Biden does the right thing (although perhaps not for the right reasons)

Let’s focus on the capital gains part, because it gets right to the heart of what’s wrong with our tax system.

Right now, the system treats capital gains — for instance, the money you make when you sell a stock — better than money you make from working. The top rate on capital gains is only 20 percent (plus a 3.8 percent Obamacare surcharge for high earners). It’s one of the clearest ways that our tax code has been built by and for the wealthy, who pay the overwhelming majority of capital gains taxes.

Biden’s proposal would treat capital gains just like regular income. If because you’re wealthy you’re being taxed at the 37 percent marginal rate on your income, that would apply to your stock sales too.

Why does the Washingtonpost say Biden hasn't gone far enough? Because he does something our own Labour Party are likely to do. He has made a promise not to raise the taxes for anyone earning less than $400,000 a year. If the premise that all income should be taxed at the same rate on a progressive basis then this stops short of doing that.

This principle of all income being taxed at the same personal rate also falls short when it comes to other income, such as inheritance.

I hope one of our parties sees the point of equality and the levelling up effect this could have but I do agree that Biden while making a huge step forward has not done all he could with this.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/23/bidens-plan-tax-hikes-rich-is-good-it-doesnt-go-far-enough/

^It seems that if somebody did a degree in economics over 50 years ago they tend to never let anyone forget it.?
That’s social media for you.^

I think you'll find that your comment here applies to MOnica.

I don't have a degree in economics; I've just been studying it closely for the last few years.

Here in the UK I think we have it about right.

Why do you think that? Is the NIC system fair? Are our various types of indirect taxes that would impact the poorest most fair? Have we got VAT right? What about Council Tax? Stamp duty, IHT, CGT - we’ve got it all about right? Well clever us.

I don't have a degree in economics either but we can learn something new every day, thankfully. To be honest, if you don't know something where is the harm in asking or looking it up? Isn't that part of how we learn?

I wonder why there is such a need to derail this thread by those who would definitely get a GCSE in ad hominem remarks?

suziewoozie

Here in the UK I think we have it about right.

Why do you think that? Is the NIC system fair? Are our various types of indirect taxes that would impact the poorest most fair? Have we got VAT right? What about Council Tax? Stamp duty, IHT, CGT - we’ve got it all about right? Well clever us.

Interesting Suziewoozie. If I have read you right you are saying that where income comes from something other than work you are happy that we do not pay a tax equal to that paid on money earned by working but that it is far easier to make money (by paying less tax) from anything other than work. Is that what you mean?

You seem to have expanded to the taxes outside any Biden is looking at. What are your opinions on these other taxes?

Puts her head rather nervously above parapet.
MazieD
I’ve been following your posts for a few months. You might remember I posted once to ask you to explain something you posted that I couldn’t follow -too succinct- I think was what I said. And you did explain to me in a friendly way. It’s been a subject of interest and stimulation during lockdown.

I still have (stupid,ignorant,uniformed) questions and observations, like most people grasping something new but I wouldn’t air them here because of the comments that would follow.

The essence of learning and change is to be able to express thoughts and expect a measured response. Perhaps there are several like me who are interested but afraid of being embroiled in unpleasantness, so won’t ask or comment and so topics like this become the haunt of a few.

I’m not afraid of discussion or being challenged about ideas. I’ve even been known to change my thinking when something makes sense. Again it might have been you that responded to my question on another thread about Brexit and said something that completely altered how I saw things.

That’s productive. I wish we could discuss things without sneering and sarcasm.

PippaZ

suziewoozie

Here in the UK I think we have it about right.

Why do you think that? Is the NIC system fair? Are our various types of indirect taxes that would impact the poorest most fair? Have we got VAT right? What about Council Tax? Stamp duty, IHT, CGT - we’ve got it all about right? Well clever us.

Interesting Suziewoozie. If I have read you right you are saying that where income comes from something other than work you are happy that we do not pay a tax equal to that paid on money earned by working but that it is far easier to make money (by paying less tax) from anything other than work. Is that what you mean?

You seem to have expanded to the taxes outside any Biden is looking at. What are your opinions on these other taxes?

Aaghhh sorry my post was meant as a response to lemon who made the comment about us having it about right and I forgot to put her name in which then made a complete nonsense of my post. Sorry ( utter twit that I am) our tax system is unfit for purpose

I see! I was a bit suprised suziewoozie.

I worked for RM and became a PHG at my local DO. I worked directly under the DOM and was responsible for ordering DBFs, FFs and LFs. I also compiled P118s and DHs......... need I go on?

How many of you understood that? I wouldn't expect you to because it is the jargon peculiar to my walk of life. Similarly, I, like others on here,do not understand the jargon the OP is using (and I am absolutely sure the OP didn't understand my first paragraph).

If you want us all to join the debate, please speak in clear language we can all understand

Peasblossom

Puts her head rather nervously above parapet.
MazieD
I’ve been following your posts for a few months. You might remember I posted once to ask you to explain something you posted that I couldn’t follow -too succinct- I think was what I said. And you did explain to me in a friendly way. It’s been a subject of interest and stimulation during lockdown.

I still have (stupid,ignorant,uniformed) questions and observations, like most people grasping something new but I wouldn’t air them here because of the comments that would follow.

The essence of learning and change is to be able to express thoughts and expect a measured response. Perhaps there are several like me who are interested but afraid of being embroiled in unpleasantness, so won’t ask or comment and so topics like this become the haunt of a few.

I’m not afraid of discussion or being challenged about ideas. I’ve even been known to change my thinking when something makes sense. Again it might have been you that responded to my question on another thread about Brexit and said something that completely altered how I saw things.

That’s productive. I wish we could discuss things without sneering and sarcasm.

Quite agree, Peasblossom, and also M0nica. Snarky comments could have been avoided if when using specialist terminology, the word or phrase could be spelt out the first time with the initials in brackets. Then everybody knows what it means.

These forums are open for us all to read and learn, surely. No disgrace in that...

Oh FGS. I guess you all understand that one?

Not everyone needs to understand every word of every post. Gardening posts are a mystery to me, but I don't feel the need to berate the people who start them. If some grans want to have a conversation about a particular type of tax system and other grans think its not for them, as I've been told on many occasions, just move on and read another thread!

Message for Peasblossom. If a poster has ideas or thoughts to share, and shares them in a natural way such as they would in a conversation, people will respond to that approach. If a poster comes on and says that its obvious to them that night is day and everyone else is wrong, they've got to expect an appropriate response. I hope you'll post in the future Peasblossom

If you want us all to join the debate, please speak in clear language we can all understand

As far as I can see, Ug, the only acronym (jargon?) in the OP was 'MMT'. MOnica very helpfully provided a link to information about it and I've linked to a very good video explanation. All well before you've chosen to make this comment.

So what is your problem?

Strangely, two people have come on to the thread, said nothing about the topic whatsoever, and just gone into an all-out personal attack because I used one acronym.

If you had been interested you could have read on and gone to the information flagged. As this looks as if you only came to make a personal attack I have reported both posts.

Well I’d like to talk about it if people who only understand a bit of it are welcome. So let’s see. This is at a very basic level of understanding I know.

I get that a government can create its own money and that “debt” that can be repayed by that. But does that only work internally. What about money owed outside to other countries. How do you prevent the currency being devalued externally?

Oh sorry, that isn’t what the thread was about after all. I got lost somewhere along the way.

So yes, I agree with your original post. I had no idea Capital Gains Tax was at a different level to income tax.

I’ll retreat now. My brain obviously isn’t up to it.

Peasblossom

Oh sorry, that isn’t what the thread was about after all. I got lost somewhere along the way.

So yes, I agree with your original post. I had no idea Capital Gains Tax was at a different level to income tax.

I’ll retreat now. My brain obviously isn’t up to it.

I think your brain is very much up to it as this has been a strange thread. I am just hoping that the steps Bidden is taking start a trend around the world.

If you do want to find out more about MMT there is a whole lot of articles here. taxresearch.org.uk/Wiki/2020/05/13/understanding-money-resources-from-the-web/

Peasblossom

Oh sorry, that isn’t what the thread was about after all. I got lost somewhere along the way.

So yes, I agree with your original post. I had no idea Capital Gains Tax was at a different level to income tax.

I’ll retreat now. My brain obviously isn’t up to it.

Oh, go on, Peaseblossom, start another thread about this. It would be nice to talk about it with people who are interested.

I am just hoping that the steps Bidden is taking start a trend around the world.

I'm not sure that it will, Pippa. After all, Roosevelt had great success in avoiding the worst of the Depression in the 1930s by 'creating' vast amounts of money for his New Deal, but it didn't seem to take off anywhere else (though I think that Keynes tried...)

I wonder what Biden himself thinks of it, as he struck me as being quite conservative. I think that Bernie Sanders is the driving force behind it. He's much influenced by economists such as Stephanie Kelton. He's Chair of the Senate Budget Committee; an influential position.

Urmstongran

Thank you MOnica. I didn’t know what MMT is. Probably none the wiser now to be honest but thank you for calling it out.
?

Calling what our?

Should every post start with a lesson on what the subject will be?

We are all capable women/men. We have the resources literally at our finger tips to look up what we don’t understand.

The post wasn’t written in uncrackable code for goodness sakes.

Not everything needs to be dumbed down to the lowest denominator

Thanks for filling some gaps Maizie; that is interesting. I would have to agree that Biden is quite small "c" conservative.

I don't think there is any harm in letting a thread wander Maizie and Peasblossom. My only objection was to people seeming to only want to make personal attacks.

One thing I find interesting is the "limits" that a government might have to apply. Firstly it seems they must use the generated money to get as close to full employment as possible and to also build production. It also seems that a country holding greatly more of your currency than you do of theirs (for no positive reason) would need to be seen as an area for adjustment - which begs the question when you look at the USA and China.

I don't feel convinced I know any of this in detail so I am only too happy for you to fill the gaps or challenge my thinking (with links if needed ).

I don't feel convinced I know any of this in detail so I am only too happy for you to fill the gaps or challenge my thinking (with links if needed grin).

I'm not sure that I do, either.

But, in regard to a country holding more of your currency than you do of theirs I can't see that it can cause a problem. The money 'lost' by being hoarded by another country can be replaced. It is absolutely valueless to that country until they use it to buy something from you, which is, of course, priced in your currency. In which case it comes back into your country and only becomes a danger if it increases the internal money supply to the point where it causes inflation.

I can see it being more of a danger if it is used to buy up your country's assets (usually called Direct Foreign Investment, isn't it?). While it puts more money into the economy it also makes it vulnerable to cash outflows as the profits are relocated and to loss in the domestic economy if the foreign country gives up its assets. Such as we're threatened with in our mostly foreign owned motor manufacturing industry moving production into the Single Market.

What it does to the money markets I have no idea. I don't know enough about them and I always feel that they are only vaguely related to the 'real' economy as they seem more like a vehicle for acquiring wealth (like the stock market) than a useful institution. I'm probably wrong on that. Maybe someone can put me right.

Marshalling my thoughts.

I suppose I was thinking not about other countries buying into us but the reverse.

Let’s say the Government wants every child to have free fruit every day.
If its grown in Britain they can create the money to buy the fruit. And the means to control inflation applies.
But if the fruit comes from Costa Rica they can’t create dollars to pay for it so either Costa Rica has to accept sterling or sterling has to be strong in exchange.

Now does having lots of created sterling mean it’s worth less n international markets?A glut of sterling?

And then it can’t be withdrawn by tax because it doesn’t reside in Britain anymore.

There that’s as far as I can go at the moment.

I’m sorry I have to reduce this to nursery level examples but that’s what I need to do!

I agree with you about the money markets Maizie although they must be more than the high stakes gambling den I see them as.

I get what you are saying about buying from abroad Peasblossom but as long as a sovereign currency has credibility I don't think there would be a problem. It's all about the countries credibility now. People often cite other countries they say printed limitless amounts of money but there were other issues with them. (and NB: we don't print money very much any more, it's mainly done electronically). I found this answer in an article - the countries mention were Argentina, Venezuela, etc.?

We don’t ‘just create money.’ It’s not about the money, it’s about how we use it. If we use it to engage our workforce and produce meaningful goods and services, the kind of things people here and overseas want to buy, we strengthen our economy, unlike those countries you mention, which failed to use their natural resources, and failed to use their own currency.

That makes sense to me as it's always been true except we haven't always been careful "to engage our workforce and produce meaningful goods and services" and then we have had to try and live on our past reputation.

Not at all sure if this helps but it may raise more interesting questions

Unigran4

I worked for RM and became a PHG at my local DO. I worked directly under the DOM and was responsible for ordering DBFs, FFs and LFs. I also compiled P118s and DHs......... need I go on?

How many of you understood that? I wouldn't expect you to because it is the jargon peculiar to my walk of life. Similarly, I, like others on here,do not understand the jargon the OP is using (and I am absolutely sure the OP didn't understand my first paragraph).

If you want us all to join the debate, please speak in clear language we can all understand

????

RM = Royal Mail

PHG = post person higher grade

DO = delivery office

DOM = Delivery office manager

I’m stuck on the various forms, but am guessing the P118s are time sheets or duty sheeets. Stuck on DHs .

I might add that I have never worked for RM?