I told you so....
28 November 2012
...not a nice thing to hear but it is true.
...not a nice thing to hear but it is true.
Official HMRC figures have shown that the politically motivated 50p tax rate on high earners lost the Treasury £6.9bn. Tax revenues from the high earners fell from £13.46bn to £6.5bn as a result, with the number of people declaring an income of more than £1m per annum reducing from 16,000 to 6,000.
I have said many times that higher tax rates do not equate to higher tax paid. But the real damage is not the fall in HMRC revenues but the impact on the overall economy caused by behavioural change. We must hope that the reduction back to 45p will help counter that but I suspect this is not enough to fully regain the losses and a considerable amount of investment has gone abroad to the benefit of other countries. A lot of the loss in revenue will simply be from tax deferment so there is some hope for future years, but it will not fully compensate unless he cuts the top rate to less than the 40p level.
George Osborne though has 'played a blinder' getting the new Bank of England boss, an announcement that has met almost unanimous approval despite the man's rather weird wife. But what affect will this appointment have on monetary policy? I suspect that we will see a gradual tightening of policy, taking a longer term view. Those defending QE weakly claim that bad as things are they would be a lot worse without it - I say that it has failed and is stacking up massive problems to follow.
Mark Carney - into the hotseat next year....
With a tightening of monetary policy Osborne must get a grip with fiscal policy with faster and deeper cuts to public spending and tax cuts, running alongside reforms including a bonfire of red tape particularly in respect of employment. At all costs he must resist the siren voices luring the UK to the economic suicide of slower deficit reduction.
- Good stuff barry, you'll get no cogent arguments
- More...
"I say yet again..." than "I told you so."
Our, soon to be, new Governor does seem to be wearing his "Fiscal Tightening" suit in the picture above. Perhaps he is coming here in search of a decent tailor?
It's not as if he leaves behind an economy on the up:Unemployment over 7% and growth set to dip below 1%.
Perhaps George O has learned his lesson, and his recommendation this time will prove more fortuitous than his last - marrying Coulson to Dave.
But, to get back to the main thrust. Shall a London devoid of the least sign of the lower orders be attractive to the mega-earners, are they each prepared to do their own housework?
So...the future is to bring an upper tax rate of below 40%, wide open borders - for both rich and poor, the legless and infirm knuckling down to propel themselves on their skate-boards between Hoffman Presser and Plutocrat?
David, might there be some text missing as well as the full stop?
"...from me."? - Tom you've proved my point.
Raising tax has cost HMRC money, its irrefutable.
Your only response is to mention about a bloke's suit and skateboards mixed in with your usual pseudo mumbo jumbo. - Tom also mixes up responsibilities, the new governor is responsible for monetary policy not fiscal policy. It seems that he is just grasping for something to say!!!
- As with, " people declaring an income", folk often do say what it suits them to say.
Why should I be any different?
Motes and beams, motes and beams. With all this, " grasping for something to say!!!" guff.
At least I have the decency to provide you with something to rail about, while you go grasping for something not to talk about: the state of the Canadian economy, the eight year term reduced to five, the focus on the rich and the damnation of all else.
Oh, no. Why talk of such things when one can have a go at someone's wife?
"Raising tax has cost HMRC money, its irrefutable."
This is the plainest load of bull to date, as Barry himself says, " A lot of the loss in revenue will simply be from tax deferment..."
You would both do well to hold in the void between your ears that it is votes that count, this IS Politics. Striving to keep your G&T set in chuckles with your navel-gazing misogyny will do very little for your beloved Party's election prospects. So, for that, I thank you. - Tom - you are mis-quoting me at least twice in that rant and you clearly take no real interest in economics though you talk about it a lot. The evidence of what happens when tax rates are increased is overwhelming and was totally predictable before the rates were increased. That is why Brown did not increase the top rate until he did and only as a political trap.
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9707029/Two-thirds-of-millionaires-left-Britain-to-avoid-50p-tax-rate.html
- To be fair Barry I think Tom's rant was aimed at me, he highlighted what I'd said. He goes on to imply I'm a misogynist who drinks G&T and has a beloved political party.
I'm not sure if Tom is drunk, stupid or just plain rude.
Either way, as I suspected, he hasn't been able to make a cogent argument. - Tom is certainly not stupid David - he just has a very odd view of life.
- let's take this back a bit david, you have always maintained that governments only waste taxpayers money if i remember correctly.
you seem clearly in favour of a lower top rate of tax which actually means the chancellor gets his hands on even more taxpayer's money - which they in turn would fritter away. - Eh?
Howard if govt taxes us less we have more money to spend and enjoy, this gets the economy moving and creates jobs. So, its a win win situation, govt gets revenue, in our case to pay off debt, and we get to enjoy life.
Under Tom's regime everybody is skint and govt loses out. - Let us call it "Tom's Regime", just for the sake of argument.
Anywhere where everybody is 'skint' is one place where nobody is skint. That is an inescapable fact.
Of course, anybody who insists that their way of thinking is the only way is bound to be equally certain that any other way is doomed to failure. I am not immune to the, "My way or the high-way." pose, but I know it to be a 'pose', an attitude. I am not content to see it as the solution though, just a rock in the road.
Arguing for the return to the 19th century is risible, promoting the 'merits' of Trickle-Down economics is also without force, way more farce than force.
Only if you base your entire life on selfishness does the merit of being in the company of others of like mind appear crystal clear, but as I keep saying it is only by having customers that it is sensible to have stock or to manufacture goods.
The humble Bee does not simply labour on and on in the service of it's queen, but it creates and maintains it's entire ecosystem.
There is much more to all of this than language, but language is just about all we have. In the Telegraph piece under PPs link "out-of-work benefits" are termed as 'handouts' (they know their audience) and yet creating more unemployed is often the first benefit looked for by a business wishing to balance it's books. While such businesses accept that as part of their ongoing prosperity, their creating and maintaining an able workforce and a broad customer base, that tax must be levied upon them to help sustain the workforce that they have sloughed, all will be well.
It is the steadfast refusal of some few to look anywhere except the floor at the feet of the rich that will be the ruin of us all. This appeasement, veneration and the constant libation-offering to the angry gods of Mammon, while the seeds go unplanted and the livestock go unwatered, the constant festivals of the self proclaimed high-churchmen and their (your) ritual flagellation of the 'least worthy' shall avail us not at all, and it is unlikely to gain the Conservatives a Parliamentary majority at the next election either.
Nobody is likely to get what s/he wants while what s/he wants is all that occupies them. - This appeasement, veneration and the constant libation-offering to the angry gods of Mammon, while the seeds go unplanted and the livestock go unwatered, the constant festivals of the self proclaimed high-churchmen and their (your) ritual flagellation of the 'least worthy' shall avail us not at all,
I'm sure you enjoyed writing that Tom, I have to confess I don't understand word and further proves my point that you have no cogent argument to Barry's original assertion. I have a vision of you hitting the "add comment" button before reclining in your chair and twiddling your moustache in front of the mirror. - interesting post from tom, took me a while to get the hang of it as usual. the trickle down effect was mooted in victorian times and we all know that it never trickled to the bottom as dickens explained in his books. the philosophy of "i'm all right jack" is now sadly date and pulling together is the way forward.
- I prefer the real world to a fantasy world as explained by Tom, well sort of explained.
Economic systems that do not allow for and harness human nature are doomed to fail and can only be created by repression and diktat. Look to the old Soviet Union and the old Red China of Chairman Mao as just two examples. China is a success now because it has dropped its communist economic model for a free enterprise one driven by aspiration. All you have really to offer Tom are words and a fantasy idea how how you would like things to be. - the world is undergoing a change barry, the old arguments of capitalism v communism is defunct. we keep hearing from dave and ed about people getting together and controlling and bettering their lives by working together instead of competing all the time.
we only have to look at dover to see how neil with his peoples port and simon, david et al are working to regenerate the town's shopping areas. - both of which you have strongly supported.
our stunning landscape would be a fly tipping wilderness if it weren't for the work put in by the people from wccp and whps. this is merely the tip of the iceberg with the future involving libraries, leisure service, rural bus routes bein taken on by people giving of their time freely. - Of course, anybody who insists that their way of thinking is the only way is bound to be equally certain that any other way is doomed to failure.
[No quotations marks here either, as it is my own words.]
You say that China is a success Barry. Is it a salute to the transient nature of life that you say "now"?
I say that China is heading for trouble, of course I include the people of China in what I mean by 'China', and not in some abstract headline-grabbing sloganising manner.
Nobody need point to far off lands to make the point that the kind of system that suits some here is an abject failure, here at home and across Europe. Blame bankers or New Labour as much as you wish, it was greed that done for us. - A lot of bull-shine can be conjectured around tax brackets for those on high incomes.
As we're talking of personal incomes, not company incomes, £1.5 million a year, for example, at 50% tax, would leave £750,000 net income.
Not enough! That's where the bull begins, and that's where it should end!
Let's not even talk of, say, £5 million a year personal revenue at the 50p rate.
David, the people on the sort of income mentioned here are unlikely to be customers of Dover's town shops (or Tesco for that matter).
If we play our cards on a decent minimum wage and on abolishing VAT, that would bring in more money to the people you expect to see shopping in our Town.
People who avoid the 50p rate by dodging their incomes abroad because, say, £750,000 a year net is not enough for them (remember I haven't even mentioned £5 million a year), have already shown where their priorities lie, and that is not in the Community of normal Society.
They don't count themselves as us, David. - Tom - once again a lot of words without really saying anything.... apart from wanting to stop the world and get off.
Alexander. Same thing really. Otherworldly ideas that should stay in a student debating room that have no relationship to how the economy works. A them and us bigotry is what appears to drive you, perhaps lacking drive yourself, perhaps lacking motivation yourself, perhaps lacking a willingness to take risks for reward yourself - you want everyone to be brought to your level. A levelling down to mediocrity. What has driven human advances in technology, exploration and wealth are all the human characteristics that you would suppress and brand 'greed'. - "In 2007, a working paper from the International Monetary Fund drew up a list of offshore financial centres that included the Caymans, Switzerland and the UK. The IMF's definition of an offshore centre was "a … jurisdiction that provides financial services to non-residents on a scale that is incommensurate with the size and the financing of its domestic economy" – and thus acknowledged London's position as one of the most advanced places in the world for ingenious tax planning and financial services. The other side of this coin is a relaxed attitude to regulation and risk, from officials and some businesses..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/28/tax-offshore-industry-bad-money
Need one say more? - Jesus told people to pay what is due on tax, Barry.
Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar... no avoidance, then! - What belongs to Caesar!!!!!! - my income belongs to me, not to Caesar. I will pay the taxes that are legally due but I will exercise my rights to use what legal methods are available to defend my property from theft whether by a criminal or the State.