I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
I would 100% support that policy. In fact I've long advocated for that.
So this squealer would not squeal more loudly.
Indeed I've said I'd go further, I'd abolish Council Tax altogether and replace with a new Property Tax like the Americans have which charges a percentage of a home's value per annum. I would also put the burden of paying that tax on the owner of the property, not the tenant.
I appreciate you would not squeal.
You and I have been the most persistent advocates on here on much higher property taxes.
My point is that there are unfairnesses everywhere in the tax system. And the same people may be benefitting from one unfairness while being penalised by another.
The policy is bad not because it is unfair (not even sure it is unfair) but is bad because it creates the wrong economic incentives.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
Yes, but what percentage of parents are actually affected by the cap - 5% perhaps? So the Chancellor is introducing means-testing that costs money but only saves say 5% of the expenditure, for no reason other than to stop a headline about universal childcare also being available to rich people? It’s the Child Benefit argument all over again, but with a smaller niche.
Meanwhile, the 70% marginal tax rates created by the means testing lead to well-paid employees choosing to work part time or not at all.
There’s a need to make these things much simpler, rather than every scheme adding complexity and perverse incentives.
Not to forget that if the policy were universal then there'd be less admin costs too. So its a needlessly more expensive scheme that worsen incentives and creates cliff edges and distortions. 🤦♂️
If you want to tax high earners more, then make that argument and put up tax rates. Don't fiddle around making cliff edges then letting those past the cliff edge off entirely.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
Yes, but apparently people who want these marginal rates fixed are being "repulsive". We're the only country in the world which disincentivises top earners from working full time, we're also a country that has got significant productivity issues. The two go hand in hand.
Agreed. Even if it’s niche it’s not a reason not to sort it
@implausibleblog VD, "One of the reasons the Conservative party can't do what you want them to do, is because of the damage caused by Truss and Kwarteng."
That exchange doesn't read like a car crash at all.
Scroll past.. embittered to the nth degree about Brexit. Never posts rationally.
@SquareRoot: Did you look at the Pension Action Group I mentioned yesterday? The misleading stuff out there about the FAS and PPF is a scandal. I'm sorry you are one of the victims of this.
Fucking hell. Full marks for effort to that driver - fuel dump down the intake to kill the engine. Now go and stencil an MQ-9 on the side of your Flanker.
Hopefully, the usual suspects will stop saying this is "not a priority" now and recognise this is a serious problem.
As @NickPalmer said yesterday, you can (for example) support higher taxation rates overall whilst recognising this cliff edge approach is absolute madness.
Don't dispute the madness angle, at all.
For those with salary sacrifice pension and AVC options, is eligibility on taxable income so one could for a few years simply up pre-tax AVCs to bring post-tax income down below £100k and then, once childcare needs had passed or earning over £134k, revert?
I have a colleague doing something similar for the £50k child benefit cliff edge.* Didn't occur to me when I was at that point.
*that ones less extreme as you're not actually worse off for earning more unless you have a very large number of children, but it's still an eyewatering marginal rate of tax.
In theory, yes, the trouble is that with heavy mortgage, energy and childcare costs - I need the money now. It's not like I have a big surplus to shove into a pension.
So, in reality, I have to suck up a massive tax hit on it and hope I can drive my career through to crawl out the hole the other side.
But, several of my co-directors are simply doing a 4-day week to go under £100k and 'staying at grade' for the next few years whilst their kids are young. Or looking at Australia, Saudi or the UAE.
Sure. But if the choice is reducing hours/not taking a promotion to keep unde £100k versus keeping hours/taking promotion and not increasing take home but giving your pension a good boost, the latter perhaps makes sense (for some - there are also benefits in reducing hours - more time with kids, less need for childcare etc, which could make you better off) and would also leave you, after emerging from the cliff edge, on potentially higher pay with a better pension pot.
The system sucks, not disputing that. Just wondering about the wisest mitigations.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k. The others who get off easily are those living off unearned incomes who don't have to declare their income for a large proportion of modern income tax (ie graduate tax and national insurance).
Those on 100k with children of a very specific age. While I agree it’s a problem, it isn’t as widespread as this implies.
That's me mate.
Would you describe yourself as 'widespread'? Or are you whatever the trim male equivalent of a yummy mummy is?
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
In Epping Forest the LDs have joined up with some Residents' Association councillors and Independents and voted against the Local Plan and the Conservative controlled council's plan for new housing in the area.
The LDs are indeed the most NIMBY of the main parties, more so than the Tories and much more so than Labour. In London the LDs oppose Labour councils local plans and in the Home counties they oppose Conservative councils local plans
That may be the case, young HY. Or maybe not. It could be that the Conservatives are pushing for the detruction of the natural environment by pushing for the construction of masses of expensive mansions that only wealthy outsiders could afford. Everybody ought to be against that, except large housebuilders and speculative bankers, of course.
I have no idea what the Epping Conservatives are proposing, but that is what they are busy doing elsewhere.
Its amusing the cries of the NIMBYs and how we get both extremes simultaneously.
You object to new building as all that is built are "expensive mansions", while Rochdale bemoans that all is built are "shitboxes".
The reality is that what is built are "homes" and that is what the country needs.
If cheap "shitboxes" are built then that's affordable homes for people to live in. If "mansions" are built then that's new homes for people to live in, they can move out of the home they're currently in and people can move up the housing ladder.
Objecting to either is bad. Let people have houses of their own, and if there's enough homes built then people can move up and down the housing ladder depending upon their circumstances and any derelict or shit houses won't be occupied rather than having guaranteed tenants to sweat money from like at present as there's simply not enough houses.
It is, of course, about objecting to whatever is being built.
And for the “shit box” types - who advocated and voted for reductions in the minimum sizes of rooms in houses? In the name of increasing density?
The central mystery is why is it the UK only seems to be able to build McMansions or tower blocks of shoddy rabbit hutches? The street I live on is perfectly unobjectionable 1930s suburbia. It could probably do with being 3-4 stories rather than two, but it's fine to raise a family in and dense enough to be viable. But in general it's exactly what doesn't get built now.
I live in an unobjectionable three storey, 3-bed semi-detached on a new development on the edge of Wye that was built in 2008 on some old MOD land next to the railway line between Canterbury and Ashford (that I think related to the WW1 airfield next door - US pilots trained there after 1917). The houses in the development are a good size ranging from 2 to 5 beds, small gardens though, but there is a communal meadow to make up for that. Always surprised there aren't more developments like it.
@implausibleblog VD, "One of the reasons the Conservative party can't do what you want them to do, is because of the damage caused by Truss and Kwarteng."
That exchange doesn't read like a car crash at all.
Scroll past.. embittered to the nth degree about Brexit. Never posts rationally.
Au contraire. I think most rational people are now pretty embittered about Brexit, however they voted in 2016
No, only the irrational ones. We are where we are and we ain't going back anytime soon. I voted to remain. But it didn't happen and I like most people have adjusted to the realité.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
Yes, but apparently people who want these marginal rates fixed are being "repulsive". We're the only country in the world which disincentivises top earners from working full time, we're also a country that has got significant productivity issues. The two go hand in hand.
Yes – it's not clear to me why this is even considered a political point – the graph shown clearly demonstrates why the new setup is even more bonkers than the old one. It is almost as if Sunak et al haven't realised... nobody in their right mind would deliberately create such a system, right, left or centre.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Water cooled machine guns can fire continuously. Machine guns without water cooling literally become red hot. So modern guns only fire short bursts at intervals
There was a battle in WWI were Vickers guns were used to create a beaten zone for hours. Think it was 12 hours and a million rounds fired….
In Afghanistan, there were, IIRC, people on the front line suggesting that a water-cooled weapon would be useful against human wave attacks.
I wonder if they are using “the tap” - a technique from WWI against infantry assaults. The gunner would be firing continuously from the water cooled machine gun, and give it a nudge at regular intervals to traverse it.
I'm sure. You didn't bother to aim individually in such circs - jus\t kept firing, loading and tapping to create a beaten dead zone. And refilling the barrel, now and then. Certainly for the Vickers sister design.
That is the 1930s-ish Soviet model of Maxim, btw, with the wide water filler to allow snow to be crammed in in lieu of water. Simple genius of practical design.
Not forgetting the barrel changes…
(Remembers CCF Bren)
Don't think a Vickers needed barrel changes nearly so often, once an hour of continuous fire, as a LMG? And that was due to wear? Bren (which IIRC had an asbestos glove as part of the standard field kit) or MG34/MG42 did need a barrel change over far more frequently to cool down.
That was the story I was thinking of. Interesting.
They did also have a long firing period as part of the original trials for the Army, but I forget the details. I have just acquired the Haynes "manual". (Granddad was a MG gunner in the Great War from 1915, bnut in an infantry division so probably the Lewis and possibly Hotchkiss as well.)
There was also a long trial/test when they got rid of the last 303 Vickers IIRC - they expended a whole bunch of ammunition down range.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
Yes, but what percentage of parents are actually affected by the cap - 5% perhaps? So the Chancellor is introducing means-testing that costs money but only saves say 5% of the expenditure, for no reason other than to stop a headline about universal childcare also being available to rich people? It’s the Child Benefit argument all over again, but with a smaller niche.
Meanwhile, the 70% marginal tax rates created by the means testing lead to well-paid employees choosing to work part time or not at all.
There’s a need to make these things much simpler, rather than every scheme adding complexity and perverse incentives.
Not to forget that if the policy were universal then there'd be less admin costs too. So its a needlessly more expensive scheme that worsen incentives and creates cliff edges and distortions. 🤦♂️
If you want to tax high earners more, then make that argument and put up tax rates. Don't fiddle around making cliff edges then letting those past the cliff edge off entirely.
The increasing complexity is really annoying, unless you’re a tax accountant.
As I suggested earlier that there needs to be a zero-based spending review, there really needs to be a zero-based tax review as well.
I’d advocate something like a personal allowance of £18k (full-time on min wage), then a tax rate of 10% to about 60k, then 35% over that. At the same time as cutting central grants to local authorities, and letting council tax increase by the income tax shortfall.
One thing I’ve not seen commentary on, and I know is one of your pet peeves - does the fiscal drag announced yesterday for income tax rates, also apply to Universal Credit payment thresholds?
@implausibleblog VD, "One of the reasons the Conservative party can't do what you want them to do, is because of the damage caused by Truss and Kwarteng."
That exchange doesn't read like a car crash at all.
Scroll past.. embittered to the nth degree about Brexit. Never posts rationally.
Au contraire. I think most rational people are now pretty embittered about Brexit, however they voted in 2016
No, only the irrational ones. We are where we are and we ain't going back anytime soon. I voted to remain. But it didn't happen and I like most people have adjusted to the realité.
Perhaps read the post without putting words in my mouth? People can be embittered without wanting or anticipating rejoining. If you're content with how it has turned out you are irrational almost by definition. No one is happy, however they voted pr how they want things to evolve, how it turned out. If you think that is irrational then polling companies are constantly finding there to be an increasing number of irrational people in this country, a majority.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
I would 100% support that policy. In fact I've long advocated for that.
So this squealer would not squeal more loudly.
Indeed I've said I'd go further, I'd abolish Council Tax altogether and replace with a new Property Tax like the Americans have which charges a percentage of a home's value per annum. I would also put the burden of paying that tax on the owner of the property, not the tenant.
I got my Council Tax bill yesterday, so a double-whammy. £3,000.
FFS.
In the US state of New Jersey, property taxes are 2.26 per cent.
So on a 750 k house, you are paying £16,950.
I don't know why our PB age warriors aren't all over it like, erm, bears on honey. Because the oldies would have to pay up.
Excuse me? I am all over it. 🤚
That would be a much fairer way to generate taxes than sweating those working for a living as we do now with ridiculous cliff-edges, then untaxed income.
Oh and of course on top of the property tax, all property income should be taxed in full at the same rate as all other income.
There are quite a few working people who, if you suddenly increased their taxes by £1k+ a month, would be in the shit. Or are you proposing we drop income tax to compensate?
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in
Guessing at your problem - for those who are asset rich and cash poor we just allow the council tax to be left as a charge on the property to be repaid on the sale of the property.
Again - it's an issue we solved on here years ago...
Also - this is for the UK as a whole. Astonishingly low. And this is when QEII's memory has faded only slightly.
It isn't and we have to remember the late Queen was probably in the top 3 monarchs of the last 500 years, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Victoria (ironically all of them women). Nobody alive today will see as good a monarch as she was in their lifetimes.
Charles will be more of an average monarch, popular with his generation, less so with the youngest but still better than say George IV, Edward VIII or James II.
William and Kate though are popular across the generations and will secure the monarchy for George
But that arsgument of yours is precisely the point I am making - that 55% is a high point, and it is downhill from here.
You are also wrong. William and Kate are more popular than Charles and Camilla so this should be the high point for republicans not monarchists
There are two big reasons why the discussion of Monarchy Yes or No is a waste of time.
Firstly it will for the foreseeable future be better than the actual alternatives. The monarchy doesn't have to run faster than the tiger of the general public. It has to run faster than the idea of President Blair. And it will.
Secondly, who bells the cat? Lots of people will prefer a republic. But. It will never ever be the right time to undertake the massive rows and changes involved. The political capital and risk involved is gigantic Even Jezza would have left it to his successor. So would his successor.
The important debate is how the monarchy is shaped and how it works.
Quite. I think thay is the immediate issue. Yet we are seeing Charles III do things like demand that the royal corporations turn up and give loyal addresses, and hand out Dukedoms here and there while not cancelling them for, er, you know whom. Not exactly modern.
He has simply passed one Dukedom from his deceased father to the Earl of Wessex, who has taken on a lot of extra royal duties after the Sussexes and Duke of York became non working royals.
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
In Epping Forest the LDs have joined up with some Residents' Association councillors and Independents and voted against the Local Plan and the Conservative controlled council's plan for new housing in the area.
The LDs are indeed the most NIMBY of the main parties, more so than the Tories and much more so than Labour. In London the LDs oppose Labour councils local plans and in the Home counties they oppose Conservative councils local plans
That may be the case, young HY. Or maybe not. It could be that the Conservatives are pushing for the detruction of the natural environment by pushing for the construction of masses of expensive mansions that only wealthy outsiders could afford. Everybody ought to be against that, except large housebuilders and speculative bankers, of course.
I have no idea what the Epping Conservatives are proposing, but that is what they are busy doing elsewhere.
Its amusing the cries of the NIMBYs and how we get both extremes simultaneously.
You object to new building as all that is built are "expensive mansions", while Rochdale bemoans that all is built are "shitboxes".
The reality is that what is built are "homes" and that is what the country needs.
If cheap "shitboxes" are built then that's affordable homes for people to live in. If "mansions" are built then that's new homes for people to live in, they can move out of the home they're currently in and people can move up the housing ladder.
Objecting to either is bad. Let people have houses of their own, and if there's enough homes built then people can move up and down the housing ladder depending upon their circumstances and any derelict or shit houses won't be occupied rather than having guaranteed tenants to sweat money from like at present as there's simply not enough houses.
It is, of course, about objecting to whatever is being built.
And for the “shit box” types - who advocated and voted for reductions in the minimum sizes of rooms in houses? In the name of increasing density?
The central mystery is why is it the UK only seems to be able to build McMansions or tower blocks of shoddy rabbit hutches? The street I live on is perfectly unobjectionable 1930s suburbia. It could probably do with being 3-4 stories rather than two, but it's fine to raise a family in and dense enough to be viable. But in general it's exactly what doesn't get built now.
I live in an unobjectionable three storey, 3-bed semi-detached on a new development on the edge of Wye that was built in 2008 on some old MOD land next to the railway line between Canterbury and Ashford (that I think related to the WW1 airfield next door - US pilots trained there after 1917). The houses in the development are a good size ranging from 2 to 5 beds, small gardens though, but there is a communal meadow to make up for that. Always surprised there aren't more developments like it.
Are there not?
I'm always curious where these mythical "shitbox/mansion" homes are that are apparently getting built all over the place, because the overwhelming majority of homes I see built around here are exactly what you describe. Pleasant estates of a range of sized houses but predominantly 3-bed semis. In other words your average and typical British home.
Which is unsurprising really, since that's where the bulk of the market is, so that is where the bulk of homes are built towards, because developers want to sell what they develop.
Seems to me that shitbox/mansion is a pejorative levied by NIMBYs who want to object to anything, rather than grounded in any form of reality.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
Yes, but apparently people who want these marginal rates fixed are being "repulsive". We're the only country in the world which disincentivises top earners from working full time, we're also a country that has got significant productivity issues. The two go hand in hand.
Yes – it's not clear to me why this is even considered a political point – the graph shown clearly demonstrates why the new setup is even more bonkers than the old one. It is almost as if Sunak et al haven't realised... nobody in their right mind would deliberately create such a system, right, left or centre.
Indeed. It's not a left vs right issue. It's just stupid to have randomly fluctuating marginal tax rates like that.
Looks like Murrells mafia in trouble as people in uproar at Banana Republic election, clock is ticking
It is quite remarkable that the candidates for election to Party leader cannot even access the number of Party members. How are they supposed to communicate with them if they don't know who they are?
Suspect there are going to be some interesting revelations when the levers of power are finally prised from the current clique's cold, dead hands.
It seems Peter Murrell's view of democracy is rather akin to that of the Patrician in Ankh-Morpork.
“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
It's surprising they don't just put this in the hands of a third party such as ERS (or Civica is it now?) particularly where there may be whispers shouts of bias.
Seems basic common sense. Even in a small society (staff group) when we had issues with one of the co-chairs apparently hating some members, I insisted (as another co-chair) that we made voting management for committee positions an independent process (overseen by one of the research group administrators not linked with the society in any way) as otherwise it was clearly going to cause upset, whatever the outcome.
Labour have used ERS for their leadership elections, for exactly the reasons stated.
Also - this is for the UK as a whole. Astonishingly low. And this is when QEII's memory has faded only slightly.
It isn't and we have to remember the late Queen was probably in the top 3 monarchs of the last 500 years, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Victoria (ironically all of them women). Nobody alive today will see as good a monarch as she was in their lifetimes.
Charles will be more of an average monarch, popular with his generation, less so with the youngest but still better than say George IV, Edward VIII or James II.
William and Kate though are popular across the generations and will secure the monarchy for George
But that arsgument of yours is precisely the point I am making - that 55% is a high point, and it is downhill from here.
You are also wrong. William and Kate are more popular than Charles and Camilla so this should be the high point for republicans not monarchists
There are two big reasons why the discussion of Monarchy Yes or No is a waste of time.
Firstly it will for the foreseeable future be better than the actual alternatives. The monarchy doesn't have to run faster than the tiger of the general public. It has to run faster than the idea of President Blair. And it will.
Secondly, who bells the cat? Lots of people will prefer a republic. But. It will never ever be the right time to undertake the massive rows and changes involved. The political capital and risk involved is gigantic Even Jezza would have left it to his successor. So would his successor.
The important debate is how the monarchy is shaped and how it works.
Quite. I think thay is the immediate issue. Yet we are seeing Charles III do things like demand that the royal corporations turn up and give loyal addresses, and hand out Dukedoms here and there while not cancelling them for, er, you know whom. Not exactly modern.
He has simply passed one Dukedom from his deceased father to the Earl of Wessex, who has taken on a lot of extra royal duties after the Sussexes and Duke of York became non working royals.
He has not created a new Dukedom
*Technically* he has
Not really - he's lent an existing Dukedom out the most appropriate person to have it until the death of that person.
Given that Prince Edward has been the figurehead of the Duke Of Edinburgh award scheme for decades it does feel appropriate.
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
In Epping Forest the LDs have joined up with some Residents' Association councillors and Independents and voted against the Local Plan and the Conservative controlled council's plan for new housing in the area.
The LDs are indeed the most NIMBY of the main parties, more so than the Tories and much more so than Labour. In London the LDs oppose Labour councils local plans and in the Home counties they oppose Conservative councils local plans
That may be the case, young HY. Or maybe not. It could be that the Conservatives are pushing for the detruction of the natural environment by pushing for the construction of masses of expensive mansions that only wealthy outsiders could afford. Everybody ought to be against that, except large housebuilders and speculative bankers, of course.
I have no idea what the Epping Conservatives are proposing, but that is what they are busy doing elsewhere.
Its amusing the cries of the NIMBYs and how we get both extremes simultaneously.
You object to new building as all that is built are "expensive mansions", while Rochdale bemoans that all is built are "shitboxes".
The reality is that what is built are "homes" and that is what the country needs.
If cheap "shitboxes" are built then that's affordable homes for people to live in. If "mansions" are built then that's new homes for people to live in, they can move out of the home they're currently in and people can move up the housing ladder.
Objecting to either is bad. Let people have houses of their own, and if there's enough homes built then people can move up and down the housing ladder depending upon their circumstances and any derelict or shit houses won't be occupied rather than having guaranteed tenants to sweat money from like at present as there's simply not enough houses.
It is, of course, about objecting to whatever is being built.
And for the “shit box” types - who advocated and voted for reductions in the minimum sizes of rooms in houses? In the name of increasing density?
The central mystery is why is it the UK only seems to be able to build McMansions or tower blocks of shoddy rabbit hutches? The street I live on is perfectly unobjectionable 1930s suburbia. It could probably do with being 3-4 stories rather than two, but it's fine to raise a family in and dense enough to be viable. But in general it's exactly what doesn't get built now.
I live in an unobjectionable three storey, 3-bed semi-detached on a new development on the edge of Wye that was built in 2008 on some old MOD land next to the railway line between Canterbury and Ashford (that I think related to the WW1 airfield next door - US pilots trained there after 1917). The houses in the development are a good size ranging from 2 to 5 beds, small gardens though, but there is a communal meadow to make up for that. Always surprised there aren't more developments like it.
Are there not?
I'm always curious where these mythical "shitbox/mansion" homes are that are apparently getting built all over the place, because the overwhelming majority of homes I see built around here are exactly what you describe. Pleasant estates of a range of sized houses but predominantly 3-bed semis. In other words your average and typical British home.
Which is unsurprising really, since that's where the bulk of the market is, so that is where the bulk of homes are built towards, because developers want to sell what they develop.
Seems to me that shitbox/mansion is a pejorative levied by NIMBYs who want to object to anything, rather than grounded in any form of reality.
Plenty of the battery commuter cages around Edinburgh, believe me.
The budget seems to create a massive IHT loophole where the wealthy can pass down unlimited pension wrapped assets down the generations, where even the income never gets taxed?
Or am I missing something?
I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.
The Conservative Party exists to further the interest of two groups: it's extremely rich friends, from whom it derives its funding; and minted elderly people, in outright possession of expensive houses and with more disposable income than most workers, and their expectant heirs, whom together account for the bulk of the party membership and the core vote.
These are the people who are indulged; the rest of us get half-arsed measures like the childcare reforms (badly underfunded, will take years to bring in, done to make it look as if they care when they don't,) and a shit sandwich (fiscal drag to extract the money to pay for massive tax breaks for the wealthy, and endless inflation-busting hikes in pensions - all paid for out of the ever-diminishing wages of low and middle income workers, rather than from the immense asset wealth of their supporters, which must never be touched.)
This entire Government and the Tory Party itself are both little more than vehicles for a process of managed national decline, in which a shrinking pool of wealth is steadily transferred upwards from the young and the struggling to the old and the rich. It's all they really care about and it's all they're any good at doing.
Yeah this articulates my own thoughts on the Conservative party. The thing is though, that their support is being increasingly concentrated in the over 65 category, and putting in these massive bungs will not really assist their position with younger voters.
This is why people get the wrong end of the stick when the '100k' debate comes up. What the Conservative party is doing is giving massive tax breaks to its asset owning supporters, whilst disproportionately taxing people who work, including those who have high salaries, particularly younger people. The latter group are increasingly seeing that they are getting a bad deal and not voting Conservative, voting Labour instead. The Labour party could ultimately take advantage of a political division between people who work and people who don't.
The politics of this is interesting.
What's actually going on here is electoral coalition building: the Conservatives are trying to bolster their support amongst the 55-64 age group and doing so by making generous pension reforms for the last 10 years of their working lives before they pivot into becoming pensioners themselves. In the 12-18 months before a general election virtually everything is political.
I think Labour fell into a trap by pledging to reverse this today.
That may be true but it's not something I want to vote for. The other measures on full expensing for investment and childcare are enough to just about win me over for now but I think removing the lifetime allowance for pensions is a misstep, they'd have been better off tackling the £100k cliff edge and child benefit taper as both of these are also barriers to full time work. They also need to make pension funds subject to IHT now there's no limit otherwise people can just funnel £60k per year into one and then pass it on tax free. I guarantee that estate planners are rubbing their hands with glee right now.
In the autumn statement the barriers to work need to be further removed and we need to add R&D and infrastructure as expensable categories. That will cost another £6bn per year for both but the economic multiplier will be somewhere around 2.5-3x so after a year or so it becomes revenue neutral.
I also think the £20bn fund should just be generalised and available as matched investment for green energy (including nuclear) having available for just carbon capture means it will either never be spent or just wasted.
If only it had been put into tidal lagoons and electrifying the railways. Sod carbon capture, let's just not generate the damn stuff.
But that would require strange accidents to happen to the many bed-blockers at the DfE and the Department for Energy Security.
A big 'like' for the first sentence but blaming civil servants is too easy. HMG could have made tidal lagoons and rail electrification happen if they had so decided.
If they can push through Rwanda deportations they can push through anything. If they've a mind to.
I’ve not studied myself but have been told by someone who has that salt water is very hard on the turbines - it’s the maintenance/ replacement costs (I think he said 7 years) that are the killer for tidal
Even if the turbines DID only last 7 years (wrong, but...) then the turbines can be readily replaced within a seawall structure that is designed to last 120 years - but probably stands far longer. Those build costs don't need replicating - giving them a far better economic outlook when compared with a nuclear power station designed to last 60 years before it has to be completely demolished and rebuilt (at vast cost - the initial build is three times the cost of an entire lagoon - and that's before you look at the eye-watering costs of decomissioning radioactive derelict facilities....)
There is so much misinformation spread about tidal power. Not difficult to ascertain the source.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
I would 100% support that policy. In fact I've long advocated for that.
So this squealer would not squeal more loudly.
Indeed I've said I'd go further, I'd abolish Council Tax altogether and replace with a new Property Tax like the Americans have which charges a percentage of a home's value per annum. I would also put the burden of paying that tax on the owner of the property, not the tenant.
I got my Council Tax bill yesterday, so a double-whammy. £3,000.
FFS.
In the US state of New Jersey, property taxes are 2.26 per cent.
So on a 750 k house, you are paying £16,950.
I don't know why our PB age warriors aren't all over it like, erm, bears on honey. Because the oldies would have to pay up.
Excuse me? I am all over it. 🤚
That would be a much fairer way to generate taxes than sweating those working for a living as we do now with ridiculous cliff-edges, then untaxed income.
Oh and of course on top of the property tax, all property income should be taxed in full at the same rate as all other income.
There are quite a few working people who, if you suddenly increased their taxes by £1k+ a month, would be in the shit. Or are you proposing we drop income tax to compensate?
Whose taxes would be increased by £1k+ a month on my proposal?
I would make it revenue-neutral to begin with but I'd have no problems at all with seeing property taxes go up and income taxes down. First priority would be removing the cliff-edges and distortions in income tax, before we drop income tax rates though.
Though I've suggested before if people can't afford the tax then a deferral by giving the Exchequer a claim for that percentage of the property to be redeemed when the property is next sold/inherited would be an option. If the Exchequer ends up owning 100% of the property then the property ownership tax would drop to zero.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
I would 100% support that policy. In fact I've long advocated for that.
So this squealer would not squeal more loudly.
Indeed I've said I'd go further, I'd abolish Council Tax altogether and replace with a new Property Tax like the Americans have which charges a percentage of a home's value per annum. I would also put the burden of paying that tax on the owner of the property, not the tenant.
I got my Council Tax bill yesterday, so a double-whammy. £3,000.
FFS.
In the US state of New Jersey, property taxes are 2.26 per cent.
So on a 750 k house, you are paying £16,950.
I don't know why our PB age warriors aren't all over it like, erm, bears on honey. Because the oldies would have to pay up.
Excuse me? I am all over it. 🤚
That would be a much fairer way to generate taxes than sweating those working for a living as we do now with ridiculous cliff-edges, then untaxed income.
Oh and of course on top of the property tax, all property income should be taxed in full at the same rate as all other income.
Whenever the Proportionate Property Tax has been mentioned it's generally had wide support on here. I don't know why there are so many people willing to hold onto the absurdities of the current tax system.
Mathematically it would be trivial to resolve the discontinuities we have in the tax system without it being a huge tax giveaway to the already rich. The problem is purely a political one, which is why all the absurdities were introduced in the first place.
Increasing the headline rates of taxation to make up for removing the discontinuities is much simpler to understand as a tax increase than the stealthy approach of fiddling with allowances and means-testing.
It's why all the thresholds have been frozen for many years instead of simply increasing the percentage rates levied but increasing the thresholds by inflation.
I don't see it as a distributional issue at all. It's a matter of having a stupid tax system for the sake of short term political expediency at the cost of creating perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optimal choices.
(In the same way that not taxing property wealth sufficiently has also created perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optional choices)
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
People's gardens are their own property. Nobody can ever build on your own property without your own consent.
The open space beyond is not. That is someone else's land.
If the open space beyond becomes a new property what's the problem with that? People who live in terraced houses don't even have a garden between their home and the next property.
My compromise is by having zoning for areas that aren't developed. If someone can up with a better compromise, then I would be OK to listen to that. But I don't see any issues at all with land that is not your property getting developed. If you want open space then have that within your perimeters, not outside it.
Because of externalities. Part of the value of your property is view, light etc.
You don’t have an absolute right to build on your property because you need to consider the impact on others rights
But part of the principle of the planning system is that no-one owns a view (I'm simplifying, but only slightly).
Light is a different matter, but the rights to light are not as clear cut as people often imagine.
I agree - but they were just a couple of examples as to why @BartholomewRoberts free for all isn’t workable.
Other people have interests too. They may not override your rights but in a community they need to be considered
Looks like Murrells mafia in trouble as people in uproar at Banana Republic election, clock is ticking
Genuinely bizarre occurrence. The disagreements over policy and factional attacks have been fun but pretty standard stuff, but this?
There are two Scotlands (like most places). One is the progressive, open, friendly and compassionate small country. This Scotland looks the future in the eye, it's young and it's dynamic.
The other Scotland is sectarian, parochial and sclerotic. What happens here is no one else's business, so fuck off, mind your own business and let us stitch things up as we like.
It's not a unique observation that one of the magic tricks of the SNP has been to talk like the first Scotland but act like the second. The leadership election has exposed this, I think, and a lot of people living in the first Scotland are now discovering the existence of the second.
For the sake of balance, of course the real Scotland is somewhere in between and, if I may be controversial to some of my independence-supporting friends, much like England in that respect.
Of particularly controversial if you add also much like most of Western Europe.
Looks like Murrells mafia in trouble as people in uproar at Banana Republic election, clock is ticking
Genuinely bizarre occurrence. The disagreements over policy and factional attacks have been fun but pretty standard stuff, but this?
Shoudl be fun, Regan has given them deadline of 3pm or else she will have press conference. No doubt to announce it is going to the courts. We may be close to them having to get the helicopters in as it comes tumbling down and then it will be every gender for themselves when the shit hits the fan. Shredders will be burnt out by now.
Even if all manner of stuff comes out, Sturgeon will, of course, have no recollection of whether she was told, nor by whom, or when.
Boris the Liar has nothing on her. She has been utterly shameless. Whether she has any reputation left within the year will be interesting to watch.
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
People's gardens are their own property. Nobody can ever build on your own property without your own consent.
The open space beyond is not. That is someone else's land.
If the open space beyond becomes a new property what's the problem with that? People who live in terraced houses don't even have a garden between their home and the next property.
My compromise is by having zoning for areas that aren't developed. If someone can up with a better compromise, then I would be OK to listen to that. But I don't see any issues at all with land that is not your property getting developed. If you want open space then have that within your perimeters, not outside it.
Because of externalities. Part of the value of your property is view, light etc.
You don’t have an absolute right to build on your property because you need to consider the impact on others rights
But part of the principle of the planning system is that no-one owns a view (I'm simplifying, but only slightly).
Light is a different matter, but the rights to light are not as clear cut as people often imagine.
I agree - but they were just a couple of examples as to why @BartholomewRoberts free for all isn’t workable.
Other people have interests too. They may not override your rights but in a community they need to be considered
Why do they?
If there's an externality then we have a tax system for handling externalities.
If its just that it upsets someone, well sorry but stop being a snowflake, you have no right not to be upset.
If its just that it harms someone else's property value - well that's a good thing, its called competition and is something to be encouraged not discouraged.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That's still £6k pa on a £1m house for owner-occupiers.
Good luck on saving your deposit with that policy, when forced sales are predicted to crash the housing market.
£6k pa on a million pound house is a bargain proportionately. Good luck finding a £150k house that only attracts £900 in Council Tax.
If forced sales crash the housing market then the tax would go down proportionately under my proposal. If your million pound house is now only a 500k property, then your tax bill is halved.
Great idea! Crash the housing market and only have half the tax take you were expecting as well! Genius...
"Humza Yousaf's team said they would be happy for the SNP to provide whatever reassurances are required but added that the way in which the ballot is being questioned would be very upsetting for party members."
Really? I mean, really?? Isn't the greater risk that members see the next leader being a stitch up, shorne of democracy? Might they not find that "very upsetting".
I would have thought that Yousef being on the wrong side of this issue might hurt him badly. But hey, this is Scottish politics, so what do I know?
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That's still £6k pa on a £1m house for owner-occupiers.
Good luck on saving your deposit with that policy, when forced sales are predicted to crash the housing market.
£6k pa on a million pound house is a bargain proportionately. Good luck finding a £150k house that only attracts £900 in Council Tax.
If forced sales crash the housing market then the tax would go down proportionately under my proposal. If your million pound house is now only a 500k property, then your tax bill is halved.
Great idea! Crash the housing market and only have half the tax take you were expecting as well! Genius...
Which HMRC would make up at present much of then by not paying out as much for Housing Benefits etc too.
Competition driving down prices is a good thing, and if prices are driven down that may mean lower VAT or duties or property tax or other taxes for HMRC but HMRC just needs to adapt to that.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
I would 100% support that policy. In fact I've long advocated for that.
So this squealer would not squeal more loudly.
Indeed I've said I'd go further, I'd abolish Council Tax altogether and replace with a new Property Tax like the Americans have which charges a percentage of a home's value per annum. I would also put the burden of paying that tax on the owner of the property, not the tenant.
I got my Council Tax bill yesterday, so a double-whammy. £3,000.
FFS.
In the US state of New Jersey, property taxes are 2.26 per cent.
So on a 750 k house, you are paying £16,950.
I don't know why our PB age warriors aren't all over it like, erm, bears on honey. Because the oldies would have to pay up.
Excuse me? I am all over it. 🤚
That would be a much fairer way to generate taxes than sweating those working for a living as we do now with ridiculous cliff-edges, then untaxed income.
Oh and of course on top of the property tax, all property income should be taxed in full at the same rate as all other income.
Whenever the Proportionate Property Tax has been mentioned it's generally had wide support on here. I don't know why there are so many people willing to hold onto the absurdities of the current tax system.
Mathematically it would be trivial to resolve the discontinuities we have in the tax system without it being a huge tax giveaway to the already rich. The problem is purely a political one, which is why all the absurdities were introduced in the first place.
Increasing the headline rates of taxation to make up for removing the discontinuities is much simpler to understand as a tax increase than the stealthy approach of fiddling with allowances and means-testing.
It's why all the thresholds have been frozen for many years instead of simply increasing the percentage rates levied but increasing the thresholds by inflation.
I don't see it as a distributional issue at all. It's a matter of having a stupid tax system for the sake of short term political expediency at the cost of creating perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optimal choices.
(In the same way that not taxing property wealth sufficiently has also created perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optional choices)
The tax system is set up to look more progressive than it is. That's why the moderately rich are punished while the really rich (invisible to the general public but very visible to the political class, especially the Tories) less so. Add in the fact that the public understand headline tax rates but not complex ideas like fiscal drag and you are 99% of the way to explaining why the tax system is such a clusterfuck.
Fucking hell. Full marks for effort to that driver - fuel dump down the intake to kill the engine. Now go and stencil an MQ-9 on the side of your Flanker.
@Casino_Royale RE not being able to affortd salary sacrifice: for a small monthly fee I’ll happily write you a household budget. I have heavy mortgage, energy and childcare costs and earn less than half what you do if you’re concerned about this cap. We survive, you can too.
Looks like Murrells mafia in trouble as people in uproar at Banana Republic election, clock is ticking
It is quite remarkable that the candidates for election to Party leader cannot even access the number of Party members. How are they supposed to communicate with them if they don't know who they are?
Suspect there are going to be some interesting revelations when the levers of power are finally prised from the current clique's cold, dead hands.
It seems Peter Murrell's view of democracy is rather akin to that of the Patrician in Ankh-Morpork.
“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
It's surprising they don't just put this in the hands of a third party such as ERS (or Civica is it now?) particularly where there may be whispers shouts of bias.
Seems basic common sense. Even in a small society (staff group) when we had issues with one of the co-chairs apparently hating some members, I insisted (as another co-chair) that we made voting management for committee positions an independent process (overseen by one of the research group administrators not linked with the society in any way) as otherwise it was clearly going to cause upset, whatever the outcome.
Labour have used ERS for their leadership elections, for exactly the reasons stated.
They all hate each other?
The Tories use ERS (or Civica as it now is) as well.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That's still £6k pa on a £1m house for owner-occupiers.
Good luck on saving your deposit with that policy, when forced sales are predicted to crash the housing market.
£6k pa on a million pound house is a bargain proportionately. Good luck finding a £150k house that only attracts £900 in Council Tax.
If forced sales crash the housing market then the tax would go down proportionately under my proposal. If your million pound house is now only a 500k property, then your tax bill is halved.
Let’s say that the net increase in tax is £4k (assuming £6k property tax less £2k council tax).
Capitalising that at 4% yield is about £100k.
So a lot, but only a 10% correction. I doubt there are many people buying a £1m house with a £100k deposit - they would need income of c. £175k to finance the mortgage
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
Yes, but apparently people who want these marginal rates fixed are being "repulsive". We're the only country in the world which disincentivises top earners from working full time, we're also a country that has got significant productivity issues. The two go hand in hand.
Agreed. Even if it’s niche it’s not a reason not to sort it
I'd say politics is about priorities, and ask why this unfairness is being given such high priority.
Of course, it is because the (mildly) disadvantaged here are well-off, voluble and articulate enough to argue their case.
I personally am more interested in fixing other things. E.g., Council Tax.
@Casino_Royale RE not being able to affortd salary sacrifice: for a small monthly fee I’ll happily write you a household budget. I have heavy mortgage, energy and childcare costs and earn less than half what you do if you’re concerned about this cap. We survive, you can too.
It's well documented that people in high-paid careers have higher living expenses.
(Some of that is genuine, but some of it is the nature of the Jonses you have around you to keep up with. It was amazing how much we didn't spend when surrounded by people studying to become vicars.)
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
The problem is in the short term though, which is already being noticed. Landlords are selling up in their thousands, and there’s a lack of rental properties available. Which increases rents. Which should increase investment into rental property, but isn’t because the asset prices are falling.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
Yes, but apparently people who want these marginal rates fixed are being "repulsive". We're the only country in the world which disincentivises top earners from working full time, we're also a country that has got significant productivity issues. The two go hand in hand.
Agreed. Even if it’s niche it’s not a reason not to sort it
I'd say politics is about priorities, and ask why this unfairness is being given such high priority.
Of course, it is because the (mildly) disadvantaged here are well-off, voluble and articulate enough to argue their case.
I personally am more interested in fixing other things. E.g., Council Tax.
Again, I agree with you, but would counter that the Treasury has sufficient staff to be able to do both things at once.
@Casino_Royale RE not being able to affortd salary sacrifice: for a small monthly fee I’ll happily write you a household budget. I have heavy mortgage, energy and childcare costs and earn less than half what you do if you’re concerned about this cap. We survive, you can too.
It's well documented that people in high-paid careers have higher living expenses.
(Some of that is genuine, but some of it is the nature of the Jonses you have around you to keep up with. It was amazing how much we didn't spend when surrounded by people studying to become vicars.)
A good friend of mine insists on sporadically living extremely frugally for a period of time to avoid the sort of ‘expenses-creep’ you refer to. He insists that it makes him appreciate his relative wealth more.
I admire him, but don’t have the willpower to do the same!
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
The problem is in the short term though, which is already being noticed. Landlords are selling up in their thousands, and there’s a lack of rental properties available. Which increases rents. Which should increase investment into rental property, but isn’t because the asset prices are falling.
The market will find equilibrium, it always does. For every former landlord that vacates the market and sells to a former tenant who now becomes owner-occupier, the demand for the rental sector shrinks.
As the demand for rented properties goes down, and as the asset prices goes down, then the rental rates should fall ultimately too and reach a new equilibrium as a smaller rent, funded to pay a smaller asset price.
Ever escalating asset prices have been partnered with ever-increasing rental prices too for decades.
Also - this is for the UK as a whole. Astonishingly low. And this is when QEII's memory has faded only slightly.
It isn't and we have to remember the late Queen was probably in the top 3 monarchs of the last 500 years, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Victoria (ironically all of them women). Nobody alive today will see as good a monarch as she was in their lifetimes.
Charles will be more of an average monarch, popular with his generation, less so with the youngest but still better than say George IV, Edward VIII or James II.
William and Kate though are popular across the generations and will secure the monarchy for George
But that arsgument of yours is precisely the point I am making - that 55% is a high point, and it is downhill from here.
You are also wrong. William and Kate are more popular than Charles and Camilla so this should be the high point for republicans not monarchists
There are two big reasons why the discussion of Monarchy Yes or No is a waste of time.
Firstly it will for the foreseeable future be better than the actual alternatives. The monarchy doesn't have to run faster than the tiger of the general public. It has to run faster than the idea of President Blair. And it will.
Secondly, who bells the cat? Lots of people will prefer a republic. But. It will never ever be the right time to undertake the massive rows and changes involved. The political capital and risk involved is gigantic Even Jezza would have left it to his successor. So would his successor.
The important debate is how the monarchy is shaped and how it works.
Quite. I think thay is the immediate issue. Yet we are seeing Charles III do things like demand that the royal corporations turn up and give loyal addresses, and hand out Dukedoms here and there while not cancelling them for, er, you know whom. Not exactly modern.
He has simply passed one Dukedom from his deceased father to the Earl of Wessex, who has taken on a lot of extra royal duties after the Sussexes and Duke of York became non working royals.
He has not created a new Dukedom
*Technically* he has
Not really - he's lent an existing Dukedom out the most appropriate person to have it until the death of that person.
Given that Prince Edward has been the figurehead of the Duke Of Edinburgh award scheme for decades it does feel appropriate.
I thought it was the 5th creation of the title (with a remainder to the Monarch). Entirely appropriate - I was just picking up on a technicality that it is a *new* dukedom rather than Prince Philip’s
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
People's gardens are their own property. Nobody can ever build on your own property without your own consent.
The open space beyond is not. That is someone else's land.
If the open space beyond becomes a new property what's the problem with that? People who live in terraced houses don't even have a garden between their home and the next property.
My compromise is by having zoning for areas that aren't developed. If someone can up with a better compromise, then I would be OK to listen to that. But I don't see any issues at all with land that is not your property getting developed. If you want open space then have that within your perimeters, not outside it.
Because of externalities. Part of the value of your property is view, light etc.
You don’t have an absolute right to build on your property because you need to consider the impact on others rights
But part of the principle of the planning system is that no-one owns a view (I'm simplifying, but only slightly).
Light is a different matter, but the rights to light are not as clear cut as people often imagine.
I agree - but they were just a couple of examples as to why @BartholomewRoberts free for all isn’t workable.
Other people have interests too. They may not override your rights but in a community they need to be considered
Why do they?
If there's an externality then we have a tax system for handling externalities.
If its just that it upsets someone, well sorry but stop being a snowflake, you have no right not to be upset.
If its just that it harms someone else's property value - well that's a good thing, its called competition and is something to be encouraged not discouraged.
“Why do other people’s interests need to be considered?”
I believe you have children? Presumably you allow the biggest to take all the smallest toys without intervening because there is no need to consider other people’s interests
FFS. We live in a community. You need to *consider* other people’s interests. It doesn’t mean that you can’t build but it does mean there needs to be dialogue and consensus building. That is *not* a defence of the current balance which is sclerotic
Looks like Murrells mafia in trouble as people in uproar at Banana Republic election, clock is ticking
It is quite remarkable that the candidates for election to Party leader cannot even access the number of Party members. How are they supposed to communicate with them if they don't know who they are?
Suspect there are going to be some interesting revelations when the levers of power are finally prised from the current clique's cold, dead hands.
It seems Peter Murrell's view of democracy is rather akin to that of the Patrician in Ankh-Morpork.
“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
It's surprising they don't just put this in the hands of a third party such as ERS (or Civica is it now?) particularly where there may be whispers shouts of bias.
Seems basic common sense. Even in a small society (staff group) when we had issues with one of the co-chairs apparently hating some members, I insisted (as another co-chair) that we made voting management for committee positions an independent process (overseen by one of the research group administrators not linked with the society in any way) as otherwise it was clearly going to cause upset, whatever the outcome.
Labour have used ERS for their leadership elections, for exactly the reasons stated.
They all hate each other?
The Tories use ERS (or Civica as it now is) as well.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That's still £6k pa on a £1m house for owner-occupiers.
Good luck on saving your deposit with that policy, when forced sales are predicted to crash the housing market.
£6k pa on a million pound house is a bargain proportionately. Good luck finding a £150k house that only attracts £900 in Council Tax.
If forced sales crash the housing market then the tax would go down proportionately under my proposal. If your million pound house is now only a 500k property, then your tax bill is halved.
Let’s say that the net increase in tax is £4k (assuming £6k property tax less £2k council tax).
Capitalising that at 4% yield is about £100k.
So a lot, but only a 10% correction. I doubt there are many people buying a £1m house with a £100k deposit - they would need income of c. £175k to finance the mortgage
Don't forget in my proposal the proposed annual property tax replaces both stamp duty and Council tax.
A £1m property attracts £41.5k in Stamp Duty too and that is money that needs to be paid up-front on top of the deposit rather than amortised over the years lived in the property.
More tax paid annually over the years living in the property would increase on-going costs, sure, but would lower up-front costs expecting everything to be paid all at once.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
Rental yield is about 5.5%
Less the 3% you are demanding gives 2.5% before tax
With a 100% equity ownership you are getting a lot of head ache and risk for less than you can get in a bank.
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
I would 100% support that policy. In fact I've long advocated for that.
So this squealer would not squeal more loudly.
Indeed I've said I'd go further, I'd abolish Council Tax altogether and replace with a new Property Tax like the Americans have which charges a percentage of a home's value per annum. I would also put the burden of paying that tax on the owner of the property, not the tenant.
I got my Council Tax bill yesterday, so a double-whammy. £3,000.
FFS.
In the US state of New Jersey, property taxes are 2.26 per cent.
So on a 750 k house, you are paying £16,950.
I don't know why our PB age warriors aren't all over it like, erm, bears on honey. Because the oldies would have to pay up.
Excuse me? I am all over it. 🤚
That would be a much fairer way to generate taxes than sweating those working for a living as we do now with ridiculous cliff-edges, then untaxed income.
Oh and of course on top of the property tax, all property income should be taxed in full at the same rate as all other income.
Whenever the Proportionate Property Tax has been mentioned it's generally had wide support on here. I don't know why there are so many people willing to hold onto the absurdities of the current tax system.
Mathematically it would be trivial to resolve the discontinuities we have in the tax system without it being a huge tax giveaway to the already rich. The problem is purely a political one, which is why all the absurdities were introduced in the first place.
Increasing the headline rates of taxation to make up for removing the discontinuities is much simpler to understand as a tax increase than the stealthy approach of fiddling with allowances and means-testing.
It's why all the thresholds have been frozen for many years instead of simply increasing the percentage rates levied but increasing the thresholds by inflation.
I don't see it as a distributional issue at all. It's a matter of having a stupid tax system for the sake of short term political expediency at the cost of creating perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optimal choices.
(In the same way that not taxing property wealth sufficiently has also created perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optional choices)
Surely it's something that would have to be introduced by a newly-elected government with it as a manifesto policy to make it politically possible.
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
People's gardens are their own property. Nobody can ever build on your own property without your own consent.
The open space beyond is not. That is someone else's land.
If the open space beyond becomes a new property what's the problem with that? People who live in terraced houses don't even have a garden between their home and the next property.
My compromise is by having zoning for areas that aren't developed. If someone can up with a better compromise, then I would be OK to listen to that. But I don't see any issues at all with land that is not your property getting developed. If you want open space then have that within your perimeters, not outside it.
Because of externalities. Part of the value of your property is view, light etc.
You don’t have an absolute right to build on your property because you need to consider the impact on others rights
But part of the principle of the planning system is that no-one owns a view (I'm simplifying, but only slightly).
Light is a different matter, but the rights to light are not as clear cut as people often imagine.
I agree - but they were just a couple of examples as to why @BartholomewRoberts free for all isn’t workable.
Other people have interests too. They may not override your rights but in a community they need to be considered
Why do they?
If there's an externality then we have a tax system for handling externalities.
If its just that it upsets someone, well sorry but stop being a snowflake, you have no right not to be upset.
If its just that it harms someone else's property value - well that's a good thing, its called competition and is something to be encouraged not discouraged.
“Why do other people’s interests need to be considered?”
I believe you have children? Presumably you allow the biggest to take all the smallest toys without intervening because there is no need to consider other people’s interests
FFS. We live in a community. You need to *consider* other people’s interests. It doesn’t mean that you can’t build but it does mean there needs to be dialogue and consensus building. That is *not* a defence of the current balance which is sclerotic
Yours is a good example as to why my proposal is better.
Letting the biggest take all the toys is what our current planning system does.
Children growing into adults can't get their own toys/houses without the permission of their elder siblings/generation who already have their own toys/houses.
If I want to buy my youngest a toy I don't ask their elder sibling permission to do so. Similarly if a young adult wants to buy a property they shouldn't need anyone else's permission to do so.
Fucking hell. Full marks for effort to that driver - fuel dump down the intake to kill the engine. Now go and stencil an MQ-9 on the side of your Flanker.
The end of the video appears to show a bent rotor blade.
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
He sounds like the Vicar of Bray, doesn’t he? “To teach my flock, I never missed kings were by God appointed and lost was he who dared resist and touch the Lord’s anointed! “
The thing about the 1953 coronation, I think, was that it was that it was a big party, following on from the very successful Festival of Britain. It marked an end to the austerity of the 40s.
This year’s coronation won’t mark an end to the tough times!
Also - this is for the UK as a whole. Astonishingly low. And this is when QEII's memory has faded only slightly.
It isn't and we have to remember the late Queen was probably in the top 3 monarchs of the last 500 years, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Victoria (ironically all of them women). Nobody alive today will see as good a monarch as she was in their lifetimes.
Charles will be more of an average monarch, popular with his generation, less so with the youngest but still better than say George IV, Edward VIII or James II.
William and Kate though are popular across the generations and will secure the monarchy for George
But that arsgument of yours is precisely the point I am making - that 55% is a high point, and it is downhill from here.
You are also wrong. William and Kate are more popular than Charles and Camilla so this should be the high point for republicans not monarchists
There are two big reasons why the discussion of Monarchy Yes or No is a waste of time.
Firstly it will for the foreseeable future be better than the actual alternatives. The monarchy doesn't have to run faster than the tiger of the general public. It has to run faster than the idea of President Blair. And it will.
Secondly, who bells the cat? Lots of people will prefer a republic. But. It will never ever be the right time to undertake the massive rows and changes involved. The political capital and risk involved is gigantic Even Jezza would have left it to his successor. So would his successor.
The important debate is how the monarchy is shaped and how it works.
Quite. I think thay is the immediate issue. Yet we are seeing Charles III do things like demand that the royal corporations turn up and give loyal addresses, and hand out Dukedoms here and there while not cancelling them for, er, you know whom. Not exactly modern.
He has simply passed one Dukedom from his deceased father to the Earl of Wessex, who has taken on a lot of extra royal duties after the Sussexes and Duke of York became non working royals.
He has not created a new Dukedom
*Technically* he has
Not really - he's lent an existing Dukedom out the most appropriate person to have it until the death of that person.
Given that Prince Edward has been the figurehead of the Duke Of Edinburgh award scheme for decades it does feel appropriate.
I thought it was the 5th creation of the title (with a remainder to the Monarch). Entirely appropriate - I was just picking up on a technicality that it is a *new* dukedom rather than Prince Philip’s
@implausibleblog VD, "One of the reasons the Conservative party can't do what you want them to do, is because of the damage caused by Truss and Kwarteng."
That exchange doesn't read like a car crash at all.
Scroll past.. embittered to the nth degree about Brexit. Never posts rationally.
Au contraire. I think most rational people are now pretty embittered about Brexit, however they voted in 2016
No, only the irrational ones. We are where we are and we ain't going back anytime soon. I voted to remain. But it didn't happen and I like most people have adjusted to the realité.
Perhaps read the post without putting words in my mouth? People can be embittered without wanting or anticipating rejoining. If you're content with how it has turned out you are irrational almost by definition. No one is happy, however they voted pr how they want things to evolve, how it turned out. If you think that is irrational then polling companies are constantly finding there to be an increasing number of irrational people in this country, a majority.
I don't think the polls are expressing emotion in that sense. People might think it was a mistake but they are not as obsessed by it as Scott XP. They have bills to pay mouths to feed.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
Rental yield is about 5.5%
Less the 3% you are demanding gives 2.5% before tax
With a 100% equity ownership you are getting a lot of head ache and risk for less than you can get in a bank.
Good.
Professional investors who want a steady and reliable form of income, with an asset to back it up, can continue to invest. As happens around the globe where property taxes are higher and the rental market still operates just fine.
Parasites who want to fleece tenants to pay their mortgage for them rather than paying it themselves? Oh well, good riddance to them.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That's still £6k pa on a £1m house for owner-occupiers.
Good luck on saving your deposit with that policy, when forced sales are predicted to crash the housing market.
£6k pa on a million pound house is a bargain proportionately. Good luck finding a £150k house that only attracts £900 in Council Tax.
If forced sales crash the housing market then the tax would go down proportionately under my proposal. If your million pound house is now only a 500k property, then your tax bill is halved.
Let’s say that the net increase in tax is £4k (assuming £6k property tax less £2k council tax).
Capitalising that at 4% yield is about £100k.
So a lot, but only a 10% correction. I doubt there are many people buying a £1m house with a £100k deposit - they would need income of c. £175k to finance the mortgage
Don't forget in my proposal the proposed annual property tax replaces both stamp duty and Council tax.
A £1m property attracts £41.5k in Stamp Duty too and that is money that needs to be paid up-front on top of the deposit rather than amortised over the years lived in the property.
More tax paid annually over the years living in the property would increase on-going costs, sure, but would lower up-front costs expecting everything to be paid all at once.
I think your rates are too high, but I’m basically supportive of the concept.
Stamp duty needs to be paid at the time of purchase and is difficult to finance.
My post was intended to add maths to belie @MarqueeMark ’s post
Also - this is for the UK as a whole. Astonishingly low. And this is when QEII's memory has faded only slightly.
It isn't and we have to remember the late Queen was probably in the top 3 monarchs of the last 500 years, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Victoria (ironically all of them women). Nobody alive today will see as good a monarch as she was in their lifetimes.
Charles will be more of an average monarch, popular with his generation, less so with the youngest but still better than say George IV, Edward VIII or James II.
William and Kate though are popular across the generations and will secure the monarchy for George
But that arsgument of yours is precisely the point I am making - that 55% is a high point, and it is downhill from here.
You are also wrong. William and Kate are more popular than Charles and Camilla so this should be the high point for republicans not monarchists
There are two big reasons why the discussion of Monarchy Yes or No is a waste of time.
Firstly it will for the foreseeable future be better than the actual alternatives. The monarchy doesn't have to run faster than the tiger of the general public. It has to run faster than the idea of President Blair. And it will.
Secondly, who bells the cat? Lots of people will prefer a republic. But. It will never ever be the right time to undertake the massive rows and changes involved. The political capital and risk involved is gigantic Even Jezza would have left it to his successor. So would his successor.
The important debate is how the monarchy is shaped and how it works.
Quite. I think thay is the immediate issue. Yet we are seeing Charles III do things like demand that the royal corporations turn up and give loyal addresses, and hand out Dukedoms here and there while not cancelling them for, er, you know whom. Not exactly modern.
He has simply passed one Dukedom from his deceased father to the Earl of Wessex, who has taken on a lot of extra royal duties after the Sussexes and Duke of York became non working royals.
He has not created a new Dukedom
*Technically* he has
Not really - he's lent an existing Dukedom out the most appropriate person to have it until the death of that person.
Given that Prince Edward has been the figurehead of the Duke Of Edinburgh award scheme for decades it does feel appropriate.
I thought it was the 5th creation of the title (with a remainder to the Monarch). Entirely appropriate - I was just picking up on a technicality that it is a *new* dukedom rather than Prince Philip’s
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
We had the only TV in our road, a very small black and white one, but we also had a large Victorian house which hosted the street all day
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
The problem is in the short term though, which is already being noticed. Landlords are selling up in their thousands, and there’s a lack of rental properties available. Which increases rents. Which should increase investment into rental property, but isn’t because the asset prices are falling.
The market will find equilibrium, it always does. For every former landlord that vacates the market and sells to a former tenant who now becomes owner-occupier, the demand for the rental sector shrinks.
As the demand for rented properties goes down, and as the asset prices goes down, then the rental rates should fall ultimately too and reach a new equilibrium as a smaller rent, funded to pay a smaller asset price.
Ever escalating asset prices have been partnered with ever-increasing rental prices too for decades.
The market will find equibrium in the medium term, as it always does. The problem is in the short term, where in many areas it’s now impossible to find property to rent at anything close to the price of only a couple of years ago.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That's still £6k pa on a £1m house for owner-occupiers.
Good luck on saving your deposit with that policy, when forced sales are predicted to crash the housing market.
£6k pa on a million pound house is a bargain proportionately. Good luck finding a £150k house that only attracts £900 in Council Tax.
If forced sales crash the housing market then the tax would go down proportionately under my proposal. If your million pound house is now only a 500k property, then your tax bill is halved.
Let’s say that the net increase in tax is £4k (assuming £6k property tax less £2k council tax).
Capitalising that at 4% yield is about £100k.
So a lot, but only a 10% correction. I doubt there are many people buying a £1m house with a £100k deposit - they would need income of c. £175k to finance the mortgage
Don't forget in my proposal the proposed annual property tax replaces both stamp duty and Council tax.
A £1m property attracts £41.5k in Stamp Duty too and that is money that needs to be paid up-front on top of the deposit rather than amortised over the years lived in the property.
More tax paid annually over the years living in the property would increase on-going costs, sure, but would lower up-front costs expecting everything to be paid all at once.
We should look at how it impacts the average property owner. What is the average Council Tax band? C?
As it happens I just bought a Band C property. Council Tax this year is £1850. I paid £410k which incurred £8k stamp duty. Let's assume I stay here for 10 years to keep the maths simple and spread the cost, that would make my effective property charge £2650 which is equivalent to a mere 0.65% annual tax on property value. So even an annual charge of 1% levied on all property would mean a significant rebalancing of taxation, if it was 2% that would actually be very siginficant and would give a lot of scope for changes elsewhere.
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
He sounds like the Vicar of Bray, doesn’t he? “To teach my flock, I never missed kings were by God appointed and lost was he who dared resist and touch the Lord’s anointed! “
The thing about the 1953 coronation, I think, was that it was that it was a big party, following on from the very successful Festival of Britain. It marked an end to the austerity of the 40s.
This year’s coronation won’t mark an end to the tough times!
He really does and of course we have the benefit of actually living through it
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
People's gardens are their own property. Nobody can ever build on your own property without your own consent.
The open space beyond is not. That is someone else's land.
If the open space beyond becomes a new property what's the problem with that? People who live in terraced houses don't even have a garden between their home and the next property.
My compromise is by having zoning for areas that aren't developed. If someone can up with a better compromise, then I would be OK to listen to that. But I don't see any issues at all with land that is not your property getting developed. If you want open space then have that within your perimeters, not outside it.
Because of externalities. Part of the value of your property is view, light etc.
You don’t have an absolute right to build on your property because you need to consider the impact on others rights
But part of the principle of the planning system is that no-one owns a view (I'm simplifying, but only slightly).
Light is a different matter, but the rights to light are not as clear cut as people often imagine.
I agree - but they were just a couple of examples as to why @BartholomewRoberts free for all isn’t workable.
Other people have interests too. They may not override your rights but in a community they need to be considered
Why do they?
If there's an externality then we have a tax system for handling externalities.
If its just that it upsets someone, well sorry but stop being a snowflake, you have no right not to be upset.
If its just that it harms someone else's property value - well that's a good thing, its called competition and is something to be encouraged not discouraged.
“Why do other people’s interests need to be considered?”
I believe you have children? Presumably you allow the biggest to take all the smallest toys without intervening because there is no need to consider other people’s interests
FFS. We live in a community. You need to *consider* other people’s interests. It doesn’t mean that you can’t build but it does mean there needs to be dialogue and consensus building. That is *not* a defence of the current balance which is sclerotic
Yours is a good example as to why my proposal is better.
Letting the biggest take all the toys is what our current planning system does.
Children growing into adults can't get their own toys/houses without the permission of their elder siblings/generation who already have their own toys/houses.
If I want to buy my youngest a toy I don't ask their elder sibling permission to do so. Similarly if a young adult wants to buy a property they shouldn't need anyone else's permission to do so.
A free for all will get exploited by developers not the upstanding freemen and women that you posit
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
The problem is in the short term though, which is already being noticed. Landlords are selling up in their thousands, and there’s a lack of rental properties available. Which increases rents. Which should increase investment into rental property, but isn’t because the asset prices are falling.
The market will find equilibrium, it always does. For every former landlord that vacates the market and sells to a former tenant who now becomes owner-occupier, the demand for the rental sector shrinks.
As the demand for rented properties goes down, and as the asset prices goes down, then the rental rates should fall ultimately too and reach a new equilibrium as a smaller rent, funded to pay a smaller asset price.
Ever escalating asset prices have been partnered with ever-increasing rental prices too for decades.
The market will find equibrium in the medium term, as it always does. The problem is in the short term, where in many areas it’s now impossible to find property to rent at anything close to the price of only a couple of years ago.
Its not just impossible to do that now, it was impossible to do that last year, or the year before that, or three years ago too. Ever escalating house prices have continually lifted the rental prices too even before the recent changes in the market.
I'm not sure when the last time was that it was possible to find property to rent at anything close to the price of only a couple of years ago.
What we're undergoing now is a long overdue correction. Corrections are difficult, but absolutely necessary.
Also - this is for the UK as a whole. Astonishingly low. And this is when QEII's memory has faded only slightly.
It isn't and we have to remember the late Queen was probably in the top 3 monarchs of the last 500 years, along with Queen Elizabeth I and Victoria (ironically all of them women). Nobody alive today will see as good a monarch as she was in their lifetimes.
Charles will be more of an average monarch, popular with his generation, less so with the youngest but still better than say George IV, Edward VIII or James II.
William and Kate though are popular across the generations and will secure the monarchy for George
But that arsgument of yours is precisely the point I am making - that 55% is a high point, and it is downhill from here.
You are also wrong. William and Kate are more popular than Charles and Camilla so this should be the high point for republicans not monarchists
There are two big reasons why the discussion of Monarchy Yes or No is a waste of time.
Firstly it will for the foreseeable future be better than the actual alternatives. The monarchy doesn't have to run faster than the tiger of the general public. It has to run faster than the idea of President Blair. And it will.
Secondly, who bells the cat? Lots of people will prefer a republic. But. It will never ever be the right time to undertake the massive rows and changes involved. The political capital and risk involved is gigantic Even Jezza would have left it to his successor. So would his successor.
The important debate is how the monarchy is shaped and how it works.
Quite. I think thay is the immediate issue. Yet we are seeing Charles III do things like demand that the royal corporations turn up and give loyal addresses, and hand out Dukedoms here and there while not cancelling them for, er, you know whom. Not exactly modern.
He has simply passed one Dukedom from his deceased father to the Earl of Wessex, who has taken on a lot of extra royal duties after the Sussexes and Duke of York became non working royals.
He has not created a new Dukedom
*Technically* he has
Not really - he's lent an existing Dukedom out the most appropriate person to have it until the death of that person.
Given that Prince Edward has been the figurehead of the Duke Of Edinburgh award scheme for decades it does feel appropriate.
I thought it was the 5th creation of the title (with a remainder to the Monarch). Entirely appropriate - I was just picking up on a technicality that it is a *new* dukedom rather than Prince Philip’s
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
People's gardens are their own property. Nobody can ever build on your own property without your own consent.
The open space beyond is not. That is someone else's land.
If the open space beyond becomes a new property what's the problem with that? People who live in terraced houses don't even have a garden between their home and the next property.
My compromise is by having zoning for areas that aren't developed. If someone can up with a better compromise, then I would be OK to listen to that. But I don't see any issues at all with land that is not your property getting developed. If you want open space then have that within your perimeters, not outside it.
Because of externalities. Part of the value of your property is view, light etc.
You don’t have an absolute right to build on your property because you need to consider the impact on others rights
But part of the principle of the planning system is that no-one owns a view (I'm simplifying, but only slightly).
Light is a different matter, but the rights to light are not as clear cut as people often imagine.
I agree - but they were just a couple of examples as to why @BartholomewRoberts free for all isn’t workable.
Other people have interests too. They may not override your rights but in a community they need to be considered
Why do they?
If there's an externality then we have a tax system for handling externalities.
If its just that it upsets someone, well sorry but stop being a snowflake, you have no right not to be upset.
If its just that it harms someone else's property value - well that's a good thing, its called competition and is something to be encouraged not discouraged.
“Why do other people’s interests need to be considered?”
I believe you have children? Presumably you allow the biggest to take all the smallest toys without intervening because there is no need to consider other people’s interests
FFS. We live in a community. You need to *consider* other people’s interests. It doesn’t mean that you can’t build but it does mean there needs to be dialogue and consensus building. That is *not* a defence of the current balance which is sclerotic
Yours is a good example as to why my proposal is better.
Letting the biggest take all the toys is what our current planning system does.
Children growing into adults can't get their own toys/houses without the permission of their elder siblings/generation who already have their own toys/houses.
If I want to buy my youngest a toy I don't ask their elder sibling permission to do so. Similarly if a young adult wants to buy a property they shouldn't need anyone else's permission to do so.
A free for all will get exploited by developers not the upstanding freemen and women that you posit
A free for all will take the power away from developers, as anyone who wants to can become a developer, instead of only the current oligopoly that have the army of lawyers and patience to bank land and take on the Councils and NIMBYs to the point of having permission.
Any bad developers would be put out of business in a free for all, since they'd find themselves holding developments without consumers as better developers out compete them.
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King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
We had the only TV in our road, a very small black and white one, but we also had a large Victorian house which hosted the street all day
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
Unlike you I actually have a historical context and understand that the monarchy does not begin and end with the late Queen. Yes she was a top rank monarch, Charles is more average but we have had some pretty awful monarchs too from James II to George IV to Edward VIII and the monarchy has adapted and survived.
Charles will hold the fort, make a few reforms and then retire to Highgrove with Camilla before the more popular and younger and more glamorous William and Kate take over
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
We had the only TV in our road, a very small black and white one, but we also had a large Victorian house which hosted the street all day
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
Unlike you I actually have a historical context and understand that the monarchy does not begin and end with the late Queen. Yes she was a top rank monarch, Charles is more average but we have had some pretty awful monarchs too from James II to George IV to Edward VIII and the monarchy has adapted and survived.
Charles will hold the fort, make a few reforms and then retire to Highgrove with Camilla before the more popular and younger and more glamorous William and Kate take over
You forget Charles, the first, who arrogantly believed in the divine right of kings, and got his head chopped off for his pains!
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
We had the only TV in our road, a very small black and white one, but we also had a large Victorian house which hosted the street all day
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
Unlike you I actually have a historical context and understand that the monarchy does not begin and end with the late Queen. Yes she was a top rank monarch, Charles is more average but we have had some pretty awful monarchs too from James II to George IV to Edward VIII and the monarchy has adapted and survived.
Charles will hold the fort, make a few reforms and then retire to Highgrove with Camilla before the more popular and younger and more glamorous William and Kate take over
You forget Charles, the first, who arrogantly believed in the divine right of kings, and got his head chopped off for his pains!
Charles I was devout and committed to his duties, just moving the Church of England too much towards Popery for Puritans and too keen on raising tax for wars. He wasn't a top rank monarch by any means but he wasn't the worst monarch we have had either and arguably better than Cromwell was as Lord Protector, hence the restoration of his son in 1660
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
We had the only TV in our road, a very small black and white one, but we also had a large Victorian house which hosted the street all day
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
Unlike you I actually have a historical context and understand that the monarchy does not begin and end with the late Queen. Yes she was a top rank monarch, Charles is more average but we have had some pretty awful monarchs too from James II to George IV to Edward VIII and the monarchy has adapted and survived.
Charles will hold the fort, make a few reforms and then retire to Highgrove with Camilla before the more popular and younger and more glamorous William and Kate take over
You forget Charles, the first, who arrogantly believed in the divine right of kings, and got his head chopped off for his pains!
Charles I was devout and committed to his duties, just moving the Church of England too much towards Popery for Puritans and too keen on raising tax for wars. He wasn't a top rank monarch by any means but he wasn't the worst monarch we have had either and arguably better than Cromwell was as Lord Protector, hence the restoration of his son in 1660
@Casino_Royale RE not being able to affortd salary sacrifice: for a small monthly fee I’ll happily write you a household budget. I have heavy mortgage, energy and childcare costs and earn less than half what you do if you’re concerned about this cap. We survive, you can too.
@maxh "The childcare will make a big difference to my finances and I’m not poor. I get what you mean, though."
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
We had the only TV in our road, a very small black and white one, but we also had a large Victorian house which hosted the street all day
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
Unlike you I actually have a historical context and understand that the monarchy does not begin and end with the late Queen. Yes she was a top rank monarch, Charles is more average but we have had some pretty awful monarchs too from James II to George IV to Edward VIII and the monarchy has adapted and survived.
Charles will hold the fort, make a few reforms and then retire to Highgrove with Camilla before the more popular and younger and more glamorous William and Kate take over
You forget Charles, the first, who arrogantly believed in the divine right of kings, and got his head chopped off for his pains!
Charles I was devout and committed to his duties, just moving the Church of England too much towards Popery for Puritans and too keen on raising tax for wars. He wasn't a top rank monarch by any means but he wasn't the worst monarch we have had either and arguably better than Cromwell was as Lord Protector, hence the restoration of his son in 1660
The murder of Stafford was certainly something..
It was Parliament who condemned Strafford to death
@Casino_Royale RE not being able to affortd salary sacrifice: for a small monthly fee I’ll happily write you a household budget. I have heavy mortgage, energy and childcare costs and earn less than half what you do if you’re concerned about this cap. We survive, you can too.
@maxh "The childcare will make a big difference to my finances and I’m not poor. I get what you mean, though."
In other words, "I'm alright Jack".
I guess I deserved that! I’m not arguing against it getting sorted for those in your position, only that not being able to afford to live on £100k seems unconvincing.
I know the £100K+ is apparently a "niche" concern. However, the marginal rate of over 70% with 3 kids if one parent goes over £40K is most definitely not.
But this is 3 kids needing childcare (i.e., 3 very young children).
So, how many families is that? Have you estimated?
I'd say that was quite niche as well.
Cliff edges are not good -- but they are difficult to avoid unless everything is made universal.
And as soon as you make some things mean-tested or income-dependent, you will create some inadvertent cliff edges.
The solution is to stop introducing means-tested or income-dependent policies, make things universal and tax income via income tax.
Not rocket science, and then you can have flatter real terms tax rates without the cliff edges. It works as a policy, its just more politically easy to do the wrong thing.
The alternative is to accept that a tax and benefit system cannot be completely fair all the time. It may be that for a few years you end up getting a poor deal (as with the 100k-ers with young children), But that is balanced by other things.
I am sure most 100k-ers own nice big houses. Property taxes in this country are skewed to benefit people with nice, big houses. So, there is an instance in which they are benefitting.
But, I am not too bothered myself as long as -- integrated over a lifetime -- the tax system is reasonably fair.
It isn't fair, but it is people at the bottom who are getting the rough deal, not the 100 k-ers.
As it stands its both.
People at the bottom are absolutely shafted with high marginal tax rates, and so too are the 100k-ers. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Those who get off easily are the 200-300k and above who have a marginal tax rate massively less than those on 100k, or those on 20-30k.
All right -- let's fix it.
Let's change this glitch in the tax system for the 100k-ers *AND* change the Council tax bands so that people with properties over 500k pay more and those with properties over 1 million much, much more. Let's follow the US where property taxes are much more substantial for the wealthy.
My guess is that will provoke even louder squeals from the same people.
Because childcare is for a few years but Council Tax is for life.
The problem with the council tax proposal is simple.
Many of the people living in million pound semis didn’t buy them at that price. Or have the incomes to buy them.
If you look down many expensive roads in London, you can see the rich incomers by the cars. In many places 50%+ are people who bought there years before the comic house prices.
If someone doesn't have the income to maintain their home, including taxes due on it, then they always have the option of selling and moving somewhere else. Or encouraging policies that keep their property value, and thus their taxes, down.
My proposal is a 3% per annum tax on all owned property, paid by the owner, with an 80% discount for owner-occupied property. Council Tax and Stamp Duty to be abolished when this is introduced. Numbers to be tweaked to make it work.
That would wipe out the private rental sector. Home ownership doesn’t work for everyone.
And yet the private rental sector exists all over the globe even in countries with much higher property tax rates? I wonder why that is?
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
Rental yield is about 5.5%
Less the 3% you are demanding gives 2.5% before tax
With a 100% equity ownership you are getting a lot of head ache and risk for less than you can get in a bank.
Good.
Professional investors who want a steady and reliable form of income, with an asset to back it up, can continue to invest. As happens around the globe where property taxes are higher and the rental market still operates just fine.
Parasites who want to fleece tenants to pay their mortgage for them rather than paying it themselves? Oh well, good riddance to them.
Our housing stock isn’t optimised for institutional investors. There have been programmes to encourage this but investors have focused on the build to let not buy to let sector.
As with many things we are relatively aligned on the end destination but you will break things getting there
"Humza Yousaf's team said they would be happy for the SNP to provide whatever reassurances are required but added that the way in which the ballot is being questioned would be very upsetting for party members."
Really? I mean, really?? Isn't the greater risk that members see the next leader being a stitch up, shorne of democracy? Might they not find that "very upsetting".
I would have thought that Yousef being on the wrong side of this issue might hurt him badly. But hey, this is Scottish politics, so what do I know?
Thing is unless there is a clear stitch up those complaining will look like whiners even though it wasnt unreasonable.
One of the best things the Tories have done over the past 13 years with George Osborne onwards was raising tax thresholds to make work pay.
Under Sunak and Hunt that progress is being reversed, taxes are rising and they're fiddling at the edges while taking tax and spend to record levels.
If this is meant to fuel aspiration or be a Conservative budget, its no Conservativism I recognise or would vote for.
Seeing as he gets the blame for some really random crap on here, only fair to point out that was a Clegg LD policy, subsequently adopted by the coalition. A good one, I concur.
Indeed it was, and it was a policy that Cameron and Osborne embraced wholeheartedly during the Coalition and essentially adopted as their own and continued with even post-2015 under successive Chancellors until Sunak abandoned it.
Part of the problem with the Lib Dems in 2015 in my view is they were far too apologetic about their record, rather than standing up tall and proud about what had been achieved like the tax thresholds, allowing Cameron and Osborne to take credit while all they got associated with was student fees etc.
I'm politically homeless, if the Lib Dems were to turn their backs on NIMBYism I'd quite happily support them. Unfortunately they're the worst of the NIMBYs and that's another thing I care passionately about.
I agree with you about the LDs - its self-evident that so much of the good in the coalition was from us and so much of the bad was from the Tories. That policies turned seriously nasty post 2015 demonstrates what a 2010 Cameron majority would have been like.
On NIMBYism I am going to hold out an olive branch. I agree that we need to develop projects much faster - whether houses or transport or industry or even asylum centres. Nothing more stupid than a Tory Mince MP railing against the boats in favour of the new illegal illegal migration bill, yet is also campaigning loudly against building asylum detention centre in the constituency.
Your problem is that you are such an absolutist on this that you would have planners overrule everyone with no recourse, allowing them to build on your own back garden without you doing anything about it. You might say its an extreme example, but I have seen such developments where the end of people's gardens and the open space beyond get turned into high-density shitbox houses.
We need homes. But we need homes fit for purpose and so many new builds are shoddily built and crushed in with no thought about how they fit into an environment already overflowing with people.
So there HAS to be planning, but a new balance has to be found. Are you open to finding a balance?
People's gardens are their own property. Nobody can ever build on your own property without your own consent.
The open space beyond is not. That is someone else's land.
If the open space beyond becomes a new property what's the problem with that? People who live in terraced houses don't even have a garden between their home and the next property.
My compromise is by having zoning for areas that aren't developed. If someone can up with a better compromise, then I would be OK to listen to that. But I don't see any issues at all with land that is not your property getting developed. If you want open space then have that within your perimeters, not outside it.
Because of externalities. Part of the value of your property is view, light etc.
You don’t have an absolute right to build on your property because you need to consider the impact on others rights
But part of the principle of the planning system is that no-one owns a view (I'm simplifying, but only slightly).
Light is a different matter, but the rights to light are not as clear cut as people often imagine.
I'd go further - people imagine very clear cut things that are entirely wrong.
King Charles needs to work on his confidence and his frame. Every monarch has to win respect anew. He just seems to self-pity himself and be wholly defensive about himself and his role, which invites attack, that he then wants to accommodate, and so on.
He needs to own the role and live the role.
The other issue is that he doesn't take advice, like QEII, and doesn't like to be challenged. He needs to get over that - fast.
King Charles III has been anointed by God for the role, yes he may not be a very self confident loudmouth like his brother the Duke of York. Yes he may have more self doubt than his mother but also more willing to push an intellectual argument even against advice and yes he may have a less popular wife than his son.
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
You really do believe in this nonsense, but since the Queen's passing the monarchy is trending downwards quite markedly and to be honest it is only going one way
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
No it isn't, on a forced choice with a republic about 2/3 still back keeping the monarchy.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
We had the only TV in our road, a very small black and white one, but we also had a large Victorian house which hosted the street all day
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
Nothing is inevitable. Saying it is only going one way seems fairly closed.
Looks like Murrells mafia in trouble as people in uproar at Banana Republic election, clock is ticking
It is quite remarkable that the candidates for election to Party leader cannot even access the number of Party members. How are they supposed to communicate with them if they don't know who they are?
Suspect there are going to be some interesting revelations when the levers of power are finally prised from the current clique's cold, dead hands.
It seems Peter Murrell's view of democracy is rather akin to that of the Patrician in Ankh-Morpork.
“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
It's surprising they don't just put this in the hands of a third party such as ERS (or Civica is it now?) particularly where there may be whispers shouts of bias.
Seems basic common sense. Even in a small society (staff group) when we had issues with one of the co-chairs apparently hating some members, I insisted (as another co-chair) that we made voting management for committee positions an independent process (overseen by one of the research group administrators not linked with the society in any way) as otherwise it was clearly going to cause upset, whatever the outcome.
Labour have used ERS for their leadership elections, for exactly the reasons stated.
They all hate each other?
The Tories use ERS (or Civica as it now is) as well.
The humourless left strike again…
If that was an attempt a humour I don't think MM should give up the day job. No wonder we don't see many right wing stand-ups.
Comments
If you want to tax high earners more, then make that argument and put up tax rates. Don't fiddle around making cliff edges then letting those past the cliff edge off entirely.
The system sucks, not disputing that. Just wondering about the wisest mitigations.
As I suggested earlier that there needs to be a zero-based spending review, there really needs to be a zero-based tax review as well.
I’d advocate something like a personal allowance of £18k (full-time on min wage), then a tax rate of 10% to about 60k, then 35% over that. At the same time as cutting central grants to local authorities, and letting council tax increase by the income tax shortfall.
One thing I’ve not seen commentary on, and I know is one of your pet peeves - does the fiscal drag announced yesterday for income tax rates, also apply to Universal Credit payment thresholds?
Again - it's an issue we solved on here years ago...
Are there not?
I'm always curious where these mythical "shitbox/mansion" homes are that are apparently getting built all over the place, because the overwhelming majority of homes I see built around here are exactly what you describe. Pleasant estates of a range of sized houses but predominantly 3-bed semis. In other words your average and typical British home.
Which is unsurprising really, since that's where the bulk of the market is, so that is where the bulk of homes are built towards, because developers want to sell what they develop.
Seems to me that shitbox/mansion is a pejorative levied by NIMBYs who want to object to anything, rather than grounded in any form of reality.
Given that Prince Edward has been the figurehead of the Duke Of Edinburgh award scheme for decades it does feel appropriate.
There is so much misinformation spread about tidal power. Not difficult to ascertain the source.
I would make it revenue-neutral to begin with but I'd have no problems at all with seeing property taxes go up and income taxes down. First priority would be removing the cliff-edges and distortions in income tax, before we drop income tax rates though.
Though I've suggested before if people can't afford the tax then a deferral by giving the Exchequer a claim for that percentage of the property to be redeemed when the property is next sold/inherited would be an option. If the Exchequer ends up owning 100% of the property then the property ownership tax would drop to zero.
Casino Royale asked for, nay, demanded “Malcolm level brevity”
So here they are.
French Dynamite 2.50
Gold Tweet 3.30
Il ridoto 4.10
Annual Invictus 5.30
That’s the best I can do today. Take it or leave it. 😝
Mathematically it would be trivial to resolve the discontinuities we have in the tax system without it being a huge tax giveaway to the already rich. The problem is purely a political one, which is why all the absurdities were introduced in the first place.
Increasing the headline rates of taxation to make up for removing the discontinuities is much simpler to understand as a tax increase than the stealthy approach of fiddling with allowances and means-testing.
It's why all the thresholds have been frozen for many years instead of simply increasing the percentage rates levied but increasing the thresholds by inflation.
I don't see it as a distributional issue at all. It's a matter of having a stupid tax system for the sake of short term political expediency at the cost of creating perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optimal choices.
(In the same way that not taxing property wealth sufficiently has also created perverse incentives that encourage people to make sub-optional choices)
Other people have interests too. They may not override your rights but in a community they need to be considered
If there's an externality then we have a tax system for handling externalities.
If its just that it upsets someone, well sorry but stop being a snowflake, you have no right not to be upset.
If its just that it harms someone else's property value - well that's a good thing, its called competition and is something to be encouraged not discouraged.
Competition driving down prices is a good thing, and if prices are driven down that may mean lower VAT or duties or property tax or other taxes for HMRC but HMRC just needs to adapt to that.
What it might wipe out is the parasites who think they can own a property with a mortgage and have their tenant pay their mortgage for them rather than putting their own income into paying to own and maintain the property, yes. Good riddance.
Capitalising that at 4% yield is about £100k.
So a lot, but only a 10% correction. I doubt there are many people buying a £1m house with a £100k deposit - they would need income of c. £175k to finance the mortgage
Of course, it is because the (mildly) disadvantaged here are well-off, voluble and articulate enough to argue their case.
I personally am more interested in fixing other things. E.g., Council Tax.
(Some of that is genuine, but some of it is the nature of the Jonses you have around you to keep up with. It was amazing how much we didn't spend when surrounded by people studying to become vicars.)
However he is also someone who has done a great deal of good through the Prince's Trust, is intellectually curious, cares about the environment and preserving our heritage and traditional ways of life and we are lucky to have him as our King!
I admire him, but don’t have the willpower to do the same!
As the demand for rented properties goes down, and as the asset prices goes down, then the rental rates should fall ultimately too and reach a new equilibrium as a smaller rent, funded to pay a smaller asset price.
Ever escalating asset prices have been partnered with ever-increasing rental prices too for decades.
I really have little interest in Charles and certainly the coronation will not enthuse the public like his Mother's , which I remember very well as my grandmother was on her feet every time the dreary National Anthem was played
That was then, this is now and while I prefer the monarchy to a President change is happening and it will not be to your liking going forward
I believe you have children? Presumably you allow the biggest to take all the smallest toys without intervening because there is no need to consider other people’s interests
FFS. We live in a community. You need to *consider* other people’s interests. It doesn’t mean that you can’t build but it does mean there needs to be dialogue and consensus building. That is *not* a defence of the current balance which is sclerotic
A £1m property attracts £41.5k in Stamp Duty too and that is money that needs to be paid up-front on top of the deposit rather than amortised over the years lived in the property.
More tax paid annually over the years living in the property would increase on-going costs, sure, but would lower up-front costs expecting everything to be paid all at once.
Less the 3% you are demanding gives 2.5% before tax
With a 100% equity ownership you are getting a lot of head ache and risk for less than you can get in a bank.
The coronation of the late Queen was also a different context, she was a glamorous young woman not a pensioner like the King, it was a rare occasion for national celebration after the recent end of WW2 and continued rationing and TVs had just started to come in so you could view the event from your own home.
I have no doubt the coronation of William and Kate will get more interest than the coronation of Charles and Camilla but even that will not match the coronation of the young Queen which was unique circumstances as above
Over to you, Sir Keir.
Letting the biggest take all the toys is what our current planning system does.
Children growing into adults can't get their own toys/houses without the permission of their elder siblings/generation who already have their own toys/houses.
If I want to buy my youngest a toy I don't ask their elder sibling permission to do so. Similarly if a young adult wants to buy a property they shouldn't need anyone else's permission to do so.
The thing about the 1953 coronation, I think, was that it was that it was a big party, following on from the very successful Festival of Britain. It marked an end to the austerity of the 40s.
This year’s coronation won’t mark an end to the tough times!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Edinburgh
1st - 1726 to Prince Frederick, Prince of Wales; Prince George; Revert to Crown when George become King George III.
2nd - 1866 to Prince Alfred; on death reverted to Crown.
3rd - 1947 to Prince Philip; Prince Charles; Revert to Crown when Charles became King Charles III.
4th - 2023 to Prince Edward, but not hereditary so will revert to Crown on Edward's death.
Professional investors who want a steady and reliable form of income, with an asset to back it up, can continue to invest. As happens around the globe where property taxes are higher and the rental market still operates just fine.
Parasites who want to fleece tenants to pay their mortgage for them rather than paying it themselves? Oh well, good riddance to them.
Stamp duty needs to be paid at the time of purchase and is difficult to finance.
My post was intended to add maths to belie @MarqueeMark ’s post
https://www.royal.uk/dukedom-edinburgh
The lounge still had the blackout curtains and fortunately with them closed the gathered assembly were able to watch the ceremony. The idea everyone had a tv is not correct
Anyway you are incapable of ever accepting an argument if it challenges your closed mind, but as I said the monarchy in the UK is only going one way and not the way you hope
As it happens I just bought a Band C property. Council Tax this year is £1850. I paid £410k which incurred £8k stamp duty. Let's assume I stay here for 10 years to keep the maths simple and spread the cost, that would make my effective property charge £2650 which is equivalent to a mere 0.65% annual tax on property value. So even an annual charge of 1% levied on all property would mean a significant rebalancing of taxation, if it was 2% that would actually be very siginficant and would give a lot of scope for changes elsewhere.
I'm not sure when the last time was that it was possible to find property to rent at anything close to the price of only a couple of years ago.
What we're undergoing now is a long overdue correction. Corrections are difficult, but absolutely necessary.
Any bad developers would be put out of business in a free for all, since they'd find themselves holding developments without consumers as better developers out compete them.
GOP lawmakers cringe over Trump’s effort to destroy DeSantis
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3902508-gop-lawmakers-cringe-over-trumps-effort-to-destroy-desantis/
Senate Republicans are wincing over former President Trump’s early barrage of attacks against his chief rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), fearing they’re seeing a preview of a brutal primary to come that could leave both candidates weakened heading into the general election.
GOP lawmakers acknowledge DeSantis needs to show he can take a punch and aren’t shocked Trump would take hard shots at a rival as the campaign heats up.
But some are surprised the former president is unloading such a heavy barrage before DeSantis is even in the race, and they worry that getting into a year-long mudslinging battle with Trump isn’t good look for the party heading into 2024.
“I winced in 2016 and I’m wincing now,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) when asked about Trump’s hardball tactics. “That’s just because that’s not my style.
“I don’t think you’ll ever take the New York style out of Donald Trump. It’s too much to ask, he’s a fully-baked cake,” she said..
Let's hope so
Charles will hold the fort, make a few reforms and then retire to Highgrove with Camilla before the more popular and younger and more glamorous William and Kate take over
In other words, "I'm alright Jack".
against it getting sorted for those in your position, only that not being able to afford to
live on £100k seems unconvincing.
As with many things we are relatively aligned on the end destination but you will break things getting there