Who do you believe: Sunak or the IMF?

Daisy Anne I am too busy wading through the report from the House of Commons. My Google search shows 513,000 civil servants in the Uk.

Chill lady google

ronib

Daisy Anne the civil service currently employs 513,000 people.
I think it’s a pretty high number for this country.
I can see no evidence of the government attempting to destroy the public sector. In fact I thought it was increasing with a vengeance?

So are we now supposed to build our views on a guess from ronib? I don't think so.

Where is that figure from? What does it relate to? Does it include those outsourced, who can earn more than they did in some jobs when they were directly employed, and the company that is employing them is charging a fee? How many do we actually need? I'm not sure your guess that it is a "pretty high number" brings it into the world of facts.

Have you compared this, plus the outsourced, making friends companies a profit, to how many have been employed in the past or to a current needs assessment? What changes have happened to change the need for different types of workers?

Finally, how can we take anyone seriously who thinks just putting a figure out there gives us any idea of the truth?

Pointlessly arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (how many people are off grid and pay no tax) can be completely banished.

Here is a link to a paper produced by the House of Commons Library just last month analysing in the smallest detail government sources of revenue and who paid it. Among the other things it shows that the proportion of income tax paid by the top 1% of earners went up from 20% in 1999 to 29% in 20/21.
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8513/CBP-8513.pdf

Some people might walk away from corporate life in their later years and downsize jobs and lifestyle. In doing so, it’s possible to live off savings and take part time work thus enhancing well being and improving personal carbon footprint. Benefits and the black economy do not figure in this change of lifestyle.

A desire to flee the rat race does. Do humans not have their own agency and choices? It helps to have a good pension pot from the corporate world which bled the soul!

Very few live “off grid” but there are plenty that do not contribute to society in a positive way while claiming whatever advantage they can from benefits and/or the black economy.

ronib

MaizieD this is not off grid living. Some people in very respectable communities live like this. It’s not stream of consciousness but trying to say that not everyone contributes to vat receipts in the same way!

So what?
Not everyone pays income tax, either.

I really am done with this😁

MaizieD in reply to your attachment to the BBC …..

MaizieD this is not off grid living. Some people in very respectable communities live like this. It’s not stream of consciousness but trying to say that not everyone contributes to vat receipts in the same way!

Do you do joined up thinking?
This isn't an exchange of ideas/opinions. It's a ronib stream of consciousness, flitting from idea to idea and only you can follow it.
What on earth the tiny handful of people who live entirely off grid with no participation in modern life has to do with firms of taxation, or the number of civil servants, excess deaths and any other thing you've briefly alighted on is completely beyond me, so I give up. ☹️

MaizieD just an alternative way of life which you have probably not experienced. No insult surely?

ronib

MaizieD no vat on food, no vat on cutting your own hair, no vat on walking, no vat on charity shop clothing and purchases, no vat on foraging and collected wood/garden logs, no vat on home grown vegetables. And so on …. So difficult to say exactly how much anyone pays in vat but usually simple enough for income tax.

Please don't insult your or my intelligence, ronib.

growstuff

Casdon

growstuff

ronib

As usual, the internet gives varying figures… depending on the site. So pretty pointless exercise.

Some fairly ordinary people would really like much less interference in their ordinary lives but that’s really not going to be understood here?

It could be because so much public administration has been outsourced, so employees are employed by private companies, but directly funded by the state. Such people are no longer civil servants nor local government employees.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Local Government cuts due to government underfunding is the main reason for the reduction in civil servants.

Local government employees aren't civil servants, although they might be included in the statistics.

The ICAEW categorise them together, with some rationale, but you are right.
Civil service figures only, which are interesting.
www.civilservant.org.uk/information-numbers.html

MaizieD no vat on food, no vat on cutting your own hair, no vat on walking, no vat on charity shop clothing and purchases, no vat on foraging and collected wood/garden logs, no vat on home grown vegetables. And so on …. So difficult to say exactly how much anyone pays in vat but usually simple enough for income tax.

growstuff

Divisive and inaccurate!

I think you are being problematic.

ronib's failure to recognise any form of taxation apart from income tax is likely to be a result of the media not taking a great deal of interest in any other sort of taxation (and she's obviously never read any of my posts where I point out exactly what you have just done, growstuff )

This is from the BBC thematic Review that I mentioned yesterday somewhere:

Thinking about a broad definition of impartiality, one question we asked was ‘are people’s diverse interests proportionately represented in BBC coverage?’ There’s no perfect measure of that, but we think we can observe misalignments. What gets talked about can obscure big interests that don’t, bringing risks to impartiality by omission.
^ A striking example is VAT^.
In Wales, more VAT is paid than income tax, ditto North East England. In fact, a large proportion of the whole UK population pays more VAT than income tax. For a great many households across the country, VAT is the biggest tax and so to them you might say the most important. More than one third of UK adults pay no income tax at all, but they do pay VAT.

What determines this is people’s relative income and spending. For high incomes, income tax is likely to dominate; for lower incomes, VAT. That is, these groups have different tax interests. But which tax is more talked about? Which interest is most served by political argument and BBC coverage?

We think income tax knocks VAT out of the park in this respect, meaning the tax interest of the better-off gets more attention.

Asked about this imbalance in the coverage of VAT, many interviewees went silent for a moment, then said things like: ‘Interesting… never really thought about it. Yes.’

P 21

www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/thematic-review-taxation-public-spending-govt-borrowing-debt.pdf

Casdon

growstuff

ronib

As usual, the internet gives varying figures… depending on the site. So pretty pointless exercise.

Some fairly ordinary people would really like much less interference in their ordinary lives but that’s really not going to be understood here?

It could be because so much public administration has been outsourced, so employees are employed by private companies, but directly funded by the state. Such people are no longer civil servants nor local government employees.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Local Government cuts due to government underfunding is the main reason for the reduction in civil servants.

Local government employees aren't civil servants, although they might be included in the statistics.

Divisive and inaccurate!

growstuff

ronib

As usual, the internet gives varying figures… depending on the site. So pretty pointless exercise.

Some fairly ordinary people would really like much less interference in their ordinary lives but that’s really not going to be understood here?

It could be because so much public administration has been outsourced, so employees are employed by private companies, but directly funded by the state. Such people are no longer civil servants nor local government employees.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Local Government cuts due to government underfunding is the main reason for the reduction in civil servants.

ronib

Growstuff no not everyone is a taxpayer. Some people try very hard to earn under the tax band. Not divisive just accurate.

Oh yes they are! Income tax only accounts for about 25% of the Treasury's income. People pay tax on just about everything they buy from insurance to haircuts. They also pay council tax, road tax, fuel tax etc. People who provide you their services "for free" such as teachers and medics pay tax.

The IMF has an agenda of its own and is no more disinterested than our party politicians.

I've followed this thread with interest and tbh I've been concerned that giving pay rises to public sector workers would help fuel inflation but having done my own research I think there's enough evidence to suggest that it wouldn't. Unlike private businesses, public bodies can't increase prices to cover increased employees pay. I think the question is, as a developed society do we want good health care, decent schools, well run services for the most disadvantaged in our society etc etc or do we want to be like the US? I know which type of society I prefer. I think the current govt is taking a political stance but hiding behind an economic one and because so few of us really understand economics, we just don't realise this.

Growstuff no not everyone is a taxpayer. Some people try very hard to earn under the tax band. Not divisive just accurate.

ronib

As usual, the internet gives varying figures… depending on the site. So pretty pointless exercise.

Some fairly ordinary people would really like much less interference in their ordinary lives but that’s really not going to be understood here?

It could be because so much public administration has been outsourced, so employees are employed by private companies, but directly funded by the state. Such people are no longer civil servants nor local government employees.

ronib When you talk about "the taxpayer", why don't you just write "all of us"? Every single person in the UK pays tax, unless they're truly living off grid. Even those who have somebody else pay for everything they consume is using something which has had tax paid on it at some stage in production.

Why do you feel such a need to be divisive and put people in boxes? We're all taxpayers, even those who work in public service.