When Will The Reds Ever Learn?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25894312
Higher rate tax rakes in very little extra, in fact it possibly lowers total tax receipts. Labour just can't help themselves can they. The envy tax helps no one but hey they'll feel a lot better having shafted the "rich". If anything we should abolish the 40% rate.

[Old_Geezer]

But it is fairer. No one can honestly say the differential between the rich and poor relate to the worth of the individual. If someone has found a way to divert more of a country's wealth to themselves then they ought to pay a much larger percentage of it back again. Ought to be 100% above a certain level. It is just equity, not envy.

[ToraToraTora]

they earn more and pay more now, why must the percentage vary? Laour tried 97% once, remember what happenned?

[woofgang]

OG it has been tried and it failed. When supertax was around, it just meant that people left the country or invested elsewhere. 20% of a million is worth more than 0% of a million.

[ToraToraTora]

*Labour! bleeding keyboard!

[Old_Geezer]

Of course you get a reaction until things settle down. Anyway this isn't about investment but income. Whilst there is profit to be made there will be investors.

[dr b]

"Whilst there is profit to be made there will be investors" "Ought to be 100% above a certain level." So if the tax rate is 100%, where exactly is the profit?

[ichkeria]

I don't think a tax rate of 50% is unreasonable, bearing in mind that it's 50% of earnings over £150,000, which is a large amount of money.
Yes it is true that the more you earn the more you pay regardless of the percentage, but the question is if you need to raise more tax what is the fairest way of doing it, and that method seems fairer than some.

[Canary42]

Much better for the rich to shaft the poor, sick, and disabled then ?

[ToraToraTora]

we are talking about higher tax rates canary.

[modeller]

canary //Much better for the rich to shaft the poor, sick, and disabled then ?// Would you care to give examples of who is doing theis ?

[LazyGun]

Excellent idea that could not come a moment too soon. It makes me laugh, hearing the ultra-rich whinging about the tax they have to pay. In a world where some 85 individuals have personal fortunes equivalent to approximately 50% of the global wealth and where corporations routinely avoid billions in tax payable to the exchequer, the sooner we implement such tax rises the better.

Then at least we might be slighly more "in it together".

[LazyGun]

Oh- and the nonsense "trickle down" economics model so beloved of the right has been proven to be the tiresome trope that it is.

[naomi24]

How odd! Only the other day Red Ed claimed he would be the saviour of the middle classes!

LazyGun, //It makes me laugh, hearing the ultra-rich whinging about the tax they have to pay. In a world where some 85 individuals have personal fortunes equivalent to approximately 50% of the global wealth…//

In an effort to avoid confusion, may I say that people earning £150,000 per annum are not ultra-rich, and neither are they among the alleged (I haven’t checked statistics) 85 individuals whose personal fortunes equate to approximately 50% of the global wealth.

Canary, would you tell me where and how what you call ‘the rich’ shaft the poor, sick, and disabled? High earners pay a huge proportion of their salaries in taxes and take very little, if anything at all, from the community pot. They’ve usually worked damned hard to get where they are - why shouldn't they reap the rewards of their labour? They pay their whack.

[New Judge]

The most amusing aspect of this is that for all but about the last three weeks of their thirteen years in office the Labour government was quite content with a top rate of 40%. They increased the rate in April 2010 (knowing they were very likely to be booted out less than a month later) in the full expectation that an incoming Tory government would reverse the measure. They could then accuse them of “slashing taxes for the rich”.

Of course the Tories could not do as they wished because they are hide-bound by the dogma of their Coalition partners (who came a poor third in the election) and a compromise of 45% was reached. Now Labour threaten to re-introduce the 50% rate to demonstrate they will not let wealthy gits off the hook so readily. Whatever the projected revenue figures for the measure (which cannot be proved one way or the other) Labour’s ridiculous posturing can only be described as pathetic.

[emmie]

earning 150k these days is hardly being uber wealthy, the same old story, many of those would most likely be the middle classes, those who likely send their child to private school, and have private health care, so take nothing out of the social pot, or not as much as some who have paid nothing into our social system. My o/h wages weren't large, good but not in this wealthy category, he worked hard all his life, and didn't take a penny, then had the good grace to pass away before getting his private pension, bah humbug.

[IggyB]

If more taxation revenue is required would it not seen appropriate to ask those with the most to contribute more, the alternative would be to raise taxation for all however this would affect lower earners considerably more than the rich.

[emmie]

those lower down the pay scales are likely getting a lot more state help than those up the ladder so to speak.

[IggyB]

True enough, so they can be expected to be less able to pay more tax?

[ToraToraTora]

perhaps iggy but there are so few on the amounts talked about here that the amount actually collected is minimal.