Where are all the tax revenues going?

Thank you daphnedill I think I may be off tangent with my thoughts, but doesn't NI contributions pay or at least provide the majority of finance for pensions and benefits. My concern is where actual taxation raised through PAYE, VAT, Captal gains, inheritance, road tax, petrol tax, etc. etc. go when we are seeing increases in these taxes (maybe not PAYE) but other indirect taxation yet are having drastic reduction in provision. It appears to me like going shopping where last week you got a basket of food for a fiver, now you get one broken item for more cost. With all this covert privatisation of services going on I get the feeling (maybe unjustifiably) we are being fleeced to feed offshore investors.

I think NI has always gone into the general pot which might be why there is an issue. Maybe if it had always been ring fenced for says the NHS things would be clearer.

I am sure I am not alone in being annoyed that pensions are part of the Welfare Budget, makes it sound like we are getting something we haven't paid for. I am pretty sure that DH and I have paid in far more than we and our family have ever taken out and far more than we will get in state pension.

Nowadays there are a lot more people who pay for their own operations through insurance than there were when we were young, for which the NHS should be grateful. If I have a necessary operation privately surely everyone else should be delighted that they don't have to pay for it. Yes, you could take the line that it is privilege but I make the point that we have a choice how we spend out money and if you choose PMI rather than booze or whatever there is nothing wrong with that.

Nonnie, wish you would mix with people outside your own circle. I could not afford to buy a house because I was widowed with two small children to bring up. I do not have a pension because I had no choice but to work part time in jobs which didn't have pension schemes, I worked part time because bringing up our daughters I was then carer for fifteen years for my parents , we did not claim any form of carers allowances . I do not drink alcohol ,

I did own a sweet little cottage, my parents, God parents and siblings bought it for me and my daughters . When elder daughter had second child and younger daughter had to have IVF I sold the cottage and gave the money to our daughters to help them, I moved into a private let. No social housing because I had made myself homeless ,fair enough.

Do not judge people from your ivory tower Nonnie please

Annie talk about pot calling kettle .....................! How on earth do you know who I mix with? It seems to me it is quite the opposite. You have no understanding of people who do own houses, do have pensions and savings, work full time and hard to do what they can for their families.

I have no intention of telling my story on here, none of your business but I can tell you I know a lot about people living on benefits, social services, children in care as well as people who are so well off they don't know how to spend all their money. Having lived in several different places my horizons are far wider than people who have always lived in roughly the same area. Having worked with all sorts of people and having more than my share of empathy I have an understanding of many people outside my own environment.

As a result of my experiences I don't go round making assumptions about other people nor do I judge them. Unfortunately it is abundantly clear that there are some on here who are quick to make such assumptions and to judge. I feel sorry for you with your blinkered attitude, you are missing so much.

Joelsnan You are getting confused over privitisation. Privitisation is to do with who provides the service not who pays for it. Except for nationalised industries which were sold off 30 years ago, the current privitisation is to do with supply not payment. The state instead of running a service like education directly now pays someone else to do it for them. That usually ends up being more expensive.

PFI (private finance initiatives) where private companies built hospitals but then charged rent etc have proved to be inquitously expensive as the hospitals were often tied in to having all maintenance and other work done by the PFI company at outrageous, non-negotiable prices. Then there is the quality of PFI construction, as has been shown by the problems that Edinburgh is currently having with its schools. If the PFI firm had been the contractor working for a hospital trust then their work would have been checked and supervised by hospital appointed surveyors. But because they were building a building at their own cost to be gradually paid for by the hospital over a long period of time none of these checks were in place and nobody pulled them up if they used shoddy construction methods

NI payments do not cover the full cost of providing our pensions, If those who have private pensions look back to their working days they will find that their payments into their occupational pension was always considerably higher than their NI payments, which also included payment for the NHS.

The thing is I worked overseas for a number of years. I continued to pay contributions as I knew I would return home.
The asset stripping of the nations wealth maybe seems more apparent to me since I came home, it appears very stark.
As a nation we used to own our hospitals, schools and the land they were built on, we used to own our transport systems and our utilities. We used to own major industries. All of these are now owned by overseas investors and we have no say in what happens,. Eg. Tata Steel, EDF, etc. etc. etc. As a country we have been asset stripped by overseas investors. Any profit from these would previously have gone into the treasury coffers to fund library's, roads etc.now it goes overseas as profits, yet we are still being taxed as though as a nation we still have these assets to maintain.
Because we are now having to service rental payments and PFI Loans on things that we previously owned our general infrastructure is falling apart. To those who have remained here it has been an insidious process like someone stealing pennies from your savings jar little by little and you don't realise till you need it. You didn't check the jar because you trusted the thief. To me I just wonder what on earth is going on.

You're quite right, Monica, although NI has now increased considerably and contracted-out workers still have to pay the full amount (currently 12%). From the time I started work until I gave up full-time employment, I could always reckon that my total deductions (tax, NI and pension contributions) were about 40% (give or take a bit).

NI was set up to cover pensions, health and unemployment. As far as I know, it's never been ring-fenced. Governments have stealthily increased NI, while reducing the headline tax figures, but most people have ended up paying the same - apart from those who don't pay NI. I think that those who can afford it should pay the 'health' part of NI for life, as people in other countries continue to pay for health insurance.

JN, You're quite correct. The country has been asset-stripped and the wealth is in the hands of UK and foreign investors. I trust you won't be voting Conservative or UKIP, because that's what they want to encourage.

MOnica I do understand privatisation and the business models that drive this concept, and I do know that this and previous governments have bought heavily into privatisation in terms of buy now pay later. Recent years has brought of flurry of purchases on a similar basis as buying from the shop "Bright House" where you buy on credit and pay three times as much for the item. It is the poor that suffer. Apart from never owning these assets we are now paying tax to fund the exhorbitant repayments, whilst being fed the line that all our taxes are going to the rich pensioners or the poor work shy.
We are paying for privatised services with little accountability that are poorer and cost more and we seem somewhat resigned either by blind faith or apathy or inevitability to this. I have American friends aghast at the nation allowing the destruction of the NHS knowing what a privatised service means to them.

Daphnedill I really don't know how to vote as I am confused about how we have allowed this to happen on our watch. I doubt our grandchildren will have much to thank us for in terms of a decent country to live in.

Started with Thatcher - selling family silver that is

Is it time for us to start looking forward instead of back? We can't change the past but can have an effect on the future. So many governments have done things which I thought were bad at the time and many more which, in retrospect, were wrong but there is little point in bemoaning what we cannot change, simply learn from it and move on.

One of the reasons we have bad policies is short term thinking which may be inevitable when a government can only be sure of being in power for 5 years. After a while voters believe that a change of government will give them what they want and that is what we get, good or bad.

I assume by 'poor workshy' you mean the unemployed. I agree. The unemployed actually receive a very small percentage of the nation's income. What's more, most unemployed have at some stage worked and paid tax and NI, so have paid for their unemployment benefits. It wouldn't surprise me if the Work Programme providers receive more than the unemployed themselves. We don't pay a huge percentage for PFI repayments either. The figures have been posted on here. You can see for yourself how the government spends its income.

JN, I know I could never vote for the Conservatives or UKIP, because both believe in a 'small state'. They don't believe that the wealthy should pay for the more vulnerable and poorer people through a nationalised tax and insurance system. They really don't believe in a society.

I have voted in every single election since I was old enough to vote and have never bought into any political party's policies wholesale, which is why (sad person that I am), I've read every manifesto and made a list of pros and cons. I've done the same with the referendum.

The area I know most about is schools and I know that I could deliver a higher quality of education with the same money, but it's not through academies or free schools or any other tinkering around with structures and exams.

daphnedill - your last post:
I'm sure we women could make a much better job of running the country than the current lot, or the previous lot come to that. And finances would be in order and the budget would balance.
For a start we wouldn't get drawn into expensive pointless wars, think how much that would save. And I don't think there would be so much time wasted on the oneupmanship that men seem to enjoy so much, attacking the person not the idea. (though it does happen on here occasionally.)
I wonder if it will ever happen?

I'm not so sure that women would always make better leaders. However, I do think that what are considered to be 'female' qualities are often underrated as leadership qualities.

Having watched the latest PMQs, I agree with you about addressing issues and not attacking the person.

Maybe just a female Chancellor of the Exchequer for a start?

Are you volunteering Tricia?

I would have done 20 - 30 years ago .
When I was actively involved in politics.

Never been actively involved but have shouted at the radio a lot! Can we just elect whoever has common sense? Not much of it about.

I've just seen in the thread on DJen for PM that we've already got a Gran's cabinet
on here! Dozey.

Nonnie for many years all students have been indoctrinated with the practice of 'reflection' reviewing what happened, what was good and bad and are told they must always use this to inform their future actions. I am not bemoaning the good old times.
It seems to me that in politics the dogma of reflection is kicked into the waste bin by MPs as soon as they graduate and they adopt a very introspective perspective as we appear as a nation to be barrelling forward into an American styled social and healthcare system where the majority of bankruptcies are as a result of healthcare payments and ambulances ask for proof of insurance before they will transport you.
Additionally many MPs purport to 'send troops in' without reflecting on previous conflicts or even understanding differing global cultural mechanics.
My initial question was why are we still being taxed (directly and indirectly) so heavily when the services that we are paying this tax for are disappearing..

I think you'd find your part of your answer if you looked at the distribution of wealth and increasing inequality between 'haves' and 'have nots'. Some people have become very rich from providing the services which were once provided by the state.

The other issue, which I've already mentioned, is that we have an increasing number of elderly, who cost the country a lot. Sorry, but that's a fact and the country needs to pay for social care if that's what it wants. The country is trying to do more with the same amount of money.

Thanks Daphnedill I agree that those who are/will benefit from privatisation are the ones who are driving policy nowadays.
I still disagree about ageing impact. I am sure that this is political spin. The elderly are healthier, fitter and more contributory to society than ever before. We just have to look at our peers and elders to know we are nothing like our parents in terms of being elderly and burdensome on society (not that my parents were).