Thus guaranteeing those on low incomes enough money to live a life worth living and negating the need for the low paid to negotiate the labyrinthian paperwork and bureaucracy that those forced to claim benefits/income support have to complete.
People would be able to use their own money as they see fit rather than have to claim some of it back from the state in the form of a handout.
We're talking about taxes that should never have been taken in the first instance, the cost of the civil service bureaucracy that supports Working Families Tax Credit et al alone must be greater than the combined tax take from the affected parties.
okay
Cliche?
all americans are right-wing hooting gibbons
Touché
My family used to
be on those tax credits. It took my mother years of letters and phone calls to untangle us from the whole thing after they claimed we owed them money. (We didn't. Ha!). I would never, ever claim them for myself, no matter how much I was entitled to.
How'd you come to that figure? I wouldn't pay ANY tax under that. I don't mind paying some.
You would pay NI.
If you earn 15,000 or less I propose that you should pay absolutely no income tax, just NI.
The figure is actually what the Lib Dems were proposing in 2006 and I happen to think it makes a lot of sense.
NI on anything OVER the 15K
along with a graded tax system, obvs, but the 15K would be ring fenced.
agreed
the tax credits are a needlessly complicated way of solving a problem that needn't necessarily exist in the first place.
The tax credit system feels like the gov't thinks it's doing people a favour by letting them have some of *it's* money, rather than the money belonging to the population and being spent gov't on their behalf.
Get's my vote,
I'd have been happy with £10k but that's better.
It'd mean those above paying a fair bit of tax but...
- the poor would either have more by the tax cut or the same by realistic wage reduction leading to a more streamlined economy
- there would be less disincentive to work as the unemployed (ie takers of low wages) would be taxed less
- ideally there would still be a couple of tax bands as we can't expect the middle class to pay the near whole bill and the gap between the poorest and richest would still need tightening
your second point is important
People need to feel like there's still definitely a point in working rather than being on the dole if the only jobs they'll be able to obtain are low paid. Scrapping the 10p rate felt a bit, 'great, please tell me why I bother to go to work rather than sit on my arse at home?' I know it wasn't that much money but the psychological effect was not good.
the incentive to work is important
i see people everyday who seem to work very hard at avoiding work because they're arguably better off not in any 'real' employment, or at least that's the impression around a lot of the villages round here.
the thing about tax credits
and such (including benefits and the like), is that the whole system depends on most people who are entitled to them NOT claiming them. If they did, there wouldn't actually be enough money to go around - the whole thing would collapse. Most people can and actually do cope on less, and just don't bother to claim it - allowing the gov. to keep their tax money.
Thus raising everyone's personal allowance would create a big hole in the revenue..
I learned the above while working as a note-taker in some Social Work lectures, the particular one being about the benefits system. It's interesting stuff..
but people will always be affected by the cut-off point.
if you offered me £14,999 for life i'd probably take it. Taking tax & NI into consideration it'd be the equivelant of earning over £19k, no? What if someone earnt just over £15k?
They would be taxed on
the bit that they went over by, ie. if they earnt 16k they would only be taxed on 1k of it. So, they would pay a very small amount of tax.
ha, yeah, that makes sense actually.
How does it work currently?
My flatmate pays more tax than i earn. The massive cunt.
that's how it works currently
you only pay tax on what you own over the personal limit.
yeah, i know that...
i'm just not sure of the figure.
5,435 this year which is woeful
It is,
but to me, £15,000 seems like a disproportionately large sum. I agree that the idea of tax credits is pretty damned flawed, but hoiking the personal allowance up by 10k would be fucking drastic! And what would do you propose would happen to higher rate tax payers in that instance? Would the higher rate threshold increase by 10k too?
I disagree, 15K in 2008 is survival money!
The higher rate threshold wouldn't need to increase, we're talking about a minimum sum that everyone would be entitled to on a tax free basis.
15,001 salary equals........
the same guaranteed sum as someone on 15,000, but you'd pay tax and NI (let's say 20% base rate for the sake of the example) on the 1 pound over the 15,000 so you'd get 15,000.66p or whatever.
It would still be worth working, but everyone would have a proper safety net and one which would not require a vast, complicated and expensive civil service machine to administrate.
despite not being an economist
I suspect this would be a problematic. But I'm all for it.
I wish there was also a way of preventing the super rich hiding all their money abroad.
There are laws
that are supposed to stop people doing that, however they are badly enforced.
Yes, I do read the boring bits in private eye.
There are so many
things you can do with your money to 'avoid' tax. The astute will always do that, mostly within the boundaries of the law
I'd support that
but only if there were a couple of tax bands above 40%, say 50% on earnings over £100,000 and 65% on earnings over £250,000.
now, i'm a socialist and everything
but this is the most stupid thing i've ever read.
what do you mean you werent serious?
I'm perfectly serious.
Have you actually read the initial post in full?
If no then read it, if yes then you could at least outline your case against it.
It's too high
If the average wage is about £23,000 or something, then each person would be paying about £1,600 in income tax and I doubt this is enough (*based on no facts).
Whilst a £15,000 allowance may help out people on low incomes, it would also mean people on higher incomes who can afford to pay tax and don't claim benefits would not be contributing as much and public services might suffer.