Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
That's why a tax on sale is better (though not without some problems). You know the actual value of the house and the seller has the money. If they are trading down they don't need as much. If they are trading up, it helps cap price rises. It releases some of the value contained in property.
We can always find reasons not to do things, not to tax this, that and the other. But if we want a decent care system we will have to pay so rather than find reasons for not paying we need to find a way to pay which raises the money needed and is reasonably fair to all. Income tax is one such way, merging of NI with it and making it applicable to all another. Extending CGT a third. Some form of LVT or wealth tax another. All have pluses and minuses. But we can either argue about it for another 10/20 years and do nothing or actually get on with it.
Unemployment is at under 5%, there are record job vacancies, and the supermarket shelves are very far from empty. It is against this backdrop that the overwhelming public disinterest in wailing about BoZo this and Frost that should be appreciated.
If and when things get a lot worse then the Government's critics on this might get more of a hearing. Until then they're just screaming at each other inside a locked, soundproofed room.
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
That's why a tax on sale is better (though not without some problems). You know the actual value of the house and the seller has the money. If they are trading down they don't need as much. If they are trading up, it helps cap price rises. It releases some of the value contained in property.
We can always find reasons not to do things, not to tax this, that and the other. But if we want a decent care system we will have to pay so rather than find reasons for not paying we need to find a way to pay which raises the money needed and is reasonably fair to all. Income tax is one such way, merging of NI with it and making it applicable to all another. Extending CGT a third. Some form of LVT or wealth tax another. All have pluses and minuses. But we can either argue about it for another 10/20 years and do nothing or actually get on with it.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
They're evil with their dark patterns. The one that got me was where if you've bought something twice they switch out the "buy" button with "set up a recurring subscription". I was lucky I noticed the email and cancelled, otherwise I'd still be getting bimonthly goat surveillance cameras.
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
That's why a tax on sale is better (though not without some problems). You know the actual value of the house and the seller has the money. If they are trading down they don't need as much. If they are trading up, it helps cap price rises. It releases some of the value contained in property.
We can always find reasons not to do things, not to tax this, that and the other. But if we want a decent care system we will have to pay so rather than find reasons for not paying we need to find a way to pay which raises the money needed and is reasonably fair to all. Income tax is one such way, merging of NI with it and making it applicable to all another. Extending CGT a third. Some form of LVT or wealth tax another. All have pluses and minuses. But we can either argue about it for another 10/20 years and do nothing or actually get on with it.
So argument and doing nothing it is then ......
So you've just moved stamp duty to the other side of the transaction. Given that stamp duty can be 15% of the purchase price, at what level would you set your capital gains or sales tax?
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears
My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.
She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication
It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
A couple of contributions to the discussion:
- Dementia is always distressing to the family, not always to the sufferer. My father had it in relatively mild form - my parents were still living with me and my mother and I looked after him. He would often be unable to remember things like how to get home or what my job was, and he gradually faded. He knew what was happening and joked about it - "means I can read all my books again as I can't remember how they end!" though in reality he'd forget the previous page. But he said he'd never been happier and I believed him. Being fully mentally competent is not the only thing in life.
- My uncle seems to have developed it on top of Parkinsons - he didn't recognise me when I went down to Cornwall to see him in his nursing home. But he's being what seems to me extremely caringly looked after, all at the expense of Cornwall County Council, whose officers have been absolutely wonderful - not only going to great lengths to find thhe best place but visiting again afterwards to check he's OK. It was only the second cheapest home at £1100/week so I offered to pay the £116 difference, and have reminded them twice - they've not taken it up so far. Again, he seems content, dozing much of the day, watching some sport, listening to some music. If one's relatives aren't too bothered about inheritance, I wouldn't let cost considerations be decisive in the discussion - the rule that the authority pays when your savings are down to £23K does work. The key is to make sure the minimum standards are sufficient, though.
- But I do agree with Dignitas and my former boss used it, writing to his friends a sweet letter saying what Stocky says and thanking us for our friendship and shared pleasure in life. We are so into personal choice in every aspect of our lives, so it should ultimately be a legitimate choice too. I'd require that the intent was stated by the individual in a living will signed without the presence of relatives twice, a month apart, to avoid it being a momentary impulse. I'm not sure I'd choose it, but I think anyone who wants to should be able to.
I disagree with you re the early stages of dementia. It was a shock to me when my mum got it and I found out anger was a normal situation. The sufferer gets very angry when they have the power to think but can't explain what they are seeing. My mother would beat my father with a stick because he was having an affair with a non existent woman staying in their home. On another day my mother phoned me and screamed at me why I hadn't told her, her mother is a man. I had to sit my children done to explain everything in case they took one of these calls.
I have no idea whether they are happy once they have lost all comprehension.
It depends on the individual, and probably what bits of the brain are most significantly eroded by the disease. I visited my dad a couple of times a week for quite a few years, and encountered both happy and utterly miserable dementia sufferers. The latter outnumbered the former, and there were many somewhere in between. Uncontrollable anger is very hard for both family and staff to deal with, and I’m not sure I could.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
40% of the nation's £17trillion private wealth is owned by the top 5%; 25% is owned by the top 1%. Those people can afford to contribute more towards paying the bills.
The other thing about all this NI business and Johnson is it looks to me like a set of senior ministers who are now not communicating with the wider parliamentary group or party.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Who decides though.. how do you know your family are not going to do you in to save money... you think you know people.. you don't as much as you think you do. Money wills etc brings out the worst in people...
Going to be a very very small minority and obviously you can have safeguards built in. You manage it all before you are gaga.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
40% of the nation's £17trillion private wealth is owned by the top 5%; 25% is owned by the top 1%. Those people can afford to contribute more towards paying the bills.
They can afford more, but how do you actually get them to pay it?
Does anyone care what the US are doing? As Moe Greene said in the Godfather 'They don't even have the muscle anymore....'.
Shouldn't we be concentrating on what China and the EU are doing? They're the World's big boys now
Yes, there are 3 world powers, and we are not one of them any more. Though it is worth watching what they are up to as when elephants fight, mice get trampled.
There are also betting opportunities. I have bet on Trump as Republican nominee, but I think he will not be POTUS again.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
40% of the nation's £17trillion private wealth is owned by the top 5%; 25% is owned by the top 1%. Those people can afford to contribute more towards paying the bills.
They can afford more, but how do you actually get them to pay it?
Well isn't that the problem, loads of them aren't even tax resident in the UK.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Raising the threshold from £1m to £5m has no effect on the take? Something seems odd about those numbers.
No, a threshold of £1m would raise approx 1% x 40% of £17tn = £68bn per annum.
I just said I'd be happy to concede a £5m threshold, which would still raise £45bn.
Does anyone care what the US are doing? As Moe Greene said in the Godfather 'They don't even have the muscle anymore....'.
Shouldn't we be concentrating on what China and the EU are doing? They're the World's big boys now
The US fell into huge debt years ago that it will never get out of. More recently it has been hit 600 times harder by the latest SARS variant, in deaths per 1 million population, than its major competitor. Imagine how it would perform in an up-to-date war fought with biological weapons and cyber. Militarily it acts like a crybaby about its potential adversaries going all "hybrid" on it.
What, no ticker-tape parades and world exhibitions?
The other thing about all this NI business and Johnson is it looks to me like a set of senior ministers who are now not communicating with the wider parliamentary group or party.
Too long in the bunker?
Yup, this is exactly where the idiotic dementia tax policy came from. A few out of touch ministers thought it would be fine, it bombed with the wider party and then again with the public. The Tory party can see this turning into another poll tax a mile off. Somehow Boris can't.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
One of the reasons for that is our complete lack of restrictions on foreign people buying property assets. It's sent property prices up so people who want to live here either have to waste money on rent or borrow a lot more to buy a house. You can see the step change once the foreign money started flowing into the UK housing market.
But given our massive trade deficit this is a good thing! It means that they get a smaller proportion of our housing market than they would otherwise for their money. Until we can eliminate our trade deficit we need our assets to sell at a premium.
In part it comes back to a point I have made repeatedly before: being in the SM was an economic disaster for us. Not because the SM is a bad thing or free trade does not have advantages but because we repeatedly elected politicians who offered us the most goodies and consumption, more for less. We need to fix these structural failings. It is going to be painful but our children are being impoverished.
So, more taxes on consumption such as an internet transaction tax, taxes on capital but only at certain end points such as death, incentives to save such as sensible interest rates and a rebalancing of the burdens away from those earning to those receiving investment income to offset their increased returns from higher interest rates.
With a deep breath I ask: what are posters views about Dignitas? Is this the elephant in the room?
For me, if I get to the point that I have dementia to the extent that I need round-the-clock care, I'm checking out thank you very much. The idea that I would want to linger with not much or no quality of life whilst bringing expense, heartbreak and worry to others is abhorrent to me.
Sadly once you have dementia you lose the ability to reason and rationale disappears
My son in laws mother has been suffering severe dementia for a few years now and is in specialist care.
She was a matron and has told the staff she does not want any medication but day to day she lives in a surreal world not knowing her family or loved ones and taking her medication
It is the dispirited moral the family suffer as well, and I have been very surprised at just how aggressively @MaxPB has attacked pensioners
A couple of contributions to the discussion:
- Dementia is always distressing to the family, not always to the sufferer. My father had it in relatively mild form - my parents were still living with me and my mother and I looked after him. He would often be unable to remember things like how to get home or what my job was, and he gradually faded. He knew what was happening and joked about it - "means I can read all my books again as I can't remember how they end!" though in reality he'd forget the previous page. But he said he'd never been happier and I believed him. Being fully mentally competent is not the only thing in life.
- My uncle seems to have developed it on top of Parkinsons - he didn't recognise me when I went down to Cornwall to see him in his nursing home. But he's being what seems to me extremely caringly looked after, all at the expense of Cornwall County Council, whose officers have been absolutely wonderful - not only going to great lengths to find thhe best place but visiting again afterwards to check he's OK. It was only the second cheapest home at £1100/week so I offered to pay the £116 difference, and have reminded them twice - they've not taken it up so far. Again, he seems content, dozing much of the day, watching some sport, listening to some music. If one's relatives aren't too bothered about inheritance, I wouldn't let cost considerations be decisive in the discussion - the rule that the authority pays when your savings are down to £23K does work. The key is to make sure the minimum standards are sufficient, though.
- But I do agree with Dignitas and my former boss used it, writing to his friends a sweet letter saying what Stocky says and thanking us for our friendship and shared pleasure in life. We are so into personal choice in every aspect of our lives, so it should ultimately be a legitimate choice too. I'd require that the intent was stated by the individual in a living will signed without the presence of relatives twice, a month apart, to avoid it being a momentary impulse. I'm not sure I'd choose it, but I think anyone who wants to should be able to.
I disagree with you re the early stages of dementia. It was a shock to me when my mum got it and I found out anger was a normal situation. The sufferer gets very angry when they have the power to think but can't explain what they are seeing. My mother would beat my father with a stick because he was having an affair with a non existent woman staying in their home. On another day my mother phoned me and screamed at me why I hadn't told her, her mother is a man. I had to sit my children done to explain everything in case they took one of these calls.
I have no idea whether they are happy once they have lost all comprehension.
In my twenty years as a Consultant, I have watched the ageing of a large number of patients, or their spouses with dementia. It really does vary unpredictably. I have seen quiet and gentle people become mentally rigid and argumentative, and even violently aggressive. Others just become sweetly muddled and bemused.
My own grandmother thought she was on holiday in a hotel when I visited her in her nursing home, and was really enjoying the company after living alone a long time as a widow. It was only in her final months that it was distressing for her relatives.
My Mother in Law was similar, and really enjoying life in her nursing home, never needing to cook again, and doing lots of crafts. She didn't like being confined to her room by covid outbreaks, her home losing a half dozen to it in the winter wave, nor being restricted on visitors. She had a stroke in July, and now is bed bound and on end of life care, but as she drifts between sleep and wakefulness she is not distressed, mostly saying "thank you Dear" when anyone comes to see.
Dementia is pretty universally distressing for families, but not necessarily for the sufferer.
Ten years in and around Care of the Elderly wards, plus a similar, although, overlapping time in and around Care Homes leads to second this wholeheartedly. Underlined by the experience of the complete change in father-in-law from a pleasant, if somewhat opinionated but kindly chap to someone who was aggressive and argumentative. Which is terrifying for sister-in-law who is seeing her husband go the same way, twenty years later.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Raising the threshold from £1m to £5m has no effect on the take? Something seems odd about those numbers.
No, a threshold of £1m would raise approx 1% x 40% of £17tn = £68bn per annum
OK, I got confused with your earlier post where you said 1% over £1mn would raise 45bn.
Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
It's actually weird that CGT is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living. I have no idea how that can possibly be justified.
I don't think this a deliberate consequence of ideological intent though.
I suspect is is that CGT is much easier to evade than income tax (and the sums raised are not comparable anyway). In many cases CGT is in effect voluntary. If someone buys £50k shares in XYZ plc and sells them for £100k who would know or have the mechanism to check that the £50k gain has been declared?
With gains from property I've lost count over the years of informing someone who is about to join the buy-to-let craze that any capital gains are liable for CGT. They look at me wide-eyed and disbelieving. These gains were often not declared - which is why about 20 years ago the rule was brought in that conveyancers have to attach the purchasers NI number to any property purchase to give the authorities a hope of clamping down on this abuse.
There's an opportunity here for the Labour Party to make headway, I think. It should go back to first principles, and declare unequivocally that those who can most afford it will pay the biggest contribution to fixing social care. The NI solution doesn't do that, and raising income tax doesn't do it very effectively.
So the LP should come up with proposals in line with that principle. I really don't care too much what they are: land value tax, increasing CGT, raising IHT, increasing IT for higher earners, getting Amazon etc. to pay their fair share, and so on.
The principle should be that those with the broadest shoulders (e.g. the top 20% income/wealth) should pay the bulk of it. Working age people on incomes up to around, say, £50/60k shouldn't pay any more, and nor should poor pensioners - but rich pensioners should. If this doesn't raise enough, look at property/wealth/dividends etc.
I'll be happy if some of the wealthy folk on here start screaming at Labour's proposals; then I'll know they're on the right lines. People, rightly, are saying there's not enough opposition from Labour. It could start here.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
We were paying £50 an hour for home care for the mother-in-law when she lived with us. The one residential place we looked at that was under £1,000 a week was akin to a Victorian asylum. The costs are immense and with salaries for staff having to rise substantially to attract UK citizens to do the work previously done by minimum wage immigrants, the costs are only going to get higher. The big issue is that unlike in previous generations a lot of old people are surviving to an age where dementia becomes an issue. And, of course, it's not just the old that require care. We need a fundamental rethink. Sadly, it's not going to happen.
LA rates are significantly discounted vs private care. It’s one of the reasons I like the Irish system - I struggle with the concept that residents should pay different rates for the same care (and the other approach of having ancillary services like hairdressing is a bit ick as well)
I struggle with the concept of managing different levels of care, unless there's a significant physical distinction between where the resident live. However, forgive my ignorance, but how does the Irish system work?
Basically the government pays for everyone (and they pay the same rate) and then once they are in care there is a detailed financial assessment and those who can afford it make a contribution based on their assets. But it’s done centrally so the burden isn’t on the LA’s either.
(Obviously more complicated but that’s the quick summary)
Dealing with LA's and local Health people for my in-laws was a nightmare. So nationally would be better, although probably so long as the Home Office wasn't involved. At least there'd be one set of rules.
As a complete cynic I was very pleasantly surprised by the help I received when my mother went into care from both the local authority and charities.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
I've come round to this. It needs to go the way mortgage interest relief did some time ago.
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
There's an opportunity here for the Labour Party to make headway, I think. It should go back to first principles, and declare unequivocally that those who can most afford it will pay the biggest contribution to fixing social care. The NI solution doesn't do that, and raising income tax doesn't do it very effectively.
So the LP should come up with proposals in line with that principle. I really don't care too much what they are: land value tax, increasing CGT, raising IHT, increasing IT for higher earners, getting Amazon etc. to pay their fair share, and so on.
The principle should be that those with the broadest shoulders (e.g. the top 20% income/wealth) should pay the bulk of it. Working age people on incomes up to around, say, £50/60k shouldn't pay any more, and nor should poor pensioners - but rich pensioners should. If this doesn't raise enough, look at property/wealth/dividends etc.
I'll be happy if some of the wealthy folk on here start screaming at Labour's proposals; then I'll know they're on the right lines. People, rightly, are saying there's not enough opposition from Labour. It could start here.
As I understand a lot of the well off use capital gains as a way of avoiding income tax. So yes, let's go for that as a starting point. Should at least be on a par with income tax.
"Before any of you replicate my betting strategy full disclosure. In the 2016 primary contest I was the of view that Trump wouldn’t win the nomination and bet accordingly, it was only when he failed to win the Iowa caucus and third placed candidate Marco Rubio somehow became the favourite on Betfair for the nomination allowed me to dig myself out of that large betting hole."
My worst betting day ever as this guy Trump I was betting on came a good second - indeed Cruz was fine for my book - and yet Rubio surged and had me spooked.
So glad someone benefitted (I did fine in the end).
Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
It's actually weird that CGT is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living. I have no idea how that can possibly be justified.
I don't think this a deliberate consequence of ideological intent though.
I suspect is is that CGT is much easier to evade than income tax (and the sums raised are not comparable anyway). In many cases CGT is in effect voluntary. If someone buys £50k shares in XYZ plc and sells them for £100k who would know or have the mechanism to check that the £50k gain has been declared?
With gains from property I've lost count over the years of informing someone who is about to join the buy-to-let craze that any capital gains are liable for CGT. They look at me wide-eyed and disbelieving. These gains were often not declared - which is why about 20 years ago the rule was brought in that conveyancers have to attach the purchasers NI number to any property purchase to give the authorities a hope of clamping down on this abuse.
It's the seller's NI number the tax people want surely?
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Only in that he has stayed under his desk and not had to make any public announcements and as ever with the current bunch of Tories an extremely extremely low bar, a turd could shine amongst this lot.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
I've come round to this. It needs to go the way mortgage interest relief did some time ago.
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
A party advocating taxation of main residences would have nil chance of being elected.
Also, if brought in the property market would grind to a halt as people are disincentivised to move house.
Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
It's actually weird that CGT is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living. I have no idea how that can possibly be justified.
I don't think this a deliberate consequence of ideological intent though.
I suspect is is that CGT is much easier to evade than income tax (and the sums raised are not comparable anyway). In many cases CGT is in effect voluntary. If someone buys £50k shares in XYZ plc and sells them for £100k who would know or have the mechanism to check that the £50k gain has been declared?
With gains from property I've lost count over the years of informing someone who is about to join the buy-to-let craze that any capital gains are liable for CGT. They look at me wide-eyed and disbelieving. These gains were often not declared - which is why about 20 years ago the rule was brought in that conveyancers have to attach the purchasers NI number to any property purchase to give the authorities a hope of clamping down on this abuse.
It's the seller's NI number the tax people want surely?
No the buyer's - this was introduced about 20 years ago. Then, in theory, the land registry will show the purchase and sale price - and therefore the gain - and what NI number it attaches to. Previous to this it was difficult to know who owns what and therefore CGT evaders had virtually no chance of getting caught. It was brought in as somewhat sneaky extension of money laundering rule changes I seem to recall.
Yes, ultimately I think we will rejoin with the Tories in power. After all for the half century prior to the last 5 years, the Tory party pursued a policy of integration into Europe politically and economically. I think it quite likely to revert to that at some point, and I might even vote for them again if they do.
After Brexit has turned us once again into the sick man of Europe.
The other thing about all this NI business and Johnson is it looks to me like a set of senior ministers who are now not communicating with the wider parliamentary group or party.
Too long in the bunker?
Yup, this is exactly where the idiotic dementia tax policy came from. A few out of touch ministers thought it would be fine, it bombed with the wider party and then again with the public. The Tory party can see this turning into another poll tax a mile off. Somehow Boris can't.
I think Johnson is looking at the millions on waiting lists at the time of next GE and thinking 'I need to do something about that or it will be the election issue'. I'm guessing he has become so focused on that he doesn't see the NI detail plus apparently the blessed focus groups are in favour. Although one wonders how the question was put to them.
I will make a prediction. All this money will be swallowed by the NHS and there will no change to social care and no fix and no cap.
So will you be voting Labour? Lib Dem? Green? Or becoming a non-voter in East Finchley (I believe)?
Lib Dem. Definitely if this tax goes through or if Boris is PM. Finchley and Golders Green.
Thank you.
The most profitable route for the Lib Dems may be to become "dry" softly-internationalist orange-bookers, and in this way they may be able to hoover up quite a few Tory Remainer votes in the south/south-east and scoop 20-25 seats.
However, their beard & sandals base would hate it.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
That's why a tax on sale is better (though not without some problems). You know the actual value of the house and the seller has the money. If they are trading down they don't need as much. If they are trading up, it helps cap price rises. It releases some of the value contained in property.
We can always find reasons not to do things, not to tax this, that and the other. But if we want a decent care system we will have to pay so rather than find reasons for not paying we need to find a way to pay which raises the money needed and is reasonably fair to all. Income tax is one such way, merging of NI with it and making it applicable to all another. Extending CGT a third. Some form of LVT or wealth tax another. All have pluses and minuses. But we can either argue about it for another 10/20 years and do nothing or actually get on with it.
So argument and doing nothing it is then ......
So you've just moved stamp duty to the other side of the transaction. Given that stamp duty can be 15% of the purchase price, at what level would you set your capital gains or sales tax?
Haven't looked at in detail but how about making it the equivalent of the lowest income tax rate so there is no distinction between a capital tax and an income tax?
There's an opportunity here for the Labour Party to make headway, I think. It should go back to first principles, and declare unequivocally that those who can most afford it will pay the biggest contribution to fixing social care. The NI solution doesn't do that, and raising income tax doesn't do it very effectively.
So the LP should come up with proposals in line with that principle. I really don't care too much what they are: land value tax, increasing CGT, raising IHT, increasing IT for higher earners, getting Amazon etc. to pay their fair share, and so on.
The principle should be that those with the broadest shoulders (e.g. the top 20% income/wealth) should pay the bulk of it. Working age people on incomes up to around, say, £50/60k shouldn't pay any more, and nor should poor pensioners - but rich pensioners should. If this doesn't raise enough, look at property/wealth/dividends etc.
I'll be happy if some of the wealthy folk on here start screaming at Labour's proposals; then I'll know they're on the right lines. People, rightly, are saying there's not enough opposition from Labour. It could start here.
It could.
Though it is worth remembering that the last time the Tories came up with a policy whereby rich pensioners had to contribute to their care it was Labour and Labour supporters on here (@BJO was very vocal in his opposition, as I recall) who were vociferous in their opposition.
It was quite funny watching Labour supporters work themselves into a frenzy on behalf of the children of wealthy Surrey property owners
It might be a tad embarrassing if Starmer had said anything then in opposition to May's policy which might now be used against him.
The other thing about all this NI business and Johnson is it looks to me like a set of senior ministers who are now not communicating with the wider parliamentary group or party.
Too long in the bunker?
Yup, this is exactly where the idiotic dementia tax policy came from. A few out of touch ministers thought it would be fine, it bombed with the wider party and then again with the public. The Tory party can see this turning into another poll tax a mile off. Somehow Boris can't.
I think Johnson is looking at the millions on waiting lists at the time of next GE and thinking 'I need to do something about that or it will be the election issue'. I'm guessing he has become so focused on that he doesn't see the NI detail plus apparently the blessed focus groups are in favour. Although one wonders how the question was put to them.
I will make a prediction. All this money will be swallowed by the NHS and there will no change to social care and no fix and no cap.
Hope I am hopelessly wrong on this.
Nope, unless it's explicitly spent on social care (where there are big albeit slightly hidden problems) social care isn't going to see the money and it will disappear into the NHS never to be seen again.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
??? I've had amazon prime for years.
£80 a year for free next day delivery of everything is a great deal if you use it often enough.
The upside for Amazon is that you then use Amazon for a lot more because delivery is already paid for.
Since the pandemic I am starting to find Amazon > Netflix for tv too. Also use the included music app. To be honest I would probably keep it at £200 but don't tell Bezos.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
I've come round to this. It needs to go the way mortgage interest relief did some time ago.
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
Even at 18% it would probably work. I too think this is now inevitable.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
I've come round to this. It needs to go the way mortgage interest relief did some time ago.
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
As an older owner of a house myself, I am not opposed to a CGT on the value of our house when we shuttle off this mortal coil.
Surely though it should be only on the "Gain"? If a person paid a deposit and then 25 years of monthly payments of capital+interest, surely these would be deducted from the selling price at the end?....before CGT is calculated?
Once the brexit war finally ends and their adrenaline rush subsides, the right are going to find themselves in a red tape hell of their own creation. The solution is the old solution - remove the costs and barriers to free trade.
A future Thatcherite Tory is going to campaign on rejoining the single market
Yes, ultimately I think we will rejoin with the Tories in power. After all for the half century prior to the last 5 years, the Tory party pursued a policy of integration into Europe politically and economically. I think it quite likely to revert to that at some point, and I might even vote for them again if they do.
2009 - Tories walked out of the EPP. 1992 - Maastricht - well it was signed but much of the Tory party detested it and never came round to liking it.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Raising the threshold from £1m to £5m has no effect on the take? Something seems odd about those numbers.
No, a threshold of £1m would raise approx 1% x 40% of £17tn = £68bn per annum
OK, I got confused with your earlier post where you said 1% over £1mn would raise 45bn.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
I've come round to this. It needs to go the way mortgage interest relief did some time ago.
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
As an older owner of a house myself, I am not opposed to a CGT on the value of our house when we shuttle off this mortal coil.
Surely though it should be only on the "Gain"? If a person paid a deposit and then 25 years of monthly payments of capital+interest, surely these would be deducted from the selling price at the end?....before CGT is calculated?
Again, this is why I don't believe it can be done, 99% of people will deem the chosen method unfair.
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
If the figures are small (as they would be with a land value tax) it's possible for the money to be paid upfront against a first charge on the property.
That doesn't work for care homes as at £60,000 a year everything adds up quickly.
Most people's stay in care homes is not very long. I understand the median is about 9 months. I would have thought that the edge cases which involve staying for years could be covered by insurance of some kind.
The real issue is care in the community. There's lots of people struggling along with the help of relatives and/or 15 minute visits from carers. Very few live with their parents or grandparents any more.
They would be far better in a middle way of sheltered or purpose built accommodation but there isn't enough of it and there's a reluctance to sell up.
Lets face it, society is a Ponzi scheme, one way or another.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Raising the threshold from £1m to £5m has no effect on the take? Something seems odd about those numbers.
No, a threshold of £1m would raise approx 1% x 40% of £17tn = £68bn per annum
OK, I got confused with your earlier post where you said 1% over £1mn would raise 45bn.
Tories are easily confused Rob , we understand
No, it was quite clearly written in the original comment:
To the argument that this wouldn't raise much: Tax individual wealth above £1m at 1% pa. If a quarter of UK wealth is owned by just 1% (see below), that's £4.5 trillion by my reckoning which would deliver £45bn. Per annum! And that's just the 1%.
Enjoyed "Break-Up: How Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon went to war".
I'd say the authors were more sympathetic to the latter than the former - and the great question "How could Sturgeon and Murrell (her husband and CEO of the SNP) been unaware of the biggest open secret in Holyrood?" goes un-asked and un-answered......
Meanwhile:
ALEX Salmond has taken legal steps over a new book about sexual misconduct claims against him and his bitter rift with Nicola Sturgeon.
The former First Minister said he had consulted his lawyers over Break-Up, by the respected journalists David Clegg and Kieran Andrews, which is due out tomorrow.
Mr Salmond, now leader of the Alba party, said he considered the book potentially breached the criminal law and had reported his concern to prosecutors.
He also said he was “actively considering” the legal remedies available in the civil courts, a potential reference to a defamation action.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
To say that most people save nothing at all is a gross exaggeration, but savings rates and totals are alarmingly low for even moderately comfortable households. According to this helpful digest - https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk - the median values for household savings are £11,000 for the total held, and the monthly savings rate is £180. Thus, half of households save more than this but half save less (and large numbers of the fiscally incontinent and the struggling alike have negative savings rates and are steadily sinking into debt, of course.)
Thus, if a typical household found its members out of work, they'd only be able to live off their savings for about 4-6 months before they were cleaned out and faced with ruin. Most people live quite precariously, even if they don't always realise it.
So will you be voting Labour? Lib Dem? Green? Or becoming a non-voter in East Finchley (I believe)?
Lib Dem. Definitely if this tax goes through or if Boris is PM. Finchley and Golders Green.
Thank you.
The most profitable route for the Lib Dems may be to become "dry" softly-internationalist orange-bookers, and in this way they may be able to hoover up quite a few Tory Remainer votes in the south/south-east and scoop 20-25 seats.
However, their beard & sandals base would hate it.
I suspect the 'beard & sandals' members have largely left and gone Green. Wasn't one of the most committed LDs here saying not long ago that he didn't recognise many of the members of his local Party? Reminds me of what happened in the 60's, when a whole new group of people joined the (then Liberal) Party, when Grimond took over from Clement Davies.
I can't imagine anything more terrifying than losing one's mind.
If I ever get such a diagnosis, I'm heading for the Mediterranean, a good lunch and a very very long swim out to sea. Exhaustion, cold and the water will do the rest.
Though the Irish Sea would do just as well I suppose.
What I'm hoping for is to die in my garden, so I can just be laid in the earth and I can happily push up roses and daisies for all eternity. My family can have a proper Catholic Mass for me - with lovely hymns and tales of my outrageous behaviour - followed by one hell of a party back at the house and garden.
I will be mildly annoyed at missing the party but, hey, one can't have everything in life. Or death, come to that.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
??? I've had amazon prime for years.
£80 a year for free next day delivery of everything is a great deal if you use it often enough.
The upside for Amazon is that you then use Amazon for a lot more because delivery is already paid for.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
You can cancel any time , you can return almost anything you purchase free of charge etc. Never had an issue and have returned many things. For me at £80 it is a bargain.
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Did the resigning Japanese PM not nominate their vaccine minister to take over...
So originally when Kono was given that job there was speculation that it was a poisoned chalice designed to knock out a potential rival. He was predictably shit at it, odious grandstander that he is, but it looks like he's going to fail upwards.
Apart from blaming local governments for not vaccinating fast enough then running out of vaccines, his other recent achievements were switching the order of the names on passports, so now half the passports have the first and last name in one order and the other half have them in the other order, and people are going to miss their flights faffing around with it. Also he made a great thing trying to impress everyone with how modern he was by telling Japanese ministries to stop using faxes, which obviously slows everything down because now they have to send their documents through the post.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
You can cancel any time , you can return almost anything you purchase free of charge etc. Never had an issue and have returned many things. For me at £80 it is a bargain.
Yeah, easy to cancel. But that wasnt YoungTurk's point. They were saying it's very easy to accidentally sign up for it while ordering something.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
I've come round to this. It needs to go the way mortgage interest relief did some time ago.
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
As an older owner of a house myself, I am not opposed to a CGT on the value of our house when we shuttle off this mortal coil.
Surely though it should be only on the "Gain"? If a person paid a deposit and then 25 years of monthly payments of capital+interest, surely these would be deducted from the selling price at the end?....before CGT is calculated?
Yes, that's right. The calculation method would be similar to CGT on 2nd homes.
I'm afraid I don't see this as "socialism", in principle. It would be socialism if the tax was punitive and ridiculous, but not if moderate, reasonable and measured.
To say asset taxes are socialist in principle would be like saying income tax was (it was very unpopular when first introduced) but we got used to it and we now debate the rate.
Incidentally, income tax was re-introduced by the Conservative PM Sir Robert Peel as Prime Minister after the 1841 general election only a few years before he repealed the corn laws. Similarly, that was due to a growing deficit and emptying Exchequer - previously government revenues had largely been derived from customs & excise, streams which are v. small today - and the changing nature of the economy from agrarian to industrial.
The nature of the tax base changes, so must the tax.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
And cancelling it is a PITA.
This might be a case of your milage may vary, depends on who you get on the customer service desk.
Quite possibly, yes. The Tories are unlikely to propose such a thing because it will offend key supporter groups like wealthy pensioners and buy-to-let landlords, but Labour may feel that they're in a better position to risk it.
It's actually weird that CGT is taxed at a lower rate than working for a living. I have no idea how that can possibly be justified.
I don't think this a deliberate consequence of ideological intent though.
I suspect is is that CGT is much easier to evade than income tax (and the sums raised are not comparable anyway). In many cases CGT is in effect voluntary. If someone buys £50k shares in XYZ plc and sells them for £100k who would know or have the mechanism to check that the £50k gain has been declared?
With gains from property I've lost count over the years of informing someone who is about to join the buy-to-let craze that any capital gains are liable for CGT. They look at me wide-eyed and disbelieving. These gains were often not declared - which is why about 20 years ago the rule was brought in that conveyancers have to attach the purchasers NI number to any property purchase to give the authorities a hope of clamping down on this abuse.
Most shares are now bought through brokers or banks who have your NI numbers and report to HMRC so not sure it is so easy with evasion. BTL more so but they are clamping down now. But it is voluntary in another more important way, timing.
The £50k share purchase now worth £100k brings in £90k if sold at 20% CGT (for the example assuming seller has already used up their allowances). If we move it up to 40% CGT it brings in £80k instead.
So the potential seller has a different and less favourable sale as an option. If they keep the shares there is no immediate CGT to pay. For the sale to happen, £80k in cash has to be worth more than shares which the open market value at £100k to the seller. For big life events, such as buying a house or similar that may still be the case, but it will stop many transactions where the seller prefers share A to share B at market rates.
The loss of such sales not only reduces CGT and stamp duty from those missing sales, but also leads to UK plc having a more inefficient stock market and investment platform for the wider economy.
I can't imagine anything more terrifying than losing one's mind.
If I ever get such a diagnosis, I'm heading for the Mediterranean, a good lunch and a very very long swim out to sea. Exhaustion, cold and the water will do the rest.
Though the Irish Sea would do just as well I suppose.
What I'm hoping for is to die in my garden, so I can just be laid in the earth and I can happily push up roses and daisies for all eternity. My family can have a proper Catholic Mass for me - with lovely hymns and tales of my outrageous behaviour - followed by one hell of a party back at the house and garden.
I will be mildly annoyed at missing the party but, hey, one can't have everything in life. Or death, come to that.
Ideally, I'd like to suddenly go overnight (with no warning, so I never know about it, and whilst I'm otherwise in very good health) some time in my 90s.
However, I think I'll need to be very lucky for that.
I suggest that part of the trouble with Care is that provision is so fractured, thanks to it being privatised in the Thatcher years. People see Care Homes, and provision, as an investment.
Social care funding is and interesting challenge. Basically we don’t pay enough for social care (although in the main the homes that I know - which are the national chains - do a decent enough job at a cost to local authorities of c £900 per week
It’s not as simple as saying “let old people pay” - they paid for their parent generation. @MaxPB has got caught up in his crusade about BTL again and decided that all old people are evil and tax should be hypothecated to hit them.
The reality is that society as a whole needs to fund social care. There are positive externalities from not having old people blocking hospital beds or dying in the streets. Tax should be simple, broad based, low rates, and hard to avoid. Income tax meets all of those criteria.
A property tax of some sort meets those criteria, as well as helping to address wider economic imbalances and is harder to avoid than income tax.
Capital gains tax on houses - including main homes. A tax on property and doesn't run into the asset rich, cash poor problem.
I've come round to this. It needs to go the way mortgage interest relief did some time ago.
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
As an older owner of a house myself, I am not opposed to a CGT on the value of our house when we shuttle off this mortal coil.
Surely though it should be only on the "Gain"? If a person paid a deposit and then 25 years of monthly payments of capital+interest, surely these would be deducted from the selling price at the end?....before CGT is calculated?
Again, this is why I don't believe it can be done, 99% of people will deem the chosen method unfair.
You may be right, but I was focussing on the definition of CGT.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
And cancelling it is a PITA.
This might be a case of your milage may vary, depends on who you get on the customer service desk.
Can do it on line, although the last time I did it it was in an obscure corner of the website.
I can't imagine anything more terrifying than losing one's mind.
If I ever get such a diagnosis, I'm heading for the Mediterranean, a good lunch and a very very long swim out to sea. Exhaustion, cold and the water will do the rest.
Though the Irish Sea would do just as well I suppose.
What I'm hoping for is to die in my garden, so I can just be laid in the earth and I can happily push up roses and daisies for all eternity. My family can have a proper Catholic Mass for me - with lovely hymns and tales of my outrageous behaviour - followed by one hell of a party back at the house and garden.
I will be mildly annoyed at missing the party but, hey, one can't have everything in life. Or death, come to that.
Ideally, I'd like to suddenly go overnight (with no warning, so I never know about it, and whilst I'm otherwise in very good health) some time in my 90s.
However, I think I'll need to be very lucky for that.
My concern about doing that is to be sure that my affairs (including telling people that I'm not going to post on their website any more) are in order. So, I've left a list, and told the family where to find it.
The argument over the rights of transgender people and the extent, if any, to which their rights conflict with women’s rights is important on its own terms but it is also important because it tells us something about our government. This Scottish government has no time for those who deny the reality of climate change but it is an administration busy enthusiastically denying the reality of biological sex. We must follow the science on one matter but abandon it on the other.
In place of reality there is fantasy, and a government that believes in fantasy in one area is one that will be happy fabricating evidence in another. It is a question of trust and probity and, in the end, of character. So this is a revealing argument in many ways.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
To say that most people save nothing at all is a gross exaggeration, but savings rates and totals are alarmingly low for even moderately comfortable households. According to this helpful digest - https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk - the median values for household savings are £11,000 for the total held, and the monthly savings rate is £180. Thus, half of households save more than this but half save less (and large numbers of the fiscally incontinent and the struggling alike have negative savings rates and are steadily sinking into debt, of course.)
Thus, if a typical household found its members out of work, they'd only be able to live off their savings for about 4-6 months before they were cleaned out and faced with ruin. Most people live quite precariously, even if they don't always realise it.
Most would not have 4-6 weeks money if lucky and live week to week. Also if you look at it £62,706 Average total debt per UK household in June 2021 £3,732 Total unsecured debt per UK adult in June 2021
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
To say that most people save nothing at all is a gross exaggeration, but savings rates and totals are alarmingly low for even moderately comfortable households. According to this helpful digest - https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk - the median values for household savings are £11,000 for the total held, and the monthly savings rate is £180. Thus, half of households save more than this but half save less (and large numbers of the fiscally incontinent and the struggling alike have negative savings rates and are steadily sinking into debt, of course.)
Thus, if a typical household found its members out of work, they'd only be able to live off their savings for about 4-6 months before they were cleaned out and faced with ruin. Most people live quite precariously, even if they don't always realise it.
The point I was seeking to make is that most of our savings as a nation are done by the very well off. If we disincentivise them from saving then our national situation, already disastrous, will deteriorate. Savings of £180 a month just aren't going to cut it. In simple terms we need, as a nation, to save somewhere nearer to an additional £80bn a year, or something like £13k each. This is beyond most folk so we need to be careful about attacking those who do the majority of the saving for us.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Raising the threshold from £1m to £5m has no effect on the take? Something seems odd about those numbers.
No, a threshold of £1m would raise approx 1% x 40% of £17tn = £68bn per annum
OK, I got confused with your earlier post where you said 1% over £1mn would raise 45bn.
Tories are easily confused Rob , we understand
No, it was quite clearly written in the original comment:
To the argument that this wouldn't raise much: Tax individual wealth above £1m at 1% pa. If a quarter of UK wealth is owned by just 1% (see below), that's £4.5 trillion by my reckoning which would deliver £45bn. Per annum! And that's just the 1%.
I can't imagine anything more terrifying than losing one's mind.
If I ever get such a diagnosis, I'm heading for the Mediterranean, a good lunch and a very very long swim out to sea. Exhaustion, cold and the water will do the rest.
Though the Irish Sea would do just as well I suppose.
What I'm hoping for is to die in my garden, so I can just be laid in the earth and I can happily push up roses and daisies for all eternity. My family can have a proper Catholic Mass for me - with lovely hymns and tales of my outrageous behaviour - followed by one hell of a party back at the house and garden.
I will be mildly annoyed at missing the party but, hey, one can't have everything in life. Or death, come to that.
Ideally, I'd like to suddenly go overnight (with no warning, so I never know about it, and whilst I'm otherwise in very good health) some time in my 90s.
However, I think I'll need to be very lucky for that.
My mother died in her sleep in the bed she shared with my father. No real warning. A shock. But peaceful and no suffering. That's the way to go. It was a comfort. And much as I miss her I am glad she did not have to endure the isolation of Covid. It would have broken her heart not to see her grandchildren.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
Raising the threshold from £1m to £5m has no effect on the take? Something seems odd about those numbers.
No, a threshold of £1m would raise approx 1% x 40% of £17tn = £68bn per annum
OK, I got confused with your earlier post where you said 1% over £1mn would raise 45bn.
Tories are easily confused Rob , we understand
No, it was quite clearly written in the original comment:
To the argument that this wouldn't raise much: Tax individual wealth above £1m at 1% pa. If a quarter of UK wealth is owned by just 1% (see below), that's £4.5 trillion by my reckoning which would deliver £45bn. Per annum! And that's just the 1%.
Tax above £1mn at 1% pa would deliver £45bn.
Stop digging
How's that digging? Their original post clearly stated that 1% over £1mn would raise 45bn. A later post then stated 1% over £5mn would also raise 45bn. You don't see the inconsistency there?
So will you be voting Labour? Lib Dem? Green? Or becoming a non-voter in East Finchley (I believe)?
Lib Dem. Definitely if this tax goes through or if Boris is PM. Finchley and Golders Green.
Thank you.
The most profitable route for the Lib Dems may be to become "dry" softly-internationalist orange-bookers, and in this way they may be able to hoover up quite a few Tory Remainer votes in the south/south-east and scoop 20-25 seats.
However, their beard & sandals base would hate it.
I suspect the 'beard & sandals' members have largely left and gone Green. Wasn't one of the most committed LDs here saying not long ago that he didn't recognise many of the members of his local Party? Reminds me of what happened in the 60's, when a whole new group of people joined the (then Liberal) Party, when Grimond took over from Clement Davies.
I am sure parties move on, and members change. The Labour party membership has changed over the years, I'm sure most of the corbynites have moved on. The Tory party must now be full of ex-ukippers, judging by their attitudes in the last few years. I wonder where the old tories have gone, those who haven't died or retired.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
And cancelling it is a PITA.
OKC , I don't find that at all, couple of button presses and print a label and they pick up the bill.
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
If the figures are small (as they would be with a land value tax) it's possible for the money to be paid upfront against a first charge on the property.
That doesn't work for care homes as at £60,000 a year everything adds up quickly.
Most people's stay in care homes is not very long. I understand the median is about 9 months. I would have thought that the edge cases which involve staying for years could be covered by insurance of some kind.
The real issue is care in the community. There's lots of people struggling along with the help of relatives and/or 15 minute visits from carers. Very few live with their parents or grandparents any more.
They would be far better in a middle way of sheltered or purpose built accommodation but there isn't enough of it and there's a reluctance to sell up.
Lets face it, society is a Ponzi scheme, one way or another.
A friend's mother went down with MS in old age. She had to go into a nursing home. Her son-in-law is an accountant so the family bought an annuity with some of her savings - effectively a form of insurance, though at a later stage, so to speak, than most. In that particular case, it paid off big time, but the family's primary aim was to keep the costs under a known limit (and save the house for one child).
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Did the resigning Japanese PM not nominate their vaccine minister to take over...
So originally when Kono was given that job there was speculation that it was a poisoned chalice designed to knock out a potential rival. He was predictably shit at it, odious grandstander that he is, but it looks like he's going to fail upwards.
Apart from blaming local governments for not vaccinating fast enough then running out of vaccines, his other recent achievements were switching the order of the names on passports, so now half the passports have the first and last name in one order and the other half have them in the other order, and people are going to miss their flights faffing around with it. Also he made a great thing trying to impress everyone with how modern he was by telling Japanese ministries to stop using faxes, which obviously slows everything down because now they have to send their documents through the post.
I don't think that I have received a fax in 20 years. The last several were advertising bumf so when the paper ran out I did not replace it and eventually it was disconnected. Is this still a think in Japan?
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
You can cancel any time , you can return almost anything you purchase free of charge etc. Never had an issue and have returned many things. For me at £80 it is a bargain.
Yeah, easy to cancel. But that wasnt YoungTurk's point. They were saying it's very easy to accidentally sign up for it while ordering something.
I don't agree , it is very obvious and you can cancel Prime with one button press at any time, same as any regular order etc. YoungTurk is obviously not very bright or disingenious. I have had Prime since it came out and think it is very simple and find that if there are any mistakes or I don't like what I ordered , they take it back and pick it up free of charge as well. I may be lucky but doubt it.
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Did the resigning Japanese PM not nominate their vaccine minister to take over...
So originally when Kono was given that job there was speculation that it was a poisoned chalice designed to knock out a potential rival. He was predictably shit at it, odious grandstander that he is, but it looks like he's going to fail upwards.
Apart from blaming local governments for not vaccinating fast enough then running out of vaccines, his other recent achievements were switching the order of the names on passports, so now half the passports have the first and last name in one order and the other half have them in the other order, and people are going to miss their flights faffing around with it. Also he made a great thing trying to impress everyone with how modern he was by telling Japanese ministries to stop using faxes, which obviously slows everything down because now they have to send their documents through the post.
I don't think that I have received a fax in 20 years. The last several were advertising bumf so when the paper ran out I did not replace it and eventually it was disconnected. Is this still a think in Japan?
I imagine it's quicker to write than to type a document if it includes Chinese-style characters, though the Japanese also use two syllabic scripts IIRC (and roman too).
So will you be voting Labour? Lib Dem? Green? Or becoming a non-voter in East Finchley (I believe)?
Lib Dem. Definitely if this tax goes through or if Boris is PM. Finchley and Golders Green.
Thank you.
The most profitable route for the Lib Dems may be to become "dry" softly-internationalist orange-bookers, and in this way they may be able to hoover up quite a few Tory Remainer votes in the south/south-east and scoop 20-25 seats.
However, their beard & sandals base would hate it.
I suspect the 'beard & sandals' members have largely left and gone Green. Wasn't one of the most committed LDs here saying not long ago that he didn't recognise many of the members of his local Party? Reminds me of what happened in the 60's, when a whole new group of people joined the (then Liberal) Party, when Grimond took over from Clement Davies.
I am sure parties move on, and members change. The Labour party membership has changed over the years, I'm sure most of the corbynites have moved on. The Tory party must now be full of ex-ukippers, judging by their attitudes in the last few years. I wonder where the old tories have gone, those who haven't died or retired.
Yes, of course. I'm sure the Labour Party I joined back in the late 50's would be unrecognisable to the 'average' member today. And I'm not sure todays LD's would recognise the aims an ambitions of the Liberal Party I joined ten years later.
Deep thought: If Trump is running the value bet is Biden. Assuming he's still standing he'll feel a sense of responsibility to run again, and also he'll think he can win. He'll be very old, but his opponent will also be very old.
America is the world's superpower with 330 million people, many highly intelligent. If Biden vs Trump Round II is the best choice it can give itself for its leader, maybe critics of democracy have a point?
(Though as ever, Churchill's remark about democracy applies)
Let’s not get sucked into this equally bad nonsense. Biden is merely a poor candidate. He’s not an affront to democracy.
I never said they were equally poor, merely that it's an utterly uninspiring choice.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
To say that most people save nothing at all is a gross exaggeration, but savings rates and totals are alarmingly low for even moderately comfortable households. According to this helpful digest - https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk - the median values for household savings are £11,000 for the total held, and the monthly savings rate is £180. Thus, half of households save more than this but half save less (and large numbers of the fiscally incontinent and the struggling alike have negative savings rates and are steadily sinking into debt, of course.)
Thus, if a typical household found its members out of work, they'd only be able to live off their savings for about 4-6 months before they were cleaned out and faced with ruin. Most people live quite precariously, even if they don't always realise it.
The point I was seeking to make is that most of our savings as a nation are done by the very well off. If we disincentivise them from saving then our national situation, already disastrous, will deteriorate. Savings of £180 a month just aren't going to cut it. In simple terms we need, as a nation, to save somewhere nearer to an additional £80bn a year, or something like £13k each. This is beyond most folk so we need to be careful about attacking those who do the majority of the saving for us.
I have never heard that argument before! For those too feckless to do their own saving please donate to @noneoftheabove.elitebankingforthe1%.com and I will be happy to do my patriotic duty and save on your behalf.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
??? I've had amazon prime for years.
£80 a year for free next day delivery of everything is a great deal if you use it often enough.
The upside for Amazon is that you then use Amazon for a lot more because delivery is already paid for.
And it crucifies smaller businesses
It also gives a huge platform to lots of smaller businesses who would never get to that market so it is swings and roundabouts for sure.
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Did the resigning Japanese PM not nominate their vaccine minister to take over...
So originally when Kono was given that job there was speculation that it was a poisoned chalice designed to knock out a potential rival. He was predictably shit at it, odious grandstander that he is, but it looks like he's going to fail upwards.
Apart from blaming local governments for not vaccinating fast enough then running out of vaccines, his other recent achievements were switching the order of the names on passports, so now half the passports have the first and last name in one order and the other half have them in the other order, and people are going to miss their flights faffing around with it. Also he made a great thing trying to impress everyone with how modern he was by telling Japanese ministries to stop using faxes, which obviously slows everything down because now they have to send their documents through the post.
I don't think that I have received a fax in 20 years. The last several were advertising bumf so when the paper ran out I did not replace it and eventually it was disconnected. Is this still a think in Japan?
Certainly is. Japanese people love to fax, it's pretty much their favourite thing.
I suggest that part of the trouble with Care is that provision is so fractured, thanks to it being privatised in the Thatcher years. People see Care Homes, and provision, as an investment.
We didn't have a working system for long term care of the elderly in 1980 either, so to describe it as being privatised is a bit strange in my opinion.
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Did the resigning Japanese PM not nominate their vaccine minister to take over...
So originally when Kono was given that job there was speculation that it was a poisoned chalice designed to knock out a potential rival. He was predictably shit at it, odious grandstander that he is, but it looks like he's going to fail upwards.
Apart from blaming local governments for not vaccinating fast enough then running out of vaccines, his other recent achievements were switching the order of the names on passports, so now half the passports have the first and last name in one order and the other half have them in the other order, and people are going to miss their flights faffing around with it. Also he made a great thing trying to impress everyone with how modern he was by telling Japanese ministries to stop using faxes, which obviously slows everything down because now they have to send their documents through the post.
I don't think that I have received a fax in 20 years. The last several were advertising bumf so when the paper ran out I did not replace it and eventually it was disconnected. Is this still a think in Japan?
I imagine it's quicker to write than to type a document if it includes Chinese-style characters, though the Japanese also use two syllabic scripts IIRC (and roman too).
He has been one of the better performers in the government during the pandemic. Measured and very on top of his brief. Probably due a promotion if some of the dead wood is being cleared out. Education Secretary too much to hope for?
Did the resigning Japanese PM not nominate their vaccine minister to take over...
So originally when Kono was given that job there was speculation that it was a poisoned chalice designed to knock out a potential rival. He was predictably shit at it, odious grandstander that he is, but it looks like he's going to fail upwards.
Apart from blaming local governments for not vaccinating fast enough then running out of vaccines, his other recent achievements were switching the order of the names on passports, so now half the passports have the first and last name in one order and the other half have them in the other order, and people are going to miss their flights faffing around with it. Also he made a great thing trying to impress everyone with how modern he was by telling Japanese ministries to stop using faxes, which obviously slows everything down because now they have to send their documents through the post.
I don't think that I have received a fax in 20 years. The last several were advertising bumf so when the paper ran out I did not replace it and eventually it was disconnected. Is this still a think in Japan?
AFAIK (and this certainly the case a few years ago) the only places that regularly use fax machines are surgeries and pharmacies, for sending prescriptions, although I believe that there's a secure electronic system now.
Unemployment is at under 5%, there are record job vacancies, and the supermarket shelves are very far from empty. It is against this backdrop that the overwhelming public disinterest in wailing about BoZo this and Frost that should be appreciated.
If and when things get a lot worse then the Government's critics on this might get more of a hearing. Until then they're just screaming at each other inside a locked, soundproofed room.
I think you are not seeing the deeper picture at all. The economy is in real trouble, trade is falling and the surge of inflation that is coming will wipe out any gains in real earnings, and probably trigger a serious economic retrenchment as the inbalances of the past 15 years get unwound.
In international relations a reTrumped US is not a reliable ally and may even be a threat to democracy, and China and Russia are more violently authoritatian than ever. The EU looks a LOT more attractive in that context. Bearing in mind that a compromise acceptable to most would have been single market short of EU membership, not the third party relationship we have now.
Johnson and his governemnt are NBG and large numbers of Conservatives are deeply worried about where his government is going on the economy, as we saw in Chesham and Amersham, under certain circumstances a large number of true Conservatives are prepared to abandon the Tories if they deem it necessary
Brexit is not "done" because it is a process not a destination, and the increasing distance from the EU is the wrong direction for both economic and political reasons. A new direction is needed and Johnson can not provide it and after the knifing of both Lib Dems and the DUP, no one would go into any alliance with the Tories under another leader either.
Ergo the Tories will need to be put out of office before the crisis can be addressed, and TBH that is eventually what is going to happen. Many, such as the not very lamented HYFUD, would say that the continuing lead for the Tories, absent any mid term blues means that they can hold power after the next election. Actually I think it will be a straight line and the Tories may well get whipped next time.
For the sake of the country they have to go. After that we can work out what the Brexit end game should be, but with the original sinner of Johnson in power there is no reasonable compromise and quite likely no solution at all. Meanwhile the effective end of NATO would make the world a very dangerous place indeed. Already we are proposing a level of miltary cooperation with France that is increadibly close. It is ironic that the Tories seem to be able to work together with Europeans on matters of life and death but not on humdrum food labelling.
I dont know if the analogue of Johnson is the complacency and lack of vision of a Baldwin or a Chamberlain, but I do know that he certainly does not have the clear vision of a Churchill.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
You cretinous halfwit , they pay for it and you have to physically purchase it.
You accidentally hit the wrong button when buying something and boom you're on the trial (which then will be billed if not cancelled).
You can cancel any time , you can return almost anything you purchase free of charge etc. Never had an issue and have returned many things. For me at £80 it is a bargain.
Yeah, easy to cancel. But that wasnt YoungTurk's point. They were saying it's very easy to accidentally sign up for it while ordering something.
I don't agree , it is very obvious and you can cancel Prime with one button press at any time, same as any regular order etc. YoungTurk is obviously not very bright or disingenious. I have had Prime since it came out and think it is very simple and find that if there are any mistakes or I don't like what I ordered , they take it back and pick it up free of charge as well. I may be lucky but doubt it.
It isn't very obvious, the button to continue without a prime trial is deliberately smaller and less prominent.
Mr. (Ms?) Moonshine, more than half of households have an Amazon Prime subscription? If true, that's an astonishing stat.
Shows how gullible the fools are. I wonder how many of them even know they've got one. Amazon pulls out all the stops to get buyers to give them a contract for Prime, including by encouraging the less wary and literate to think it's a way to get "free" shipping. The button saying "No thanks, I want to forgo all the benefits of Prime and I might get free shipping this way too but everyone in the world will think I'm a pauper or else very mean" is usually very grey and not at all colourful. Think of how a six-month old baby decides what baby books they prefer.
??? I've had amazon prime for years.
£80 a year for free next day delivery of everything is a great deal if you use it often enough.
The upside for Amazon is that you then use Amazon for a lot more because delivery is already paid for.
And it crucifies smaller businesses
That is a fair point and that the government managed to create a new online sales tax but somehow exempt Amazon, seemingly without any big donations, dinners or tennis matches with the Tory party, is completely baffling.
It may be a moral failing of mine, but I must admit to find being a moral consumer hard, I enjoy the flexibility offered by Amazon and wouldn't like to give it up. Much prefer they are taxed and regulated fairly in relation to other businesses and employees, than consumer boycotts.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
To say that most people save nothing at all is a gross exaggeration, but savings rates and totals are alarmingly low for even moderately comfortable households. According to this helpful digest - https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk - the median values for household savings are £11,000 for the total held, and the monthly savings rate is £180. Thus, half of households save more than this but half save less (and large numbers of the fiscally incontinent and the struggling alike have negative savings rates and are steadily sinking into debt, of course.)
Thus, if a typical household found its members out of work, they'd only be able to live off their savings for about 4-6 months before they were cleaned out and faced with ruin. Most people live quite precariously, even if they don't always realise it.
The point I was seeking to make is that most of our savings as a nation are done by the very well off. If we disincentivise them from saving then our national situation, already disastrous, will deteriorate. Savings of £180 a month just aren't going to cut it. In simple terms we need, as a nation, to save somewhere nearer to an additional £80bn a year, or something like £13k each. This is beyond most folk so we need to be careful about attacking those who do the majority of the saving for us.
I have never heard that argument before! For those too feckless to do their own saving please donate to @noneoftheabove.elitebankingforthe1%.com and I will be happy to do my patriotic duty and save on your behalf.
Opportunity (to save, this case) is reckoned to be a fine thing. It's not a question of being feckless. It's why, in days of yore, pubs ran Christmas Clubs. About the only thing many people 'save' for today are holidays. Otherwise there are deferred payments systems.
I’m making a call. The triple lock will remain untouched.
My reasoning - it’s more of a political gimmick, a very clever one, than an even more clever policy of genuinely helping pensioners right across the board. Politically, why bust your headline gimmick when there must by thousands of ways to claw the same money off the same people by stealth?
It's quite a lot of money, maybe not trivial to get it back by stealth without people noticing. Alzheimer's sufferer tax, I guess?
The way to fudge it is just to apply the adjustment over a whole parliamentary term, rather than every year. That preserves the spirit of the promise while sanding off the corona-induced crazy.
It's about £3 billion, and possibly less depending what increase Rishi does grant. That could probably be reclaimed by limiting tax relief on contributions, as last time, or in other ways. We should not count the cost as the difference between zero and full triple lock, because no-one thinks HMG will announce no inrease in pensions. The relevant figure is the difference between whatever Rishi will (or perhaps wants to) announce and full triple lock.
It will go from triple to double, dropping link to average earnings, absolutely politically impossible to drop link to inflation too.
But why even do that to a flagship electoral success, when you can just steal some back stealthily, such as cut to grant to local authorities, local authorities get blame for cutting what pensioners enjoyed, like bus routes that are already getting chopped right now in fact without central government getting the blame, in fact it’s their Tory MPs leading the local campaign to save them.
I think a lot of you can’t see how politically savvy the Conservative party is right now, because you can’t see passed the fog that is Boris.
I can't imagine anything more terrifying than losing one's mind.
If I ever get such a diagnosis, I'm heading for the Mediterranean, a good lunch and a very very long swim out to sea. Exhaustion, cold and the water will do the rest.
Though the Irish Sea would do just as well I suppose.
What I'm hoping for is to die in my garden, so I can just be laid in the earth and I can happily push up roses and daisies for all eternity. My family can have a proper Catholic Mass for me - with lovely hymns and tales of my outrageous behaviour - followed by one hell of a party back at the house and garden.
I will be mildly annoyed at missing the party but, hey, one can't have everything in life. Or death, come to that.
Ideally, I'd like to suddenly go overnight (with no warning, so I never know about it, and whilst I'm otherwise in very good health) some time in my 90s.
However, I think I'll need to be very lucky for that.
I would like to get to my 90s. I would have invited the family - huge, by then - around for lunch. Perhaps to celebrate my 95th birthday. We would have had a hearty and convivial meal - daughters, (hypothetical future) sons-in-law, (hypothetical) grandchildren, maybe the odd hypothetical great-grandchild present or on the way. Feeling pleasantly tired, I will take myself off for a sit in my favourite armchair, an inconsequential test match ebbing pleasantly towards a draw on the radio, the distant hubbub of familial chatter in the background. I will doze off there for the last time. One of the sons-in-law will find me. Close enough to take responsibility, not close enough to be traumatised by it. My family will be sad about the event, but happy that I went so well, having achieved everything I wanted to in life; and happy that they had each other there for the event.
The point I was seeking to make is that most of our savings as a nation are done by the very well off. If we disincentivise them from saving then our national situation, already disastrous, will deteriorate. Savings of £180 a month just aren't going to cut it. In simple terms we need, as a nation, to save somewhere nearer to an additional £80bn a year, or something like £13k each. This is beyond most folk so we need to be careful about attacking those who do the majority of the saving for us.
It's not clear to me that 80 billion pounds of savings very unevenly distributed has the same benefit as 80 billion pounds of savings evenly distributed, though. The latter means everybody has a cushion against the unexpected; the former means that a small slice of the population (the well off middle classes and up) who likely already had decent savings have stashed away an even larger sum -- but they're not going to disburse it to the people who don't earn enough to save, so it's not (from a national perspective) as effective... I suspect I'm missing something here.
Work hard, save, get your own home, then slowly lose it by having to either sell and downsize or have some sort of equity release nonsense.
Dr. Foxy, there's a reason medieval types loathed taxes. They were levied against property value (property as in general goods not just a home). Also, as a country, we need to save more. This is going to damage that as well.
Income tax should rise. It affects both the elderly and younger people and is fairer than raising NI.
Good to see a reasoned discussion on here today about funding social care and how to do it, without any nasty aggression or swearing
Absolutely right that we need a little Income Tax rise to fund this. It's fairer to all. I spent many efforts in trying to explain this very gently to @MaxPB but it didn't seem to sink in ... 😊
What we need is the integration of NI and IT so that everyone on the same income, whether from work or investments, under or over the age of retirement, pays the same. That would involve the retired having a larger tax increase than the rest of us initially but that additional burden will be borne by those with above average incomes who can, frankly, afford it, or at least afford it better than those trying to bring up children.
Increasing NI, paid by those who are suffering the most, to provide additional (and necessary) social care for the elderly is just not a solution that is worth the time of day.
Exactly. Spot on.
Time for a wealth tax too, ideally to help reduce the overall burdens of taxes on income.
Again, there are no taxes that do not have economic consequences. One of our biggest structural problems is our excessive tendency to consume. We simply do not, as a country, invest or save enough. This generates our serious balance of payments problem which have transformed us from a wealthy country with a considerable flow of investment income from abroad to a rentier economy, paying an ever increasing premium for the use of our own assets that have been bought up by foreigners.
Given this problem do we really want to disincentivise saving? I think we need a lot more of it.
It's a good point but surely dealt with by a sufficiently high threshold. I'm suggesting £1m per individual, but I'd equally support a threshold of £5m per individual which could still raise £45bn pa at 1%.
Do we really need to encourage people to save >£5m each?
We need to recognise that most of us do not save anything at all. And many more "save" their house and that is it. As I reach 60 I am bemused that so many of my cohort are still managing debt on credit cards, car loans and the like. They have assets, usually houses, but are cash poor at a stage in life where they should be starting to draw down their savings.
The exceptions are those on final salaries who receive generous tax free lump sums on retirement but they are a privileged minority and I do not think that there are enough of them to pay the bills.
To say that most people save nothing at all is a gross exaggeration, but savings rates and totals are alarmingly low for even moderately comfortable households. According to this helpful digest - https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/savings-accounts/average-household-savings-uk - the median values for household savings are £11,000 for the total held, and the monthly savings rate is £180. Thus, half of households save more than this but half save less (and large numbers of the fiscally incontinent and the struggling alike have negative savings rates and are steadily sinking into debt, of course.)
Thus, if a typical household found its members out of work, they'd only be able to live off their savings for about 4-6 months before they were cleaned out and faced with ruin. Most people live quite precariously, even if they don't always realise it.
The point I was seeking to make is that most of our savings as a nation are done by the very well off. If we disincentivise them from saving then our national situation, already disastrous, will deteriorate. Savings of £180 a month just aren't going to cut it. In simple terms we need, as a nation, to save somewhere nearer to an additional £80bn a year, or something like £13k each. This is beyond most folk so we need to be careful about attacking those who do the majority of the saving for us.
I have never heard that argument before! For those too feckless to do their own saving please donate to @noneoftheabove.elitebankingforthe1%.com and I will be happy to do my patriotic duty and save on your behalf.
Opportunity (to save, this case) is reckoned to be a fine thing. It's not a question of being feckless. It's why, in days of yore, pubs ran Christmas Clubs. About the only thing many people 'save' for today are holidays. Otherwise there are deferred payments systems.
Pandemic lifestyle says different. Feckless is a horrible word I would only use as a parody. But people choose consumption over saving. It is a choice. If you look at the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) community you will find people on normal salaries saving half their income, just living very frugally to get an earlier retirement.
Mr. Taz, a wealth tax seems unwise. If it doesn't apply to houses then people will just shovel their money into property, pushing up prices even more. If it does apply to houses then tons of people who spent their lives paying off a mortgage and have retired will have a new significant cost they can't afford.
If they're sitting on a large debt-free asset worth enough for the wealth tax to kick in then by definition they can afford the new cost.
Plenty of people are asset rich but cash poor. Effectively they In that situation will be forced to take secured loans or even sell to pay the debt.
If the figures are small (as they would be with a land value tax) it's possible for the money to be paid upfront against a first charge on the property.
That doesn't work for care homes as at £60,000 a year everything adds up quickly.
Most people's stay in care homes is not very long. I understand the median is about 9 months. I would have thought that the edge cases which involve staying for years could be covered by insurance of some kind.
The real issue is care in the community. There's lots of people struggling along with the help of relatives and/or 15 minute visits from carers. Very few live with their parents or grandparents any more.
They would be far better in a middle way of sheltered or purpose built accommodation but there isn't enough of it and there's a reluctance to sell up.
Lets face it, society is a Ponzi scheme, one way or another.
One further point - when my mum died I was warned by a friend to be cautious about buying sheltered accommodation for dad as it could be very difficult to sell. Which contradicts what you say, seemingly, please? In the end my father did not need it but it would be useful to know for other elderly relatives.
The point I was seeking to make is that most of our savings as a nation are done by the very well off. If we disincentivise them from saving then our national situation, already disastrous, will deteriorate. Savings of £180 a month just aren't going to cut it. In simple terms we need, as a nation, to save somewhere nearer to an additional £80bn a year, or something like £13k each. This is beyond most folk so we need to be careful about attacking those who do the majority of the saving for us.
It's not clear to me that 80 billion pounds of savings very unevenly distributed has the same benefit as 80 billion pounds of savings evenly distributed, though. The latter means everybody has a cushion against the unexpected; the former means that a small slice of the population (the well off middle classes and up) who likely already had decent savings have stashed away an even larger sum -- but they're not going to disburse it to the people who don't earn enough to save, so it's not (from a national perspective) as effective... I suspect I'm missing something here.
No, you are not. The extreme wealth inequality we are moving further and further into is bad in many ways.
Comments
We can always find reasons not to do things, not to tax this, that and the other. But if we want a decent care system we will have to pay so rather than find reasons for not paying we need to find a way to pay which raises the money needed and is reasonably fair to all. Income tax is one such way, merging of NI with it and making it applicable to all another. Extending CGT a third. Some form of LVT or wealth tax another. All have pluses and minuses. But we can either argue about it for another 10/20 years and do nothing or actually get on with it.
So argument and doing nothing it is then ......
Unemployment is at under 5%, there are record job vacancies, and the supermarket shelves are very far from empty. It is against this backdrop that the overwhelming public disinterest in wailing about BoZo this and Frost that should be appreciated.
If and when things get a lot worse then the Government's critics on this might get more of a hearing. Until then they're just screaming at each other inside a locked, soundproofed room.
Looks tight to me.
I visited my dad a couple of times a week for quite a few years, and encountered both happy and utterly miserable dementia sufferers. The latter outnumbered the former, and there were many somewhere in between.
Uncontrollable anger is very hard for both family and staff to deal with, and I’m not sure I could.
Too long in the bunker?
There are also betting opportunities. I have bet on Trump as Republican nominee, but I think he will not be POTUS again.
For labour it's an almost perfect attack point...
I just said I'd be happy to concede a £5m threshold, which would still raise £45bn.
What, no ticker-tape parades and world exhibitions?
In part it comes back to a point I have made repeatedly before: being in the SM was an economic disaster for us. Not because the SM is a bad thing or free trade does not have advantages but because we repeatedly elected politicians who offered us the most goodies and consumption, more for less. We need to fix these structural failings. It is going to be painful but our children are being impoverished.
So, more taxes on consumption such as an internet transaction tax, taxes on capital but only at certain end points such as death, incentives to save such as sensible interest rates and a rebalancing of the burdens away from those earning to those receiving investment income to offset their increased returns from higher interest rates.
Which is terrifying for sister-in-law who is seeing her husband go the same way, twenty years later.
I suspect is is that CGT is much easier to evade than income tax (and the sums raised are not comparable anyway). In many cases CGT is in effect voluntary. If someone buys £50k shares in XYZ plc and sells them for £100k who would know or have the mechanism to check that the £50k gain has been declared?
With gains from property I've lost count over the years of informing someone who is about to join the buy-to-let craze that any capital gains are liable for CGT. They look at me wide-eyed and disbelieving. These gains were often not declared - which is why about 20 years ago the rule was brought in that conveyancers have to attach the purchasers NI number to any property purchase to give the authorities a hope of clamping down on this abuse.
So the LP should come up with proposals in line with that principle. I really don't care too much what they are: land value tax, increasing CGT, raising IHT, increasing IT for higher earners, getting Amazon etc. to pay their fair share, and so on.
The principle should be that those with the broadest shoulders (e.g. the top 20% income/wealth) should pay the bulk of it. Working age people on incomes up to around, say, £50/60k shouldn't pay any more, and nor should poor pensioners - but rich pensioners should. If this doesn't raise enough, look at property/wealth/dividends etc.
I'll be happy if some of the wealthy folk on here start screaming at Labour's proposals; then I'll know they're on the right lines. People, rightly, are saying there's not enough opposition from Labour. It could start here.
Presumably the person who worked this out knew what the nationa's wealth cosisted of.
So what does it consist of? Real property? Directly owned shares? Funds? Pensions?
28% tax on an (usually unearned) increase in asset value can hardly be considered a privation.
My worst betting day ever as this guy Trump I was betting on came a good second - indeed Cruz was fine for my book - and yet Rubio surged and had me spooked.
So glad someone benefitted (I did fine in the end).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2016tomarch2018
Also, if brought in the property market would grind to a halt as people are disincentivised to move house.
I will make a prediction. All this money will be swallowed by the NHS and there will no change to social care and no fix and no cap.
Hope I am hopelessly wrong on this.
However, their beard & sandals base would hate it.
Though it is worth remembering that the last time the Tories came up with a policy whereby rich pensioners had to contribute to their care it was Labour and Labour supporters on here (@BJO was very vocal in his opposition, as I recall) who were vociferous in their opposition.
It was quite funny watching Labour supporters work themselves into a frenzy on behalf of the children of wealthy Surrey property owners
It might be a tad embarrassing if Starmer had said anything then in opposition to May's policy which might now be used against him.
Surely though it should be only on the "Gain"? If a person paid a deposit and then 25 years of monthly payments of capital+interest, surely these would be deducted from the selling price at the end?....before CGT is calculated?
1992 - Maastricht - well it was signed but much of the Tory party detested it and never came round to liking it.
Brexitism is about "w***s begin at Calais".
The real issue is care in the community. There's lots of people struggling along with the help of relatives and/or 15 minute visits from carers. Very few live with their parents or grandparents any more.
They would be far better in a middle way of sheltered or purpose built accommodation but there isn't enough of it and there's a reluctance to sell up.
Lets face it, society is a Ponzi scheme, one way or another.
To the argument that this wouldn't raise much: Tax individual wealth above £1m at 1% pa. If a quarter of UK wealth is owned by just 1% (see below), that's £4.5 trillion by my reckoning which would deliver £45bn. Per annum! And that's just the 1%.
Tax above £1mn at 1% pa would deliver £45bn.
I'd say the authors were more sympathetic to the latter than the former - and the great question "How could Sturgeon and Murrell (her husband and CEO of the SNP) been unaware of the biggest open secret in Holyrood?" goes un-asked and un-answered......
Meanwhile:
ALEX Salmond has taken legal steps over a new book about sexual misconduct claims against him and his bitter rift with Nicola Sturgeon.
The former First Minister said he had consulted his lawyers over Break-Up, by the respected journalists David Clegg and Kieran Andrews, which is due out tomorrow.
Mr Salmond, now leader of the Alba party, said he considered the book potentially breached the criminal law and had reported his concern to prosecutors.
He also said he was “actively considering” the legal remedies available in the civil courts, a potential reference to a defamation action.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19546658.alex-salmond-urges-criminal-investigation-book-misconduct-scandal/
Thus, if a typical household found its members out of work, they'd only be able to live off their savings for about 4-6 months before they were cleaned out and faced with ruin. Most people live quite precariously, even if they don't always realise it.
Reminds me of what happened in the 60's, when a whole new group of people joined the (then Liberal) Party, when Grimond took over from Clement Davies.
Though the Irish Sea would do just as well I suppose.
What I'm hoping for is to die in my garden, so I can just be laid in the earth and I can happily push up roses and daisies for all eternity. My family can have a proper Catholic Mass for me - with lovely hymns and tales of my outrageous behaviour - followed by one hell of a party back at the house and garden.
I will be mildly annoyed at missing the party but, hey, one can't have everything in life. Or death, come to that.
Apart from blaming local governments for not vaccinating fast enough then running out of vaccines, his other recent achievements were switching the order of the names on passports, so now half the passports have the first and last name in one order and the other half have them in the other order, and people are going to miss their flights faffing around with it. Also he made a great thing trying to impress everyone with how modern he was by telling Japanese ministries to stop using faxes, which obviously slows everything down because now they have to send their documents through the post.
I'm afraid I don't see this as "socialism", in principle. It would be socialism if the tax was punitive and ridiculous, but not if moderate, reasonable and measured.
To say asset taxes are socialist in principle would be like saying income tax was (it was very unpopular when first introduced) but we got used to it and we now debate the rate.
Incidentally, income tax was re-introduced by the Conservative PM Sir Robert Peel as Prime Minister after the 1841 general election only a few years before he repealed the corn laws. Similarly, that was due to a growing deficit and emptying Exchequer - previously government revenues had largely been derived from customs & excise, streams which are v. small today - and the changing nature of the economy from agrarian to industrial.
The nature of the tax base changes, so must the tax.
The £50k share purchase now worth £100k brings in £90k if sold at 20% CGT (for the example assuming seller has already used up their allowances). If we move it up to 40% CGT it brings in £80k instead.
So the potential seller has a different and less favourable sale as an option. If they keep the shares there is no immediate CGT to pay. For the sale to happen, £80k in cash has to be worth more than shares which the open market value at £100k to the seller. For big life events, such as buying a house or similar that may still be the case, but it will stop many transactions where the seller prefers share A to share B at market rates.
The loss of such sales not only reduces CGT and stamp duty from those missing sales, but also leads to UK plc having a more inefficient stock market and investment platform for the wider economy.
However, I think I'll need to be very lucky for that.
People see Care Homes, and provision, as an investment.
So, I've left a list, and told the family where to find it.
In place of reality there is fantasy, and a government that believes in fantasy in one area is one that will be happy fabricating evidence in another. It is a question of trust and probity and, in the end, of character. So this is a revealing argument in many ways.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8ac4aed6-0dad-11ec-8be5-c970b7541460?shareToken=8369b20e2d93395782a795ce16ea3e40
£62,706 Average total debt per UK household in June 2021
£3,732 Total unsecured debt per UK adult in June 2021
So not a pretty picture except at the high end.
I imagine it's quicker to write than to type a document if it includes Chinese-style characters, though the Japanese also use two syllabic scripts IIRC (and roman too).
Tories up 2 with delta poll
In international relations a reTrumped US is not a reliable ally and may even be a threat to democracy, and China and Russia are more violently authoritatian than ever. The EU looks a LOT more attractive in that context. Bearing in mind that a compromise acceptable to most would have been single market short of EU membership, not the third party relationship we have now.
Johnson and his governemnt are NBG and large numbers of Conservatives are deeply worried about where his government is going on the economy, as we saw in Chesham and Amersham, under certain circumstances a large number of true Conservatives are prepared to abandon the Tories if they deem it necessary
Brexit is not "done" because it is a process not a destination, and the increasing distance from the EU is the wrong direction for both economic and political reasons. A new direction is needed and Johnson can not provide it and after the knifing of both Lib Dems and the DUP, no one would go into any alliance with the Tories under another leader either.
Ergo the Tories will need to be put out of office before the crisis can be addressed, and TBH that is eventually what is going to happen. Many, such as the not very lamented HYFUD, would say that the continuing lead for the Tories, absent any mid term blues means that they can hold power after the next election. Actually I think it will be a straight line and the Tories may well get whipped next time.
For the sake of the country they have to go. After that we can work out what the Brexit end game should be, but with the original sinner of Johnson in power there is no reasonable compromise and quite likely no solution at all. Meanwhile the effective end of NATO would make the world a very dangerous place indeed. Already we are proposing a level of miltary cooperation with France that is increadibly close. It is ironic that the Tories seem to be able to work together with Europeans on matters of life and death but not on humdrum food labelling.
I dont know if the analogue of Johnson is the complacency and lack of vision of a Baldwin or a Chamberlain, but I do know that he certainly does not have the clear vision of a Churchill.
https://i.redd.it/hbbayr9czgc01.png
We're not talking about returning orders here, just about how it is easy to accidentally subscribe to their prime service.
buckle up for hysterical headlines as the cases rise.
It may be a moral failing of mine, but I must admit to find being a moral consumer hard, I enjoy the flexibility offered by Amazon and wouldn't like to give it up. Much prefer they are taxed and regulated fairly in relation to other businesses and employees, than consumer boycotts.
About the only thing many people 'save' for today are holidays. Otherwise there are deferred payments systems.
But why even do that to a flagship electoral success, when you can just steal some back stealthily, such as cut to grant to local authorities, local authorities get blame for cutting what pensioners enjoyed, like bus routes that are already getting chopped right now in fact without central government getting the blame, in fact it’s their Tory MPs leading the local campaign to save them.
I think a lot of you can’t see how politically savvy the Conservative party is right now, because you can’t see passed the fog that is Boris.
Triple lock safe as safety mcsafeface, safeshire.
I would have invited the family - huge, by then - around for lunch. Perhaps to celebrate my 95th birthday. We would have had a hearty and convivial meal - daughters, (hypothetical future) sons-in-law, (hypothetical) grandchildren, maybe the odd hypothetical great-grandchild present or on the way. Feeling pleasantly tired, I will take myself off for a sit in my favourite armchair, an inconsequential test match ebbing pleasantly towards a draw on the radio, the distant hubbub of familial chatter in the background. I will doze off there for the last time.
One of the sons-in-law will find me. Close enough to take responsibility, not close enough to be traumatised by it. My family will be sad about the event, but happy that I went so well, having achieved everything I wanted to in life; and happy that they had each other there for the event.