(04-11-2015, 06:24 PM)S.J. Wrote: More accurate is:

Thats my Mr Hyde side. Dr Jekyll is -

(04-11-2015, 04:55 PM)Nicolas Sarkozy Wrote: Not in flat out income tax, but you do once you start adding National Insurance, council tax etc.

Err if your completely fucking stupid maybe you aye

(04-11-2015, 05:53 PM)S.J. Wrote: I'm similar, although I was a Yes voter in the absence of a "devo-max" option on the ballot. I'm not nationalistic in the slightest but will also be voting SNP as it's time to send the Nats down their to fuck things up a bit - I think barring Kenny McKaskill's performance as justice secretary (arming police, centralising police force, corroboration nonsense etc...), the SNP have shown a decent record of governance, standing for what they say they will do and listening to the people of Scotland. They've also expressly committed to ending austerity - I would vote for any party that commits to this.

Westminster needs shut down or for us to leave. I think we have cultural ties with our neighbouring nations, but a political union under the umbrella of Westminster and the aristocracy that goes with it is just not acceptable anymore. It's 2015 and our political system is in the dark ages. As society progresses, Westminster and their aristocracy will only seem more bizarre to ordinary British citizens.

Do they really though? Their record in Scottish government doesn't quite paint that picture. I'm also utterly against their steadfast refusal to up council tax. It and free prescriptions are tax breaks to the middle class.

The rest of your post I couldn't agree more with.

(04-11-2015, 10:47 PM)Drederick Tatum Wrote: Err if your completely fucking stupid maybe you aye

Maybe marginally less now that they've dropped it slightly but if you're earning c. 200k you'll end up paying not far off 100k in taxes. I'm sure you'll be able to point me in the way of a website that suggests otherwise; I'm just going by discussions I've had with people on the amount of tax they pay.

If we're talking more generally about taxes, I think it's nonsense that you lose the personal allowance once you earn a certain amount.

(04-11-2015, 10:58 PM)Nicolas Sarkozy Wrote:

Maybe marginally less now that they've dropped it slightly but if you're earning c. 200k you'll end up paying not far off 100k in taxes. I'm sure you'll be able to point me in the way of a website that suggests otherwise; I'm just going by discussions I've had with people on the amount of tax they pay.

If we're talking more generally about taxes, I think it's nonsense that you lose the personal allowance once you earn a certain amount.

If you are earning 200k and not maxing/near maxing out your annual pension entitlement then your an arse. You make 10k back on that minimum. If you get to a 200k salary and don't have a decent accountant you spdeserve to have half your wage taken

(04-11-2015, 11:08 PM)Drederick Tatum Wrote: If you are earning 200k and not maxing/near maxing out your annual pension entitlement then your an arse. You make 10k back on that minimum. If you get to a 200k salary and don't have a decent accountant you spdeserve to have half your wage taken

Do you not just end up paying tax on it at the other end when you withdraw your pension though? Not hugely clued up on it. My main point in the first place is that I think 45-50% is a ridiculous amount of tax for anyone to be paying on anything they earn. No wonder people go to such lengths to avoid it.

(04-11-2015, 11:20 PM)Nicolas Sarkozy Wrote: Do you not just end up paying tax on it at the other end when you withdraw your pension though? Not hugely clued up on it. My main point in the first place is that I think 45-50% is a ridiculous amount of tax for anyone to be paying on anything they earn. No wonder people go to such lengths to avoid it.

Really? It's completely standard in almost every civilised nation.

Austria - 50%
Belgium - 50%
Denmark - 55%
UK - 45%
Finland - 53%
France 45-49%
Germany 45%
Iceland - 46%
Ireland - 41-49%
Italy - 45%
Norway - 54%
Romania - 45%
Switzerland - 45.5%
Slovenia - 50%

Your description of quite a standard tax rate as "ridiculous" would suggest you would like the top rate of tax cut back by quite a bit? So what is it? 20%? 30%?

(04-12-2015, 01:39 AM)S.J. Wrote: Really? It's completely standard in almost every civilised nation.

So was the death penalty until recently.

I find people having vast sums of personal wealth that they never will and probably wouldn't even be able to spend in their lifetime far stranger.

(04-12-2015, 01:47 AM)Nicolas Sarkozy Wrote: So was the death penalty until recently.

Define recently in this context?

If people value the welfare state, supporting the disabled and vulnerable, running the NHS and decent public services then the top tax band has to be at least 45%.

It's incredibly simple.

(04-12-2015, 01:51 AM)S.J. Wrote: Define recently in this context?

I'd say that the second half of the twentieth century counts as recently. Britain was obviously the 1960s but France didn't abolish it until the 1980s under Mitterrand. If that's not recent enough, how about gay marriage? A few years ago it was illegal in almost every 'civilised nation', as you put it.

Something being 'standard' doesn't mean that it's inherently correct or that you must never oppose it.

(04-12-2015, 01:59 AM)Nicolas Sarkozy Wrote: I'd say that the second half of the twentieth century counts as recently. Britain was obviously the 1960s but France didn't abolish it until the 1980s under Mitterrand. If that's not recent enough, how about gay marriage? A few years ago it was illegal in almost every 'civilised nation', as you put it.

Something being 'standard' doesn't mean that it's inherently correct or that you must never oppose it.

I suppose we just come from different ends of the political spectrum when it comes to people paying tax.

People with a lot of money find ways and means to "invest" their money wisely, so it's not like we ever get the full 45% off the top raters anyway.

They should abolish the nil rate band as well, rich cunts shouldn't be handed 325k tax break when they die.

(04-12-2015, 08:12 AM)Drederick Tatum Wrote: They should abolish the nil rate band as well, rich cunts shouldn't be handed 325k tax break when they die.

Is the IHT rate not 40% or something?

You can't just tax all inheritances by that much; that's effectively imposing a "death tax". The NRB is important.

And with one comparison of taxing the rich with state sanctioned murder, Sarkozy nails his political colours to the mast

Progressive taxation is the only fair and productive way to run a capitalist society - without it, you disproportionately hit the poor and lower income families, which ends up costing the state more in welfare to support the working poor (we basically have this situation in the UK, to a large extent because of indirect taxation policies of successive governments - no one will vote for tax increases, so they stealth tax to avoid the conversation, which disproportionately affects the poorest). The state's calculation with regards tax - and this sum pretty much goes back to feudalism - is "how much can we tax people without them refusing to pay?" Simplistic, of course, but there's an element of truth in it - even from the supposedly low-tax favouring Tories.

Once that calculation is dealt with, the question that remains regards the fairness of taxing the wealthy more proportionately than other groups in society. Obviously the collectivist argues that the infrastructure etc in place helped you become successful in this country, and so its your obligation to pay to maintain it - they also argue that it's a moral obligation of those with lots to help those with little. The individualist says that they became successful through their own hard work, there is no such thing as society etc. - why should they pay for others?

Redistributive tax policies have not particularly improved our situation - we have one of the highest gini coefficients in the developed world and the lowest rates of social mobility - so they are not the be all and end all, but a lot of that is down to tax loopholes, indirect taxation and our entrenched class-based society. For me, having a situation where it is harder to escape poverty in the UK than in any other developed country is a national disgrace (John Major made this point recently as well) and for folk to argue in favour of tax cuts for the rich when others are at food banks is repugnant. That takes me back to my earlier post about how we get held to ransom by the wealthy in this country - tax us less or we will fuck off elsewhere, let us become filthy rich or we will evade/avoid our responsibilities. Easy to forget we are talking about seriously wealthy people here. They already have every advantage going, but demand more. As Scott says, if you want services, pay for them. If we don't want those services, then by all means reduce tax and pay for them at the point of need. Then we can have the utopia of a US style health care system

(04-12-2015, 12:36 PM)Francis Begbie Wrote: That takes me back to my earlier post about how we get held to ransom by the wealthy in this country - tax us less or we will fuck off elsewhere

That's the bit that annoys me. To my knowledge, nobody has ever called this sort of bluff and gone "Aye? Off you go then. "

Absolutely no chance that 99% of those targeted by higher taxes would up sticks and leave the country.

(04-12-2015, 12:48 PM)Acey Wrote: That's the bit that annoys me. To my knowledge, nobody has ever called this sort of bluff and gone "Aye? Off you go then. "

Absolutely no chance that 99% of those targeted by higher taxes would up sticks and leave the country.

Every time michelle mone threatens to leave the country there's a collective will for her to just fuck off. But she's a special case.

(04-12-2015, 12:48 PM)Acey Wrote: That's the bit that annoys me. To my knowledge, nobody has ever called this sort of bluff and gone "Aye? Off you go then. "

Absolutely no chance that 99% of those targeted by higher taxes would up sticks and leave the country.

Said that countless times in the referendum debates, all these business folk threatening to up sticks are all mouth because they know the general public, and government in this case, are complete shitebags and will never call them on it.

(04-12-2015, 12:36 PM)Francis Begbie Wrote: And with one comparison of taxing the rich with state sanctioned murder, Sarkozy nails his political colours to the mast

Progressive taxation is the only fair and productive way to run a capitalist society - without it, you disproportionately hit the poor and lower income families, which ends up costing the state more in welfare to support the working poor (we basically have this situation in the UK, to a large extent because of indirect taxation policies of successive governments - no one will vote for tax increases, so they stealth tax to avoid the conversation, which disproportionately affects the poorest). The state's calculation with regards tax - and this sum pretty much goes back to feudalism - is "how much can we tax people without them refusing to pay?" Simplistic, of course, but there's an element of truth in it - even from the supposedly low-tax favouring Tories.

Once that calculation is dealt with, the question that remains regards the fairness of taxing the wealthy more proportionately than other groups in society. Obviously the collectivist argues that the infrastructure etc in place helped you become successful in this country, and so its your obligation to pay to maintain it - they also argue that it's a moral obligation of those with lots to help those with little. The individualist says that they became successful through their own hard work, there is no such thing as society etc. - why should they pay for others?

Redistributive tax policies have not particularly improved our situation - we have one of the highest gini coefficients in the developed world and the lowest rates of social mobility - so they are not the be all and end all, but a lot of that is down to tax loopholes, indirect taxation and our entrenched class-based society. For me, having a situation where it is harder to escape poverty in the UK than in any other developed country is a national disgrace (John Major made this point recently as well) and for folk to argue in favour of tax cuts for the rich when others are at food banks is repugnant. That takes me back to my earlier post about how we get held to ransom by the wealthy in this country - tax us less or we will fuck off elsewhere, let us become filthy rich or we will evade/avoid our responsibilities. Easy to forget we are talking about seriously wealthy people here. They already have every advantage going, but demand more. As Scott says, if you want services, pay for them. If we don't want those services, then by all means reduce tax and pay for them at the point of need. Then we can have the utopia of a US style health care system

Aye, I don't think anyone would dispute the idea of progressive tax. I'm more opposed to the sheer scale of it - should we really be paying 40% tax on earnings over 30-40k a year (depending on how much personal allowance you've got) and 45-50% on earnings over 150k?

I think there should be more focus on 'is there anywhere we could reduce the amount of tax required?' rather than taking increased taxes as accepted and asking 'who should be the next group to have their taxes raised?'. What do we actually benefit from spending £3.7bn a year on Trident? Is free university education sustainable? I agree with Ruth Davidson's argument for getting rid of free prescriptions for people earning over a certain amount as well, but the effectiveness of that would need to be analysed further before you could put it into practice.