Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Sorry but don’t you read this site - a lot of people have anecdotes to that effect. In my case one reason why I left the contract I had in November was that I was about to hit that £100,000 mark if I stayed any longer and an interesting contract elsewhere came up that was outside IR35.
Now I’ve probably lost £10,000 by taking that contract but I’ve also avoided £5000 in tax so the cost really wasn’t that significant and the project is more interesting
You did one thing, I did the opposite. That's 1-1.
I contend that for every person who thinks 'higher tax rate? - I'm going to work less and accept less income', there are several who will simply look for opportunities to work longer or get a better paid job to maintain or improve their standard of living.
Do I think the 'Laffer curve' is a true reflection of economic reality? No I don't.
I’ve come across people all up and down the income scale minimising tax by reducing hours, increasing pension contributions etc
A classic is the part time working trap where too many hours reduces benefits about as fast as you earn. So you are in a low paid job, generally tough, and they expect you to work more hours for next to no reward.
The common theme I come across is that “more than 50% is taking the piss”
That's a fair answer thank you.
I can see the psychological line that 50% marks so would accept its a fair upper limit to try to stick to. (Working UC claimants do of course face an effective 55% rate and have no choice but to suck it up.)
On the whole, I think we should move away from increasing taxation on incomes and instead tax wealth, albeit at a very low rate, with a high personal allowance.
What does need to happen though is the even up the taxation on ALL income - currently earned income for those below pension age is taxed higher than unearned income or eraned income for those over 66. That needs to be resolved.
The biggest advance would be merging IC and NI. But no one outside of PB seems to be interested in that suggestion.
That really doesn't work - IC is an annual tax, NI is weekly / monthly and there are a few billion reasons why it's that way.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
It does seem more and more that there is a reward for not making any commitments to your future
A large proportion of the population can't afford to make such commitments - the consequence of high taxation, the prevalence of low wage crap jobs and ruinous housing costs. Moreover, those who can do so first and foremost by scrambling desperately onto the housing ladder, even at the cost of shouldering a colossal mortgage (which is likely still to be less expensive than renting.)
Put brutally, private pensions are pretty useless unless you can put away a healthy sum annually from youth, or a huge sum from middle age - because, of course, people live too long from a financial point of view, so they are enormously expensive to fund well. It's therefore logical for your average worker to shovel money into property if they possibly can, so that you aren't renting until you die, and contribute either nothing to a pension or a token sum (which makes you feel virtuous but will turn out to be all but useless when you retire.)
A decent private pension is the sort of thing lots of Boomers accrued through generous final salary schemes, almost all of which closed to contributions a long time ago. Trying to build up one up in today's economic environment is luxury spending for the very well off.
I dont disagree and maybe you misunderstood my point, for a lot of people making provision wont make sense because what they gain will be offset by what they lose in benefits when they retire. Those people therefore are being told its no point making any provision for yourself because we will claw it back from you by withdrawal of benefits. It is a decentivisation of people to not just spend.
For example I expect to get about 5k in pension over and above state pension after working the best part of 50 years....I suspect by the time you add in all the benefits I will lose due to that extra money I get I may as well have just opted out of pension schemes all together.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
So, you're saying that anyone who claims that the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded?
Of course such people are deluded. It is hardly much more simple arithmetic. Tax revenue is the product of the tax base and the tax rate, and the tax base is a decreasing function (for readily understood behavioural reasons) of the tax rate. It is easy to prove that peak revenue occurs where the elasticity of the tax base with respect to the tax rate is unity, and that this point exists because the elasticity varies between infinity and zero along the length of the of the revenue function.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Sorry but don’t you read this site - a lot of people have anecdotes to that effect. In my case one reason why I left the contract I had in November was that I was about to hit that £100,000 mark if I stayed any longer and an interesting contract elsewhere came up that was outside IR35.
Now I’ve probably lost £10,000 by taking that contract but I’ve also avoided £5000 in tax so the cost really wasn’t that significant and the project is more interesting
You did one thing, I did the opposite. That's 1-1.
I contend that for every person who thinks 'higher tax rate? - I'm going to work less and accept less income', there are several who will simply look for opportunities to work longer or get a better paid job to maintain or improve their standard of living.
Do I think the 'Laffer curve' is a true reflection of economic reality? No I don't.
I’ve come across people all up and down the income scale minimising tax by reducing hours, increasing pension contributions etc
A classic is the part time working trap where too many hours reduces benefits about as fast as you earn. So you are in a low paid job, generally tough, and they expect you to work more hours for next to no reward.
The common theme I come across is that “more than 50% is taking the piss”
That's a fair answer thank you.
I can see the psychological line that 50% marks so would accept its a fair upper limit to try to stick to. (Working UC claimants do of course face an effective 55% rate and have no choice but to suck it up.)
On the whole, I think we should move away from increasing taxation on incomes and instead tax wealth, albeit at a very low rate, with a high personal allowance.
What does need to happen though is the even up the taxation on ALL income - currently earned income for those below pension age is taxed higher than unearned income or eraned income for those over 66. That needs to be resolved.
The biggest advance would be merging IC and NI. But no one outside of PB seems to be interested in that suggestion.
That really doesn't work - IC is an annual tax, NI is weekly / monthly and there are a few billion reasons why it's that way.
In reality, the money is mostly collected from monthly salaries, via PAYE.
Merge to single rate of income tax. At the same time, get rid of the silly cliffs,
My wife is a commercial model with an active Instagram account (several thousand followers). Blue tick verification.
Or she was until last night. Instagram took down her account permanently because of “account authenticity”. No appeals permitted - all her contacts and business dialogue vaporised.
Apparently the only way to address is to find a human at Instagram who is willing to make a request for a manual review by their team. Anyone have any contacts? Or any better suggestions?
Depending on how high profile, maybe an article in the press? Complete with link to a new account?
Thanks
Only well known among her circle of clients and business partners. The Daily Mail would love to write a story but I am wary of their take.
BTW, that exit poll in 1992 was really rubbish. Their central forecast was that the Tories would be short by 25 but they thought Labour might be the largest party, albeit 13 short of a majority. In fact the Tories had a majority of 22.
Its hard to remember how bad these were given the much, much improved accuracy of more recent exit polls.
That wasn't an exit poll. It was the BBC's election day poll - which had been super accurate in 1987 - but it was not an exit poll.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
Some good ideas, a couple of issues:
The challenge regarding State Pension is that we've told people for years that their NI contributions were (at least in part) building up that pension. So to remove it for those too wealthy would be rather unfair, given that many will have taken the SP into account for their retirement planning.
The other major welfare benefit which is not means tested (or even taxed) is disability benefits (PIP, DLA or Attendance Allowance). Personally, I think they should have been means tested from the outset but it's a very brave government that will face the media backlash invoked by 'taking away disability benefits' now.
Means testing itself is not difficult - it's routinely done for all UC claimants of course. The rules are very clear the processes well- proven.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
The massive spikes in marginal rates at certain points (including too-rapid withdrawal of means tested benefits) are pretty clear examples of bad things according to Laffer theory. Even if some people ignore them, that's still the case.
What Laffer and his disciples never seem to mention is the left hand bit of the curve, where increasing rates increases revenue. Is there any particular reason to think that isn't where we are overall?
HMRC did an analysis under Osborne and reckoned about 47-48%
It’s why the top rate was cut from 50% to 45% (+2 NIC) and not reduced back to 40%
Interesting that matches my anecdotal evidence - just below 50% is where behaviour changes in a big way.
Just like all the others, my friend, just one of the crowd
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
BTW, that exit poll in 1992 was really rubbish. Their central forecast was that the Tories would be short by 25 but they thought Labour might be the largest party, albeit 13 short of a majority. In fact the Tories had a majority of 22.
Its hard to remember how bad these were given the much, much improved accuracy of more recent exit polls.
The 1987 one was even worse in terms of having an enormous range. From a Con maj of 86 to Con short by 17. At about 11 mins 10 secs.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Sorry but don’t you read this site - a lot of people have anecdotes to that effect. In my case one reason why I left the contract I had in November was that I was about to hit that £100,000 mark if I stayed any longer and an interesting contract elsewhere came up that was outside IR35.
Now I’ve probably lost £10,000 by taking that contract but I’ve also avoided £5000 in tax so the cost really wasn’t that significant and the project is more interesting
You did one thing, I did the opposite. That's 1-1.
I contend that for every person who thinks 'higher tax rate? - I'm going to work less and accept less income', there are several who will simply look for opportunities to work longer or get a better paid job to maintain or improve their standard of living.
Do I think the 'Laffer curve' is a true reflection of economic reality? No I don't.
I’ve come across people all up and down the income scale minimising tax by reducing hours, increasing pension contributions etc
A classic is the part time working trap where too many hours reduces benefits about as fast as you earn. So you are in a low paid job, generally tough, and they expect you to work more hours for next to no reward.
The common theme I come across is that “more than 50% is taking the piss”
That's a fair answer thank you.
I can see the psychological line that 50% marks so would accept its a fair upper limit to try to stick to. (Working UC claimants do of course face an effective 55% rate and have no choice but to suck it up.)
On the whole, I think we should move away from increasing taxation on incomes and instead tax wealth, albeit at a very low rate, with a high personal allowance.
What does need to happen though is the even up the taxation on ALL income - currently earned income for those below pension age is taxed higher than unearned income or eraned income for those over 66. That needs to be resolved.
The biggest advance would be merging IC and NI. But no one outside of PB seems to be interested in that suggestion.
That really doesn't work - IC is an annual tax, NI is weekly / monthly and there are a few billion reasons why it's that way.
Nonsense. If there are a billion reasons why employee NI has to be treated separately to tax just name one of them.
The first election I remember is 1979 (though it is a bit blurry as to whether this was another 'event'). I remember watching Mrs.Thatcher tear a pound note in half and looking at my parent in shock.
Italy are the worst team in the competition by a country mile.
I think they've played rather well in this tournament.
They have played well but they are still the worst team.
France have stolen a win off Scotland which clearly should have gone the other way and then fluked a draw against Italy they frankly didn't deserve. A very poor 6 nations for them. Even England are doing better.
The decision in the game against France was insane. The ball was clearly grounded. I am no Scotland fan - and am gutted that you have now won four in a row against us - but that was a gross injustice. Scotland should now be going for the Slam, but aren’t, because of that shambolic decision.
I really wouldn't fancy our chances against the Irish, to be honest, but it would have been an epic occasion. As it is I think that they will have sufficient bonus points against us that we cannot win even if we did.
Isn’t that what the grand slam bonus is designed to prevent?
Yes, but if we beat Ireland no one will have a grand slam. Ireland may well have 4 bonus points and we will have a maximum of 3 (and even that assumes something truly extraordinary against the phenomenal Irish defence).
Ah, I see. I thought you meant if the Scots had won (which literally everyone thinks they did, by the way).
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
I did not mention any of those I state 780 billion + nhs+ social care+ defence+ police and dont forget all the council spending because that 780 billion included a reduction in council tax. Also dont forget most on the left claim that level of income cant be lived on adequately
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
My wife is a commercial model with an active Instagram account (several thousand followers). Blue tick verification.
Or she was until last night. Instagram took down her account permanently because of “account authenticity”. No appeals permitted - all her contacts and business dialogue vaporised.
Apparently the only way to address is to find a human at Instagram who is willing to make a request for a manual review by their team. Anyone have any contacts? Or any better suggestions?
Depending on how high profile, maybe an article in the press? Complete with link to a new account?
Thanks
Only well known among her circle of clients and business partners. The Daily Mail would love to write a story but I am wary of their take.
I don't blame you. The only thought that occurs to me is that finding an actual human at Instagram might be rather difficult for her on her own while a negative press story might unearth one very rapidly.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Time
Why has it not already become affordable, given the shape of that graph?
I guess 1979 was the first election I paid attention to, and though in 1983 I was in the middle of my final school exams, someone extremely close to me did get elected that year. In 1987 I worked with them to retain the seat, though I had myself just returned from a year in Canada. In 1992 I was my party´s Scottish Leader´s "bagman" and covered over 3000 miles in and beyond the constituency, which was extremely intense, and yes although it did feel like the election was going back to the Tories on the ground, it was nevertheless an enjoyable, if gruelling, process. I stood myself for the first time in 2005 which I enjoyed, although there was not too much chance of winning in that seat. I came back in 2010 to help my relative win once more. In 2015 I was away from the UK but stood again in 2019 which was much worse than 1992.
I think you have to enjoy campaigning, and to a degree I do, though December in the North of Scotland was a dark and cold time to be tramping the streets and hills. I enjoyed the hustings each time I did one, and also very much enjoyed talking individually with voters. Being personally abused by a different party´s supporters was much less fun, and these days one has to be careful in returning fire, although heckles were a different matter.
In general there is a certain comradery amongst the politically engaged, even when we strongly disagree with each other, partly because the political process as a candidate is quite a unique and slightly isolating one, even when one is in a safe seat with a fairly settled outcome. Obviously it is also a bit like meeting the rivals in a job interview, so the politeness can be a bit brittle. When I have met people like Nick Palmer, we have often found things that we agree on, even if we disagree on quite a lot of fundamental ideas, and I think the the connection is that we believe in the political process, that elections and campaigns should matter and that policies and ideas can make a positive difference to people´s lives, though doubtless Nick can correct me if he thinks otherwise. When I get a bit abrupt with certain other posters here, part of my wrath is that I do not detect the same respect for the democratic process, indeed mostly I feel that they hold politics largely in contempt without in any way seeking to offer an improvement or even in fact understanding that most people in politics are not "Lying bastards who lie to me". Charlatans do exist of course, too many of them, but we should all recognise that most people in politics are not "In it for themselves" and that the majority of those who put themselves forward to serve in public office, even when we disagree with them, hold their views sincerely and mostly honestly.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
I did not mention any of those I state 780 billion + nhs+ social care+ defence+ police and dont forget all the council spending because that 780 billion included a reduction in council tax. Also dont forget most on the left claim that level of income cant be lived on adequately
You would be double counting if you include a reduction in CT - you should be able to pay your CT from the UBI.
I agree with you generally though. Only affordable with some big tax rises.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
My wife is a commercial model with an active Instagram account (several thousand followers). Blue tick verification.
Or she was until last night. Instagram took down her account permanently because of “account authenticity”. No appeals permitted - all her contacts and business dialogue vaporised.
Apparently the only way to address is to find a human at Instagram who is willing to make a request for a manual review by their team. Anyone have any contacts? Or any better suggestions?
Try posting on LinkedIn. That's where most of the faang people I encounter hang out.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Time
Why has it not already become affordable, given the shape of that graph?
I suspect because if you adjusted that graph with inflation it would look nothing like that.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
So I’m not sure about the weighting or methodology. But having just been at Wembley, I don’t think both Liverpool and Chelsea fans joining in a lusty chorus of “f**k the Tories” bodes well for Rishi Sunak…
BTW, that exit poll in 1992 was really rubbish. Their central forecast was that the Tories would be short by 25 but they thought Labour might be the largest party, albeit 13 short of a majority. In fact the Tories had a majority of 22.
Its hard to remember how bad these were given the much, much improved accuracy of more recent exit polls.
The 1987 one was even worse in terms of having an enormous range. From a Con maj of 86 to Con short by 17. At about 11 mins 10 secs.
Once again, well outside the margin of error that they allowed themselves. The most extreme result they forecast was a majority of 87, it was 102.
Remarkable that they repeated the same error in 1992. The first half of the program was all about the Tories having lost the moral majority to govern, even after Basildon.
My wife is a commercial model with an active Instagram account (several thousand followers). Blue tick verification.
Or she was until last night. Instagram took down her account permanently because of “account authenticity”. No appeals permitted - all her contacts and business dialogue vaporised.
Apparently the only way to address is to find a human at Instagram who is willing to make a request for a manual review by their team. Anyone have any contacts? Or any better suggestions?
Depending on how high profile, maybe an article in the press? Complete with link to a new account?
Thanks
Only well known among her circle of clients and business partners. The Daily Mail would love to write a story but I am wary of their take.
I don't blame you. The only thought that occurs to me is that finding an actual human at Instagram might be rather difficult for her on her own while a negative press story might unearth one very rapidly.
Is Stillwaters a member of the Consumers Association/Which? Easy to forget they do help oout members.
BTW, that exit poll in 1992 was really rubbish. Their central forecast was that the Tories would be short by 25 but they thought Labour might be the largest party, albeit 13 short of a majority. In fact the Tories had a majority of 22.
Its hard to remember how bad these were given the much, much improved accuracy of more recent exit polls.
That wasn't an exit poll. It was the BBC's election day poll - which had been super accurate in 1987 - but it was not an exit poll.
It was extremely inaccurate in 1987 according to the link that @AndyJS has given.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
I did not mention any of those I state 780 billion + nhs+ social care+ defence+ police and dont forget all the council spending because that 780 billion included a reduction in council tax. Also dont forget most on the left claim that level of income cant be lived on adequately
You would be double counting if you include a reduction in CT - you should be able to pay your CT from the UBI.
I agree with you generally though. Only affordable with some big tax rises.
No you wouldn't because the 12k I cited included as I mentioned a ct reduction of about 150....its what you get when unemployed which as I have also mentioned people like yourself keep telling us isn't enough to live on.
You want to add the 150 council tax reduction into the ubi to leave them in the same position then ubi needs to be 13.8k which takes the cost to 897 billion
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
But earning within a bracket isn't the biggest problem. If you're within a bracket then getting a pay-rise leaves you better off, that's not a problem.
The problem is cliff-edges, many of which leave you either worse off or no better off from earning more.
Its the cliff-edges which cause the biggest aversion to people wanting to earn more, people gaming their salary to remain just under the 100k cliff-edge, or people on UC saying "I'm not allowed to work more than 16 hours or I'll lose my benefits" and so on. You may not like people doing that, but many are rational actors within the system we have set up for them.
If you want to deal with the anomalies in the tax system and see Laffer-derived rewards for the Exchequer and the whole economy don't look at the top rate of tax, or any individual rate of tax, look at the cliff edges first.
It is cliff edges where people make the most dramatic changes in behaviour. Rationally so.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
Look this is your delusion not mine, we are pretty sure dark matter exists, we dont know what it is or where it is but we think its 90 odd percent of the mass of the universe. Not having worked out the formula to predict something doesn't mean its not a thing....hell at one point we couldn't work out how long the sides of triangles would be till pythagoras came along....didn't mean triangles didn't exist
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
Some good ideas, a couple of issues:
The challenge regarding State Pension is that we've told people for years that their NI contributions were (at least in part) building up that pension. So to remove it for those too wealthy would be rather unfair, given that many will have taken the SP into account for their retirement planning.
The other major welfare benefit which is not means tested (or even taxed) is disability benefits (PIP, DLA or Attendance Allowance). Personally, I think they should have been means tested from the outset but it's a very brave government that will face the media backlash invoked by 'taking away disability benefits' now.
Means testing itself is not difficult - it's routinely done for all UC claimants of course. The rules are very clear the processes well- proven.
Actually what we have told them officially (as opposed to politicians telling people what they want to hear) is that the NI contributions they make are to pay for today's pensions and that the workers of tomorrow will be paying for our pensions when we retire. This was made explicit when the system was introduced by the Attlee Government in the 1940s. People like to think they are paying in much as we pay into a bank as 'savings' or into a private pension but that is not the case. We need to be honest about this.
But of course it needs a Government that is not beholden to the pensioner vote for survival. And I say that as someone in my late 50s who will be part of that bloc in a decade or so.
One other idea we could introduce very simply. Extend NI to all employment rather than exempting those working past retirement age.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Ludicrous hyperbole. Did we have no health service, no defence, or no education when taxes were at their Tony Blair levels?
The first election night I stayed up for was 2010. If the Conservatives were going to win in 2005 I might have stayed up for that one too, but as a family we knew the Conservatives were going to thrash Labour and destroy Brown in 2010 and been looking forward to staying up watching it. I remember the chickens being confused when I was awake before them to let them out. Not actually winning was a bit frustrating, I remember the anger at Brown being a cheating snake trying to stay at number 10 and not clearing out, but I remember watching the news channel the evening a few days later when Cameron went to the palace and then to Downing Street, and that was a better celebration night than even the election night.
Congratulations to Liverpool for a gutsy and passionate performance, and to their fans for the amazing backing. However, Liverpools run in this cup.and still in the other two cups, and all the extra games they have to play because of that in short period is likely to see them end up third or fourth or even fifth in the league. Some sides have dominated to win lots of trophies some years, but not with this injury list and lack of experience to call on in the squad during busy run in, the most likely thing is they crash and burn from here.
Liz Truss, mad bus stop woman. Calling every decent Conservative on PB a chino. I have worked out her anti Biden hate is probablynot ideology but personal, and fair enough. During her short reign he did publicly lay into her policies.
One problem Rishi should have with what Liz is putting around, is the not so subtle attacks on Sunak and his government being failures on Brexit. “You may think we brexited, but the UK still has the vast majority of eu laws on the statute book.” That’s a line from the rival party reform, should not come from Conservatives back benchers this side of an election. So is “I wanted to give people homes, cut their taxes, cut the overblown state, protect the borders” this all comes with the implication Sunak doesn’t?
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Time
Why has it not already become affordable, given the shape of that graph?
We can’t afford, yet, to give everyone £12k a year (say). Which would be tax allowance, unemployment benefit, state pension and more.
It is interesting to see where we are in terms of what we give out now.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
A curve implies no such thing. Anyone who thinks it does, doesn't know the first thing about Economics.
Economics is a field full of curves with no simple, predictable formula for calculating the optimum point.
Do you object to the principles of supply and demand because they don't follow a single, simple, predictable formula? What in Economics ever does in fact?
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Time
Why has it not already become affordable, given the shape of that graph?
We can’t afford, yet, to give everyone £12k a year (say). Which would be tax allowance, unemployment benefit, state pension and more.
It is interesting to see where we are in terms of what we give out now.
Currently we would give out more to many unemployed people when you add it all up
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
Some good ideas, a couple of issues:
The challenge regarding State Pension is that we've told people for years that their NI contributions were (at least in part) building up that pension. So to remove it for those too wealthy would be rather unfair, given that many will have taken the SP into account for their retirement planning.
The other major welfare benefit which is not means tested (or even taxed) is disability benefits (PIP, DLA or Attendance Allowance). Personally, I think they should have been means tested from the outset but it's a very brave government that will face the media backlash invoked by 'taking away disability benefits' now.
Means testing itself is not difficult - it's routinely done for all UC claimants of course. The rules are very clear the processes well- proven.
Actually what we have told them officially (as opposed to politicians telling people what they want to hear) is that the NI contributions they make are to pay for today's pensions and that the workers of tomorrow will be paying for our pensions when we retire. This was made explicit when the system was introduced by the Attlee Government in the 1940s. People like to think they are paying in much as we pay into a bank as 'savings' or into a private pension but that is not the case. We need to be honest about this.
But of course it needs a Government that is not beholden to the pensioner vote for survival. And I say that as someone in my late 50s who will be part of that bloc in a decade or so.
One other idea we could introduce very simply. Extend NI to all employment rather than exempting those working past retirement age.
Or even simpler, extend NI to all earnings rather than just employment.
Why should someone on a gold-plated pension not pay NI on their income, but someone working for a living does?
Treat all earnings the same, no matter how they're earned.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Time
Why has it not already become affordable, given the shape of that graph?
I suspect because if you adjusted that graph with inflation it would look nothing like that.
If you look closely at that, somewhat small, image, it is inflation adjusted to 2013 pounds.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Nope.
You need a minimum of three points for a curve - and you have nothing useful to say about what happens in between your two extremes.
I have vague memories of 83 and 87, but my first proper memory was 1992. I'd played rugby that evening - some colts cup game, hence midweek, some club in mid-Cheshire somewhere - we lost but I scored a try which remains my personal sporting high water mark - following which some beer was drunk, following which back to our club for a few more drinks. I remember the opening titles. I had cautiously wanted Labour to win (in contrast to 1987, when Labour seemed very left wing and threatening) and I remember it being announced as a hung parliament - but then three results in when David Amess won in Basildon and it became apparent that they wouldn't, feeling oddly relieved. I didn't really feel too strongly about the politics - 17 year old me was pretty balanced and could see positives and negatives on both sides - but I bloody loved the theatre of it. Hooked thereafter.
So I’m not sure about the weighting or methodology. But having just been at Wembley, I don’t think both Liverpool and Chelsea fans joining in a lusty chorus of “f**k the Tories” bodes well for Rishi Sunak…
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Nope.
You need a minimum of three points for a curve - and you have nothing useful to say about what happens in between your two extremes.
“Corollary” is simply inappropriate here.
We do no other points in the graph however do produce income tax revenue so corollary is absolutely correct because we know other points in the graph between the two extremes are not 0. Ben is correct in saying we don't know the formula. I am just saying he is incorrect in saying there is not therefore some sort of curve here and I suspect it will differ for all tax bands to be honest
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Nope.
You need a minimum of three points for a curve - and you have nothing useful to say about what happens in between your two extremes.
“Corollary” is simply inappropriate here.
We have more than three points, we just don't know exactly what they are.
0% and 100%* tax won't bring in tax. 1% would bring in more. 2% tax would bring in more.
An undefined higher point will bring in more. An undefined higher point will bring in less.
We just don't know for certain where the tipping point is. And indeed like much in Economics there is quite possibly multiple tipping points.
That we don't know for certain the layout of the curve doesn't make the curve any less real. That's why Economics is a social science and not a hard science.
* 100% it could be argued would bring in some, but it would be a pathetically bad amount.
The staff are probably Zionists or Islamists and therefore deserve “peaceful protests*”
*Peaceful protests may include no peace. We hate the very word. Bit like Montagues. Peaceful protests may include nuts. PP may includes nutters. The value of your PP may go down as well as up. All wrongs reserved.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
Look this is your delusion not mine, we are pretty sure dark matter exists, we dont know what it is or where it is but we think its 90 odd percent of the mass of the universe. Not having worked out the formula to predict something doesn't mean its not a thing....hell at one point we couldn't work out how long the sides of triangles would be till pythagoras came along....didn't mean triangles didn't exist
You’re arguing for the existence of a mathematical concept which you can’t begin to define. Trying to buttress your argument by resorting to analogy is utterly futile.
Apparently the Tory membership is very upset over Anderson’s suspension . I think this sums up why they should never be allowed anywhere near picking the Tory leader .
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Nope.
You need a minimum of three points for a curve - and you have nothing useful to say about what happens in between your two extremes.
“Corollary” is simply inappropriate here.
We have more than three points, we just don't know exactly what they are.
0% and 100%* tax won't bring in tax. 1% would bring in more. 2% tax would bring in more.
An undefined higher point will bring in more. An undefined higher point will bring in less.
We just don't know for certain where the tipping point is. And indeed like much in Economics there is quite possibly multiple tipping points.
That we don't know for certain the layout of the curve doesn't make the curve any less real. That's why Economics is a social science and not a hard science.
* 100% it could be argued would bring in some, but it would be a pathetically bad amount.
IIRC the famous 98% top rate never actually collected any money.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
Look this is your delusion not mine, we are pretty sure dark matter exists, we dont know what it is or where it is but we think its 90 odd percent of the mass of the universe. Not having worked out the formula to predict something doesn't mean its not a thing....hell at one point we couldn't work out how long the sides of triangles would be till pythagoras came along....didn't mean triangles didn't exist
You’re arguing for the existence of a mathematical concept which you can’t begin to define.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
Look this is your delusion not mine, we are pretty sure dark matter exists, we dont know what it is or where it is but we think its 90 odd percent of the mass of the universe. Not having worked out the formula to predict something doesn't mean its not a thing....hell at one point we couldn't work out how long the sides of triangles would be till pythagoras came along....didn't mean triangles didn't exist
You’re arguing for the existence of a mathematical concept which you can’t begin to define. Trying to buttress your argument by resorting to analogy is utterly futile.
I am arguing there is obviously some correlation between maximising tax take and tax rate, the fact I can't define it with a mathematical formula nor anyone else does not mean it doesn't exist. Hell I cant define what the effects of climate change are going to be either...by your argument that means it doesn't exist
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
It does seem more and more that there is a reward for not making any commitments to your future
A large proportion of the population can't afford to make such commitments - the consequence of high taxation, the prevalence of low wage crap jobs and ruinous housing costs. Moreover, those who can do so first and foremost by scrambling desperately onto the housing ladder, even at the cost of shouldering a colossal mortgage (which is likely still to be less expensive than renting.)
Put brutally, private pensions are pretty useless unless you can put away a healthy sum annually from youth, or a huge sum from middle age - because, of course, people live too long from a financial point of view, so they are enormously expensive to fund well. It's therefore logical for your average worker to shovel money into property if they possibly can, so that you aren't renting until you die, and contribute either nothing to a pension or a token sum (which makes you feel virtuous but will turn out to be all but useless when you retire.)
A decent private pension is the sort of thing lots of Boomers accrued through generous final salary schemes, almost all of which closed to contributions a long time ago. Trying to build up one up in today's economic environment is luxury spending for the very well off.
I resent Failiejnr2 and her husband never being able to be eligible for a final salary pension and having to be reliant on a DC scheme, with them not being in a position to afford the huge contributions necessary to provide them with a boomer lifestyle in retirement. I say this as a retired IFA. As we don’t live in HYFUDland, the proceeds from our house won’t be sufficient to keep them in luxury for the rest of their life, even if Fairliejnr1 didn’t relinquish his share. To add insult to injury, I don’t expect the triple lock to be in place when our children retire. We really are the most selfish generation.
So I’m not sure about the weighting or methodology. But having just been at Wembley, I don’t think both Liverpool and Chelsea fans joining in a lusty chorus of “f**k the Tories” bodes well for Rishi Sunak…
You mean Con won't gain Bootle?
Of all the things that don't bode well for Rishi Sunak, I don't think this will be too concerning.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
I did not mention any of those I state 780 billion + nhs+ social care+ defence+ police and dont forget all the council spending because that 780 billion included a reduction in council tax. Also dont forget most on the left claim that level of income cant be lived on adequately
You would be double counting if you include a reduction in CT - you should be able to pay your CT from the UBI.
I agree with you generally though. Only affordable with some big tax rises.
No you wouldn't because the 12k I cited included as I mentioned a ct reduction of about 150....its what you get when unemployed which as I have also mentioned people like yourself keep telling us isn't enough to live on.
You want to add the 150 council tax reduction into the ubi to leave them in the same position then ubi needs to be 13.8k which takes the cost to 897 billion
Look, I am not advocating UBI, just querying your figures.
You said that your £12k pa figure included a CT reduction of £150 pm but I think what you really meant is you would have got £12k UC plus a CT reduction.
So I’m not sure about the weighting or methodology. But having just been at Wembley, I don’t think both Liverpool and Chelsea fans joining in a lusty chorus of “f**k the Tories” bodes well for Rishi Sunak…
You mean Con won't gain Bootle?
Of all the things that don't bode well for Rishi Sunak, I don't think this will be too concerning.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
Look this is your delusion not mine, we are pretty sure dark matter exists, we dont know what it is or where it is but we think its 90 odd percent of the mass of the universe. Not having worked out the formula to predict something doesn't mean its not a thing....hell at one point we couldn't work out how long the sides of triangles would be till pythagoras came along....didn't mean triangles didn't exist
You’re arguing for the existence of a mathematical concept which you can’t begin to define. Trying to buttress your argument by resorting to analogy is utterly futile.
I am arguing there is obviously some correlation between maximising tax take and tax rate, the fact I can't define it with a mathematical formula nor anyone else does not mean it doesn't exist. Hell I cant define what the effects of climate change are going to be either...by your argument that means it doesn't exist
Fantastic analogy.
I'd love to see Nigel's simple, predictable, testable formula for climate change "or it doesn't exist".
Or both Laffer and climate change do exist, they're just not easy to demonstrate with a single formula. And climatology has the advantage of being a hard science, unlike Economics.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
No, that's economics.
Economics does vary between economy, period and taxes.
Anyone who thinks it doesn't, doesn't know the slightest damned thing about economics.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
But such societies cannot survive indefinitely (though the hell of North Korea seems sadly persistent), as people flee them for freer societies elsewhere. That's the curve in operation.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
Peter Hitchens dogged in his defence of Shamima Begum
I am impressed by the number of goody-goody saints , police cadets and Head Girls on Twitter, who never did anything bad in their teens, and who do not regret or seek forgiveness for their actions. My guess is that a lot of them have yet to wake up to what they were really like
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
But such societies cannot survive indefinitely (though the hell of North Korea seems sadly persistent), as people flee them for freer societies elsewhere. That's the curve in operation.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
A better argument is that no Marxist state has ever had a 100% tax take.
Even in Soviet Russia, Maoist China and North Korea the tax take has never been that high.
Do you think Kim Jong-Il, military leaders, or party apparatchiks have the same post-tax income as a peasant?
Peter Hitchens dogged in his defence of Shamima Begum
I am impressed by the number of goody-goody saints , police cadets and Head Girls on Twitter, who never did anything bad in their teens, and who do not regret or seek forgiveness for their actions. My guess is that a lot of them have yet to wake up to what they were really like
I suspect a sneaky smoke behind the bike sheds, a spliff with a friend, or sneaking off for some car sex isn't really in the same league as advocating barbaric punishments like stoning, beheading or keeping sex slaves. Just a thought
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
I only argue the cliff edges are to the right of it.
Our base rates of tax? Those I'm not certain about, but our cliff edges? Yes, they're real and they're a problem.
A party that wanted to take Laffer seriously would start by eliminating cliff edges.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
I have made no claim as to which side of it we are, merely saying that there is obviously a curve
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
But such societies cannot survive indefinitely (though the hell of North Korea seems sadly persistent), as people flee them for freer societies elsewhere. That's the curve in operation.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
That's a different point. I am merely stating that 100% tax rate ≠ £0 tax take.
So I’m not sure about the weighting or methodology. But having just been at Wembley, I don’t think both Liverpool and Chelsea fans joining in a lusty chorus of “f**k the Tories” bodes well for Rishi Sunak…
So I’m not sure about the weighting or methodology. But having just been at Wembley, I don’t think both Liverpool and Chelsea fans joining in a lusty chorus of “f**k the Tories” bodes well for Rishi Sunak…
You mean Con won't gain Bootle?
Of all the things that don't bode well for Rishi Sunak, I don't think this will be too concerning.
Yes. I think the Tories are screwed at the next election, but agree this means nothing.
I was there for the booing of George Osborne at the Paralympics, and that's a less abrasive crowd than football. It's a thing people do.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
But such societies cannot survive indefinitely (though the hell of North Korea seems sadly persistent), as people flee them for freer societies elsewhere. That's the curve in operation.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
That's a different point. I am merely stating that 100% tax rate ≠ £0 tax take.
If you don't get any pay for what you do why would 99% of people ever bother working?
Apparently the Tory membership is very upset over Anderson’s suspension . I think this sums up why they should never be allowed anywhere near picking the Tory leader .
This is hard to believe, given that the Tory party definitely isn't full of Islamophobia.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
There is also a loss of child benefits issue at the £100,000 mark.
Tax cliffs like that are a bad idea and should be eradicated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have a progressive taxation system, nor does it mean that overall taxes should be cut.
The country does not pay its way - we need higher taxation not lower, at least for a time. Either that or decide which of health, defence, policing, education, welfare, etc. we want to abandon and no longer offer as a service in this country.
Nope what we need to do is stop spending so much. I am sure you will ask me how and if you do I will put some examples forward. They might surprise you.
Go on, you know you want to...
Briefly I would means test all benefits. There is no reason we should be paying state pension to rich pensioners for a start. All benefits become a safety net rather than a way to improve/supplement standard of living.
Now the common argument against this, which many people on all sides seem to adhere to, is that it ultimately costs more than it makes but that seems to me to be a daft argument. We already means test everyone in the country when determining their level of taxation - all the more so given these days so many people operate outside PAYE due to the Gig economy and many other non standard employment methods.
So use the tax assessment system as a means of assessing what people need to be given just as we do what they need to pay in tax. And be tough about it. If you have a private or employer pension which is better than the State pension then you should not be receiving the state pension in addition. Get rid of all those pensioner perks that successive governments have used to bribe supporters.
In addition make the minimum wage a genuine living wage. Why should the State be subsidising employers to pay wages which are below that necessary for people to live? If your company is not viable paying a reasonable wage then you don't deserve to be in business.
These are just a couple of examples. I have plenty more.
I believe this (state pension reform) is what will happen, but not for a couple of decades, so when I am about to retire after paying 40+ years of national insurance contributions. It will be massively annoying because all the saving in to private pension schemes will have been for nothing, whilst all those who spent money endlessly and frivolously without building up any pension provision will not be affected.
I see some more people have discovered “negative income tax”. Which is an interesting idea, with much theoretical history.
Personally, I like a UBI.
The problem is politicians would immediately try and add exceptions, exemptions and all kinds of nonsense.
UBI is a non starter for the simple reason that for UBI to work you need to give people enough UBI so they can live without working. When I lived in slough for example as a single person I would on benefits get up to 650 a month housing benefit, 342 universal credit and about 150 reduction in council tax thats almost 12k a year now multiply that by 65 million and the bill is 780 billion now add on nhs, social care, defence, police and you are getting into eye watering tax levels
We may not be able to afford it *yet*
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
What do you think will change that will make it become affordable?
Time
Why has it not already become affordable, given the shape of that graph?
We can’t afford, yet, to give everyone £12k a year (say). Which would be tax allowance, unemployment benefit, state pension and more.
It is interesting to see where we are in terms of what we give out now.
Currently we would give out more to many unemployed people when you add it all up
When Leon’s AI is in force, we will all be unemployed.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
But such societies cannot survive indefinitely (though the hell of North Korea seems sadly persistent), as people flee them for freer societies elsewhere. That's the curve in operation.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
That's a different point. I am merely stating that 100% tax rate ≠ £0 tax take.
If you don't get any pay for what you do why would 99% of people ever bother working?
Or why would the military keep you in power if they're not getting any more than a peasant?
A 100% tax rate has never happened anywhere in the world and never will.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
I only argue the cliff edges are to the right of it.
Our base rates of tax? Those I'm not certain about, but our cliff edges? Yes, they're real and they're a problem.
A party that wanted to take Laffer seriously would start by eliminating cliff edges.
Is the UC 55% cliff edge to the right of the peak?
As I said elsewhere I abhor the cliff edges. I abhor the differential rates for earned versus unearned income and he differential rates for working age versus pension age earned income.
Also we should reduce tax on income overall and increase tax on wealth.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic acknowledgement that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
But such societies cannot survive indefinitely (though the hell of North Korea seems sadly persistent), as people flee them for freer societies elsewhere. That's the curve in operation.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
That's a different point. I am merely stating that 100% tax rate ≠ £0 tax take.
If you don't get any pay for what you do why would 99% of people ever bother working?
Or why would the military keep you in power if they're not getting any more than a peasant?
A 100% tax rate has never happened anywhere in the world and never will.
I really enjoy cleaning out cess pits of your waste even if you didn't pay me I would still come clean yours out....yeah can't see it somehow
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
I only argue the cliff edges are to the right of it.
Our base rates of tax? Those I'm not certain about, but our cliff edges? Yes, they're real and they're a problem.
A party that wanted to take Laffer seriously would start by eliminating cliff edges.
Is the UC 55% cliff edge to the right of the peak?
As I said elsewhere I abhor the cliff edges. I abhor the differential rates for earned versus unearned income and he differential rates for working age versus pension age earned income.
Also we should reduce tax on income overall and increase tax on wealth.
Yes I think its to the right of the peak, and I have vehemently argued so for many, many, many years now. Especially since its not 55%, its 55% + NIC + IC + Council Tax + paying for prescriptions + paying for dentistry + paying for school meals + etc etc etc
I have met more people than I'd like to count who work in the cash-in-hand economy, or refuse to work more than 16 hours or etc, etc, etc, because of the tax and benefit system working as it does. That's very, very real and its not a good thing.
I used to initially be annoyed at people like that, but eventually I realised they're rational actors who are playing the system for their benefit because that's what people do.
Change the system, people will change their behaviour. That's about as Laffer as it gets.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
Peter Hitchens dogged in his defence of Shamima Begum
I am impressed by the number of goody-goody saints , police cadets and Head Girls on Twitter, who never did anything bad in their teens, and who do not regret or seek forgiveness for their actions. My guess is that a lot of them have yet to wake up to what they were really like
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
Nor can we run it by taxing some people draconian tax rates that discourage work, while others get taxed miniscule tax rates.
Eliminate discrimination within the tax system, eliminate cliff edges, the tax take can then go up by taxing everyone evenly not trying to get every last drop out of some while others go unplucked.
Apparently the Tory membership is very upset over Anderson’s suspension . I think this sums up why they should never be allowed anywhere near picking the Tory leader .
This is hard to believe, given that the Tory party definitely isn't full of Islamophobia.
The ground continues to be laid for the “we lost because we weren’t right wing enough” postmortem.
I’m not sure how the conservatives escape this. The less well the party does, the more ideological and “core” the remaining membership will be. Perhaps when they inevitably start creeping up in the polls once Labour get tired, the more opportunistic members will start joining again and it’ll become a virtuous circle. That seems to have happened for Labour since 2019.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
Nor can we run it by taxing some people draconian tax rates that discourage work, while others get taxed miniscule tax rates.
Eliminate discrimination within the tax system, eliminate cliff edges, the tax take can then go up by taxing everyone evenly not trying to get every last drop out of some while others go unplucked.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
A lot of those slavering for tax cuts as you call it are people who are looking at their pay and realising if they didn't pay so much tax for so little return they might not have to skip meals or be able to keep the heating on when its cold. Most on pb would still be comfortable if their tax was increased....the average person in the street not so much. We keep hearing from people like yourself about people like nurses having to use food banks as they can't make ends meet.....you seem to have a disconnect between that and wanting them to be taxed more so they have even less to spend
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
Nor can we run it by taxing some people draconian tax rates that discourage work, while others get taxed miniscule tax rates.
Eliminate discrimination within the tax system, eliminate cliff edges, the tax take can then go up by taxing everyone evenly not trying to get every last drop out of some while others go unplucked.
Hunt has an opportunity at the budget. Electioneering tax cuts aren’t going to win the next GE so he might as well go for legacy and do some good in the system.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
Nor can we run it by taxing some people draconian tax rates that discourage work, while others get taxed miniscule tax rates.
Eliminate discrimination within the tax system, eliminate cliff edges, the tax take can then go up by taxing everyone evenly not trying to get every last drop out of some while others go unplucked.
Nothing I disagree with there.
Well that's the Laffer curve, there and then.
There's no reason why we can't say 70% to 100%+ cliff-edges are to the right of the peak, while even top-rate of tax is to the left of it.
Especially since someone on UC is on a higher marginal rate of tax than the top rate of tax.
That's not a left or right thing, its simply economics. The curve is real, how its debated or used - that's politics. Two different fields.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
We are talking about taxes, and the state, being trimmed to their 2000s levels. We did not have any lack of public order, public services, or indeed of bureaucrats and quangos back then. Conversely I think most would say that things ran somewhat better rather than worse.
Peter Hitchens dogged in his defence of Shamima Begum
I am impressed by the number of goody-goody saints , police cadets and Head Girls on Twitter, who never did anything bad in their teens, and who do not regret or seek forgiveness for their actions. My guess is that a lot of them have yet to wake up to what they were really like
Peter Hitchens dogged in his defence of Shamima Begum
I am impressed by the number of goody-goody saints , police cadets and Head Girls on Twitter, who never did anything bad in their teens, and who do not regret or seek forgiveness for their actions. My guess is that a lot of them have yet to wake up to what they were really like
Thanks Dismal Decline Manager, you useless pillock.
MR-D applies. I mean he's built his whole reputation on a fake theory that panders to the desire of the rich to avoid taxes.
You can see that his theory works - a lot of people ensure they don’t earn more than £50,000 or £100,000 by either putting money into their pension or simply reducing their hours.
The problem then is that he hasn’t said to fix that problem he talks about a tax band few workers actually care about because they will never earn that much
A few do for sure but I await the evidence that many do.
When I was working and earning in that bracket I was 100% focused on doing the best job I could, earning bigger bonuses, and showing that I was worthy of larger roles and thus a bigger salary.
Just on this site we had @Foxy planning to reduce his hours because of an analogous pensions issue, while @Casino_Royale has considered it. I believe @eek may have limited his work in the past as well.
Ultimately it comes down to work life balance
If you reduce the post-tax income from an hour of additional work then it because relatively less attractive vs an hour of leisure.
If you think the Laffer curve is a valid reflection of economic reality please tell me what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take.
Last time we had this discussion I went to the effort of digging out the HMRC analysis from about a decade ago and linked to it. But I guess you didn’t bother to read it.
It is around 47-48% I believe (FWIW that would align with my personal view that taking more than 50% of someone’s income in tax feels wrong).
But this is all complicated by the fact that everyone has a different personal curve (elasticity of propensity to work) and what we call the “Laffer curve” is an aggregate.
So then why ask the question rather than arguing why they are wrong as you seem to believe? I’m not an econometrics specialist so cant do the technical debate
Because... the analysis is totally riddled with guesswork and conflicting 'evidence'.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
Just because no one has worked out the equation does not mean it doesnt exist.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
Strictly speaking the bolded part is not necessarily so. In a pure marxist society all income would be gathered by the state or commune and distributed as required ('from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'). In such a case, the effecitve taxation rate is 100% and the tax take is not zero.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
But such societies cannot survive indefinitely (though the hell of North Korea seems sadly persistent), as people flee them for freer societies elsewhere. That's the curve in operation.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
A better argument is that no Marxist state has ever had a 100% tax take.
Even in Soviet Russia, Maoist China and North Korea the tax take has never been that high.
Do you think Kim Jong-Il, military leaders, or party apparatchiks have the same post-tax income as a peasant?
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
We are talking about taxes, and the state, being trimmed to their 2000s levels. We did not have any lack of public order, public services, or indeed of bureaucrats and quangos back then. Conversely I think most would say that things ran somewhat better rather than worse.
We had an age dependency ratio very different from now. We simply have way more old people in need of pensions, health and social care than we did then.
Blair had an extremely favourable demographic tailwind during his time in office.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
A lot of those slavering for tax cuts as you call it are people who are looking at their pay and realising if they didn't pay so much tax for so little return they might not have to skip meals or be able to keep the heating on when its cold. Most on pb would still be comfortable if their tax was increased....the average person in the street not so much. We keep hearing from people like yourself about people like nurses having to use food banks as they can't make ends meet.....you seem to have a disconnect between that and wanting them to be taxed more so they have even less to spend
100% agree.
I most certainly do not want to see people on, say, the 20% tax band being taxed more.
I think those earning £150k+ could generally afford a bit more but I do recognise the psychological point that others have pointed out tonight where >50% tax rates become unacceptable.
I would reduce employee NI by 2% and increase the basic ICT rate by 1% each year for six years, by which point the average workers would be paying 26% (instead of 32%) on their income over the £12.5k personal allowance (which I would index link).
Pensioners such as myself would be paying 26% too, instead of the 20% we currently get away with.
I can't easily calculate the net effect of the Benpointer tax reforms would be on government coffers - broadly neutral, I suspect. But my not so stealthy Wealthy Tax will make up any shortfall and gain enough surplus to quickly start paying down the record national debt.
Anyone that claims the laffer curve does not exist is deluded. It is obvious that at a 0% tax rate you get no revenue as you arent taxing, at a 100% you get no revenue because why bother working if the state takes it all anyway.
Somewhere in between there will be a sweet spot where you get maximal revenue for the tax rate.
Anyone who claims the laffer curve doesn't exist is deluded. Now I expect the laffer curve to differ country to country depending on what they value more yes.
Anyone who thinks it exists is more deluded. A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ? Where ? And how do you predict it ? And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
The existence of the curve does not require there to be a simplistic one size fits all equation to prove its veracity. To suggest that there must be one and supporters of the concept must produce it is to construct a very silly straw man.
So what you’re saying is that there’s a concept which you don’t understand, and can’t use to predict anything about optimum tax rates, and which is probably different for each different economy, historical period, and particular tax…
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
Laffer curve advocates: "I have no idea where the peak is but am confidently going to state we are to the right of it."
On the contrary, I think what Laffer and those who find the curve a helpful concept would like is a basic understanding that you can't gaily hack away at the goose laying the golden egg and expect it to keep laying.
And I would like the people gaily slavering for tax cuts to understand that we cannot run the public services in this country on borrowing and so-called 'efficiency savings'.
We are talking about taxes, and the state, being trimmed to their 2000s levels. We did not have any lack of public order, public services, or indeed of bureaucrats and quangos back then. Conversely I think most would say that things ran somewhat better rather than worse.
We had an age dependency ratio very different from now. We simply have way more old people in need of pensions, health and social care than we did then.
Blair had an extremely favourable demographic tailwind during his time in office.
And yet the marginal tax rate of someone who is earning a pension of £90k per annum is less than the marginal tax of a newly qualified teacher on £30k per annum.
Comments
For example I expect to get about 5k in pension over and above state pension after working the best part of 50 years....I suspect by the time you add in all the benefits I will lose due to that extra money I get I may as well have just opted out of pension schemes all together.
monthly salaries, via PAYE.
Merge to single rate of income tax. At the same time, get rid of the silly cliffs,
Only well known among her circle of clients and business partners. The Daily Mail would love to write a story but I am wary of their take.
The challenge regarding State Pension is that we've told people for years that their NI contributions were (at least in part) building up that pension. So to remove it for those too wealthy would be rather unfair, given that many will have taken the SP into account for their retirement planning.
The other major welfare benefit which is not means tested (or even taxed) is disability benefits (PIP, DLA or Attendance Allowance). Personally, I think they should have been means tested from the outset but it's a very brave government that will face the media backlash invoked by 'taking away disability benefits' now.
Means testing itself is not difficult - it's routinely done for all UC claimants of course. The rules are very clear the processes well- proven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVahD8xWoxo
"She's a bad lady, you see. A bad lady."
But it will come, I think.
There is double counting there - a UBI would *be* the state pension as well as most benefits.
Does the HMRC analysis tell us what percentage tax rate delivers the peak tax take?
Of course not.
I think you have to enjoy campaigning, and to a degree I do, though December in the North of Scotland was a dark and cold time to be tramping the streets and hills. I enjoyed the hustings each time I did one, and also very much enjoyed talking individually with voters. Being personally abused by a different party´s supporters was much less fun, and these days one has to be careful in returning fire, although heckles were a different matter.
In general there is a certain comradery amongst the politically engaged, even when we strongly disagree with each other, partly because the political process as a candidate is quite a unique and slightly isolating one, even when one is in a safe seat with a fairly settled outcome. Obviously it is also a bit like meeting the rivals in a job interview, so the politeness can be a bit brittle. When I have met people like Nick Palmer, we have often found things that we agree on, even if we disagree on quite a lot of fundamental ideas, and I think the the connection is that we believe in the political process, that elections and campaigns should matter and that policies and ideas can make a positive difference to people´s lives, though doubtless Nick can correct me if he thinks otherwise. When I get a bit abrupt with certain other posters here, part of my wrath is that I do not detect the same respect for the democratic process, indeed mostly I feel that they hold politics largely in contempt without in any way seeking to offer an improvement or even in fact understanding that most people in politics are not "Lying bastards who lie to me". Charlatans do exist of course, too many of them, but we should all recognise that most people in politics are not "In it for themselves" and that the majority of those who put themselves forward to serve in public office, even when we disagree with them, hold their views sincerely and mostly honestly.
Now... back to the scrap!
I agree with you generally though. Only affordable with some big tax rises.
Do you agree that a 0% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement? If no explain why
Do you agree that a 100% income tax brings no income tax revenue to the governement as why work when you dont get any money from it. If no explain why
Therefore the corollary is that some where in the middle there is a maxima, possibly more than 1 as there might be one for basic, one for higher and one for highest where the maximum income tax is accrued
A curve implies some predictable formula for calculating an optimal tax rate. That is evidently - across multiple economies and throughout history - utter bollocks.
“Somewhere there’s a sweet spot” ?
Where ?
And how do you predict it ?
And for which tax ? (hint, that varies too).
Just nonsense.
We are having a lovely debate about tax and spend and you come and cast a deep shadow over the whole evening.
So I’m not sure about the weighting or methodology. But having just been at Wembley, I don’t think both Liverpool and Chelsea fans joining in a lusty chorus of “f**k the Tories” bodes well for Rishi Sunak…
Remarkable that they repeated the same error in 1992. The first half of the program was all about the Tories having lost the moral majority to govern, even after Basildon.
You want to add the 150 council tax reduction into the ubi to leave them in the same position then ubi needs to be 13.8k which takes the cost to 897 billion
The problem is cliff-edges, many of which leave you either worse off or no better off from earning more.
Its the cliff-edges which cause the biggest aversion to people wanting to earn more, people gaming their salary to remain just under the 100k cliff-edge, or people on UC saying "I'm not allowed to work more than 16 hours or I'll lose my benefits" and so on. You may not like people doing that, but many are rational actors within the system we have set up for them.
If you want to deal with the anomalies in the tax system and see Laffer-derived rewards for the Exchequer and the whole economy don't look at the top rate of tax, or any individual rate of tax, look at the cliff edges first.
It is cliff edges where people make the most dramatic changes in behaviour. Rationally so.
But of course it needs a Government that is not beholden to the pensioner vote for survival. And I say that as someone in my late 50s who will be part of that bloc in a decade or so.
One other idea we could introduce very simply. Extend NI to all employment rather than exempting those working past retirement age.
Congratulations to Liverpool for a gutsy and passionate performance, and to their fans for the amazing backing. However, Liverpools run in this cup.and still in the other two cups, and all the extra games they have to play because of that in short period is likely to see them end up third or fourth or even fifth in the league. Some sides have dominated to win lots of trophies some years, but not with this injury list and lack of experience to call on in the squad during busy run in, the most likely thing is they crash and burn from here.
Liz Truss, mad bus stop woman. Calling every decent Conservative on PB a chino. I have worked out her anti Biden hate is probablynot ideology but personal, and fair enough. During her short reign he did publicly lay into her policies.
One problem Rishi should have with what Liz is putting around, is the not so subtle attacks on Sunak and his government being failures on Brexit.
“You may think we brexited, but the UK still has the vast majority of eu laws on the statute book.”
That’s a line from the rival party reform, should not come from Conservatives back benchers this side of an election. So is “I wanted to give people homes, cut their taxes, cut the overblown state, protect the borders” this all comes with the implication Sunak doesn’t?
It is interesting to see where we are in terms of what we give out now.
Economics is a field full of curves with no simple, predictable formula for calculating the optimum point.
Do you object to the principles of supply and demand because they don't follow a single, simple, predictable formula? What in Economics ever does in fact?
Why should someone on a gold-plated pension not pay NI on their income, but someone working for a living does?
Treat all earnings the same, no matter how they're earned.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-gdp-in-the-uk-since-1270
They are increasingly wearing bodycams.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/25/they-bite-they-hit-they-spit-patients-assault-staff-at-nottingham-hospital
You need a minimum of three points for a curve - and you have nothing useful to say about what happens in between your two extremes.
“Corollary” is simply inappropriate here.
I didn't really feel too strongly about the politics - 17 year old me was pretty balanced and could see positives and negatives on both sides - but I bloody loved the theatre of it. Hooked thereafter.
For the avoidance of doubt it's not a society I am advocating.
0% and 100%* tax won't bring in tax.
1% would bring in more.
2% tax would bring in more.
An undefined higher point will bring in more.
An undefined higher point will bring in less.
We just don't know for certain where the tipping point is. And indeed like much in Economics there is quite possibly multiple tipping points.
That we don't know for certain the layout of the curve doesn't make the curve any less real. That's why Economics is a social science and not a hard science.
* 100% it could be argued would bring in some, but it would be a pathetically bad amount.
*Peaceful protests may include no peace. We hate the very word. Bit like Montagues. Peaceful protests may include nuts. PP may includes nutters. The value of your PP may go down as well as up. All wrongs reserved.
Trying to buttress your argument by resorting to analogy is utterly futile.
Is this your first day?
Of all the things that don't bode well for Rishi Sunak, I don't think this will be too concerning.
You said that your £12k pa figure included a CT reduction of £150 pm but I think what you really meant is you would have got £12k UC plus a CT reduction.
You just worded it poorly. No worries.
I'd love to see Nigel's simple, predictable, testable formula for climate change "or it doesn't exist".
Or both Laffer and climate change do exist, they're just not easy to demonstrate with a single formula. And climatology has the advantage of being a hard science, unlike Economics.
But nevertheless you’re confident in asserting its existence ?
You’ve moved from economics to abstract philosophy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-68380376
*I presume meaning white/ethnonationalism
Economics does vary between economy, period and taxes.
Anyone who thinks it doesn't, doesn't know the slightest damned thing about economics.
Arguably, for Marxism to succeed, it must obliterate all free societies at once and inflict its miserable termination of human development across the board - something Lenin understood, hence his doctrine of permanent revolution.
I am impressed by the number of goody-goody saints , police cadets and Head Girls on Twitter, who never did anything bad in their teens, and who do not regret or seek forgiveness for their actions. My guess is that a lot of them have yet to wake up to what they were really like
https://x.com/clarkemicah/status/1761860572033782021?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Even in Soviet Russia, Maoist China and North Korea the tax take has never been that high.
Do you think Kim Jong-Il, military leaders, or party apparatchiks have the same post-tax income as a peasant?
Our base rates of tax? Those I'm not certain about, but our cliff edges? Yes, they're real and they're a problem.
A party that wanted to take Laffer seriously would start by eliminating cliff edges.
I was there for the booing of George Osborne at the Paralympics, and that's a less abrasive crowd than football. It's a thing people do.
A 100% tax rate has never happened anywhere in the world and never will.
As I said elsewhere I abhor the cliff edges. I abhor the differential rates for earned versus unearned income and he differential rates for working age versus pension age earned income.
Also we should reduce tax on income overall and increase tax on wealth.
I have met more people than I'd like to count who work in the cash-in-hand economy, or refuse to work more than 16 hours or etc, etc, etc, because of the tax and benefit system working as it does. That's very, very real and its not a good thing.
I used to initially be annoyed at people like that, but eventually I realised they're rational actors who are playing the system for their benefit because that's what people do.
Change the system, people will change their behaviour. That's about as Laffer as it gets.
Eliminate discrimination within the tax system, eliminate cliff edges, the tax take can then go up by taxing everyone evenly not trying to get every last drop out of some while others go unplucked.
I’m not sure how the conservatives escape this. The less well the party does, the more ideological and “core” the remaining membership will be. Perhaps when they inevitably start creeping up in the polls once Labour get tired, the more opportunistic members will start joining again and it’ll become a virtuous circle. That seems to have happened for Labour since 2019.
https://www.cityam.com/hunting-for-a-legacy-these-are-the-taxes-jeremy-should-tweak/
There's no reason why we can't say 70% to 100%+ cliff-edges are to the right of the peak, while even top-rate of tax is to the left of it.
Especially since someone on UC is on a higher marginal rate of tax than the top rate of tax.
That's not a left or right thing, its simply economics. The curve is real, how its debated or used - that's politics. Two different fields.
I do not recall any especially fruity war crimes, or participating in a literal self proclaimed* recreational genocide.
*ISIS stated that they were going to wipe out the Yazidis.
Maybe I was boring as a teenager?
Blair had an extremely favourable demographic tailwind during his time in office.
I most certainly do not want to see people on, say, the 20% tax band being taxed more.
I think those earning £150k+ could generally afford a bit more but I do recognise the psychological point that others have pointed out tonight where >50% tax rates become unacceptable.
I would reduce employee NI by 2% and increase the basic ICT rate by 1% each year for six years, by which point the average workers would be paying 26% (instead of 32%) on their income over the £12.5k personal allowance (which I would index link).
Pensioners such as myself would be paying 26% too, instead of the 20% we currently get away with.
I can't easily calculate the net effect of the Benpointer tax reforms would be on government coffers - broadly neutral, I suspect. But my not so stealthy Wealthy Tax will make up any shortfall and gain enough surplus to quickly start paying down the record national debt.
That's not demographics, that's politics.