h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Britain is a generous nation really. The London Marathon generated umpteen million pounds for social welfare schemes much of which it is argued should have come from the Government's pockets.

If I'm not mistaken (please someone correct me if I’m wrong), income tax has dropped some 8p in the pound since Jim Callahan was in No. 10 (from 33p to 25p). Most of that money released to private coffers is now either tied up in bricks and mortar (introduce money to an economy and prices will inflate) or, as is more prima facie evident, is scooting up and down the Queen's highways.

Thus, instead of relying on charity to fund necessity and allowing a 'gotta keep up with the Joneses population' to waste a nation's wealth on imported cars and tasteless tat, should government shove income tax back up by a couple of percentage points?

More for schools, hospitals, police, Royal Mail.
Less for alloy wheels, alcopops and nylon 'mock-oscars' clothing.

Having just sent off my PAYE and NICs cheques for last year I'd say no, taxes are evil, bloody government stealing all of my hard-earned, house prices too high so need all I can get etc etc etc.

Ask me at practically any other time of year and you are likely to get a far more reasonable answer

I'll come back to this after the cheque has cleared and I'm feeling more reasonable about everything

Maybe house prices would be lower if there was less money around.

If you add all the other taxes: VAT, Council tax, MOT and all the other hidden taxes such as those on petrol, alcohol, insurance policies, savings interest etc, we are taxed to the hilt.

Remember that employee's National Insurance rates have gone up 4.5p in the pound in the same period. Also the scope and scale of VAT (which is a regressive tax) has increased dramatically from just 8% on many things to 17.5% on practically everything but bread, books and children's clothes.

maybe. Don't really want to see a return to the misery of people being stuck in negative equity though, even if it would make buying a place easier for me.

I just worked out that the tax man took 47% of what I actually earned last year. I think that is probably enough, when you add on the vat etc on the stuff that I did buy. If they took more of my wages I'd have less to fund my pension though - will I gain an equivalent amount on that when I hit pension age (which will probably be 75 by the time I get there)?

Less disposable income would probably be ok for me to cope with - I don't splash that much money around anyway (too busy saving for my house/retirement/wedding/kids uni top up fees/a rainy day), not sure about that when I start my family though.

k - really too sensible.

Oh yes, council tax. I forgot that. That went up by 29% this year and is now over £1000 for a small two bed flat.

Whenever I'm in the UK, the shops (e.g., Oracle Centre in Reading) are chocabloc with people carrying bags of new clothes. Nobody is driving jaloppies around - they're all fairly decent motors really. I read that a fiver per person per day goes on alcopop. What I mean is that except probably for a few, most people don't actually go without. So if tax was higher, the stuff that govt. never seems to have money to finance, like eduation and healthcare go short. My argument is that a big wedge of the money not yeleded on tax over the past 20 years has been spent on cars and petrol.

So then.

If Brits got less tax, what would they happily forego in terms of services? Where is govt. wasting/overspending?

DMT

People are not going to want their taxes put up without seeing something for it in return. To be honest, the money to improve public services is already there. The government diverts taxpayers money to things they are not paying taxes to support (entry into the Euro, Corporate Welfare, "perks" for MPs and other high-ranking civil-servants) and starving the things we pay taxes to support (Hospitals, Schools, etc) whilst giving it some nonsensical spin about "the modern world" and how suddenly we have to accept that things cannot be as good as they were, to hide their deliberate starving of institutions we trust them to support with our money.

Personally, I strongly believe that the government should publish a full breakdown of where taxpayers money is spent on a regular basis to stop the abuse of this huge tappable spring of what is, in the end, the public's money.

a goodly proportion of the money people spend on petrol is, er, tax. Don't what proportion mind you - too lazy to look it up

I admit that I bought my first ever 'new' car last year (it was 2 years old), but that was because my job required reliable transport and when the gear box went in my 1984 fiesta it seemed to be time to kiss it goodbye...

Not too lazy after all. In 2000 72.3% of the cost of unleaded petrol was tax.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2000/world_fuel_crisis/933648.stm

I'm not arguing for tax cuts btw, the reason I paid so much tax last year was partially that I was self employed so had to pay both employees NI and employers NI, but the main reason is that I am honest (or stupid) enough not to try and find a million and one loopholes to avoid paying all of the taxes that I should pay.

I would like to see the govt stop wasting money - better/tighter contracts with private enterprises that work for it would be a good place to start. That ILA fiasco with crapita cost the govt, ie us, a fortune.

To put it unpleasantly:

- taxes are too low to pay for all the things we as citizens want the government to provide (decent healthcare, decent policing, decent teaching... you name it)
- taxes are too high to make people happy paying them

The bottom line is - to get the state-funded things people really want, we'd need a LOT of tax. To make the workers happy, we need no tax. Can't win!

I think that in general terms the level of taxation in the UK is about right.

There are a few areas that I would like to see tightened up. For starters close of the many tax loopholes in corporation taxation, that allow multinationals to pay practically no UK tax, as they have declared that their profits were made elsewhere. True, this does require amendment to GAAP regulations. But I don't see that as insumountable especially with the new focus on corporate governance in the USA.

Another area I would like to see addressed is the level of VAT payable in the UK. This is a regressive taxation and its impact on the less well off should be curbed. To pay for this I would welcome the removal of the upper limit on employee's National Insurance. This process has already started with a 1% levy on all earnings above c£30,000 and something, and the process could continue in stages until parity is reached.

I could bang on about the level of duty on cigarettes, but as I have given up smoking UK fags and now smoke only smuggled ones, I think I'll shut up

Just a bookmark as I don't pay tax yet, and so obviously think we should pay more

Taxes on the high income groups are vastly too low, with those in the the most need still paying regressive taxes (VAT and NI being the classic examples).

If this government wasn't so scared of Murdoch and his like minded cronies, I suspect that higher rates of income tax would have come in long ago for higher earners. As they ought to anyway. It's not as if these people are ever going to vote Labour anyway, so you might as well squeeze 'em until their pips squeak, as Dennis Healey once remarked.

And if that means Paul Daniels and Andrew LLoyd Webber make good on their broken promises to leave the country if Laboutr were elected, I'd imagine there would be votes in it, actually...

Government funding has to come from somewhere.
Our tax provides more than enough to meet the nations needs.
Distribution of wealth is a huge National and International balancing act. The trick is to get people to provide for themselves on a short and long term basis.
Help others by all means and ensure the help goes where it is needed. We should opt out of cash hand outs to other nations and let them use their credit cards. A981876

Govt. is like people then. When they've got a bit of extra wedge in their pocket, they don't say ... "I think I'll creosote the garden shed and repoint the masonry just to keep it shipshape" ... they say "I think I'll get a new Hugo Boss suit and a pair of Loakes ... I'll worry about the shed and the brickwork next year when it really needs doing." What you need for a chancellor is someone who takes care of things in advance ... someone who keeps all the old boxes need and tidy in the attic with a map/legend to locate any oner of them at a glance.

Beaucracy is one problem that the public sector has. For example, due to EU directives, many slaughter houses have had to close becuase the EU has demanded that a vet be present at all times (even when animals aren't being slaughtered). To prove this they must send out many tons of paperwork to DEFRA (sounds like something Darth Vader owns, and formerly the MAFFi). DEFRA must then process them and prosecute anyone who hasn't. really. Another problem in our public services is cronyism. Richard Bowker is the head of the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), which regularly approves tenders by Virgin over other (much more able) operators. By a completely remarkable coincidence, Richard Bowker used to work for Virgin.
I don't think that the rate of income tax should go up (otherwise we'll end up in the situation akin to the seventies, where 98% of your earnings went to the Government (if you were in the top income bracket) but I do think that steps should be taken to decrease beaucracy and move some institutions away from central government control (where a bottle neck effect is created and money frittered away). The setting up of foundation hospitals proposed by the current government is a refreshing move towards this.

Is this in response to anything anyone has posted here?

You have a real obsession with clothing! I meant to say earlier - are you really surprised that at a shopping centre full of shops you saw people who had come to the shopping centre specifically to buy goods from those shops actually in possession of those goods?

What were you doing there yourself, a spot of shopping?

You didn't see all the people that were at home creosoting the shed because they were not at the mall, they were at home creosoting the shed.

Long term planning is a difficult concept for political parties because they have to balance the long-term good of the country against more short-term politically important goals (like getting re-elected). Not sure how you go about changing that without changing the entire political system here.

k - who puts spare wedge into her savings

This is a really hairy one. I've heard it said that the government (any government) isn't going to do the sort of long-term planning and investment that the country really needs because, as has been said earlier, of it's need to be popular, and therefore re-electable. So no government is going to tackle hard issues. Plus, if they were not elected as a result of being brave, no doubt the succeeding government would undo all the work.

Most people also have a very short-term focus. I can't remember the average figure that each adult is indebted for, but it's a lot. Most of us haven't a cushion (unlike Kelli, who puts her wedge in the bank) for a rainy day, so if we lost our jobs, we would be in deep financial trouble.