Grifters gonna grift – politicalbetting.com

System

Grifters gonna grift – politicalbetting.com

House and Senate Republicans are starting to panic about a huge money gap with Democrats https://t.co/uhxME3o6xr

Read the full story here

TOPPING

First?

TOPPING

TOPPING said:

First?

They don't come around that often - and oh the irony of me being first on a US-based thread.

I feel I don't deserve it.

Does anyone else want it? There's a deal to be done.

rkrkrk

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

TOPPING

Then again, as I was saying to Marge the other day, perhaps I should be angling for a first in a US-themed thread.

It would be novel, I said.

Andy_JS

"Why Labour acted on arms to Israel
David Lammy is determined to be a champion of international law.
By George Eaton"

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2024/09/why-labour-acted-on-arms-to-israel

HYUFD

Part of the problem for the GOP is they haven't got most donations from Wall Street since Romney was their presidential candidate in 2012. The West coast tech sector also strongly supports Harris and the Dems overall (with Musk the main exception)

Big_G_NorthWales

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means

Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended

On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go

FF43

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

TimS

Big_G_NorthWales said:

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

I expect pension tax relief to be equalised at 25% which helps the 'working class' if anyone knows what that means

Capital gains tax and lifetime allowances seem certain to be amended

On IT I expect the seven year gift allowance to go

Keep them coming. I'm using this as an informal straw poll of the great British people. I have to publish a blog post with budget predictions in a couple of weeks' time.

If it were up to me (but it's not) I'd change the fiscal rules first.

LostPassword

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

Pulpstar

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

How does the lifetime allowance work for DB pension recipients ?

londonpubman

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Fysics_Teacher

From previous thread:

Flatlander said:
» show previous quotes
Dynamic road pricing?

4pm outside a school? £10 / mile. M74 through the borders late at night? 0.01p / mile.


Would mean universal car tracking through. Do we really want that?


That would make a lot of teachers very unhappy…

londonpubman

Pulpstar said:

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

How does the lifetime allowance work for DB pension recipients ?

Something like the aggregate of the lump sum plus 16x the gross residual pension

Someone with a lump sum of £200,000 and residual gross pension of £50,000 would be LTA £200,000 + £800,000 = £1m

Sean_F

Getting rid of the double relief of £650,000 will simply cause well-advised married couples to leave up to £325,000 on a discretionary trust in their wills, on each death, which was the norm, prior to 2008. Alternatively, beneficiaries will execute post-death variations, to achieve the same result.

FF43

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

HYUFD

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Yes probably not far off, the last Tory government was caricatured as taking from private sector workers and the public sector to subsidise pensioners.

This Labour government looks set to take from pensioners and private sector workers to subsidise the unionised public sector

kjh

In answer to @rcs1000 from the last thread (Sorry I don't know how to continue an old thread on a new discussion). I would love to know as I see a number of you do it.

@rcs1000 said:

"If you remove the personal allowance - even if gradually between £100k and £150k - then you create the situation that your £150,001 pound is worth more than your £100,000 one."

No, not necessarily and I thought my description covered that, but maybe it wasn't clear. You remove the allowance very gradually. I would start earlier, say at £75,000, and remove it so slowly that the marginal rate increase is quite small (not the whooping 20% currently). Once you get to the elimination point you introduce a new tax band at the current effective rate or of course if you are so inclined to a higher rate.

So your effective tax rates are say:

0, 20, 40, 45 (effective while eliminating PA), 45

instead of

0, 20, 40, 60 (effective while you eliminate PA), 45

It really isn't complicated either which some are critical of. After all it is what we do currently, but just smooths it.

Nigelb

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

Fysics_Teacher

On thread:

How much of the GOP’s money problem is down to Trump
a) using half the money he raises to fund his legal bills
b) funnelling the rest through entities he controls so he can take a cut?

And that is not counting the money he his getting my selling NFTs etc which will not then be available for GOP fund raising.

HYUFD

Sean_F said:

Getting rid of the double relief of £650,000 will simply cause well-advised married couples to leave up to £325,000 on a discretionary trust in their wills, on each death, which was the norm, prior to 2008. Alternatively, beneficiaries will execute post-death variations, to achieve the same result.

Extra lawyers fees though. Labour also needs to remember it now holds seats like Kensington and Bayswater, Cities of London and Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham, Eltham and Chislehurst, Hampstead and Kilburn, Putney, Battersea, Southgate and Wood Green, Uxbridge, Beckenham, Welwyn Hatfield, both Reading seats, both Milton Keynes seats, Hove etc all of which would be hit by removing the double relief. All of the above voted Tory in 2010 after Osborne proposed the double relief (except Hampstead which Labour held by just 42 votes) and most of the above voted Tory in 2019

Roger

Andy_JS said:

"Why Labour acted on arms to Israel
David Lammy is determined to be a champion of international law.
By George Eaton"

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2024/09/why-labour-acted-on-arms-to-israel

The Israelis have raped and pillaged including a 13 year old prisoner with the acquiescence of the Israel government. Not a great look for Lammy or the Labour government to be supplying anything that backs up this illegal behaviour

https://x.com/naomi4labnec/status/1830037267483603012?s=43

kjh

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

Fysics_Teacher

Pulpstar said:

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

How does the lifetime allowance work for DB pension recipients ?

I’m not sure how it is calculated, but I do know that when I go to the Teachers’ Pension website it tells me what fraction of my lifetime allowance I’ve got (I’m in no danger of exceeding it!)

rkrkrk

Pulpstar said:

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

How does the lifetime allowance work for DB pension recipients ?

I think previously if you had a DB pension of 10k/year, that was multiplied by 20x, and that was considered the number which contributed to lifetime allowance.

Not a great system.

IanB2

I’m getting a fair few of the Dems ads on my Facebook feed. Some of Walz’s folksy non-political ones are pretty good.

Meanwhile the Republican media continues to churn out a never-ending stream of increasingly rabid bile against Harris, some of it strikingly extreme. Makes our Daily Mail seem a bit soft.

FF43

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

On further investigation it doesn't apply to salary sacrifice so I believe I was right the first time

Andy_JS

"Conservative leadership contender Tom Tugendhat has pledged to cap the UK’s net legal migration at 100,000 a year and declared he is prepared to quit the European Convention on Human Rights if he wins power.

The former security minister vowed to “serve, lead, act” as he formally launched his campaign in Westminster on Tuesday, a day before the first vote by MPs that will whittle down the number of Tory contenders from six to five."

https://www.ft.com/content/a9add13e-5ea3-4700-be02-7220a217557d

Sean_F

HYUFD said:

Sean_F said:

Getting rid of the double relief of £650,000 will simply cause well-advised married couples to leave up to £325,000 on a discretionary trust in their wills, on each death, which was the norm, prior to 2008. Alternatively, beneficiaries will execute post-death variations, to achieve the same result.

Extra lawyers fees though. Labour also needs to remember it now holds seats like Kensington and Bayswater, Cities of London and Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham, Eltham and Chislehurst, Hampstead and Kilburn, Putney, Battersea, Southgate and Wood Green, Uxbridge, Beckenham, Welwyn Hatfield, both Reading seats, both Milton Keynes seats, Hove etc all of which would be hit by removing the double relief. All of the above voted Tory in 2010 after Osborne proposed the double relief (except Hampstead which Labour held by just 42 votes) and most of the above voted Tory in 2019

It would be unpopular, without question,

IanB2

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

As I understand it, sacrifice arrangements into pensions rely on the employee unilaterally waiving entitlement to remuneration and the employer, at its discretion and with no guarantee, making a contribution (which just happens always to be equivalent) into the employee’s pension. That there’s no guarantee of the employer doing so can worry people the first time, but of course it’s just a device to enable the arrangement to proceed.

The challenge for the politicians is how you make employer voluntary contributions to employee’s pension pots, done in this way, illegal? Without unforeseen consequences.

kjh

HYUFD said:

Sean_F said:

Getting rid of the double relief of £650,000 will simply cause well-advised married couples to leave up to £325,000 on a discretionary trust in their wills, on each death, which was the norm, prior to 2008. Alternatively, beneficiaries will execute post-death variations, to achieve the same result.

Extra lawyers fees though. Labour also needs to remember it now holds seats like Kensington and Bayswater, Cities of London and Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham, Eltham and Chislehurst, Hampstead and Kilburn, Putney, Battersea, Southgate and Wood Green, Uxbridge, Beckenham, Welwyn Hatfield, both Reading seats, both Milton Keynes seats, Hove etc all of which would be hit by removing the double relief. All of the above voted Tory in 2010 after Osborne proposed the double relief (except Hampstead which Labour held by just 42 votes) and most of the above voted Tory in 2019

The solicitors fees for this are trivial though. Having said that I still agree with you on this.

londonpubman

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Sean_F

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

West Virginia is gone, and I can't see any path to victory in Montana, unless Harris wins big.

bondegezou

kjh said:

In answer to @rcs1000 from the last thread (Sorry I don't know how to continue an old thread on a new discussion).

Go to old thread. Click "Quote" as if normally replying to a post on that thread. Select all the text produced, including everything within "blockquote". Copy. Go to new thread. Paste in the content from the old thread. Write your reply as normal.

Scott_xP

IanB2 said:

I’m getting a fair few of the Dems ads on my Facebook feed. Some of Walz’s folksy non-political ones are pretty good.

Meanwhile the Republican media continues to churn out a never-ending stream of increasingly rabid bile against Harris, some of it strikingly extreme. Makes our Daily Mail seem a bit soft.

“They talk about small gov’t. Small enough to be in your bedroom, small enough to be in your exam room, small enough to be in your library.”

https://x.com/BestForBritain/status/1830980737568514262

Selebian

kjh said:

In answer to @rcs1000 from the last thread (Sorry I don't know how to continue an old thread on a new discussion). I would love to know as I see a number of you do it.

@rcs1000 said:

"If you remove the personal allowance - even if gradually between £100k and £150k - then you create the situation that your £150,001 pound is worth more than your £100,000 one."

No, not necessarily and I thought my description covered that, but maybe it wasn't clear. You remove the allowance very gradually. I would start earlier, say at £75,000, and remove it so slowly that the marginal rate increase is quite small (not the whooping 20% currently). Once you get to the elimination point you introduce a new tax band at the current effective rate or of course if you are so inclined to a higher rate.

So your effective tax rates are say:

0, 20, 40, 45 (effective while eliminating PA), 45

instead of

0, 20, 40, 60 (effective while you eliminate PA), 45

It really isn't complicated either which some are critical of. After all it is what we do currently, but just smooths it.

Why withdraw the personal allowance at all, rather than just increase the headline rate at that point? What am I missing? Or is it simple to avoid increasing the headline rate at that point?

ETR: now not needed comment on posting from previous thread

IanB2

rkrkrk said:

Pulpstar said:

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

How does the lifetime allowance work for DB pension recipients ?

I think previously if you had a DB pension of 10k/year, that was multiplied by 20x, and that was considered the number which contributed to lifetime allowance.

Not a great system.

It’s still the system for valuing DBs, which is what got me up against the LTA. Note that for the tax free cash, the LTA still exists, under a different name.

kjh

bondegezou said:

kjh said:

In answer to @rcs1000 from the last thread (Sorry I don't know how to continue an old thread on a new discussion).

Go to old thread. Click "Quote" as if normally replying to a post on that thread. Select all the text produced, including everything within "blockquote". Copy. Go to new thread. Paste in the content from the old thread. Write your reply as normal.

Cheers @bondegezou. Sort of falls into the 'bleeding obvious' category doesn't it. Probably why I didn't think of it.

Scott_xP

@newrepublic

"Against Harris, he looks old (because he is), confused (because he is), far less intelligent than she (because he is), and less genuinely patriotic (because he is)."

https://x.com/newrepublic/status/1830706775533691256

IanB2

Sean_F said:

HYUFD said:

Sean_F said:

Getting rid of the double relief of £650,000 will simply cause well-advised married couples to leave up to £325,000 on a discretionary trust in their wills, on each death, which was the norm, prior to 2008. Alternatively, beneficiaries will execute post-death variations, to achieve the same result.

Extra lawyers fees though. Labour also needs to remember it now holds seats like Kensington and Bayswater, Cities of London and Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham, Eltham and Chislehurst, Hampstead and Kilburn, Putney, Battersea, Southgate and Wood Green, Uxbridge, Beckenham, Welwyn Hatfield, both Reading seats, both Milton Keynes seats, Hove etc all of which would be hit by removing the double relief. All of the above voted Tory in 2010 after Osborne proposed the double relief (except Hampstead which Labour held by just 42 votes) and most of the above voted Tory in 2019

It would be unpopular, without question,

The Tories aren’t going to be swept back into power any time soon just because Labour does a few unpopular things to raise money. Indeed there’s likely a payoff for being honest about our state of affairs, given that most of us can see the mess all around us.

The key is whether there’s a visible payback in five years time. Labour would do better being bold and unpopular now, and then ensuring people can see the results when it matters.

Nigelb

Sean_F said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

West Virginia is gone, and I can't see any path to victory in Montana, unless Harris wins big.

There's also Florida and Texas.
While both look too much of a stretch for Harris, the Senate races are closer.

londonpubman

londonpubman said:

Pulpstar said:

rkrkrk said:

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I'd be surprised if Labour broke its promise on not raising NI, VAT or Income tax.

My guess is they will go for:
1) remove higher rate pension relief- back to 20%
2) increase capital gains tax
3) reintroduce pensions lifetime allowance

If they're feeling bold - I think they might try for scrapping inheritance tax and replacing it with a less generous lifetime gift allowance...

How does the lifetime allowance work for DB pension recipients ?

Something like the aggregate of the lump sum plus 16x the gross residual pension

Someone with a lump sum of £200,000 and residual gross pension of £50,000 would be LTA £200,000 + £800,000 = £1m

CORRECTION:

It's the lump sum plus 20x the residual pension not 16x.

Selebian

IanB2 said:

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

As I understand it, sacrifice arrangements into pensions rely on the employee unilaterally waiving entitlement to remuneration and the employer, at its discretion and with no guarantee, making a contribution (which just happens always to be equivalent) into the employee’s pension. That there’s no guarantee of the employer doing so can worry people the first time, but of course it’s just a device to enable the arrangement to proceed.

The challenge for the politicians is how you make employer voluntary contributions to employee’s pension pots, done in this way, illegal? Without unforeseen consequences.

Quite. Didn't someone (Nigel? one of our teachers?) post a link to a story about an academy chain offering much higher starting salaries to teachers if they opted out of the TPS? Not quite the same thing (as opting into the TPS presumably does obligate the employer) but those in the TPS would then be effectively sacrificing salary for increased employer contributions.

Nigelb

Former GOP congressman labels Trump ‘little Richie Rich’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4859528-david-jolly-former-gop-lawmaker-donald-trump-little-richie-rich/

Northern_Al

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

kjh

Selebian said:

kjh said:

In answer to @rcs1000 from the last thread (Sorry I don't know how to continue an old thread on a new discussion). I would love to know as I see a number of you do it.

@rcs1000 said:

"If you remove the personal allowance - even if gradually between £100k and £150k - then you create the situation that your £150,001 pound is worth more than your £100,000 one."

No, not necessarily and I thought my description covered that, but maybe it wasn't clear. You remove the allowance very gradually. I would start earlier, say at £75,000, and remove it so slowly that the marginal rate increase is quite small (not the whooping 20% currently). Once you get to the elimination point you introduce a new tax band at the current effective rate or of course if you are so inclined to a higher rate.

So your effective tax rates are say:

0, 20, 40, 45 (effective while eliminating PA), 45

instead of

0, 20, 40, 60 (effective while you eliminate PA), 45

It really isn't complicated either which some are critical of. After all it is what we do currently, but just smooths it.

Why withdraw the personal allowance at all, rather than just increase the headline rate at that point? What am I missing? Or is it simple to avoid increasing the headline rate at that point?

On quoting from previous thread, simply:

1. On previous thread, hit quote as normal
2. Add your comments
3. Copy the whole text box
4. Go to new thread and paste as a 'new' comment (add FTP: before the paste if you like)

(You can also swap 2-4 around, doing 1, 3, 4, 2, depending at which point you prefer to add your typing)

Cheers for the advice @Selebian

The reason:

PA is really there for the benefit of the lower paid, however it has greater benefit the higher your marginal tax rate is which is perverse. Each time you increase the PA (which you should do each time because of inflation) you benefit the well off more than the poorest which is the opposite of your objective. You could I guess mess with the thresholds or rates each time, but that is more messy than just getting rid of it for those that don't need it.

Nigelb

The other side of the coin is this.

Swing-state Senate races looking bad for Trump’s election
https://thehill.com/opinion/4859013-swing-state-senate-races-trump/
..Here’s the point. If current polls are accurately reflecting swing-state voters’ choices for their respective Senate candidates, those leads will likely determine those states’ choice for president.

It’s true that some voters will split their vote, supporting a Republican for one office and a Democrat for a different office. But that trend is down. According to a Pew Research Center poll just before the 2020 presidential election, only 4 percent said they would consider voting for either Donald Trump or Joe Biden and a Senate candidate from the other party.

Perhaps more tellingly, Larry Sabato’s Center for Politics at the University of Virginia has examined the post-war history of split presidential/Senate outcomes.

It was fairly common for people to vote for a Republican president and Democratic Senate candidate, or vice versa, up through the 1990s. But that trend has declined and has largely vanished as the parties have become more polarized. According to the Center, in the 2016 presidential election, not one state voted for the presidential candidate from one party and a Senate candidate from the other party. In 2020, only one state did: Maine, which voted for Republican Sen. Susan Collins but also Biden for president.

If swing-state Senate Democratic candidates were leading by 1 or 2 points, Trump might still win that state. But Democratic Senate leads of 4, 6 or 8 points would take a lot of split-ticket voting for Trump to win. It can happen. Collins of Maine was way down in the polls in 2020 and still pulled out a victory with 51 percent. But that’s unusual. ..

LostPassword

FF43 said:

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

On further investigation it doesn't apply to salary sacrifice so I believe I was right the first time

Pension contributions don't operate under the salary sacrifice rules for, e.g. the buying a bicycle scheme.

TimS

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

FF43

IanB2 said:

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

As I understand it, sacrifice arrangements into pensions rely on the employee unilaterally waiving entitlement to remuneration and the employer, at its discretion and with no guarantee, making a contribution (which just happens always to be equivalent) into the employee’s pension. That there’s no guarantee of the employer doing so can worry people the first time, but of course it’s just a device to enable the arrangement to proceed.

The challenge for the politicians is how you make employer voluntary contributions to employee’s pension pots, done in this way, illegal? Without unforeseen consequences.

My suggestion for Rachel Reeves is to remove salary sacrifice for pension contributions and discount pension payments against tax paid at a certain %. This way she can pick up some of the employer and employee NICs

Fysics_Teacher

Selebian said:

IanB2 said:

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

As I understand it, sacrifice arrangements into pensions rely on the employee unilaterally waiving entitlement to remuneration and the employer, at its discretion and with no guarantee, making a contribution (which just happens always to be equivalent) into the employee’s pension. That there’s no guarantee of the employer doing so can worry people the first time, but of course it’s just a device to enable the arrangement to proceed.

The challenge for the politicians is how you make employer voluntary contributions to employee’s pension pots, done in this way, illegal? Without unforeseen consequences.

Quite. Didn't someone (Nigel? one of our teachers?) post a link to a story about an academy chain offering much higher starting salaries to teachers if they opted out of the TPS? Not quite the same thing (as opting into the TPS presumably does obligate the employer) but those in the TPS would then be effectively sacrificing salary for increased employer contributions.

The current TPS, while not quite as good as the older version (which is where most of my pension is) is one of the two major perks of being a teacher.

Nigelb

Nigelb said:

Sean_F said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

West Virginia is gone, and I can't see any path to victory in Montana, unless Harris wins big.

There's also Florida and Texas.
While both look too much of a stretch for Harris, the Senate races are closer.

OTOH...
The Harris/Walz campaign is expanding its staff in Florida. You don’t expand staff unless it’s a place you believe you can win.
https://x.com/travisakers/status/1830643826081362226

LostPassword

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

On further investigation it doesn't apply to salary sacrifice so I believe I was right the first time

Pension contributions don't operate under the salary sacrifice rules for, e.g. the buying a bicycle scheme.

See the IFS page.
https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-taxes-explained/national-insurance-contributions-explained

IanB2

FF43 said:

IanB2 said:

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

As I understand it, sacrifice arrangements into pensions rely on the employee unilaterally waiving entitlement to remuneration and the employer, at its discretion and with no guarantee, making a contribution (which just happens always to be equivalent) into the employee’s pension. That there’s no guarantee of the employer doing so can worry people the first time, but of course it’s just a device to enable the arrangement to proceed.

The challenge for the politicians is how you make employer voluntary contributions to employee’s pension pots, done in this way, illegal? Without unforeseen consequences.

My suggestion for Rachel Reeves is to remove salary sacrifice for pension contributions and discount pension payments against tax paid at a certain %. This way she can pick up some of the employer and employee NICs

The question is how you make it illegal when the way it works is that the employee forgoes remuneration and the employer, entirely separately and coincidentally, enhances the employee’s pension? Each of the two parts, taken alone, are difficult to ban. As soon as they start writing laws intended to ban the two together, employers will simply knock off an arbitrary amount, or make the pension enhancement at a separate time, or whatever it takes to get round the regulations.

algarkirk

TimS said:

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

Excise duty at double rate on non alcoholic gin?

Northern_Al

TimS said:

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

Insert 'and Waitrose' in your third suggestion.

Andy_JS

Scott_xP said:

@newrepublic

"Against Harris, he looks old (because he is), confused (because he is), far less intelligent than she (because he is), and less genuinely patriotic (because he is)."

https://x.com/newrepublic/status/1830706775533691256

The problem is none of that seems to have seriously dented his support in the important swing states. (His support does seem to have dipped slightly in terms of the national vote share).

Nigelb

algarkirk said:

TimS said:

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

Excise duty at double rate on non alcoholic gin?

Nationalise the stills, and introduce Victory Gin.

Jim_Miller

FPT: Here's a moderately technical estimate of US median household income: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/2023/demo/p60-279/figureC1.pdf
Itwould be a bit higher, now, somewhere above 75K, at a guess.

Much more data, here: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html

Sandpit

algarkirk said:

TimS said:

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

Excise duty at double rate on non alcoholic gin?

The lack of excise duty of non-alcoholic beer appears to make very little difference to the price of the product.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/02/alcohol-free-guinness-sold-draught-first-time-uk/
Regular Guinness: £6.90 - cheers!
Guinness Zero: £6.35 - what the…!!!!

Scott_xP

Andy_JS said:

Scott_xP said:

@newrepublic

"Against Harris, he looks old (because he is), confused (because he is), far less intelligent than she (because he is), and less genuinely patriotic (because he is)."

https://x.com/newrepublic/status/1830706775533691256

The problem is none of that seems to have seriously dented his support in the important swing states. (His support does seem to have dipped slightly in terms of the national vote share).

There are reports that evangelical women are less likely to vote for him than last time.

Roe v Wade has seriously dented his chances

Chump

SeaShantyIrish2

OT - "“The only thing preventing us from having a great night in November is the massive financial disparity our party currently faces" . . .

Only thing EXCEPT for (to name but the most obvious)

> Creepy and his Mini-MAGA-ME Weirdo (a Republican US Senator) at the top of the GOP (Grifters On Parade) ticket.

> Equally (if that's possible) rotten GOP US Senate candidates in key US Senate battlegrounds from sea to shining sea.

FF43

IanB2 said:

FF43 said:

IanB2 said:

FF43 said:

LostPassword said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

Something that surprised me when I looked into it is that you are charged NICs on pension contributions. This makes calculating the tax and NICs to pay a bit more complicated than it would otherwise be, but also means that your proposal of 30% relief would be a big boost to the pensions of basic rate taxpayers.

Even Big_G's 25% would be a boost, and it's probably a great way to sell the policy, as the pensions of the lower paid could certainly do with the help.

I wasn't aware that employee NICs are still payable on pension contributions (but don't apply to employer contributions). Makes the proposal less attractive to Rachel Reeves, but may still be worth doing at a lower discount.

As I understand it, sacrifice arrangements into pensions rely on the employee unilaterally waiving entitlement to remuneration and the employer, at its discretion and with no guarantee, making a contribution (which just happens always to be equivalent) into the employee’s pension. That there’s no guarantee of the employer doing so can worry people the first time, but of course it’s just a device to enable the arrangement to proceed.

The challenge for the politicians is how you make employer voluntary contributions to employee’s pension pots, done in this way, illegal? Without unforeseen consequences.

My suggestion for Rachel Reeves is to remove salary sacrifice for pension contributions and discount pension payments against tax paid at a certain %. This way she can pick up some of the employer and employee NICs

The question is how you make it illegal when the way it works is that the employee forgoes remuneration and the employer, entirely separately and coincidentally, enhances the employee’s pension? Each of the two parts, taken alone, are difficult to ban. As soon as they start writing laws intended to ban the two together, employers will simply knock off an arbitrary amount, or make the pension enhancement at a separate time, or whatever it takes to get round the regulations.

But you can do that anyway as long as you don't go before minimum wage. But if the benefit in kind (the employers pension contribution) is taxed and then discounted, it does mean employers paying more. They may need another scheme to partially compensate them for that.

Scott_xP

@AdImpact_Pol
There's $1.9B set to air in the 9 weeks between Labor Day and Election Day. Here's what we're seeing in the nation's biggest races🧵

Presidential
🔵$303M🔴$135M

While PA and GA are tied, Harris and her allies hold significant $ advantages in the 5 other battlegrounds and NE.

Reservations in Presidential Battlegrounds

#PAPol:🔵$70.8M🔴$70.6M
#GAPol:🔵$39M🔴$38.7M
#MIPol:🔵$55.2M🔴$6.6M
#AZPol:🔵$34.9M🔴$9.9M
#WIPol:🔵$33.1M🔴$3.5M
#NCPol:🔵$26M🔴$2.8M
#NVPol:🔵$19.5M🔴$1.4M
Omaha market: 🔵$7M🔴$0

https://x.com/AdImpact_Pol/status/1829613828382032212

Nigelb

Big bump in Biden approval numbers.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1830970976550424951
USA Today/Suffolk: President Biden's job approval (shift from June 30)

Approve: 48% (+7)
Disapprove: 49% (-8)
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 DEM: 48%
🟥 GOP: 43%
——
Fav/unfav
Harris: 49-46 (net: +3)
Trump: 42-56 (net: -14)
——
very excited about voting for their candidate

Harris supporters: 68%
Trump supporters: 60%
——
Who do you think will win the presidency?

Kamala Harris: 50%
Donald Trump: 38%
——
Trust more on...

The Economy: Trump +5 (was Trump +14 vs Biden in June)

Immigration: Trump +3 (was Trump +13 vs Biden in June)

Healthcare: Harris +14
Race Relations: Harris +18
National security: Trump +5
Dealing with China: Trump +4
——
#7 (2.9/3.0) | 1,000 LV | 8/25-28
https://suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2024/9_3_2024_corrected_national_marginals_2.pdf

Foss

Nigelb said:

algarkirk said:

TimS said:

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

Excise duty at double rate on non alcoholic gin?

Nationalise the stills, and introduce Victory Gin.

'...the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Keir Starmer.'

Andy_JS

"Phone thefts up 150% as government pledges crackdown"

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-09-03/phone-thefts-up-150-as-government-pledges-crackdown

Nigelb

Scott_xP said:

@AdImpact_Pol
There's $1.9B set to air in the 9 weeks between Labor Day and Election Day. Here's what we're seeing in the nation's biggest races🧵

Presidential
🔵$303M🔴$135M

While PA and GA are tied, Harris and her allies hold significant $ advantages in the 5 other battlegrounds and NE.

Reservations in Presidential Battlegrounds

#PAPol:🔵$70.8M🔴$70.6M
#GAPol:🔵$39M🔴$38.7M
#MIPol:🔵$55.2M🔴$6.6M
#AZPol:🔵$34.9M🔴$9.9M
#WIPol:🔵$33.1M🔴$3.5M
#NCPol:🔵$26M🔴$2.8M
#NVPol:🔵$19.5M🔴$1.4M
Omaha market: 🔵$7M🔴$0

https://x.com/AdImpact_Pol/status/1829613828382032212

The disparity is not quite as big as that, since that represents pre-reserved ad space.
The GOP has since upped its spending - though of course it will now be paying more for airtime.

Nigelb

Foss said:

Nigelb said:

algarkirk said:

TimS said:

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

Excise duty at double rate on non alcoholic gin?

Nationalise the stills, and introduce Victory Gin.

'...the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Keir Starmer.'

Let's not make the idea completely implausible.

Taz

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Labour have long since become the party of the middle class public sector worker and abandoned the working man and woman.

Sean_F

IanB2 said:

Sean_F said:

HYUFD said:

Sean_F said:

Getting rid of the double relief of £650,000 will simply cause well-advised married couples to leave up to £325,000 on a discretionary trust in their wills, on each death, which was the norm, prior to 2008. Alternatively, beneficiaries will execute post-death variations, to achieve the same result.

Extra lawyers fees though. Labour also needs to remember it now holds seats like Kensington and Bayswater, Cities of London and Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham, Eltham and Chislehurst, Hampstead and Kilburn, Putney, Battersea, Southgate and Wood Green, Uxbridge, Beckenham, Welwyn Hatfield, both Reading seats, both Milton Keynes seats, Hove etc all of which would be hit by removing the double relief. All of the above voted Tory in 2010 after Osborne proposed the double relief (except Hampstead which Labour held by just 42 votes) and most of the above voted Tory in 2019

It would be unpopular, without question,

The Tories aren’t going to be swept back into power any time soon just because Labour does a few unpopular things to raise money. Indeed there’s likely a payoff for being honest about our state of affairs, given that most of us can see the mess all around us.

The key is whether there’s a visible payback in five years time. Labour would do better being bold and unpopular now, and then ensuring people can see the results when it matters.

A lot of these measures will raise peanuts, but piss people off.

Taz

Nigelb said:

Big bump in Biden approval numbers.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1830970976550424951
USA Today/Suffolk: President Biden's job approval (shift from June 30)

Approve: 48% (+7)
Disapprove: 49% (-8)
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 DEM: 48%
🟥 GOP: 43%
——
Fav/unfav
Harris: 49-46 (net: +3)
Trump: 42-56 (net: -14)
——
very excited about voting for their candidate

Harris supporters: 68%
Trump supporters: 60%
——
Who do you think will win the presidency?

Kamala Harris: 50%
Donald Trump: 38%
——
Trust more on...

The Economy: Trump +5 (was Trump +14 vs Biden in June)

Immigration: Trump +3 (was Trump +13 vs Biden in June)

Healthcare: Harris +14
Race Relations: Harris +18
National security: Trump +5
Dealing with China: Trump +4
——
#7 (2.9/3.0) | 1,000 LV | 8/25-28
https://suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2024/9_3_2024_corrected_national_marginals_2.pdf

Dealing with China !!!

Are they serious.

He wants to impose 60% trade tariffs.

Madness

Sean_F

Nigelb said:

Sean_F said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

West Virginia is gone, and I can't see any path to victory in Montana, unless Harris wins big.

There's also Florida and Texas.
While both look too much of a stretch for Harris, the Senate races are closer.

According to 538, each State has a Senate Republican lead of 5%, so while they aren't totally out of reach, they're still long shots.

Flatlander

Fysics_Teacher said:

From previous thread:

Flatlander said:
» show previous quotes
Dynamic road pricing?

4pm outside a school? £10 / mile. M74 through the borders late at night? 0.01p / mile.


Would mean universal car tracking through. Do we really want that?


That would make a lot of teachers very unhappy…

Ah, but at least you'd be able to use the Cycle to Work scheme...

Roger

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

I'd support all of those. I'm surprised you sound nonplussed maintaining the salaries of public sector workers. Would you prefer Rachel's redistribution to be to the likes of advertisers and media folk so we can continue our louche lifestyles while the NHS and those providing services to the public -that they actually need -get screwed?

noneoftheabove

Andy_JS said:

"Phone thefts up 150% as government pledges crackdown"

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-09-03/phone-thefts-up-150-as-government-pledges-crackdown

Typical Starmer promising to crack down but didn't do a thing to stop the rise between March 23 and March 24 at all. Shocking.

williamglenn

Taz said:

Nigelb said:

Big bump in Biden approval numbers.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1830970976550424951
USA Today/Suffolk: President Biden's job approval (shift from June 30)

Approve: 48% (+7)
Disapprove: 49% (-8)
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 DEM: 48%
🟥 GOP: 43%
——
Fav/unfav
Harris: 49-46 (net: +3)
Trump: 42-56 (net: -14)
——
very excited about voting for their candidate

Harris supporters: 68%
Trump supporters: 60%
——
Who do you think will win the presidency?

Kamala Harris: 50%
Donald Trump: 38%
——
Trust more on...

The Economy: Trump +5 (was Trump +14 vs Biden in June)

Immigration: Trump +3 (was Trump +13 vs Biden in June)

Healthcare: Harris +14
Race Relations: Harris +18
National security: Trump +5
Dealing with China: Trump +4
——
#7 (2.9/3.0) | 1,000 LV | 8/25-28
https://suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2024/9_3_2024_corrected_national_marginals_2.pdf

Dealing with China !!!

Are they serious.

He wants to impose 60% trade tariffs.

Madness

Decoupling from China is also Biden/Harris's policy, is it not?

Jim_Miller

FPT: kamski - As far as I know, there is no debate about Christians being -- by far -- the most persecuted religion in the world. For examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China#Restrictions_and_international_interest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Doors

In the Seattle area, there are a number of Russian Baptist churches. As I understand it, they were persecuted by the czars, by Stalin, and now by Putin. But they seem to be mostly left alone, here. (Though I wouldn't advise them to apply for a job with, for example, Google.)

Last Friday, I encountered several Jehovah Witness women offering pamphlets -- in Russian. The Witnesses are regulars just outside the local library, but this is the first time I have seen the Russian versions of their literature.

(I have known Witnesses all my life. To say the least, I don't share their theology, but the ones I have met have all been good people, willing to live in peace with others.)

SeaShantyIrish2

Nigelb said:

Big bump in Biden approval numbers.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1830970976550424951
USA Today/Suffolk: President Biden's job approval (shift from June 30)

Approve: 48% (+7)
Disapprove: 49% (-8)
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 DEM: 48%
🟥 GOP: 43%
——
Fav/unfav
Harris: 49-46 (net: +3)
Trump: 42-56 (net: -14)
——
very excited about voting for their candidate

Harris supporters: 68%
Trump supporters: 60%
——
Who do you think will win the presidency?

Kamala Harris: 50%
Donald Trump: 38%
——
Trust more on...

The Economy: Trump +5 (was Trump +14 vs Biden in June)

Immigration: Trump +3 (was Trump +13 vs Biden in June)

Healthcare: Harris +14
Race Relations: Harris +18
National security: Trump +5
Dealing with China: Trump +4
——
#7 (2.9/3.0) | 1,000 LV | 8/25-28
https://suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2024/9_3_2024_corrected_national_marginals_2.pdf

"How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?" - Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXE2xNa3j9U

So when will TRUMP get the message?

My guess is circa 2040!

viewcode

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

Isn't there a typo in that? The "GOP" are the Republicans.

Nigelb

Taz said:

Nigelb said:

Big bump in Biden approval numbers.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1830970976550424951
USA Today/Suffolk: President Biden's job approval (shift from June 30)

Approve: 48% (+7)
Disapprove: 49% (-8)
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 DEM: 48%
🟥 GOP: 43%
——
Fav/unfav
Harris: 49-46 (net: +3)
Trump: 42-56 (net: -14)
——
very excited about voting for their candidate

Harris supporters: 68%
Trump supporters: 60%
——
Who do you think will win the presidency?

Kamala Harris: 50%
Donald Trump: 38%
——
Trust more on...

The Economy: Trump +5 (was Trump +14 vs Biden in June)

Immigration: Trump +3 (was Trump +13 vs Biden in June)

Healthcare: Harris +14
Race Relations: Harris +18
National security: Trump +5
Dealing with China: Trump +4
——
#7 (2.9/3.0) | 1,000 LV | 8/25-28
https://suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2024/9_3_2024_corrected_national_marginals_2.pdf

Dealing with China !!!

Are they serious.

He wants to impose 60% trade tariffs.

Madness

Of course.
The interesting thing is the movement in the numbers, rather than the absolutes.

Don'r forget the MAGA faithful have learned to disregard contradictions, and inconvenient facts. And at the same time, the MSM tends to sanity-wash Trump's nonsense.

kamski

HYUFD said:

Part of the problem for the GOP is they haven't got most donations from Wall Street since Romney was their presidential candidate in 2012. The West coast tech sector also strongly supports Harris and the Dems overall (with Musk the main exception)

Several Trump supporters among tech billionaires - because they don't like anti-trust rules being enforced, or they have a lot invested in crypto, or they just don't think billionaires should pay any tax. Some are also against democracy, and some are "mavericks" (where maverick is the latest euphemism for "racist arsewipe").

Fysics_Teacher

Flatlander said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

From previous thread:

Flatlander said:
» show previous quotes
Dynamic road pricing?

4pm outside a school? £10 / mile. M74 through the borders late at night? 0.01p / mile.


Would mean universal car tracking through. Do we really want that?


That would make a lot of teachers very unhappy…

Ah, but at least you'd be able to use the Cycle to Work scheme...

For me that would involve going up a hill with a gradient of one in six.
I suppose it would save the government having to pay my pension…

noneoftheabove

viewcode said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

Isn't there a typo in that? The "GOP" are the Republicans.

No. He wants to be with the Democrats, and the way to do that is lay Republicans, not back Democrats, because of Betfair rules re independents.

Eabhal

Fysics_Teacher said:

Flatlander said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

From previous thread:

Flatlander said:
» show previous quotes
Dynamic road pricing?

4pm outside a school? £10 / mile. M74 through the borders late at night? 0.01p / mile.


Would mean universal car tracking through. Do we really want that?


That would make a lot of teachers very unhappy…

Ah, but at least you'd be able to use the Cycle to Work scheme...

For me that would involve going up a hill with a gradient of one in six.
I suppose it would save the government having to pay my pension…

Nothing a granny gear or a 3x won't fix.

GIN1138

Andy_JS said:

"Why Labour acted on arms to Israel
David Lammy is determined to be a champion of international law.
By George Eaton"

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2024/09/why-labour-acted-on-arms-to-israel

They won't be launching any illegal wars this time round, then?

Nigelb

Sean_F said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

West Virginia is gone, and I can't see any path to victory in Montana, unless Harris wins big.

@SheehyforMT lacks any sort of Montana values.

Montana GOP Candidate Tim Sheehy Caught on Audio Talking About “Drunk Indians at 8 a.m.”
https://x.com/reedgalen/status/1830622935142600939

mercator

https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2722650&post_id=148448144

https://polymarket.com/event/presidential-election-winner-2024?tid=1725378010875

Polymarket has $776m bets on White House with kh strong favourite for popular vote and DT narrowly ahead for WH. Substack link discusses reasons DT ahead.

Cicero

HYUFD said:

Part of the problem for the GOP is they haven't got most donations from Wall Street since Romney was their presidential candidate in 2012. The West coast tech sector also strongly supports Harris and the Dems overall (with Musk the main exception)

Elon Moscow may be backing the wrong horse. Kamala certainly won't be defending him when the EU comes after him.

Barnesian

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

I don't understand that.

If you think a Dem majority is unlikely, why would you lay the GOP?

The Betfair terms are "Any independent senator will be added to totals of the party if they caucus/align with that Party." This helps not hinders the Dems.

The Dems need to hold Montana for 50/50 with VP Waltz having the casting vote. Dems have lost West Virginia.

Republicans are 5% ahead in the Senate poll for Montana according to RCP. It's a stretch for the DEMs. I reckon the Betfair odds are about right. 1/3 chance for the DEMs.

Nigelb

williamglenn said:

Taz said:

Nigelb said:

Big bump in Biden approval numbers.

https://x.com/IAPolls2022/status/1830970976550424951
USA Today/Suffolk: President Biden's job approval (shift from June 30)

Approve: 48% (+7)
Disapprove: 49% (-8)
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 DEM: 48%
🟥 GOP: 43%
——
Fav/unfav
Harris: 49-46 (net: +3)
Trump: 42-56 (net: -14)
——
very excited about voting for their candidate

Harris supporters: 68%
Trump supporters: 60%
——
Who do you think will win the presidency?

Kamala Harris: 50%
Donald Trump: 38%
——
Trust more on...

The Economy: Trump +5 (was Trump +14 vs Biden in June)

Immigration: Trump +3 (was Trump +13 vs Biden in June)

Healthcare: Harris +14
Race Relations: Harris +18
National security: Trump +5
Dealing with China: Trump +4
——
#7 (2.9/3.0) | 1,000 LV | 8/25-28
https://suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2024/9_3_2024_corrected_national_marginals_2.pdf

Dealing with China !!!

Are they serious.

He wants to impose 60% trade tariffs.

Madness

Decoupling from China is also Biden/Harris's policy, is it not?

Blanket across the board imposition of tariffs is not.

Starting to rebuild US self-sufficiency in some industrial sectors is an actual policy, as opposed to Trump's fantasy of China paying him for tariffs that he imposes. The man is an ignoramus.

Dura_Ace

Andy_JS said:

"Phone thefts up 150% as government pledges crackdown"

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-09-03/phone-thefts-up-150-as-government-pledges-crackdown

A pledge! That’s what we need, a fucking pledge.

They have a massive majority but are acting like they are still in opposition. Fucking do something. Ideally, today.

SeaShantyIrish2

Barnesian said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

I don't understand that.

If you think a Dem majority is unlikely, why would you lay the GOP?

The Betfair terms are "Any independent senator will be added to totals of the party if they caucus/align with that Party." This helps not hinders the Dems.

The Dems need to hold Montana for 50/50 with VP Waltz having the casting vote. Dems have lost West Virginia.

Republicans are 5% ahead in the Senate poll for Montana according to RCP. It's a stretch for the DEMs. I reckon the Betfair odds are about right. 1/3 chance for the DEMs.

Whatever you're posting, quoting RCP does NOT make your post(s) more persuasive.

Just sayin'.

Fysics_Teacher

Eabhal said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Flatlander said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

From previous thread:

Flatlander said:
» show previous quotes
Dynamic road pricing?

4pm outside a school? £10 / mile. M74 through the borders late at night? 0.01p / mile.


Would mean universal car tracking through. Do we really want that?


That would make a lot of teachers very unhappy…

Ah, but at least you'd be able to use the Cycle to Work scheme...

For me that would involve going up a hill with a gradient of one in six.
I suppose it would save the government having to pay my pension…

Nothing a granny gear or a 3x won't fix.

The school has close to 1500 pupils and about 150 staff (teaching and support). The number who cycle in is in single figures due to the fact that we are at the top of a hill from three directions, the directions where most people live.
More people cycled to the school I went to (including me) and that was a school which was a third of the size where 80% of the students were boarders…

kamski

Jim_Miller said:

FPT: kamski - As far as I know, there is no debate about Christians being -- by far -- the most persecuted religion in the world. For examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China#Restrictions_and_international_interest
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Doors

In the Seattle area, there are a number of Russian Baptist churches. As I understand it, they were persecuted by the czars, by Stalin, and now by Putin. But they seem to be mostly left alone, here. (Though I wouldn't advise them to apply for a job with, for example, Google.)

Last Friday, I encountered several Jehovah Witness women offering pamphlets -- in Russian. The Witnesses are regulars just outside the local library, but this is the first time I have seen the Russian versions of their literature.

(I have known Witnesses all my life. To say the least, I don't share their theology, but the ones I have met have all been good people, willing to live in peace with others.)

I've no idea which religious followers are the most persecuted in the world, but it was a comment on rightwing US twitterers getting excited about all the churches in France getting burned down, when I suspect the same people haven't been that bothered attacks on black churches much closer to home.

Also your examples:
Christianity is really not the only religion persecuted in China, so far as I know they aren't singled out though proselytising and "foreign influence" are hit hard.

noneoftheabove

Barnesian said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

I don't understand that.

If you think a Dem majority is unlikely, why would you lay the GOP?

The Betfair terms are "Any independent senator will be added to totals of the party if they caucus/align with that Party." This helps not hinders the Dems.

The Dems need to hold Montana for 50/50 with VP Waltz having the casting vote. Dems have lost West Virginia.

Republicans are 5% ahead in the Senate poll for Montana according to RCP. It's a stretch for the DEMs. I reckon the Betfair odds are about right. 1/3 chance for the DEMs.

Good spot - Betfair rules have changed, very different market to 2020 and previous cycles.

williamglenn

Dura_Ace said:

Andy_JS said:

"Phone thefts up 150% as government pledges crackdown"

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-09-03/phone-thefts-up-150-as-government-pledges-crackdown

A pledge! That’s what we need, a fucking pledge.

They have a massive majority but are acting like they are still in opposition. Fucking do something. Ideally, today.

He's got his hands full making Oasis tickets affordable.

https://www.independent.co.uk/money/sir-keir-starmer-vows-to-tackle-issue-of-ticket-pricing-following-oasis-furore-b2605790.html

“I do think there are a number of things that we can do and we should do, because otherwise you get to the situation where families simply can’t go, or are absolutely spending a fortune on tickets, whatever it may be.

“So we’ll grip this and make sure that actually tickets are available at a price that people can actually afford.”

algarkirk

Sandpit said:

algarkirk said:

TimS said:

Northern_Al said:

londonpubman said:

kjh said:

londonpubman said:

FF43 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Pulpstar said:

Casino_Royale said:

Nunu5 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Scott_xP said:

@GavinBarwell

Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition

https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1830667700399706220

Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.

He's a male Heidi Allen.

On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.

On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.

Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.

✅ 5p on fuel
✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners
✅ VAT on private school fees
✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED

✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap
✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p
✅ Additional rate up to 50p
✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed

I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:

1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.

4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.

My predictions:

Pension tax relief at 20% only, annual allowance reduced to £30,000pa, no return to lifetime allowance as they don't want to upset their public sector friends with their huge fully indexed pensions

IHT: reductions of reliefs only, no increase in rates, maybe get rid of the double availability of the £325,000 between spouses

IT: no increase but personal allowance frozen further to 2029 'end of parliament '

CGT: move towards IT levels, probably not all the way

The surprise: a new levy like Health and Social Care levy also known as Rachel's Redistribution Revenue 2% on all income to pay for bigger public sector salaries sorry I mean sort out the NHS

👿

Re IHT allowance between spouses - See @Sean_F post plus long discussion on last thread.

It is easy to avoid this in your will so has no impact other than making some peoples lives a bit more complicated and earning lawyers a small fee from lots of people (which I think we all agree is not a good thing )

Also as @hyufd points out it will be extremely unpopular to do. I don't know why, but it really is. See the battle between and Labour and the Tories previously when they tried to outdo one another over IHT allowances.

As I said earlier - me predicting it won't happen almost certainly means it will.

It's possible my predictions might be wrong too! 😊

I forgot. Duty on beer up well ahead of inflation. LAB don't like pubs they prefer dinner parties with expensive wine

Don't think so - us lefties like our pint, and the price of beer in pubs is already outrageous.

More likely: fags £100 for 20, so that nobody can afford to smoke in pub gardens any more. Problem solved.

Things that only affect people in Lib Dem / Tory marginals.

- Land tax on rugby grounds
- stained glass tax on cathedrals
- New higher VAT rate on Gail’s Bakery and Ivy outlets
- Orchard and vineyard levy
- Excise duty hike on cider

Excise duty at double rate on non alcoholic gin?

The lack of excise duty of non-alcoholic beer appears to make very little difference to the price of the product.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/02/alcohol-free-guinness-sold-draught-first-time-uk/
Regular Guinness: £6.90 - cheers!
Guinness Zero: £6.35 - what the…!!!!

Horrors. Pubs round here are closing fast. Which is sad but no surprise. BTW Lidl 0% beer is OK and very inexpensive. Sadly alcohol is off limits for medical reasons. My own view is that the best substitutes are 0% beer and gin/tonic. Drinks with bitterness survive the 0% regime loads better than others in terms of retaining a 'bite'.
0% Heineken has an interesting and lingering apple-like aftertaste.

if anyone ever find a 0% red wine that bears any relation to red wine, please inform! I am fairly sure it can't be done.

stodge

Afternoon all

One of the many wonderful things about a heavy Conservative defeat at a General Election is the plethora of post-election memoirs, essays in self-justification and otherwise accounts of what REALLY went on behind the scenes as the Conservatives headed toward electoral disaster which appear coincidentally just in time to be hawked round the Conservative Conference.

For we mere social democrat blobs looking on from the outside, I'm intrigued as to my autumn literary purchases - the Seldon book about the Truss administration is going to make more money than the Truss administration ever managed (though none of us have learnt or understood the lessons apparently). However, up on the rails is coming Lord Brady's book "Kingmaker" and I saw a fascinating interview with the former head of the 1922 Committee who basically had to tell May, Johnson and Truss their time was up and had to deal with the sudden departure of Cameron.

Hopefully it will be an interesting read.

SeaShantyIrish2

Nigelb said:

Sean_F said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

West Virginia is gone, and I can't see any path to victory in Montana, unless Harris wins big.

@SheehyforMT lacks any sort of Montana values.

Montana GOP Candidate Tim Sheehy Caught on Audio Talking About “Drunk Indians at 8 a.m.”
https://x.com/reedgalen/status/1830622935142600939

Sean_F said:

Nigelb said:

..you might consider laying the GOP for control of the Senate because the way the terms of Betfair market and how they treat independents who caucus with the Dems makes a Dem majority unlikely. ..

I've been saying this for a couple of weeks.

West Virginia is gone, and I can't see any path to victory in Montana, unless Harris wins big.

John Tester of Montana in 2024 is in roughly similar position - from opposite perspective - as Susan Collins of Maine in 2020.

He's gonna OUTPERFORM Kamala Harris in Big Sky Country.

Though a decent vote for KH/TW in MT does help JT . . . reason he was in favor of JB not running for re-election.