More Slumping
Question Time is telling tonight. Liam Fox is and will always remain a nasty piece of work. Fox is nasty. Even by Tory standards.
My participation in this project is based on the premise that that So Now Who Should We Vote For people have a shared vision that Liam Fox should not be any closer to State Power than he already is.
Aaaaaaaargh! Liam Fox is the poster boy for NOT TORY! And not anything that helps them in.
Tonight he has an accomplice. Her name is not important. She is a small-stateist. She is out of step with the people of our isles.
No-one is saying reduce the tax take from 40% to 15% of GDP as this woman might want. It's 42, 40 or 38. Or whatever. I'm no Institute of Fiscal Studies. Point is, the tax take proposal is pretty close in percentage terms. The fact that a couple of percentage points may mean £35 Billion pretty quickly. It's still fairly close. For now. At this election. Though really, despite current positions both Tories and Libs would eventually reduce tax to help the better off they rely on, while 'just Labour'® will continue to run up the take in a pretty painless way and might yet run up the rates a shade.
This is what I want. More tax take from top people is popular with me. But promises on super tax from the unelectable are not.
If you did raise £8 or £10 Billion from super tax would you really spend it on the things these Lib Dems propose? This pays for a few of the things in your manifesto CK
- though there are plenty more that aren't funded - but if more and more young people do want to continue in Education how will you afford that?
In Finland 98% stay on after 16 in equally regarded vocational and academic routes. At 18 there is still a 70% opt in.
Fairer local tax is my by-word. But it must surely be based on a combination of wealth and proven income. Not just declared income.
Over and over again the Libs are saying 'progressive' and being regressive. Their Local Income Tax (LIT) sums are appalling. Today at least CK, albeit deranged from Donald's arrival, can't understand it himself.
Ed Davey (architect of the scheme) has proposed - on the record - that Manchester people find 50% of the Council's revenue budget from LIT under his cleverly redistributive regime.
At the moment the local tax take is 17% of that revenue budget. And the tax base is incredibly poor. Poor despite the huge improvements in fortunes these last eight years, and even before that with a Labour council properly resisting Thatcher.
So, let's face it, as CK would say, Ed Davey is proposing a TRIPLING of local tax in Manchester. And by taking out all the property rich but electively low income folk from the equation he is suggesting quadrupling many household bills for middle earners.
Quite different from the numbers they're giving out today. Somewhere along the line their sums are very wrong.
They are now saying that £40,000 annual income per household is the threshold where you are or are not better off in terms of LIT. But this is hopeful. Their own ready reckoners show people being worse off at not much more than half this.
In Melbourne/Victoria/Australia all three levels of taxes are taken out of the wage packet. Allowances are low. And as I recall the tax thereafter is 60%. That's under Tories! Their economy is on the ropes. And in my view this is partly because the home market is small and they won't let more folk in to their wide open spaces.
The situation of the shared house of young professionals, of the pair of key workers, or the extended family unit is clear. Huge tax increases. While millionaires with no direct UK income no longer pay local tax at all under the CK proposals.
In my area Lib Dems *refuse* to engage with questions about local tax. There is no mystery on why this should be.
Clearly progressive tax is sound. But why let off the super rich? Or introduce more constipation in housing, with no-one having to ever leave outsized houses? In fact a single rich person in a 4-bed could cash in a pension that would otherwise arrive as income and then trade up to an out-of-town 7-bed!
Hankering after the old Russian system of virtually no inheritance of accumulated wealth is pointless. But as it stands the Lib LIT may be a factor in increasing inequality when it is being presented as doing just the opposite. These things are complex but it could be that this proposal has all sorts of bad effects.
Council Tax is a highly regressive Tory Tax. Various Labour benefits compensate. But the Lib Dem idea - by taking wealth or land out of the equation and encouraging contrived accountancy on income - well, it is pants.
I'm happy to wait for the Lyons Report and the Brown Government's response. Meanwhile I really do think the vague Lib Dem scaremongering about the revaluation process in Wales needs to me met with three questions :
1. You say that the theory of your scheme makes 50% better off, 25% the same, and the current-income-richest 25% worse off. Fine. In Wales after actual revaluation about 50% are better off, 25% the same and the 25% housing-value-richest worse off. So why are you pretending there's a great difference?
2. Ed Davey said recently that there was no intention to subsidise local authorities more from the centre, and that cities like Manchester would be asked to find 50% of local revenue budget from LIT. Their manifesto does say that £2 Billion of the top rate tax will subsidise local councils. And in this fantasy Lib Dem world where just about everyone is to be better off with LIT isn't there a problem with asking Manchester to treble the tax take?
3. My household is (delete as applicable) five young workers sharing/an extended family with four bread winners/a couple of two key workers earning £45,000 between us and aiming to grow this to £55,000 in five years; we are going to be four/three/two times worse off under your proposals. What's fairer or more sensible about that?
*****
Ming the Lib Democrat is pretty reasonable. David Badiel is witty-ish. Ruth Kelly is not only sharp when she's speaking. But also a very expressive listener and aside mutterer. Though of course I do worry about her. Quite a bit. Opus Dei and all. But she is impressive.
*****
The Politics Show allow Andrew Neill to do a pastiche of the Peter Kay/Tony Christie Amarillo thing in the opening credits. It can only be uphill from here. David Yelland, though Bliar (sic.) fan, is good. Rosie Boycott is an able replacement for Diane Abbott. And Armando Iannuccio has hard questions with no answers.
Sleep beckons.
My participation in this project is based on the premise that that So Now Who Should We Vote For people have a shared vision that Liam Fox should not be any closer to State Power than he already is.
Aaaaaaaargh! Liam Fox is the poster boy for NOT TORY! And not anything that helps them in.
Tonight he has an accomplice. Her name is not important. She is a small-stateist. She is out of step with the people of our isles.
No-one is saying reduce the tax take from 40% to 15% of GDP as this woman might want. It's 42, 40 or 38. Or whatever. I'm no Institute of Fiscal Studies. Point is, the tax take proposal is pretty close in percentage terms. The fact that a couple of percentage points may mean £35 Billion pretty quickly. It's still fairly close. For now. At this election. Though really, despite current positions both Tories and Libs would eventually reduce tax to help the better off they rely on, while 'just Labour'® will continue to run up the take in a pretty painless way and might yet run up the rates a shade.
This is what I want. More tax take from top people is popular with me. But promises on super tax from the unelectable are not.
If you did raise £8 or £10 Billion from super tax would you really spend it on the things these Lib Dems propose? This pays for a few of the things in your manifesto CK
- though there are plenty more that aren't funded - but if more and more young people do want to continue in Education how will you afford that?
In Finland 98% stay on after 16 in equally regarded vocational and academic routes. At 18 there is still a 70% opt in.
Fairer local tax is my by-word. But it must surely be based on a combination of wealth and proven income. Not just declared income.
Over and over again the Libs are saying 'progressive' and being regressive. Their Local Income Tax (LIT) sums are appalling. Today at least CK, albeit deranged from Donald's arrival, can't understand it himself.
Ed Davey (architect of the scheme) has proposed - on the record - that Manchester people find 50% of the Council's revenue budget from LIT under his cleverly redistributive regime.
At the moment the local tax take is 17% of that revenue budget. And the tax base is incredibly poor. Poor despite the huge improvements in fortunes these last eight years, and even before that with a Labour council properly resisting Thatcher.
So, let's face it, as CK would say, Ed Davey is proposing a TRIPLING of local tax in Manchester. And by taking out all the property rich but electively low income folk from the equation he is suggesting quadrupling many household bills for middle earners.
Quite different from the numbers they're giving out today. Somewhere along the line their sums are very wrong.
They are now saying that £40,000 annual income per household is the threshold where you are or are not better off in terms of LIT. But this is hopeful. Their own ready reckoners show people being worse off at not much more than half this.
In Melbourne/Victoria/Australia all three levels of taxes are taken out of the wage packet. Allowances are low. And as I recall the tax thereafter is 60%. That's under Tories! Their economy is on the ropes. And in my view this is partly because the home market is small and they won't let more folk in to their wide open spaces.
The situation of the shared house of young professionals, of the pair of key workers, or the extended family unit is clear. Huge tax increases. While millionaires with no direct UK income no longer pay local tax at all under the CK proposals.
In my area Lib Dems *refuse* to engage with questions about local tax. There is no mystery on why this should be.
Clearly progressive tax is sound. But why let off the super rich? Or introduce more constipation in housing, with no-one having to ever leave outsized houses? In fact a single rich person in a 4-bed could cash in a pension that would otherwise arrive as income and then trade up to an out-of-town 7-bed!
Hankering after the old Russian system of virtually no inheritance of accumulated wealth is pointless. But as it stands the Lib LIT may be a factor in increasing inequality when it is being presented as doing just the opposite. These things are complex but it could be that this proposal has all sorts of bad effects.
Council Tax is a highly regressive Tory Tax. Various Labour benefits compensate. But the Lib Dem idea - by taking wealth or land out of the equation and encouraging contrived accountancy on income - well, it is pants.
I'm happy to wait for the Lyons Report and the Brown Government's response. Meanwhile I really do think the vague Lib Dem scaremongering about the revaluation process in Wales needs to me met with three questions :
1. You say that the theory of your scheme makes 50% better off, 25% the same, and the current-income-richest 25% worse off. Fine. In Wales after actual revaluation about 50% are better off, 25% the same and the 25% housing-value-richest worse off. So why are you pretending there's a great difference?
2. Ed Davey said recently that there was no intention to subsidise local authorities more from the centre, and that cities like Manchester would be asked to find 50% of local revenue budget from LIT. Their manifesto does say that £2 Billion of the top rate tax will subsidise local councils. And in this fantasy Lib Dem world where just about everyone is to be better off with LIT isn't there a problem with asking Manchester to treble the tax take?
3. My household is (delete as applicable) five young workers sharing/an extended family with four bread winners/a couple of two key workers earning £45,000 between us and aiming to grow this to £55,000 in five years; we are going to be four/three/two times worse off under your proposals. What's fairer or more sensible about that?
*****
Ming the Lib Democrat is pretty reasonable. David Badiel is witty-ish. Ruth Kelly is not only sharp when she's speaking. But also a very expressive listener and aside mutterer. Though of course I do worry about her. Quite a bit. Opus Dei and all. But she is impressive.
*****
The Politics Show allow Andrew Neill to do a pastiche of the Peter Kay/Tony Christie Amarillo thing in the opening credits. It can only be uphill from here. David Yelland, though Bliar (sic.) fan, is good. Rosie Boycott is an able replacement for Diane Abbott. And Armando Iannuccio has hard questions with no answers.
Sleep beckons.
posted by Chris Paul at 11:32 PM
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