Surely we must pay more taxes!?

Absolutely, keepingquiet.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

These are the principles of fair taxation we seem to have forgotten...

Menopauselbitch - I suppose you know that the "money to China" is actually our funding of the British Council, Human rights work, Climate change work, GAMRIF (research into antimicrobial resistance), DFID (though this work has changed recently) and a host of other things.

We are not just handing cash over to China!
We are working for the benefit of our own people.

With HS2 or airport expansion I have to ask the question WHY do we NEED to travel more?.

We have electronic communication and entertainment we simply don’t, most journeys are discretionary, we WANT to make them. Many commute long distances because they want to live elsewhere, I don’t understand the economic need for HS2 very few are going to commute using it, it’s all discretionary travel producing CO2 that we should be reducing

pascal130 I agree.

M0nica

We do not need HS2. It is a complete white elephant channeling much needed money from being invested elsewhere in the rail network.

The money invested could hav improved the line to Birmingham in a fraction of the time, and given more trains travelling fast. It culd also have improved the East coast line and several other lines.

I agree with you about HS2.. we also don't need extra runways at Heathrow and Gatwick IMO

M0nica

Mizie an interesting discussion of wealth in macroecconomic terms, but unfortunately irre;evant when discussion who are the walthy who should pay more tax.

HMRC to not dealin economic theory they deal in £s and p. At what income are people deemed wealthy and require to pay extra tax and, if we have a capital tax, at what level should it start and how should it grow, if at all.

It’s up to the government to determine the £s & p of what they should tax, not HMRC. Macroeconomic analysis, such as Pikety’s extensive study is there to inform them of both the appropriate targets for taxation and the sociological consequences of their tax policies.

Even without determining a ‘wealth level’, such as you are demanding, there is scope for creating a more level playing field by equalising tax rates across all sources of income, whether it is labour income or rentier income (ie income derived from assets rather than employment). Also, as growstuff notes, for making taxation truly progressive , which it isn’t at present.

It would be possible to generate more tax revenue by these means without affecting those at the lower end of the of ‘scale’ because, in the first instance, only the already wealthy, either through a large share of labour income or by having income from capital (or both) have the opportunity to to ‘manage’ their tax affairs so as to take advantage of differential taxation.

To go from Pikety’s analysis (though he does provide suggestions for effecting a more equable system) to Murphy’s more recent Taxing Wealth Report provides some numbers. It is worth noting that the two authors’ proposals are very similar.

Pikety has a very telling quote from J. Wedgewood who was writing in the 1930s about inheritance.He noted that what he termed ‘plutocracies’ (where wealth is heavily skewed to the upper percentiles of the population) and their hereditary elites had failed to stem the rise of fascism. He warned that “Political democracies that do not democratise their economic systems are inherently unstable”. In view of the current rise of far right populism in Europe and the US his warning seems as valid now as it was in the 1930s. This is the social consequence of glaringly obvious wealth inequality which I think we should be taking steps to address.

For numbers I suggest that you read some of this MOnica

taxingwealth.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Taxing-Wealth-Report-2024-Full.pdf

I would suggest a multiple of average salary but that is a crude measure that doesn’t entirely cover capital wealth.

growstuff

M0nica

Mizie an interesting discussion of wealth in macroecconomic terms, but unfortunately irre;evant when discussion who are the walthy who should pay more tax.

HMRC to not dealin economic theory they deal in £s and p. At what income are people deemed wealthy and require to pay extra tax and, if we have a capital tax, at what level should it start and how should it grow, if at all.

If a tax is genuinely progressive, there would be no need for a finite threshold.

How would that work?

We do not need HS2. It is a complete white elephant channeling much needed money from being invested elsewhere in the rail network.

The money invested could hav improved the line to Birmingham in a fraction of the time, and given more trains travelling fast. It culd also have improved the East coast line and several other lines.

We still need HS2. Our train network is archaic.

I'm afraid that now we are just weeks away from the new tax year we will have to brace ourselves for EVERYHING going up.
And I find it puzzling trying to work out why my Council Tax bill has been charging a Social Care Precept year upon year and yet social care diminishes year after year, to the point of being broken and on it's knees in my area.

Defence or Social Care? The financial mathematics are impossible.

If only these two categories were given the same priority as HS2 - unbelievable amounts of money were thrown at that White Elephant.

As anybody could suffer from something the NHS won't treat and anybody can experience mistakes, I assume you think that everybody should have the means to afford private healthcare.

M0nica

Mizie an interesting discussion of wealth in macroecconomic terms, but unfortunately irre;evant when discussion who are the walthy who should pay more tax.

HMRC to not dealin economic theory they deal in £s and p. At what income are people deemed wealthy and require to pay extra tax and, if we have a capital tax, at what level should it start and how should it grow, if at all.

If a tax is genuinely progressive, there would be no need for a finite threshold.

There are now a long list of conditions that the NHS will not treat.

And what happens when an NHS doctor refuses to refer you for porper treatment.

I was misdiagnosed as having a TIA, even though I knew it wasn't because I had had the condition before on the right side of my body and had successful treatment. The doctor I saw refused to refer me to an appropriate specialist. She had made her diagnosis and that was that.

In the end I saw a doctor privately, who confirmed the misdagnosis and successfully treated me for the real problem.

Mizie an interesting discussion of wealth in macroecconomic terms, but unfortunately irre;evant when discussion who are the walthy who should pay more tax.

HMRC to not dealin economic theory they deal in £s and p. At what income are people deemed wealthy and require to pay extra tax and, if we have a capital tax, at what level should it start and how should it grow, if at all.

In short, I disagree that people are obliged to explain or defend their choices,escaped. Not to me, anyway. Sometimes I think that can get lost in translation online, as recent personal attacks on me may have shown.
I think on GN Doodledog that others do sometimes feel the need to defend their choices, because of the insults that are written back to them about their decisions. I'm sorry you've had personal attacks. I have certainly received many on the subject of private education for my family, so of course, I will take the time to explain /justify those choices. (Only to probably incur yet more criticism!) 😆

Doodledog

Also - if my friend is going private I don’t disagree with her doing so as she is in pain and the wait has been long. What I disapprove of is the two-tier system, not the people driven to using it.

Fair enough!

I well understand, knee pain is debilitating.

FTR I knew you weren't attempting to make others justify or defend their choices, just writing thought provoking points.

Also - if my friend is going private I don’t disagree with her doing so as she is in pain and the wait has been long. What I disapprove of is the two-tier system, not the people driven to using it.

A friend of mine is having a TKR in a couple of weeks. It is in a private hospital but may be happening on the NHS, as some operations in private hospitals are. I don’t know, as I haven’t asked and she hasn’t said.

It’s none of my business, and I would only know whether someone went private if they told me, and would only know their motives if they told me those. In ‘real life’, as I try to do on here, I am forthright in my opinions but respect people’s privacy. I will happily discuss politics in the abstract, but hope I would never criticise someone’s choices directly. We all do what is right for us at the time.

It’s true that in any discussion of politics abstract ideas will apply to individuals eg my friend knows that I would prefer to see private medicine abolished as we have discussed this before and she has said that she feels the same.

Obviously if she has made a choice to jump the queue because of the pain she is in she will know that I disapprove in principle but it is not my place to approve or disapprove of her personal choice. If she said that she was going private to ease queues in the NHS, however, I would have to point out that she knows that is rubbish 😀

In short, I disagree that people are obliged to explain or defend their choices, escaped. Not to me, anyway. Sometimes I think that can get lost in translation online, as recent personal attacks on me may have shown.

I know you're not singling anyone out, Doodledog, but in this day and age, you do sometimes feel obliged to explain or even defend your choices. There is certainly more one-upmanship around in general, but by illustrating their choices on here, I hope that posters aren't being seen as superior or uncaring. That isn't the case, and from what I understand, they have already paid/are paying a very healthy amount of tax on earnings or on their inheritances where due. They're not justifying it, but maybe just giving an insight?

Doodledog

I don’t think anyone has to justify it. I’m just saying that many do.

Curious. Not anything apart from interest.

Is posting "I believe using private medical may relieve pressure on the NHS" an attempt at justification? Or merely logic to me?

FTR our 4 TKR were in NYC - not any part to NHS.

I don’t think anyone has to justify it. I’m just saying that many do.

are

GrannyGravy13

Why would anyone have to justify what they spend their surplus money on?

I say surplus as necessary bills (including taxes) along with feeding and clothing one’s dependants first should be a given.

Nobody has to justify their spending of surplus money. It seems money and spending are cause opinion to vary widely.

😊