this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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Messing with income tax won't fix anything, it's capital gains and all the loopholes that need dealing with.
Income tax starts at 20% then goes up. Capital gains starts at 20% then goes down.
For lower rate tax payers, it starts at half the income tax rate (with no national insurance). So 10% instead of 32%. For residential property, 18% (with no NI) so 18% instead of 32%.
For higher rate income tax payers it's half the income tax rate (with no national insurance). So 20% instead of 52% (if NI wasn't also tilted in favour of high earners). For residential property, 28% (with no NI) so 28% instead of 52%.
But higher rate tax payers get a massive cut in NI too at not much above the higher rate income tax threshold, paying only 2% NI on earnings above the higher NI threshold, so on that portion of their earnings it is 20% (or 28%) instead of 42%.
Then the very rich get to play with massive loopholes, only paying tax if they feel like it. Which, mostly, they don't.
Yeah I left out NI for brevity lol. TL;DR for everyone else, in the last couple years they changed the boundaries for NI to match those for income tax. NI is 0% for the first £12,500, 12% up to £50k, 2% over £50k. So really you can just combine it with income tax, and the total tax bands are 0%, 32% and 42%. This means the take home tax rate difference is only 10%, not 20% like commonly perceived with the 20% and 40% rates.
There's also some fuckery around the £120k mark, where basically you take home less as your salary goes up a bit. I forget the exact details, but you have to punch through to almost £150k for it to be worthwhile, or something.
Then there's salary sacrifice, which anyone earning over £50k should consider. Basically, you agree with your employer to reduce your salary, and the extra goes straight into your pension. When you do this with income above £50k, you avoid paying the 40% tax at that time. If when you retire your retirement income remains below the 40% tax bracket, then you'll never pay the 40%, only 20% when you withdraw your pension.
Wait it goes down?! Excuse me wtf.
Yes, through loopholes.
An example, you may have heard of "Employee Owned Businesses", a system introduced by the Tories, modelled after John Lewis/Waitrose, which is an employee owned company. Essentially, under the scheme a privately owned cash-rich business can buy itself from its owners. This is done with the set up of an Employee Owned Trust (EOT), a separate business that temporarily owns the main business over however many years it takes to pay off the owners for the full price. After that, the business is fully employee owned and operated. However, the big incentive is that it's tax free for the original owners.
Say the business was worth £50 million. In theory you could restructure the business into an employee owned business, or sell it to anyone else, but you'd have to pay £10 million in capital gains tax, and you'd only take home £40 million. By going the EOT route you get the full £50 million.
Most high value transactions that are done use some tax incentive scheme or another to reduce the capital gains tax below the starting level of 20%. Such loopholes are not available for income tax. However, truly wealthy people don't make most of their money through salaries, their main income is capital gains.
Personally I don't think income should be taxed, at least not below some very high threshold (to prevent exploitation). You're already giving up your time, which is the ultimate value, and you're doing so in service of a business which itself is in service of society. You've done your part, you're not getting the excess profit. The things that should be taxed are when people make money from assets, when they make money not by doing things but by exploiting what they own.
At this point, I think we are more likely to get things that haven't been promised than those that have.
But this is no surprise. Keir Starmer screams conservatism. A far better choice than current Tories but still leaves much, much to be desired.
Though I'd still strongly encourage people to go out and vote. Not doing so plays right into the hands of the wrong people.
@lasagna @thehatfox A conservative government, socialist-flavour or otherwise, would be a vast improvement over the combination of radicalism, destruction, and theft of the recent governments, which whatever they might badge themselves have not been notably conservative.
Until Johnson there were some actually conservative Conservative MPs, in post, but if there are any on the back benches still, they are keeping their heads well down.
I have almost no doubt that even current Labour would be a vast improvement.
A government that puts immigrants into boats or tries to ship them to Africa? This is insane. Even if you completely avert your eyes to this humanitarian menace, it makes zero fiscal sense. Current Tories are evil, by the very definition.
could you imagine if they taxed the wealthy?? They might have to give up one of their super yachts! Won't somebody please think of the wealthy!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Reeves also confirmed that Keir Starmer’s leadership pledge to increase the 45p top rate of income tax was – as was widely thought to be the case – now off the table, after he indicated in June that he was no longer keen on the idea.
Her remarks underline how Labour has decided that it needs to go further in blunting Conservative attacks, with party figures fearful that any hints of tax rises or unfunded spending commitments would be used to suggest it would be profligate with the nation’s finances.
There are also plans to go on the attack over Rishi Sunak’s stewardship of the economy, as internal polling suggests Tory-to-Labour switchers are irritated by his optimism on inflation when they do not feel that their own finances are improving.
Reeves’ words, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, also mark a shift away from her comments in September 2021 that “people who get their income through wealth should have to pay more”, highlighting those with stocks and shares and buy-to-let properties.
Labour has stepped up its focus on wooing the corporate sector, with the annual business forum hosted at the party’s conference this autumn over-subscribed by 75%, with 200 delegates due to attend, compared with 130 last year, and 150 on the waiting list.
As recently as the party’s conference last September, Starmer had said it was “hugely divisive” of ministers to hand out a tax cut to people who were paid more than £150,000, as he pledged to reverse the scrapping of the additional rate on the highest earners.
The original article contains 610 words, the summary contains 261 words. Saved 57%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Literally no point voting for the Tory seat-warmers. Even if you concede that they can't be worse, rewarding this behaviour just dooms us to, at best, treading water while the Tories pull themselves together and then pick up where they left off.
Been there, done that, it got us where we are today. Fuck that, fuck Labour.
What would you recommend?
I'm assuming you mean for voting, the least important thing you can do, politically.
It doesn't matter much. Protest vote (if there's a good protest vote available to you), spoil your ballot (if there's something you want to say because it will be read by bored candidates), or stay at home (so that you don't add to turnout). In the vanishingly unlikely event that your local Labour candidate is an actual leftist, vote for them.
For more meaningful action, whatever works for you. Protest, direct action, letter-writing. In the vanishingly unlikely event that your local Labour candidate is an actual leftist, campaign for them (and turn out to support them when the leadership inevitably comes for them).
Just don't pretend that voting for the least worst option will give you better options in future. It will not.
Your post is quite representative of the Tory support base.
People other than this poster reading this. Great people fought and died in order for you to have this much civil power now. This is very much a case of using it or losing it. The ID requirements are baseless and just the beginning of that loss.
Go out and vote. At the very least reduce the chances we will be living in a dystopia. Believing it's pointless is exactly what people who want to steal your future would like you to think. As then their job will be much simpler.
I grew up under Thatcher, looked on with disbelief in 1983, 1987 and 1992, and celebrated with almost everybody in 1997. Then they attacked single parents, loaded the NHS and schools up with PFI debt, failed to reregulate the banks and deliberately reinflated the housing bubble. Inequality continued rising and the Tories supported them every step of the way.
Voting for the least worst option means you end up with no good options. Do what you feel you have to at the ballot box but don't pretend it means anything. If you won't fight them, you're helping bury us all.
You won't get me to defend Labour. But I'm a realist and I still see potential for a good future. Your defeatism will almost certainly not get us anywhere but whatever hellhole we are headed to.
We see voting differently. I see voting as the beginning of a journey. It's a very good entry point for people to understand the power balance within a society. It's in a way why we teach mathematics in school. Not because we expect everyone to be a mathematician or to contribute to a change in mathematics. Though collectively it most certainly has had a very positive effective. See just how monstrously fast our technology has advanced since we started mass education.
A lot of people will just vote and be done. But what if 1% become deeply interested? What if they go on to get others interested? What percentage of the population do our ministers represent?
Honestly, since you brought your experience into this I'll just say that for your age I'd hope for more wisdom. But this is no surprise.
Yeah, you're right. Do the same thing over and over again and definitely get different results this time.
History is a cycle. I'd rather not be in the shitty part of it, thanks. We are not there yet but we are in a turning point. And people like you are harmful. Maybe not by intention but that's the result.
As in 1997, a pineapple could beat the Tories at the next election. Nobody needs you cheerleading the Labour right as if everything will magically be fine if only they're in power. It won't. It'll be a fucking disaster for generations to come. That's the best of your least worst options and the very least you can do is make it clear that you are not fucking happy about it.
Oh, this is what interacting with Mastodon means. I don't get notifications for the tags.
And that's okay, mate. I haven't tried to look clever. I don't consider myself clever. As a matter of fact, I'm a moron and I'm happy to be seen as such. Welcome to my level, by the way.
I'm not used to things like Twitter much. Do people just not provide insight when they post? Your posts reads like "And I think neither correct nor clever. But I'm not going to say why because my head lives in my ass."
@lasagna You sound like Twitter. Conventions on the Fediverse are not to, but I shan't see if you improve.
If you're still claiming that I think the Labour will magically fix anything then I doubt you have understood anything I said. Again, no surprise. I'm not saying any of this to convince you. From my perspective, you're a lost cause. I'm not even sorry to say that. Get your shit together. You look sound like our water companies right now. Dumping toxic shit wherever they can.
Stop cheerleading for more competently implemented fascism. FFS
You gotta be kidding me, mate. Do you lack even the most rudimentary understanding of government types?
At the very least, try and understand what fascism is. You're an insult to the people who have suffered under fascists.
Current Labour is incompetent and corporate cockglobers. Facists though? Are you one of those who believe we are led by underground lizard or some bs of equal magnitude?
I do know what fascism is. And I know why liberals usher it in whenever there is the merest hint of a threat from the left.
Do more reading and less cheer-leading.
No. That link only proves that you know how to google and find articles that fit your narrative. Back in your days, did schools accept such blatant plagiarism?
And liberials? The fuck is this. We are not discussing American politics. Get out of here lmao. Are you a troll or some shit? This is so fascinating. If you are, you fooled me good and I just have to say that I'm damn impressed.
No. That link only proves that you know how to google and find articles that fit your narrative. Back in your days, did schools accept such blatant plagiarism?
And liberials? The fuck is this. We are not discussing American politics. Get out of here lmao. Are you a troll or some shit? This is so fascinating. If you are, you fooled me good and I just have to say that I’m damn impressed. https://gamblepage.com/casino-review
If there are differences in opinions, it's best to address them respectfully without resorting to accusations.
The fuck is wrong with you?
There's nowhere to even start with this. You think linking to a very famous essay is plagiarism and "liberal" means what USians think it means. FFS, you absolute clown.
Here is some common sense for you: linking something doesn't prove shit about your knowledge. Have you ever written anything in school or university? You can cite but to show you have learned a damn thing you still have to use your own words.
As such, I don't believe you know what fascism means. Let me give you an example mate:
I'm as smart as Einstein. Here is why.
Do you believe me yet?
And you're the one who brought all this up, funnily enough. Since you're so talkative, why not tell us how Keir Starmer is a fascist. Hell, you could even convince me here since if I were to vote for him it would be because he is the lesser devil.
Or you know, just go on about your nonsensical ramblings.
What the actual fuck? How old are you, 12?
(with apologies for defaming 12 year olds, some of whom are remarkably well read)
As far as your comprehension skills go, it looks like I might as well be 5.
I'd rather be sure the least worst win and still protest etc I think. It's a Tory stronghold where I live though, and ukip matched the labour votes last election in my constituency.
As long as you're holding their feet to the fire, what you do at the ballot box is your call. In safe seats, you can do whatever the fuck you want (but unless the candidate lines up with your politics, simply voting Labour as if all was fine with the world is the worst thing you can do).