2015 Election - antidotes?

Oh! I thought this debate was sort of finished? haven't time to think this evening will look at it tomorrow.

Finished? Whatever gave you that idea, whitewave?

Is debate ever finished?

Antidotes... anecdotes... Antipodes... Antilles...

Flickety I'm no economics expert but this is an extract from a report in the International Business Times of September 2014:

"New research by Tax Research LLP, on behalf of the Public and Commercial Services Union, shows that the tax gap - defined as "the difference between the tax that should be paid in the UK if the tax system worked as parliament and HMRC intended, and the amount actually paid" - topped £119bn in 2013-14 and "is rising steadily".

"... the research's author Richard Murphy recommended that the UK government introduce wholesale reform to its tax law to incorporate avoidance strategies, and "the introduction of country-by-country reporting for multinational corporations" combined with "a reversal of the cuts to staff in HMRC and at Companies House.

"In June, HMRC closed all of its 281 Face to Face Enquiry Centres, months after it had also announced the loss of 8,000 jobs, to come by early 2015."

Anticipation followed by anti-climax after 7th May!

A trip to Antigua sounds anticing enticing.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/01/06/at-the-oecd-today/

Nearly £100 billion in avoidance and evasion, Flickety. That would help quite a lot. Of course the government would have to take on many more tax inspectors. I've never understood why they got rid of so many and closed tax offices down, unless they did not seriously want to collect the tax due.
They definitely earn more than their pay.

Eloathan, that is tax from all sources including corporate evasion. I was discussing personal and indirect taxation as a response to Durhamjen's comments about getting the wealthy to pay all the tax they owe. I then extended it to cover indirect taxes because these are mainly paid by individuals and small businesses.

But we need to remember that, short of having every taxpayer permanently accompanied 24/7 by their own personal tax inspector, you will never collect every £ of taxation due. I would think that we would be lucky to collect even half the amount unpaid at a reasonable cost.

The best way to improve the system and collection is to have a much more basic and simple tax system, with no tax allowances for anything, not even pensions, just tax all income regardless of special needs or pleading.

I spent many years working for the Revenue in tax-collection. It was a principle that tax can only be properly collected with the consent of the taxed and if the tax is fair. It is relatively easy to collect tax via PAYE and VAT but not so easy as regards businesses and the very rich. When you have a government which actively conspires with those elements, tax collection becomes very unfair. Then us ordinary folk start to question why we should pay tax when the rich do not and get away with it. This has all been made much worse by the activities of the well-known international business sharks, who trade just inside the boundaries of legality, using concessions agreed with compliant governments. That has got to stop.

Flickety What do you mean by a more basic tax system?

Do you mean dispensing with tax incentives that are supposed to encourage individuals and businesses to invest in areas they would not normally invest in?

I'm just wondering because, having worked in tax barristers' chambers, I know there are volumes and volumes of tax rule books, and these are constantly being updated. The system is massively complex and cumbersome, and tax barristers earn unimaginably vast amounts of money advising clients on how to use the rules - through the setting up of various schemes - to pay as little tax as possible.

Aside from getting rid of tax concessions on contributions to pension schemes, ISAs, etc., are there any other ways you feel the tax system should be simplified?

I keep hearing how this is the longest ever election campaign there's been, but who decides when it started, and what was the difference between the first day of the campaign and the previous day?

Eloethan. It was really a response to those who believe that the answer to all our economic woes is to collect every penny of tax due, an impossible aim which would cost more than the sum raised to even get 75% of the way.

I was talking only about personal taxation, but it could be extended to all taxation. Just have a tax free amount and then pay tax on every £ earned thereafter. Possibly a flat rate of tax. This would not stop the government offering grants, benefits etc but none of it would come through the tax system as tax allowances.

I would also combine NI with taxation. This would mean that those over pension age would continue to pay NI but it would help spike the guns of those saying that we benefit from services like the NHS but make no contribution.

We could also get rid of all those bells and whistles attached to pensions, Winter fuel allowance, free TV licences, bus travel concessions, even free prescriptions. Instead up the level of Pension credit by £20 - 30 or whatever is needed so that those on low pension incomes are fully compensated for their loss of all these extras. This would make more people qualify for PC at higher incomes while better off pensioners (of which I am one) would be put on the same tax basis as their sons and daughters and would need to pay for all these extras out of their current income. This again would make the many justified complaints that older people are being protected from the worst affects of the current economic situation which others are suffering.

I would be paying £64 a month for my prescriptions.

I think I'd move over the border where prescriptions are free.

You can get season tickets for prescriptions and if you are on a low pension income you would be compensated for this through a substantial rise in Pension Credit.

Durhamjen your £64 a month of prescriptions with a season ticket would cost you less than £10 a month. A three month prescription season ticket costs £29.10 (just under £10 a month). An annual season ticket would cost £104 ( less than £ 9 a month).

Flickety

I like your last paragraph.

Every time I see the title of this thread I think of that silly song:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats
And liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

So perhaps I will sing that every time anything to do with politics comes on the radio or tv as an antidote.

But you are talking about getting rid of all concessions. Cheap prescriptions are a concession.

Why bother to save for your old age. They'll take it off until you're poor enough to qualify for credits. Depressing prospect. Grind us all downwards. Alternatively move the focus from those whove always paid their taxes in full - no fancy evasion schemes - to the super rich. See that thread. Wish I was rich enough not to pay tax and not to lose my hard earned bus pass etc

I am talking about getting rid of all concessions to pensioners, a prescription season ticket is no more a concession than a bus or train season ticket is, and it is open to anyone receiving regular medication.

Isn't a prescription season ticket, in effect, a concession? It's presumably not funded by the drug companies or the pharmacies so I imagine the government subsidises it?

No idea crun.
I dont read so much newspapers, or watch so much news as I did even say 4 years ago.
So it seems a pretty tame start to me.

I think I have largely switched off actually.

That's what I meant, Eloethan. I think it would take more money to process the paperwork for all pensioners who get free prescriptions now than the £10 per month.
The free bus pass is not worth arguing about either. Nobody has to apply for one if they do not want to use one.

Crun I think the campaign officially starts when Houses of Parliament breaks up for Easter( some date in March, cant remember exact date), but it does seem it has started now, so heavens knows how sick of it we will all be by May, and that's just when we should be taking notice....