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Now I am become Death, the destroyer of political parties – politicalbetting.com

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  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    JUNTS, CC, UPN. about 9 seats.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,442
    A
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    I am not sure that can be the case can it? If wealth tax is, in part supposed to replace council tax and also provide additional raxation then it has to be on the value of the property not just on the bit you have paid off.
    I don't see why a measure mixing is not possible here.

    Council tax 0.5% on property value (and abolish Stamp Duty as per the Proportional Property Tax proposals), and a general wealth tax on the net value of assets (which is what the Swiss do).

    Well there you have it just added another 700 pounds a year on top of my rent
    PPT proposals also include transfer of charge responsibility to the Landlord ! So if you aren't paying it direct and the LL puts your rent up by £700 that should be cost neutral for you, should it not?

    (That would perhaps depend on tax treatment of the LL)
    Follow up - if you are paying £1800 a year CT that sounds like you would be better off.

    I've only quoted a couple of points from the proposals. They are here. There is also a regional balancing mechanism,
    https://fairershare.org.uk/proportional-property-tax/
    No I am paying 1125 a year with my single person discount, a wealth tax based on the house I live in would be 1800. My landlord would absolutely pass it on via a rent increase
    They might well try but the market would apply surely? If the landlord could get away with a £700 increase they would do so now. But the market can't support it.
    Then it is obviously a long time since you rented

    This is what happens in reality.

    Something happens, mortgage rate increase...wealth tax whatever...

    Most renters get a knock on the door within a week or two your rent is going up because of whatever reason. My rent is now 700 a year dearer....however so is anywhere else I can rent because they all want to make that money back.

    My alternative when they all raised rent is to do what? Rent at the new price or become homeless
    Yes.

    The reason that your rent isn’t £700 more is because some other landlord won’t put their prices up that much. If the costs of most landlords go up, then a £700 price rise becomes possible.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    The only ones they seem to be adding in on the TV are UPN (Navarre) and the Canarian Coalition.

    I'm thinking the Congreso will be "well hung" if it all comes down to Junts who won't support either Sanchez or Feijoo for PM?
    Canarian in the salt mine?
  • Options
    TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,388

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    The only ones they seem to be adding in on the TV are UPN (Navarre) and the Canarian Coalition.

    I'm thinking the Congreso will be "well hung" if it all comes down to Junts who won't support either Sanchez or Feijoo for PM?
    PP+VOX up to 168 now, as predicted. Nunez Feijoo strong favourite after that past wobble.

  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Centre right coalition now up to 170. Centre left 154 without nationalists. Squeaky bum time for Sanchez!
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,028

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    The only ones they seem to be adding in on the TV are UPN (Navarre) and the Canarian Coalition.

    I'm thinking the Congreso will be "well hung" if it all comes down to Junts who won't support either Sanchez or Feijoo for PM?
    They would for a Catalan independence referendum neither will grant, hence grand Coalition.
  • Options
    Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,757

    Seattle boasts a baseball stadium with a retractable roof.

    Is this option NOT feasible/viable/possible for cricket in the UK?

    Granted cricket pitch is larger than baseball field (at least according to 10-sec of googling).

    By complete contrast I've sat on the bleachers at Fenway Park for a post-season game in late October that went to 11 innings. Summer game? You must be joking.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Duh?

    I've not actually seen a wealth tax proposed by any of our political parties to date (I stand to be corrected) but it's been suggested on here numerous times and never on mortgaged assets.

    However, you confidently asserted that "People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own." I was just correcting that misunderstanding on your part.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansion_tax#:~:text=property is bought.-,Liberal Democrat conference motion 2012,taxation designed to reduce inequality".

    Spot the place where it says it depends on how much equity you have paid off
    Besides a side effect of equity based tax is it discourages paying off your house earlier. That just feeds into increased bank profits. Something you on the left want to encourage?
    Mmmm. If you delay paying off your mortgage you either keep the cash you saved elsewhere (in which case its still part of your total wealth) or you spend it (in which case its taxed anyway, so no big advantage to you).

    Also, bear in mind that any sensible WT is not going to be taxing Mr and Mrs Average - the allowances would be set to £500k or £1m or more (median UK = £125k in 2020; mean UK wealth = £305k, according to the ONS).
    Depends what I spend it on, most of my free cash expenditure is not taxed
    With respect, it doesn't sound like you are going to need to avoid WT any time soon.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590

    TimS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Someone said recently that Madrid is surprisingly right-wing for a European capital city.

    Perhaps not so surprising. The patrician inland capital city, with the liberal coastal metropolis being its counterpart:

    Madrid - Barcelona
    Riyadh - Jeddah
    Ankara - Istanbul/Izmir
    Canberra - Melbourne/Sydney
    Brasilia - Rio
    Beijing - Shanghai
    Bonn - Hamburg (before reunification)
    Edinburgh - Dundee
    York - Hull
    Toledo - Cincinnati
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    I am not sure that can be the case can it? If wealth tax is, in part supposed to replace council tax and also provide additional raxation then it has to be on the value of the property not just on the bit you have paid off.
    I don't see why a measure mixing is not possible here.

    Council tax of 0.5% on property value to replace Council Tax (and abolish Stamp Duty as per the Proportional Property Tax proposals), and a general wealth tax on the net value of assets (which is what the Swiss do).

    There would be a modest downward pressure on property values in more over-demand areas, as holding expensive property would be more expensive than at present. I think that is what we want.

    "modest downward pressure on property values"

    The last time that happened it was a disaster for hundreds of thousands who found themselves in negative equity, unable to sell and unable to afford their mortgages.

    I shouldsay I am quite in favour of a hefty drop in house price values but for any Government causing it by taxation it would be electoral suicide.
    Fair comment but are you not one of those who'd like to see a shift away from taxing income towards taxing wealth?
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,292
    Lviv right now is a unique, remarkable and quintessential travel experience which will likely never be repeated in a century. Get here if you can

    Is it voyeuristic? Yes, probably. But they also want the travelers and they want the money and they want to feel embraced by the world. Not abandoned

    Do it! You won’t regret it. Unless you die in a missile attack 🤷‍♂️
  • Options
    MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    Business as usual update from greece:

    Weather - latest: New evacuations on Corfu in at least 18 areas; flights to get Britons out planned on Rhodes.

    https://news.sky.com/story/weather-global-heatwaves-latest-uk-us-greece-italy-live-updates-12920226

    That's Corfu, or Kerkyra to you, but a different island from Rhodes either way.

    So commonplace that I don't know why I bother to mention it.
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,828
    Guys quick question. In Spain, when a government cannot be formed, doesn't the existing PM stay on? I thin that happened once in Spain in the 21st century.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,028
    TimS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Someone said recently that Madrid is surprisingly right-wing for a European capital city.

    Perhaps not so surprising. The patrician inland capital city, with the liberal coastal metropolis being its counterpart:

    Madrid - Barcelona
    Riyadh - Jeddah
    Ankara - Istanbul/Izmir
    Canberra - Melbourne/Sydney
    Brasilia - Rio
    Beijing - Shanghai
    Bonn - Hamburg (before reunification)
    Canberra strong Labor
  • Options
    GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,081
    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    The only ones they seem to be adding in on the TV are UPN (Navarre) and the Canarian Coalition.

    I'm thinking the Congreso will be "well hung" if it all comes down to Junts who won't support either Sanchez or Feijoo for PM?
    They would for a Catalan independence referendum neither will grant, hence grand Coalition.
    You're obsessed
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    PP pulling ahead according to NYT, with 135 v 123 with 85% of vote counted

    Certainly less white/blank space on their map of results by commune.
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Duh?

    I've not actually seen a wealth tax proposed by any of our political parties to date (I stand to be corrected) but it's been suggested on here numerous times and never on mortgaged assets.

    However, you confidently asserted that "People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own." I was just correcting that misunderstanding on your part.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansion_tax#:~:text=property is bought.-,Liberal Democrat conference motion 2012,taxation designed to reduce inequality".

    Spot the place where it says it depends on how much equity you have paid off
    Besides a side effect of equity based tax is it discourages paying off your house earlier. That just feeds into increased bank profits. Something you on the left want to encourage?
    Mmmm. If you delay paying off your mortgage you either keep the cash you saved elsewhere (in which case its still part of your total wealth) or you spend it (in which case its taxed anyway, so no big advantage to you).

    Also, bear in mind that any sensible WT is not going to be taxing Mr and Mrs Average - the allowances would be set to £500k or £1m or more (median UK = £125k in 2020; mean UK wealth = £305k, according to the ONS).
    Depends what I spend it on, most of my free cash expenditure is not taxed
    With respect, it doesn't sound like you are going to need to avoid WT any time soon.
    No probably not, I am never going to be rich but then I don't feel the need. I just want to have enough to live and mostly have that currently. I do have a lot of friends fretting with every new tax how they are going to make the money last however. I think personally its a blind spot on PB because I would guess most here have an income approaching 6 figures if not over. There are a few that aren't like Morris Dancer but on the whole the forum is probably the top 10% of earners
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,828

    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    The only ones they seem to be adding in on the TV are UPN (Navarre) and the Canarian Coalition.

    I'm thinking the Congreso will be "well hung" if it all comes down to Junts who won't support either Sanchez or Feijoo for PM?
    They would for a Catalan independence referendum neither will grant, hence grand Coalition.
    You're obsessed
    Whilst it is true that HYUFD's trip on any idea can serve perfectly as a vice, he does have a point.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590

    Seattle boasts a baseball stadium with a retractable roof.

    Is this option NOT feasible/viable/possible for cricket in the UK?

    Granted cricket pitch is larger than baseball field (at least according to 10-sec of googling).

    By complete contrast I've sat on the bleachers at Fenway Park for a post-season game in late October that went to 11 innings. Summer game? You must be joking.
    Hope you wore your long-johns! Maybe two pair?
  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    PP pulling ahead according to NYT, with 135 v 123 with 85% of vote counted

    Certainly less white/blank space on their map of results by commune.

    Now 136 v 122!
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,028

    PP pulling ahead according to NYT, with 135 v 123 with 85% of vote counted

    Certainly less white/blank space on their map of results by commune.

    PP now ahead on popular vote too, 32.33% to PSOE's 32.16%
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    felix said:

    PP pulling ahead according to NYT, with 135 v 123 with 85% of vote counted

    Certainly less white/blank space on their map of results by commune.

    Now 136 v 122!
    with 88% counted
  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    felix said:

    PP pulling ahead according to NYT, with 135 v 123 with 85% of vote counted

    Certainly less white/blank space on their map of results by commune.

    Now 136 v 122!
    with 88% counted
    They cannot get to 176 but at this rate neither can Sanchez.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,653
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Duh?

    I've not actually seen a wealth tax proposed by any of our political parties to date (I stand to be corrected) but it's been suggested on here numerous times and never on mortgaged assets.

    However, you confidently asserted that "People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own." I was just correcting that misunderstanding on your part.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansion_tax#:~:text=property is bought.-,Liberal Democrat conference motion 2012,taxation designed to reduce inequality".

    Spot the place where it says it depends on how much equity you have paid off
    Besides a side effect of equity based tax is it discourages paying off your house earlier. That just feeds into increased bank profits. Something you on the left want to encourage?
    Mmmm. If you delay paying off your mortgage you either keep the cash you saved elsewhere (in which case its still part of your total wealth) or you spend it (in which case its taxed anyway, so no big advantage to you).

    Also, bear in mind that any sensible WT is not going to be taxing Mr and Mrs Average - the allowances would be set to £500k or £1m or more (median UK = £125k in 2020; mean UK wealth = £305k, according to the ONS).
    Depends what I spend it on, most of my free cash expenditure is not taxed
    With respect, it doesn't sound like you are going to need to avoid WT any time soon.
    No probably not, I am never going to be rich but then I don't feel the need. I just want to have enough to live and mostly have that currently. I do have a lot of friends fretting with every new tax how they are going to make the money last however. I think personally its a blind spot on PB because I would guess most here have an income approaching 6 figures if not over. There are a few that aren't like Morris Dancer but on the whole the forum is probably the top 10% of earners
    They need not fret about a wealth tax that would have a high threshold before there was anything to pay.

    (My income is certainly not approaching 6 figures.)
  • Options
    DoubleCarpetDoubleCarpet Posts: 706
    Ok so TV has left bloc 172, right bloc 170, looks like only Junts and CC not being added to blocs.

    Can someone remind me of the investiture vote rules for Spanish PM?

    Is it absolute majority needed on 1st vote but then simple majority will suffice?

    Thanks
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    If reading map correctly, appears Catalonia is where there is the closest battle on the ground, seeing as how just about everywhere else, the winning party locally has substantial margin over rivals.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,634

    Phil said:

    Meanwhile, the challenge for Boris / Liz defenders is twofold.

    1 Construct a timeline that doesn't lead to the fall of their champion. Complete personality transplants not allowed.

    2 Construct a timeline where the Conservatives are more popular than they are now.

    I don't think either can plausibly be done.

    What's the point? What happened happened. Truss got a lot wrong, but two things critically wrong imo - she let her friendship with Kwarteng persuade her to give him less supervision than necessary, and she badly underestimated the strength and number of the opponents of her policies. It must have been quite surprising the see the American President snarling at her attempt to reinstate the 40% top rate of tax, as if it was any of his f***ing business, but there we were.

    The point now is to look forward. We have a useless PM, with another useless PM in waiting. I see the best situation from here is for the Tories to ditch Sunak and give us an actual election.
    Truss lost control of the narrative because she didn’t have an answer when people asked the obvious question of /how/ exactly her policies were going to bring about growth. Everyone could see that they made the fiscal position of the government worse in the short term & she had no answer to the growth question apart from “it worked for Thatcher”.

    Unfortunately for her Thatcher cosplay doesn’t get you the right to economic growth & once she was revealed as an empty shell with no idea what she was doing (& her Chancellor likewise) the markets spooked & there was no way back.
    This is an odd word soup that bears absolutely no relation to the events of the period. Perhaps save it for when they ask you to write a liberty-taking adaptation for stage and screen.
    As a rebuttal, your snarky version of “I think you’re wrong” needs a bit of work.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,846
    felix said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    JUNTS, CC, UPN. about 9 seats.
    Aren’t Junts Catalan Nationalists . Surely there’s no way they’ll go anywhere near PP or Vox .
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Also it doesn't discriminate on equity payed off. If I buy a 500k house with a mortgage in law I am the owner of a 500k house. The house is merely collateral against my loan so the 500k is my asset
    Er no, definitely not.

    Would that house be worth £500k to your estate when calculating IHT? No.

    Would that house be worth £500k when calculating you liabilty for social care should you need to fund it? No.

    Would your house be worth £500k as an asset if you need to claim UC*? No.

    In each case the value of the asset would be net of the mortgage. Same with any WT.

    (*For UC your residential property is ignored completely but if for example you happened to own a property that you did not live in the outstanding mortgage would be netted off the value to determine the net asset you own.
    No the house will be worth whatever it could be sold for, however the estate then has to dispense debts owed before anything left is dispersed and tax calculated. If I have 100k in the bank and credit card debt of 50 k IHT will be calculated on 50k not the 100k I had in the bank but the 100k was still my asset.

    Will your wealth tax take into account thinks like student loans, credit cards, overdraft, money I owe my friend down the road? No it won't. Therefore money I owe the bank to pay off the mortgage similar
    Yes, yes, yes, and no to the money you the friend down the road (you could just make that one up).

    As I said, all this stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes.
    Wow storing that one....BenPointer says "stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes."
    Store away. You're welcome.

    As an example for UC:

    "H1602 The value of capital which a person has in the UK, is its current market or surrender value less
    1. 10% of the value if there are costs of sale and
    2. the amount of any encumbrances secured on the capital.

    Example
    Louise owns a holiday home in Cornwall valued at £125,000. She has a mortgage on the property of £100500. The costs of sale (10% of the value) would be £12,500. This leaves the amount of capital to be taken into account as £12,000."


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163111/admh1.pdf

  • Options
    TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,388
    Not sure PP+Vox is going to get above the 169 they currently have. Really bending the efficiency curve here.
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    Another Spanish election in a few months' time?
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,442
    A

    MattW said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    I am not sure that can be the case can it? If wealth tax is, in part supposed to replace council tax and also provide additional raxation then it has to be on the value of the property not just on the bit you have paid off.
    I don't see why a measure mixing is not possible here.

    Council tax of 0.5% on property value to replace Council Tax (and abolish Stamp Duty as per the Proportional Property Tax proposals), and a general wealth tax on the net value of assets (which is what the Swiss do).

    There would be a modest downward pressure on property values in more over-demand areas, as holding expensive property would be more expensive than at present. I think that is what we want.

    "modest downward pressure on property values"

    The last time that happened it was a disaster for hundreds of thousands who found themselves in negative equity, unable to sell and unable to afford their mortgages.

    I shouldsay I am quite in favour of a hefty drop in house price values but for any Government causing it by taxation it would be electoral suicide.
    Fair comment but are you not one of those who'd like to see a shift away from taxing income towards taxing wealth?
    The sane approach is to increase housebuilding in various areas to reduce price increases to below inflation/increase in incomes.

    This would mean no negative equity and no sudden loss of value. But would let the air out of the U.K. housing bubble in a steady, restrained manner.

    This only requires a sensible, coordinated approach to the housing market from central and local government over a period lasting decades.

    Excuse me, a diamond formation of flying pigs just flew overhead…
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    nico679 said:

    felix said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    JUNTS, CC, UPN. about 9 seats.
    Aren’t Junts Catalan Nationalists . Surely there’s no way they’ll go anywhere near PP or Vox .
    But would they support a left-wing coalition?
  • Options
    TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,388
    Andy_JS said:

    Another Spanish election in a few months' time?

    Let me close out my position on this one first, then I can tell you
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Also it doesn't discriminate on equity payed off. If I buy a 500k house with a mortgage in law I am the owner of a 500k house. The house is merely collateral against my loan so the 500k is my asset
    Er no, definitely not.

    Would that house be worth £500k to your estate when calculating IHT? No.

    Would that house be worth £500k when calculating you liabilty for social care should you need to fund it? No.

    Would your house be worth £500k as an asset if you need to claim UC*? No.

    In each case the value of the asset would be net of the mortgage. Same with any WT.

    (*For UC your residential property is ignored completely but if for example you happened to own a property that you did not live in the outstanding mortgage would be netted off the value to determine the net asset you own.
    No the house will be worth whatever it could be sold for, however the estate then has to dispense debts owed before anything left is dispersed and tax calculated. If I have 100k in the bank and credit card debt of 50 k IHT will be calculated on 50k not the 100k I had in the bank but the 100k was still my asset.

    Will your wealth tax take into account thinks like student loans, credit cards, overdraft, money I owe my friend down the road? No it won't. Therefore money I owe the bank to pay off the mortgage similar
    Yes, yes, yes, and no to the money you the friend down the road (you could just make that one up).

    As I said, all this stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes.
    Wow storing that one....BenPointer says "stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes."
    Store away. You're welcome.

    As an example for UC:

    "H1602 The value of capital which a person has in the UK, is its current market or surrender value less
    1. 10% of the value if there are costs of sale and
    2. the amount of any encumbrances secured on the capital.

    Example
    Louise owns a holiday home in Cornwall valued at £125,000. She has a mortgage on the property of £100500. The costs of sale (10% of the value) would be £12,500. This leaves the amount of capital to be taken into account as £12,000."


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163111/admh1.pdf

    Sorry if louise owns a holiday home in cornwall why the fuck are taxpayers giving her anything in benefits?
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    edited July 2023

    Ok so TV has left bloc 172, right bloc 170, looks like only Junts and CC not being added to blocs.

    Can someone remind me of the investiture vote rules for Spanish PM?

    Is it absolute majority needed on 1st vote but then simple majority will suffice?

    Thanks

    Correct.

    https://academic.oup.com/book/5201/chapter-abstract/147859525
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,846
    Vox are down 19 seats since 2019 . Hardly a ringing endorsement for the media bigging up Spain’s alleged move to the hard right !
  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    Ok so TV has left bloc 172, right bloc 170, looks like only Junts and CC not being added to blocs.

    Can someone remind me of the investiture vote rules for Spanish PM?

    Is it absolute majority needed on 1st vote but then simple majority will suffice?

    Thanks

    Correct.
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,846
    Andy_JS said:

    nico679 said:

    felix said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    JUNTS, CC, UPN. about 9 seats.
    Aren’t Junts Catalan Nationalists . Surely there’s no way they’ll go anywhere near PP or Vox .
    But would they support a left-wing coalition?
    I think the view is they won’t support anyone ! Can’t see where PP and Vox find a party to get to 176 .
  • Options
    felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    nico679 said:

    Vox are down 19 seats since 2019 . Hardly a ringing endorsement for the media bigging up Spain’s alleged move to the hard right !

    The media it seems to me get these things wrong most of the time.
  • Options
    TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,388
    nico679 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    nico679 said:

    felix said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    JUNTS, CC, UPN. about 9 seats.
    Aren’t Junts Catalan Nationalists . Surely there’s no way they’ll go anywhere near PP or Vox .
    But would they support a left-wing coalition?
    I think the view is they won’t support anyone ! Can’t see where PP and Vox find a party to get to 176 .
    On the second vote?

    No absolute majority on the first vote, then some abstentions?
  • Options
    Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,963

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
  • Options
    DoubleCarpetDoubleCarpet Posts: 706
    felix said:

    Ok so TV has left bloc 172, right bloc 170, looks like only Junts and CC not being added to blocs.

    Can someone remind me of the investiture vote rules for Spanish PM?

    Is it absolute majority needed on 1st vote but then simple majority will suffice?

    Thanks

    Correct.
    Thanks Felix.

    So IF the current bloc numbers hold, and Junts abstain, wouldn't Sanchez be reconfirmed as PM?

    Or are we expecting that a) the seat totals will change b) Junts will support Feijoo? c) not all the smaller parties in the left bloc total would support Sanchez?
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,846

    felix said:

    Ok so TV has left bloc 172, right bloc 170, looks like only Junts and CC not being added to blocs.

    Can someone remind me of the investiture vote rules for Spanish PM?

    Is it absolute majority needed on 1st vote but then simple majority will suffice?

    Thanks

    Correct.
    Thanks Felix.

    So IF the current bloc numbers hold, and Junts abstain, wouldn't Sanchez be reconfirmed as PM?

    Or are we expecting that a) the seat totals will change b) Junts will support Feijoo? c) not all the smaller parties in the left bloc total would support Sanchez?
    Junts supporting Feijoo would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. Don’t they loathe him .
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,466
    edited July 2023
    ...
    Nigelb said:

    Phil said:

    Meanwhile, the challenge for Boris / Liz defenders is twofold.

    1 Construct a timeline that doesn't lead to the fall of their champion. Complete personality transplants not allowed.

    2 Construct a timeline where the Conservatives are more popular than they are now.

    I don't think either can plausibly be done.

    What's the point? What happened happened. Truss got a lot wrong, but two things critically wrong imo - she let her friendship with Kwarteng persuade her to give him less supervision than necessary, and she badly underestimated the strength and number of the opponents of her policies. It must have been quite surprising the see the American President snarling at her attempt to reinstate the 40% top rate of tax, as if it was any of his f***ing business, but there we were.

    The point now is to look forward. We have a useless PM, with another useless PM in waiting. I see the best situation from here is for the Tories to ditch Sunak and give us an actual election.
    Truss lost control of the narrative because she didn’t have an answer when people asked the obvious question of /how/ exactly her policies were going to bring about growth. Everyone could see that they made the fiscal position of the government worse in the short term & she had no answer to the growth question apart from “it worked for Thatcher”.

    Unfortunately for her Thatcher cosplay doesn’t get you the right to economic growth & once she was revealed as an empty shell with no idea what she was doing (& her Chancellor likewise) the markets spooked & there was no way back.
    This is an odd word soup that bears absolutely no relation to the events of the period. Perhaps save it for when they ask you to write a liberty-taking adaptation for stage and screen.
    As a rebuttal, your snarky version of “I think you’re wrong” needs a bit of work.
    -When was Truss short of an answer as to how her policies would create growth? She was clear and consistent that she wanted to cut taxes to stimulate taxable economic activity. Pretty standard textbook economics, rather than some sort of arcane mystery.

    -Even opponents of Truss have stated that she was strong at PMQs, having a tendency to actually answer the questions, which her successor has abandoned.

    -When did she ever say 'it worked for Thatcher'?

    Apart from that his retelling was great.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Also it doesn't discriminate on equity payed off. If I buy a 500k house with a mortgage in law I am the owner of a 500k house. The house is merely collateral against my loan so the 500k is my asset
    Er no, definitely not.

    Would that house be worth £500k to your estate when calculating IHT? No.

    Would that house be worth £500k when calculating you liabilty for social care should you need to fund it? No.

    Would your house be worth £500k as an asset if you need to claim UC*? No.

    In each case the value of the asset would be net of the mortgage. Same with any WT.

    (*For UC your residential property is ignored completely but if for example you happened to own a property that you did not live in the outstanding mortgage would be netted off the value to determine the net asset you own.
    No the house will be worth whatever it could be sold for, however the estate then has to dispense debts owed before anything left is dispersed and tax calculated. If I have 100k in the bank and credit card debt of 50 k IHT will be calculated on 50k not the 100k I had in the bank but the 100k was still my asset.

    Will your wealth tax take into account thinks like student loans, credit cards, overdraft, money I owe my friend down the road? No it won't. Therefore money I owe the bank to pay off the mortgage similar
    Yes, yes, yes, and no to the money you the friend down the road (you could just make that one up).

    As I said, all this stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes.
    Wow storing that one....BenPointer says "stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes."
    Store away. You're welcome.

    As an example for UC:

    "H1602 The value of capital which a person has in the UK, is its current market or surrender value less
    1. 10% of the value if there are costs of sale and
    2. the amount of any encumbrances secured on the capital.

    Example
    Louise owns a holiday home in Cornwall valued at £125,000. She has a mortgage on the property of £100500. The costs of sale (10% of the value) would be £12,500. This leaves the amount of capital to be taken into account as £12,000."


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163111/admh1.pdf

    Sorry if louise owns a holiday home in cornwall why the fuck are taxpayers giving her anything in benefits?
    Simple answer: she won't be keeping that holiday home in Cornwall if she can't work. UC is certainly not going to pay for it.
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Also it doesn't discriminate on equity payed off. If I buy a 500k house with a mortgage in law I am the owner of a 500k house. The house is merely collateral against my loan so the 500k is my asset
    Er no, definitely not.

    Would that house be worth £500k to your estate when calculating IHT? No.

    Would that house be worth £500k when calculating you liabilty for social care should you need to fund it? No.

    Would your house be worth £500k as an asset if you need to claim UC*? No.

    In each case the value of the asset would be net of the mortgage. Same with any WT.

    (*For UC your residential property is ignored completely but if for example you happened to own a property that you did not live in the outstanding mortgage would be netted off the value to determine the net asset you own.
    No the house will be worth whatever it could be sold for, however the estate then has to dispense debts owed before anything left is dispersed and tax calculated. If I have 100k in the bank and credit card debt of 50 k IHT will be calculated on 50k not the 100k I had in the bank but the 100k was still my asset.

    Will your wealth tax take into account thinks like student loans, credit cards, overdraft, money I owe my friend down the road? No it won't. Therefore money I owe the bank to pay off the mortgage similar
    Yes, yes, yes, and no to the money you the friend down the road (you could just make that one up).

    As I said, all this stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes.
    Wow storing that one....BenPointer says "stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes."
    Store away. You're welcome.

    As an example for UC:

    "H1602 The value of capital which a person has in the UK, is its current market or surrender value less
    1. 10% of the value if there are costs of sale and
    2. the amount of any encumbrances secured on the capital.

    Example
    Louise owns a holiday home in Cornwall valued at £125,000. She has a mortgage on the property of £100500. The costs of sale (10% of the value) would be £12,500. This leaves the amount of capital to be taken into account as £12,000."


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163111/admh1.pdf

    Sorry if louise owns a holiday home in cornwall why the fuck are taxpayers giving her anything in benefits?
    Simple answer: she won't be keeping that holiday home in Cornwall if she can't work. UC is certainly not going to pay for it.
    You miss the point, someone with a holiday home shouldn't be getting uc at all. Not that it won't pay for it
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    NYT, with 94% counted:


    PP
    7,491,275 32.67% = 136 seats
    PSOE
    7,321,972 31.93 = 122
    Vox
    2,841,890 12.39 = 33
    Sumar
    2,811,160 12.26 = 31
    ERC
    442,468 1.92 = 7
    Junts
    376,000 1.63 = 7
    Bildu
    330,211 1.44 = 6
    PNV
    274,247 1.19 = 5
    BNG
    141,296 0.61 = 1
    CC
    96,784 0.42 = 1
    UPN
    49,614 0.21 = 1
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    edited July 2023
    This looks very much like another election to me. Unless it's a grand coalition.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    Eh?!

    What is hard about subtracting the mortgage outstanding from the property value? As I have said repeatedly this is already done in a consistent way, in at least three separate instances of the benefits/social care/taxation system.
  • Options
    StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,484
    nico679 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    nico679 said:

    felix said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Are there any other parties to the right of centre apart from PP and Vox?

    JUNTS, CC, UPN. about 9 seats.
    Aren’t Junts Catalan Nationalists . Surely there’s no way they’ll go anywhere near PP or Vox .
    But would they support a left-wing coalition?
    I think the view is they won’t support anyone ! Can’t see where PP and Vox find a party to get to 176 .
    Similar problem to the one facing the Conservatives in 2024/5. If anything, even more so.

    Vox are so toxic that PP+Vox have to get over the line by themselves. Finding allies is going to be too hard.

    PSOE+Sumar have issues galore and look set to end up behind. But they have a chance of finding allies.

    Even still. Blimey. Didn't expect this.

    Buenas noches noches, as they used to say on Puppet News.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.
  • Options
    TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,388
    edited July 2023
    El Pais suggesting that postal votes haven't been counted yet?


    Or maybe they are only now being counted?

    EDIT: The Local disagrees. Brilliant.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Also it doesn't discriminate on equity payed off. If I buy a 500k house with a mortgage in law I am the owner of a 500k house. The house is merely collateral against my loan so the 500k is my asset
    Er no, definitely not.

    Would that house be worth £500k to your estate when calculating IHT? No.

    Would that house be worth £500k when calculating you liabilty for social care should you need to fund it? No.

    Would your house be worth £500k as an asset if you need to claim UC*? No.

    In each case the value of the asset would be net of the mortgage. Same with any WT.

    (*For UC your residential property is ignored completely but if for example you happened to own a property that you did not live in the outstanding mortgage would be netted off the value to determine the net asset you own.
    No the house will be worth whatever it could be sold for, however the estate then has to dispense debts owed before anything left is dispersed and tax calculated. If I have 100k in the bank and credit card debt of 50 k IHT will be calculated on 50k not the 100k I had in the bank but the 100k was still my asset.

    Will your wealth tax take into account thinks like student loans, credit cards, overdraft, money I owe my friend down the road? No it won't. Therefore money I owe the bank to pay off the mortgage similar
    Yes, yes, yes, and no to the money you the friend down the road (you could just make that one up).

    As I said, all this stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes.
    Wow storing that one....BenPointer says "stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes."
    Store away. You're welcome.

    As an example for UC:

    "H1602 The value of capital which a person has in the UK, is its current market or surrender value less
    1. 10% of the value if there are costs of sale and
    2. the amount of any encumbrances secured on the capital.

    Example
    Louise owns a holiday home in Cornwall valued at £125,000. She has a mortgage on the property of £100500. The costs of sale (10% of the value) would be £12,500. This leaves the amount of capital to be taken into account as £12,000."


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163111/admh1.pdf

    Sorry if louise owns a holiday home in cornwall why the fuck are taxpayers giving her anything in benefits?
    Simple answer: she won't be keeping that holiday home in Cornwall if she can't work. UC is certainly not going to pay for it.
    You miss the point, someone with a holiday home shouldn't be getting uc at all. Not that it won't pay for it
    I don't disagree with you. But I don't make the rules.

    You have however, moved your attention away from the original point. Which is that real estate assets are considered net of any mortgage on them. Thus your £1m house with a £900k mortgage would only be valued as an asset of £100k for WT purposes.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    Personally blame La Passonaria for numbers today out of Madrid.

    "No Pasaran"?
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,325

    Personally blame La Passonaria for numbers today out of Madrid.

    "No Pasaran"?

    No Prasannan!
  • Options
    CatManCatMan Posts: 2,772
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Today was a disaster for Test Cricket. It must never happen again

    What can be done?
    Spend half a billion building a roof. But cricket doesn't generate enough revenue to justify that, and you'd have to build them on all the test grounds.
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Today was a disaster for Test Cricket. It must never happen again

    What can be done?
    Backup days scheduled!
    Do everything. Back up days. Minimum overs. Move or cancel tea and lunch ffs. Start at 9am on dry days. Anything

    Test cricket teeters on the brink of oblivion. Millions of people have invested emotionally in this series only to have it absolutely ruined by two days of typically shite Mancunian weather, like it is beyond the wit of man to work around such things

    Many of those people will now shrug and think Fuck it, what a waste of time, at least with white ball you get a result

    And thus the last bastion of Test cricket crumbles away
    The tragedy is that if they'd played 30 minutes longer on each of the first 3 days the match probably would have been completed.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
  • Options
    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,133
    Pithy.


  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    nico679 said:

    Vox are down 19 seats since 2019 . Hardly a ringing endorsement for the media bigging up Spain’s alleged move to the hard right !

    The media were slightly stupid in that regard because the opinion polls the whole time have been showing Vox making no progress on the previous election.
  • Options
    DoubleCarpetDoubleCarpet Posts: 706
    Andy_JS said:

    This looks very much like another election to me. Unless it's a grand coalition.

    If it's a GC, I'll buy everyone who's predicted it up to now a drink at the next PB drinks :)
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
    erm you make that sound like anyone should care. You are unlikely to be caught and even if you are you can comfort yourself by saying I am no worse than a politician.

    The law is a farce for normal people, it doesn't protect us anymore so why should we pay attention to it. If my house gets burgled it won't be investigated, no one will be caught and no one in power will care about that.
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    Central Madrid:

    PP 41%
    PSOE 28%
    SUMAR 17%
    VOX 12%

    83% counted

    https://elpais.com/espana/elecciones/generales/congreso/12/28/79/
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    edited July 2023
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
    erm you make that sound like anyone should care. You are unlikely to be caught and even if you are you can comfort yourself by saying I am no worse than a politician.

    The law is a farce for normal people, it doesn't protect us anymore so why should we pay attention to it. If my house gets burgled it won't be investigated, no one will be caught and no one in power will care about that.
    Well, you can always try tax fraud of course. I don't think it will end well though.

    What I don't get is why a normal person like yourself would be against a wealth tax that would target the, er, wealthy.
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,828

    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.

    I can never get over your use of CUP for the Conservative and Unionist Party. I keep having this image of a groin protector for cricket. Whilst it is credible to describe it as a mechanism for keeping pricks safe, it is a bit strained... 😀
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
    erm you make that sound like anyone should care. You are unlikely to be caught and even if you are you can comfort yourself by saying I am no worse than a politician.

    The law is a farce for normal people, it doesn't protect us anymore so why should we pay attention to it. If my house gets burgled it won't be investigated, no one will be caught and no one in power will care about that.
    Well, you can always try tax fraud of course. I don't think it will end well though.
    Tax fraud is about the only thing ever investigated these days, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and you wont be caught because the state no longer cares
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    If the current NYT figures are close to the final results, the Spanish polling looks to have been consistently awry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Spanish_general_election#Opinion_polls
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    viewcode said:

    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.

    I can never get over your use of CUP for the Conservative and Unionist Party. I keep having this image of a groin protector for cricket. Whilst it is credible to describe it as a mechanism for keeping pricks safe, it is a bit strained... 😀
    Box, shirley?
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,929
    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Today was a disaster for Test Cricket. It must never happen again

    What can be done?
    Backup days scheduled!
    Do everything. Back up days. Minimum overs. Move or cancel tea and lunch ffs. Start at 9am on dry days. Anything

    Test cricket teeters on the brink of oblivion. Millions of people have invested emotionally in this series only to have it absolutely ruined by two days of typically shite Mancunian weather, like it is beyond the wit of man to work around such things

    Many of those people will now shrug and think Fuck it, what a waste of time, at least with white ball you get a result

    And thus the last bastion of Test cricket crumbles away
    White ball can be rained off too.
    A reserve day would probably be a good idea, as would starting half an hour earlier with each day strictly 90 overs less calculated deductions.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,292
    Er, what?


    ‘Alien spaceship ‘could have crash-landed on Mars’
    Scientists say they cannot discount possibility that pointy objects found on the Red Planet are debris from extraterrestrial vehicle‘

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/mars-protrusions-alien-spaceship-crash-landing-possibility/
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    viewcode said:

    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.

    I can never get over your use of CUP for the Conservative and Unionist Party. I keep having this image of a groin protector for cricket. Whilst it is credible to describe it as a mechanism for keeping pricks safe, it is a bit strained... 😀
    Personally have similar problem with CON - bit tooooooooo close to the bone.

    Hence CUP which also "honors" the "Conservative" Party's undying "commitment" to the "Union".
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
    erm you make that sound like anyone should care. You are unlikely to be caught and even if you are you can comfort yourself by saying I am no worse than a politician.

    The law is a farce for normal people, it doesn't protect us anymore so why should we pay attention to it. If my house gets burgled it won't be investigated, no one will be caught and no one in power will care about that.
    Well, you can always try tax fraud of course. I don't think it will end well though.
    Tax fraud is about the only thing ever investigated these days, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and you wont be caught because the state no longer cares
    Well I'm solving that for you: once we have a WT, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and fail to declare it and you'll be done for tax fraud. :-)
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    Betfair odds, next Spanish PM

    Feijoo 1.76 / 1.83
    Sanchez 1.96 / 2.48

    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.215072830
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844
    Leon said:

    Er, what?


    ‘Alien spaceship ‘could have crash-landed on Mars’
    Scientists say they cannot discount possibility that pointy objects found on the Red Planet are debris from extraterrestrial vehicle‘

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/mars-protrusions-alien-spaceship-crash-landing-possibility/

    Could doing a lot of heavy lifting there, I suspect they cant discount the possibility of a giant berty basset impacting mars caused the debris either
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    edited July 2023

    If the current NYT figures are close to the final results, the Spanish polling looks to have been consistently awry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Spanish_general_election#Opinion_polls

    The result is pretty much in line with the most recent opinion polls, the ones conducted in the last 10 days or so. There was a shift from earlier on.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687

    viewcode said:

    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.

    I can never get over your use of CUP for the Conservative and Unionist Party. I keep having this image of a groin protector for cricket. Whilst it is credible to describe it as a mechanism for keeping pricks safe, it is a bit strained... 😀
    Personally have similar problem with CON - bit tooooooooo close to the bone.

    Hence CUP which also "honors" the "Conservative" Party's undying "commitment" to the "Union".
    How about the Conservative Unionist Nationalist Tory party?
  • Options
    DoubleCarpetDoubleCarpet Posts: 706
    And given how close it is, knowing whether/or when postal and overseas votes have/will be counted is potentially quite important.
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
    erm you make that sound like anyone should care. You are unlikely to be caught and even if you are you can comfort yourself by saying I am no worse than a politician.

    The law is a farce for normal people, it doesn't protect us anymore so why should we pay attention to it. If my house gets burgled it won't be investigated, no one will be caught and no one in power will care about that.
    Well, you can always try tax fraud of course. I don't think it will end well though.
    Tax fraud is about the only thing ever investigated these days, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and you wont be caught because the state no longer cares
    Well I'm solving that for you: once we have a WT, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and fail to declare it and you'll be done for tax fraud. :-)
    No I really wont because how would they find it....I take money out of a cashpoint as normal..I have 700 cash left over after spending. There are no records to say I didnt spend it on food and spent it on sovereigns or cocaine and stashed it somewhere. The police are pretty dumb when it comes to looking for shit. I went through heathrow with an ounce of resin. Despite being searched they didnt find it because I had it in my hand clasped in my fist while doing as I was told holding my hands up while they searched me.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Andy_JS said:

    If the current NYT figures are close to the final results, the Spanish polling looks to have been consistently awry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Spanish_general_election#Opinion_polls

    The result is pretty much in line with the most recent opinion polls, the ones conducted in the last 10 days or so. There was a shift from earlier on.
    Ok but Wiki seems to be showing a PP-PSOE polling lead of 5% to 7% whereas the NYT has 1% lead.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,292
    edited July 2023
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Today was a disaster for Test Cricket. It must never happen again

    What can be done?
    Backup days scheduled!
    Do everything. Back up days. Minimum overs. Move or cancel tea and lunch ffs. Start at 9am on dry days. Anything

    Test cricket teeters on the brink of oblivion. Millions of people have invested emotionally in this series only to have it absolutely ruined by two days of typically shite Mancunian weather, like it is beyond the wit of man to work around such things

    Many of those people will now shrug and think Fuck it, what a waste of time, at least with white ball you get a result

    And thus the last bastion of Test cricket crumbles away
    White ball can be rained off too.
    A reserve day would probably be a good idea, as would starting half an hour earlier with each day strictly 90 overs less calculated deductions.
    Test Cricket deserves to die. The utter contempt shown for the spectators, in person and watching, beggars belief

    Fuck em. Let it die

    This article is bang on

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2023/07/23/test-cricket-ashes-spoil-rain-delay-australia-retain/
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,798
    nico679 said:

    Vox are down 19 seats since 2019 . Hardly a ringing endorsement for the media bigging up Spain’s alleged move to the hard right !

    I assume they'd deny it, but I think they can find it hard to shift from their prepared narratives. This is then covered by something being described as a shock, even if it really wasn't in every acse.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,798

    Andy_JS said:

    This looks very much like another election to me. Unless it's a grand coalition.

    If it's a GC, I'll buy everyone who's predicted it up to now a drink at the next PB drinks :)
    HYUFD is already coming off an Uxbridge triumph, he better not get another one.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    A peculiarity re: way that NYT reports unofficial election results - the % counted will NOT exceed 95%.

    Addition returns will be added to the count, but the % counted will not change . . . until final results are official reported.

    That's what the do re: US elections, and appears to be same tonight for Spanish election.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    Question - what do they call "Spanish fly" in Spain? (Asking for a friend!)
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,325
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Today was a disaster for Test Cricket. It must never happen again

    What can be done?
    Backup days scheduled!
    Do everything. Back up days. Minimum overs. Move or cancel tea and lunch ffs. Start at 9am on dry days. Anything

    Test cricket teeters on the brink of oblivion. Millions of people have invested emotionally in this series only to have it absolutely ruined by two days of typically shite Mancunian weather, like it is beyond the wit of man to work around such things

    Many of those people will now shrug and think Fuck it, what a waste of time, at least with white ball you get a result

    And thus the last bastion of Test cricket crumbles away
    White ball can be rained off too.
    A reserve day would probably be a good idea, as would starting half an hour earlier with each day strictly 90 overs less calculated deductions.
    Test Cricket deserves to die. The utter contempt shown for the spectators, in person and watching, beggars belief

    Fuck em. Let it die

    This article is bang on

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2023/07/23/test-cricket-ashes-spoil-rain-delay-australia-retain/
    Do they call it "Test" Cricket because it "tests" your patience?
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,798
    Cricket can tie changing the rules on weather delays to modern concern on climate change, so it is trendy - more extreme weather events etc, must prepare for the 21st century game.
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Question - what do they call "Spanish fly" in Spain? (Asking for a friend!)

    Revolting muck?
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,986
    edited July 2023

    viewcode said:

    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.

    I can never get over your use of CUP for the Conservative and Unionist Party. I keep having this image of a groin protector for cricket. Whilst it is credible to describe it as a mechanism for keeping pricks safe, it is a bit strained... 😀
    Personally have similar problem with CON - bit tooooooooo close to the bone.

    Hence CUP which also "honors" the "Conservative" Party's undying "commitment" to the "Union".
    How about the Conservative Unionist Nationalist Tory party?
    Fully United Conservative Kippers and Unionist Party.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,687
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
    erm you make that sound like anyone should care. You are unlikely to be caught and even if you are you can comfort yourself by saying I am no worse than a politician.

    The law is a farce for normal people, it doesn't protect us anymore so why should we pay attention to it. If my house gets burgled it won't be investigated, no one will be caught and no one in power will care about that.
    Well, you can always try tax fraud of course. I don't think it will end well though.
    Tax fraud is about the only thing ever investigated these days, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and you wont be caught because the state no longer cares
    Well I'm solving that for you: once we have a WT, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and fail to declare it and you'll be done for tax fraud. :-)
    No I really wont because how would they find it....I take money out of a cashpoint as normal..I have 700 cash left over after spending. There are no records to say I didnt spend it on food and spent it on sovereigns or cocaine and stashed it somewhere. The police are pretty dumb when it comes to looking for shit. I went through heathrow with an ounce of resin. Despite being searched they didnt find it because I had it in my hand clasped in my fist while doing as I was told holding my hands up while they searched me.
    Fair point. On those values no one is going bother. But we were talking about a WT. Try squirreling away £1m in gold or cocaine. Then think about why are you keeping that wealth, what are you going to do with it?

    Cos the moment you try to use it questions will start to be asked.
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,325

    viewcode said:

    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.

    I can never get over your use of CUP for the Conservative and Unionist Party. I keep having this image of a groin protector for cricket. Whilst it is credible to describe it as a mechanism for keeping pricks safe, it is a bit strained... 😀
    Personally have similar problem with CON - bit tooooooooo close to the bone.

    Hence CUP which also "honors" the "Conservative" Party's undying "commitment" to the "Union".
    How about the Conservative Unionist Nationalist Tory party?
    Ulster Conservatives and Unionists/New Force
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 91,798
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Also it doesn't discriminate on equity payed off. If I buy a 500k house with a mortgage in law I am the owner of a 500k house. The house is merely collateral against my loan so the 500k is my asset
    Er no, definitely not.

    Would that house be worth £500k to your estate when calculating IHT? No.

    Would that house be worth £500k when calculating you liabilty for social care should you need to fund it? No.

    Would your house be worth £500k as an asset if you need to claim UC*? No.

    In each case the value of the asset would be net of the mortgage. Same with any WT.

    (*For UC your residential property is ignored completely but if for example you happened to own a property that you did not live in the outstanding mortgage would be netted off the value to determine the net asset you own.
    No the house will be worth whatever it could be sold for, however the estate then has to dispense debts owed before anything left is dispersed and tax calculated. If I have 100k in the bank and credit card debt of 50 k IHT will be calculated on 50k not the 100k I had in the bank but the 100k was still my asset.

    Will your wealth tax take into account thinks like student loans, credit cards, overdraft, money I owe my friend down the road? No it won't. Therefore money I owe the bank to pay off the mortgage similar
    Yes, yes, yes, and no to the money you the friend down the road (you could just make that one up).

    As I said, all this stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes.
    Wow storing that one....BenPointer says "stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes."
    Store away. You're welcome.

    As an example for UC:

    "H1602 The value of capital which a person has in the UK, is its current market or surrender value less
    1. 10% of the value if there are costs of sale and
    2. the amount of any encumbrances secured on the capital.

    Example
    Louise owns a holiday home in Cornwall valued at £125,000. She has a mortgage on the property of £100500. The costs of sale (10% of the value) would be £12,500. This leaves the amount of capital to be taken into account as £12,000."


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163111/admh1.pdf

    Sorry if louise owns a holiday home in cornwall why the fuck are taxpayers giving her anything in benefits?
    How do peopple always choose poor examples for these things?
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,828

    viewcode said:

    Appears that some of the Vox vote has come back home to PP?

    Perhaps positive portent for CUP in next UK GE? Though likely (IMHO at least) NOT as positive as for PP tonight.

    I can never get over your use of CUP for the Conservative and Unionist Party. I keep having this image of a groin protector for cricket. Whilst it is credible to describe it as a mechanism for keeping pricks safe, it is a bit strained... 😀
    Box, shirley?
    I know nothing about Posh Rounders,, but I have heard the word "cup" to refer to it.
  • Options
    SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,590
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    Er, what?


    ‘Alien spaceship ‘could have crash-landed on Mars’
    Scientists say they cannot discount possibility that pointy objects found on the Red Planet are debris from extraterrestrial vehicle‘

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/mars-protrusions-alien-spaceship-crash-landing-possibility/

    On the Red (Ass) Planet, are not Earthlings (also) aliens?

    Perhaps this has escaped ken of Telegraph editors, seeing as how the rag has clearly been taken over by Lizard People from Uranus?
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,259
    Musk to rebrand Twitter as X and link it with AI.

    Linda Yaccarino

    @lindayacc
    It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.

    https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683213798386147329
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. NI and VAT however are not.

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    Of course they would they would be paying a wealth tax on the value of the house, not the capital they had paid off in their mortgage, doing anything else would just incentivise everyone to take out interest only mortgages which would result in a disaster. No I absolutely do not agree income tax is at all progressive. Simple fact is there are so many ways to avoid it. That famous right wing person of this Parish Foxy for example was railing about no longer being able to stuff earnings into his pension fund to avoid tax on it so talked about reducing his hours
    Just stop for a moment and think about what you are saying.

    Person A, let's call them Mr. Rich, has £1m sat in his bank, and will pay Wealth Tax (WT) on it at the rate set by HMG. If he uses that £1m to buy a house or block of flats to let, he will pay WT on the value of the property instead.

    If he takes out an interest only mortgage for 90% of the £1m property, sure he only owns 10% of it and will only get WT on that £100k but he still has £900k in the bank so his WT position is unchanged.

    No one is going to be incentivised to take out an mortgage to avoid WT for the simple reason that they would not avoid WT that way.

    Regarding tax-free pension contributions, I can assure you from personal experience, and I suspect many others on PB can verify too, that that allowance does not magically turn ICT into a non-progressive tax.

    The simple fact is that for 99% of people in this country, the more you earn the greater % of your earnings you pay in ICT. That is the very definition of a progressive tax.
    That makes absolutely no sense at all. We were not talking about how much money someone has in their bank account as for 99% of people that has no relation to how much their property is worth or how much their mortgage is. You are conflating two unconnected things.
    You need to read my post again properly - I was just giving a simple example to show that taking out an interest only mortgage is not going to help anyone avoid a WT.

    Of course a WT would be assessed on an individual's total assets: cash, shares, bonds, property, etc.

    Fortunately the rules for assessing assets are already largely in place as anyone trying to claim UC or Pension Credit will know.
    You still havene't addressed the point that the only workable way for your plan is to tax the whole property value rather than the but the owner has paid off. And that opens up vast complexities and lots of obvious ways to avoid paying entirely

    Your plans just won't work.
    It also encourages people to keep their wealth off books which is easy enough. For example I know a place to get gold in the form of sovereigns/krugerrands....no paperwork so no traceability
    ...and illegal if you don't declare it for example in the case of IHT.
    erm you make that sound like anyone should care. You are unlikely to be caught and even if you are you can comfort yourself by saying I am no worse than a politician.

    The law is a farce for normal people, it doesn't protect us anymore so why should we pay attention to it. If my house gets burgled it won't be investigated, no one will be caught and no one in power will care about that.
    Well, you can always try tax fraud of course. I don't think it will end well though.
    Tax fraud is about the only thing ever investigated these days, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and you wont be caught because the state no longer cares
    Well I'm solving that for you: once we have a WT, lay up you spare wealth in dodgy gold, cocaine etc and fail to declare it and you'll be done for tax fraud. :-)
    No I really wont because how would they find it....I take money out of a cashpoint as normal..I have 700 cash left over after spending. There are no records to say I didnt spend it on food and spent it on sovereigns or cocaine and stashed it somewhere. The police are pretty dumb when it comes to looking for shit. I went through heathrow with an ounce of resin. Despite being searched they didnt find it because I had it in my hand clasped in my fist while doing as I was told holding my hands up while they searched me.
    Fair point. On those values no one is going bother. But we were talking about a WT. Try squirreling away £1m in gold or cocaine. Then think about why are you keeping that wealth, what are you going to do with it?

    Cos the moment you try to use it questions will start to be asked.
    Also easy enough to turn back into cash with no governement oversight as needed. Your mistake is you are making the assumption I turn 1 million into gold and drugs then turn it back. The truth is you save up bit by bit then release bit by bit not in a giant splurge. Bring in a wealth tax and if I have money I will turn it into assets outside the governements purview. Simply the government is not there to protect me it is the enemy and that is the same for most of the bottom 80%
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,685
    edited July 2023

    A peculiarity re: way that NYT reports unofficial election results - the % counted will NOT exceed 95%.

    Addition returns will be added to the count, but the % counted will not change . . . until final results are official reported.

    That's what the do re: US elections, and appears to be same tonight for Spanish election.

    The Irish and British way of counting elections is better in my opinion. No percentages of the vote reporting, just 100% of the votes counted in each constituency as you go along, and that result is the final result for that constituency.

    (Note: do they also count votes like this in New Zealand? Not sure).
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,844
    kle4 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    @Miklosvar has a point on Rhodes. This does not sound “normal”


    “Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07

    #ClimateChangeIsReal maybe?

    Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
    Green New Deal funded by Wealth Tax then. Done.
    You seem to think only the rich will pay a wealth tax. Clue they wont

    Renters will have the wealth tax added to their rent
    People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k noth the 40k they actually own.
    Poor pensioners that live on nothing more than a state pension but in the 40 years since they paid off their house that has now increased to an incredible price will suddenly find the wealth tax eating half their pension, fuel prices stealing the other half and food inflation swallowing another 20%

    The rich will find ways around the wealth tax
    Well we were looking at non-regressive ways to fund important things like saving the planet. What taxes would you rather use?
    There is no such thing as a progressive tax frankly, your side have introduced so called progressive taxation measures, so have the tories. Always seems to hit the poor harder than the rich.

    We don't need to save the planet either. Whatever happens the planet will still be here even if there are no humans. What you mean is save humans. Sorry too late it ain't going to happen. Rich countries in the west will find mitigation measures poor countries will be left to hang. There is nothing that can be done unless we get a global dictatorship that bans all private transportation, all meat etc. That won't happen so accept it.
    You are talking a lot of rubbish again Pagan.

    Income tax as implemented is unarguably progressive. You could argue it's not progressive enough and you could also argue that some very wealthy people find ways to avoid it. But by and large it's a progressive tax. (NI and VAT, in contrast, are not.)

    Now about your assertion that People who have paid off 10% of a 400,000 pound house will be paying wealth tax on the full 400k not the 40k they actually own. There is no possible basis for that to be the case. What you are describing would be a borrowing tax - an interesting concept but not one which would win many votes for any perty proposing or implementing it I would guess.

    Focus on the facts, not your fantasies.
    In respect of your second paragraph, most wealth taxes use the value of the property not the value of the equity in the property as their primary metric
    Er... evidence?

    According to the examples covered here most, if not all appear to be levied on net assets.
    Sorry I missed the link out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
    But that is not the wealth tax any of our political parties have proposed at one time or another.
    Also it doesn't discriminate on equity payed off. If I buy a 500k house with a mortgage in law I am the owner of a 500k house. The house is merely collateral against my loan so the 500k is my asset
    Er no, definitely not.

    Would that house be worth £500k to your estate when calculating IHT? No.

    Would that house be worth £500k when calculating you liabilty for social care should you need to fund it? No.

    Would your house be worth £500k as an asset if you need to claim UC*? No.

    In each case the value of the asset would be net of the mortgage. Same with any WT.

    (*For UC your residential property is ignored completely but if for example you happened to own a property that you did not live in the outstanding mortgage would be netted off the value to determine the net asset you own.
    No the house will be worth whatever it could be sold for, however the estate then has to dispense debts owed before anything left is dispersed and tax calculated. If I have 100k in the bank and credit card debt of 50 k IHT will be calculated on 50k not the 100k I had in the bank but the 100k was still my asset.

    Will your wealth tax take into account thinks like student loans, credit cards, overdraft, money I owe my friend down the road? No it won't. Therefore money I owe the bank to pay off the mortgage similar
    Yes, yes, yes, and no to the money you the friend down the road (you could just make that one up).

    As I said, all this stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes.
    Wow storing that one....BenPointer says "stuff has already been well thought through and applied with tried and tested methods for areas like the benefits system, social care and IHT. Is it 100% perfect? No. is it workable in practice? Yes."
    Store away. You're welcome.

    As an example for UC:

    "H1602 The value of capital which a person has in the UK, is its current market or surrender value less
    1. 10% of the value if there are costs of sale and
    2. the amount of any encumbrances secured on the capital.

    Example
    Louise owns a holiday home in Cornwall valued at £125,000. She has a mortgage on the property of £100500. The costs of sale (10% of the value) would be £12,500. This leaves the amount of capital to be taken into account as £12,000."


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163111/admh1.pdf

    Sorry if louise owns a holiday home in cornwall why the fuck are taxpayers giving her anything in benefits?
    How do peopple always choose poor examples for these things?
    North london champagne socialists?
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,986
    edited July 2023
    Here's a link to El Pais live results page.

    https://elpais.com/espana/elecciones-generales/

    Frankly I'd trust them over the NY Times.
    Currently showing 98% counted. PP/Vox 169.
    With a 1.2 % PV lead for PP.
This discussion has been closed.