The IR35 changes are going to decimate Employer NI tax take...
Good.
Makes it cheaper to abolish that heinous tax rather than coming up with ever more convulted rules to protect it!
But that doesn't make sense because it isn't being abolished, all that's happened is reopening a tax loophole where some people will avoid paying it. I could now set myself up as a personal service company and take dividends and pay thousands less per year in tax than someone doing an identical job for the same cost of employment.
Then Parliament should take the next step and abolish or further cut NI and put it taxation on Income Tax instead.
Yes it's wrong that someone earning one amount pays more than someone else earning a similar amount from different employment, but it's equally completely wrong that someone earning that amount from paid employment pays more tax than someone earning the same amount from non employment means like letting homes.
IR35 didn't solve the problem, it just raised more revenue for the Exchequer. The problem is NI, abolish it.
Yes but that's not what's happening, binning IR35 isn't a precursor to binning employers NI or merging NI and income tax. It's just reopening a tax loophole that was closed for good reason.
And boy is it going to be abused now we know HMRC can't actually handle that many old school IR35 investigations...
Could I just point out that the Govt haven’t remotely got an electoral mandate for all this.
Yep.
The democratic deficit, right now, is immense.
We're a loooong way down the rabbit hole. On paper this is the 2019 get Brexit done government with that mandate. In practice we are on the 2nd PM and 4th (yes, 4th!) Chancellor doing a massive u-turn on the economic policies in that manifesto who are trying to claim they are a new government.
Constitutionally none of this is a problem. People vote for MPs not a party or a government. So the MPs once elected can do whatever they like. But this isn't enough - the great failing of the 2017 government was that it was seen to be acting against what people believed they voted for.
So this government needs to be very very careful. The "this isn't what I voted for" genie is out of the bottle. Whilst Brexit was a uniquely divisive issue, this special budget operation is so massive that there are a spread of areas where it can hit people with "what the fuck is this, when did I vote for this?"
Comments
When you are proper bicycling do people use each of those for 18 different types of terrain?
I am very interested to be part of a real life experiment to see if this is indeed the case.
We have had 7 chancellors in 6 years. Bonkers.
Will it be an hour earlier or later next time if Perma-BST gets implemented?
If it doesn't come off, all he loses is the next election. The rest of us will be paying for it for at least a couple of decades.
The opportunity cost of that money, is it doesn't result in the hoped for growth, will be the ability to invest in infrastructure, energy transition, education, and the rest for the next decade and more.
I seriously expect the IR35 change by itself to lead to a £xbn drop in Employer NI tax take - and I'm working out if it's worth starting an accountancy firm for personal service companies....
I think it's shockingly reckless by the government - if you want to cut taxes in this way you really need to cut spending to be able to afford to do so - but if we make it to the election without calling in the IMF I can see how the politics can work for Truss and Kwarteng.
Remember Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation? OK, he was a comedy caricature of a libertarian. He didn't like government, but at some level he was mature enough to do things responsibly. Mostly.
What we have now is people who don't believe in government and so are treating it as a joke.
Which actually means anyone and everyone should be using a PSC because the old rules made it impossible for HMRC to catch people in any real number...
Was 0.5% 18 month ago
Makes it cheaper to abolish that heinous tax rather than coming up with ever more convulted rules to protect it!
The Government will be borrowing money every year going forward....
Con: 32% (no change from 11-12 Sep)
Lab: 40% (-2)
Lib Dem: 9% (-1)
Green: 8% (+1)
Reform UK: 3% (+1)
SNP: 5% (+1)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/09/23/voting-intention-con-32-lab-40-21-22-sep-2022 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1573241877868183552/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PJTheEconomist/status/1573238871705677824
https://twitter.com/JenWilliamsMEN/status/1573239953953284097
Road / Rail upgrades:
https://twitter.com/JenWilliamsMEN/status/1573241268158750720
https://twitter.com/gabyhinsliff/status/1573241126378676226
I am sure we will get fawning lickspittle interventions from 2019 mince, but its clear the PM and her cabinet aren't carrying the party with them. As also reported from the briefing given to the '22 immediately before this.
What's the point? Certainly not after votes
It won't be a fraction of that.
That's emblematic of the real problem with this non-budget. The money being thrown at growth will be (IMO) extremely inefficient in achieving its aim.
Which will further fuck the country's finances.
https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1573242231946895360
Fundamentally the government are correct that growth matters more than arguing over where to slice the pie.
Cyclists generally produce their best power in a very narrow rpm band - for me it's 92-96rpm so to maximise your peformance you always want to be in that rpm band. Selecting a gear that gets you into that rpm range so you "Dance like Lance" is very important. A 401% range means you can be in that zone over a very wide range of road speeds.
I run 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐚 𝐀𝐜𝐞 in Full Syncro because my left wrist is fucked from multiple motorbike accidents so that means my 24 speed 12x2 is operated as a virtual 14x1 but, and this is the crucial point, I still have the full 401% gear range.
In summary, find your peak power zone cadence and always use the gear that keeps you spinning it. If you do that then you will be using a very wide selection of your available gears.
Because it's the easiest and cheapest way of maximising pay and removes whole areas of pain regarding things such as Holiday Pay (which is now a grade A disaster following the recent Bazel supreme court judgement)..
The other thing worth pointing out is that under the old rules HMRC can't actually handle that many IR35 as everyone needs to be done individually. The whole point of the 2017/21 IR35 was to allow HMRC to take 1 case and extrapolate it to the other 5000 contractors working at that end client.
I never thought I'd see MMT implemented by a Conservative government.
This can only be paid for by means-testing the state pension, or reducing funding on the NHS.
It's the biggest political change in the country since the privatisations of the 1980s. Huge.
I fear that in order to chase a higher headline rate the Tories have forgotten that people in the middle need to feel as though they are better off than they were last year. I'm not sure that someone earning over £150k counts as middle or a banker now able to get a 10x multiple bonus does either.
The democratic deficit, right now, is immense.
I'm sceptical; we'll see.
As you say, what we should do is merge tax and NI as far as the person doing the work is concerned (whether contractor or employee) and then have the end user company paying employers NI in some form on every person working for the company whether contractor or employee. Make it a head count tax rather than specifically an employee tax. Alternatively, you could treat it in the same way we treat VAT - have it levied on the contractor but then automatically added to the invoice as an addition to any dayrate.
IR35 has been a huge mess for HMRC. The original intent was sound, but the implementation was a disaster.
Fixing tax rates so there’s no tax benefit from ltd company employment is the only real answer. The problem of course is that this means putting dividend and / or corporation tax rates up & that’s anathema to the capital holding classes.
Even if they work several months for one company, they’re taking business risk and have no holiday or benefits of employment.
1) lobbying by the big consultancies - who were being undercut by customers buying in individual contractors and
2) by the bizarre way that many areas of government, local and central, din't ban leaving your job on a Friday and returning as a contractor on a Monday.
The later occurred very early n the contractor rush (pre 2000s) in th private sector, but was quickly eliminated by putting a clause in employment contracts which banned the practise.
Yes it's wrong that someone earning one amount pays more than someone else earning a similar amount from different employment, but it's equally completely wrong that someone earning that amount from paid employment pays more tax than someone earning the same amount from non employment means like letting homes.
IR35 didn't solve the problem, it just raised more revenue for the Exchequer. The problem is NI, abolish it.
The same as the remaining top rate of income tax?
Con: 32% (no change from 11-12 Sep)
Lab: 40% (-2)
Lib Dem: 9% (-1)
Green: 8% (+1)
Reform UK: 3% (+1)
SNP: 5% (+1)
Also hoping to kiss goodbye to GMT, although happy for the Scots to retain it should they wish to.
If there was, surely Johnson and Sunak would have to vote against this reversal of their policies?
Constitutionally none of this is a problem. People vote for MPs not a party or a government. So the MPs once elected can do whatever they like. But this isn't enough - the great failing of the 2017 government was that it was seen to be acting against what people believed they voted for.
So this government needs to be very very careful. The "this isn't what I voted for" genie is out of the bottle. Whilst Brexit was a uniquely divisive issue, this special budget operation is so massive that there are a spread of areas where it can hit people with "what the fuck is this, when did I vote for this?"