There is to be no surprise tax rises by Labour

MaizieD

Oreo

AGAA4

I have no confidence in any of the promises made by either party at this time. I treat all promises and "plans" with equal cynicism.

Me too ☹️

Whitewavemark2 you seem to be love bombing the threads with claims about Labour being the next second coming.
I’ll be voting for them as usual but think you’re doing more harm than good with all this.🧐

I think she's trying to supply information for the posters who say they have no idea what Labour policies are.

It also gives a chance for people to discuss something meaningful, as opposed to wizard wheezes drawn up on the back of a fag packet.. like national service and priority personal tax allowances for pensioners.

Exactly!

MaizieD part of our business is PPE (medical and industrial grade) and I can totally understand why our Government and many others were looking at all avenues to procure it.

We were in a situation whereby all PPE was removed from our stores to other places as there were attempted burglaries.

It really was dog eat dog and the Government was looking at vast quantities and needed them quickly.

There you have it, Maizie, from the horse’s mouth (with great respect to GG who I doubt looks remotely like a horse).

Georgesgran

No surprise tax rises, but no doubt they’ll give us plenty of warning so we won’t surprised.

My thoughts too.🤣🤣🤣

Quoting WWM2

"To further improve the tax system they intend to focus on digitalisation of the tax system to generate ‘productivity gains’ for businesses through:

Reducing the complexity of the tax system for businesses;
Minimising the amount of data they need to provide to HMRC; and
Improve the accuracy and speed of record-keeping."

HMRC is now run by computer "experts" who know little about businesses, especially SMEs who make up the largest proportion of businesses in the UK.

As some of you know I specialise in tax, mainly for artists, most of whom do not have large incomes. Several of them are still working, past the normal retirement age and have little knowledge of computerised accounting systems. Some of them manage to prepare spreadsheets but some still provide me with hand written books and/or bags of receipts and bank statements.

HMRC want everyone to prepare records linked directly to bank accounts. The cheaper end of the accounts package market are not that code and when business people prepared their own accounts and tax returns they often make errors, sch as include capital equipment as an expense, which it is not.

HMRC try to present the changes as a benefit to the self employed and they also want to interest quarterly payments on account, rather than the existing system.

HMRC use Fujitsu computers and some of that company's staff to maintain the system. We all know what happened to the Post Office.

There have been long delays on the helplines, not only for taxpayers themselves but also on the agent's helplines. When one manages to get through often the staff do not know the answer to the query.

There are long delays in waiting for tax refunds. I have clients that I have told I do not have time to wait for a phone line to be answered. It is not unknown to wait over an hour.

From the various professional fora it is apparent that many think that HMRC is trying to get rid of the advisers like myself. We are not trying to fiddle the system, just trying to help our clients get the best outcome. We have studied for many years in order to do this.

In the dim and distant past I worked for one of the Top 3 firms in the UK. The department specialised in the taxation of the partners and the system was very complicated. This was back when the firm's business records were kept on large computers in special rooms. Our department had a specially made black box for keeping the partners' records. We had a dedicated tax inspector in London to whom we could talk which on occasion was very helpful.

Apologies for the length of this which most of you will probably find boring but I and many of my fellows are angry and frustrated.

I think posters are grown up enough to find out Labour’s policies for themselves without somebody starting multiple threads including ten year old ‘dirt’ on Ian Dale.It smacks of desperation when Labour don’t need that or Labour activist shoving info down posters throats.It really grates so will have to do my best to avoid it.

The threads extolling the virtues of Labour are actually making me doubt them more.

AGAA4

The threads extolling the virtues of Labour are actually making me doubt them more.

I know what you mean…

Thank you Dinahmo. That was very interesting. I have an accountant but can only describe my few interactions with HMRC on behalf of clients as dire. Labour would have us believe that, by giving HMRC more staff, money from tax evaders will come rolling in. I would hope that most people know that tax evasion often takes a ver

I agree Oreo. The same thing happened in the run up to the EU referendum and the last General Election too.

It was incessant, as it is now.

… a very long period of inquiry, which is very heavy on staff time, to uncover - and even then the evader insists, often despite professional advice, to try their luck in court. Any significant income from tax evasion, on which some of Labour’s plans depend, will take a very long time to come through.

As regards the imposition of VAT on school fees, the view is that this will involve the passing of primary legislation as throughout the VAT regime the provision of educational services is an exempt supply. Yet more promises depend on this source of income.

I look forward to seeing Starmer, Reeves & co properly grilled on some of these things. And as someone who lives in the countryside where most are dependent on gas and oil for heating and cooking (I’m the exception with an air source heat pump), I would like to ask what they would do for ^us.

I fear too many people are too gullible and don’t ask questions .

Germanshepherdsmum

Think about what the tax burden consists of, and which of those taxes either didn’t exist or didn’t affect the vast majority of people 50 years ago.

Not quite true.

William Pitt first introduced income tax in 1799

There was once a window tax

Purchase tax was introduced in 1940 and became VAT in 1973

Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax introduced in 1965.

Alcohol duty first introduced n 1643

Petrol duty introduced in 1908

PAYE introduced in 1944

All of the above have existed in some form or other for longer than 50 years. The only one I can that wasn't was the Poll tax, introduced by Thatcher - but we did pay rates prior to that.

In the good old days it was fairly easy for people to put undeclared income into building society accounts. The interest on any account with a balance of less than £1k was not declared to HMRC.

That’s true Dinahmo, but now we have VAT on all supplies unless exempt, adding 20% to the cost even of some land and buildings. I well remember the nightmare of VAT on property being introduced.

there is to be no surprise tax rises under Labour

No surprise, just the anticipation of how much and when..

GrannyGravy13

^there is to be no surprise tax rises under Labour^

No surprise, just the anticipation of how much and when..

Can you explain to me why taxation is so high under the Conservative Party? Oh don’t tell me. Ukraine, Covid etc etc

MayBee70 they are definitely too high under the Conservatives, which is why I am against them going any higher when/if Labour have enough votes to form the next government.