Socialism is not determined by 'other peoples' money' at all. Its a philosophy grounded on fairness and equality of opportunity/ life chances and the belief that the capitalist system, by its very nature tends to aggravate inequality because of the way resources get distributed. Try again pal. Mind you, after reading this thread, where some people are criticising tax rises in spite of the glaring inequality that exists because of monetarist/neo-liberal economic policies I think some on here just like people being poor and unable to eat without food banks. Perhaps we should just have no taxes whatsoever... That would be good eh?
Yeah but we need to tax working people more. There able to work then we can distribute it to non working people.
Yes, as a PAYE earner, I pay about 31% of my entire income in income tax, then about 3.5% in National Insurance, giving me an overall tax rate of about 34.5%. an average tax payer if we take the income as being £38k would pay 12.5% of their income on income tax and about 5% of their income in NI - giving them a overall tax rate of about 17.5%. So to say that higher tax payers don't pay their fair share is nonsense, I pay as a percentage of my income nearly 2 times what an average earner pays, so I more then pay my fair share thanks. I don't mind paying my fair share BTW, I just resent the idea that somehow people who are better off don't pay for it.
National insurance has a cap, so higher earners will get the benefit of the amount of NI they save in proportion to income beyond the cap. Highest earners move their income to areas where they pay less or no tax. They take part in schemes to offset tax through creating taxable losses. Previously, they took income as loans, before that loophole was closed. There are people who pay nowhere near their fair share of tax. Just like corporates. Looking at Amazons tax bill, you'd never guess it generates vast levels of revenue and profit. They don't want to pay tax. Any. They feel above it. What bakes my brain is people on modest incomes thinking that's ok.
This year, solar and wind have produced 50.4% of our electricity. This figure will rise over the next 5 years. Energy bible confirms renewables now provide over half of the UK’s electricity generation. Also this year we have produced 15% from nuclear, so 65% of our power is already produced without any carbon emissions. This is an impressive achievement stemming from the all-party consensus which existed until recently. I see no reason why we should stop there. Just imagine how high our electricity bills would be if it was all still gas and coal. Nuclear fusion is 30 years away. It has been 30 years away since I was at school in 1974. I wouldn't count on it. Modular nuclear fusion reactors are a more realistic prospect. I don't indulge in conspiracy theories so until I see some concrete evidence of "zero point energy" I wouldn't pay it any attention to be honest. Edit; a quick google found a few things 1) "Zero Point Energy" is a description of the quantum state of a system at it's lowest theoretical energy level. How you would go about extracting energy from something already at it's lowest energy state is going to be difficult to say the least. 2) I found an interesting paper (PhD thesis) from 2017 about creating thrust to propel a space vehicle using 2 metal plates in a vacuum with no external fuel source. 3) A web site devoted to "Zero Point Energy" The Great Energy Revolution: How LENR / Zero Point Energy Will Redefine Power, Industry, and Life Sounds a bit like "Cold Fusion" from the 80s....
Let me spell this out, as you seem to be having difficulty, if you get payed through PAYE, then there is no opportunity to "move your income to areas where you pay less tax." your income is taxed at source. The majority of people earning over £50k a year are being payed through PAYE, there are 5.6 million higher rate Income Tax payers.
Let me spell this out to you, as you seem to be having difficulty. The super wealthy take income through lower tax yielding mechanisms. they have abilities to manipulate where they've been domiciled and which district they "pay their tax." Recall the levels of capital gain Rishi Sunak showed on his tax returns when forced to publish them? Capital gains which had a much lower rate of tax? What about the Isle of Man and Channel Isles and their tax regimes? Isn't it curious so many very rich people chose to "live" there? And there are so many other ways. From the dodgy admin charges super revenue busting companies conjur to suddenly take corporate taxes to less taxable havens. Billions and billions redirected. To deprive a maternity ward. A school. A pot holed road. The list goes on. Are you ok with all that tax avoidance at the expense of services?
Without wanting to know or ask your income, I'd hazard a guess you're being offended for no good reason. You're likely not the bracket of people who'd pay more tax or are being eyed for not paying more than they could/should.
He sounds like a proper crackpot. The 42-year-old once worked as a hypnotherapist in Harley Street and in 2013 attempted to help a reporter from the Sun newspaper increase the size of her breasts using her mind. The reporter was told to picture herself with bigger breasts while Mr Polanski addressed her unconscious mind. She claimed that the size of her breasts then increased for about 10 days. Mr Polanski told the Sun at the time: “The brain is the most complicated computer we know of. Our unconscious knows how to run our bodies better than we do. “Essentially, I am looking to utilise the unconscious process to make changes to the body. We don’t exactly know what is changing because of the complexities of the unconscious. “We do know that whatever is changing is ecological, so if it’s changing one thing – such as the size of a person’s breasts – it’s making sure that the whole system is changing in order to support it.”[/QUOTE] I make my knob much larger by thinking about some large breasts, does that make me a crackpot?
The problem with socialism is that it’s advocated by bitter and dysfunctional people who never really amounted to much but somehow feel entitled to a better life than they’re able or willing to provide for themselves.
So you’re only advocating taxing the super rich, not the moderately hard working and successful? Were it not for the fact they’ll then have a stronger incentive to deprive the taxman of their wealth better, leaving us all worse off, that sounds a great idea.
Ok but why was sun journalist posing as a client? Why did SHE suggest wanting larger breasts? The truth is it was recorded as a session to improve her body image. She believed she had bigger breasts because that's what she asked him to make her believe. He also didn't charge for the session which he viewed as a bit silly. But he still apologised respectfully when it was sensationalised in her article. And it all happened a long time before he started a political career.
I think there's a bit of an elephant in the room here and that's growth. Simply taxing people to their eyeballs and misusing the revenue doesn't help anyone. The UK is like a struggling mid-table championship team at the moment. Do we bob along, living within our means, charging fans more for tickets and merchandise, trying to make ends meet (the Reeves model, if not evident). Or do we go for broke and splurge on a star Brazilian striker, push to invest and create an upwardly mobile club/country. I'd love the government to take bold decisions, the likes of which were promised pre election and actually invest in big green renewable projects which are going to create opportunity and jobs. I'd love them to trust business and lower business taxation. The vast majority of top performing economies offer low corporation tax rates, which pays off in so many other areas. Low corporation tax to entice foreign investment could have been an actual benefit of Brexit. We don't need to tax more when we already have historically high tax rates. We have 19 million people in this country living below the poverty line. Simply taxing middle to moderately high earners more won't make any impact on that figure.
The UK is in a financially difficult position - there's high national debt, interest rates on borrowing are high, the population is ageing and unproductive, and so far the government's solution is to hike taxes on those with something about them and to import millions of less skilled people each year to drive up house prices and drive down wages. If you were wanting to get out of the hole you'd probably stop digging. Instead of bringing more people into the country many of whom place demands on services and benefits you'd ask how you could attract more wealth and investment. You'd focus on technologies and sectors for the future, and stop throwing good money after bad.
