general election on june 8th

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board' started by jedi one, Apr 18, 2017.

  1. DSLRed

    DSLRed Well-Known Member

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    Absolute top post.

    This paints a vivid picture of exactly what is so wrong about Labour's policies and why they are such a scary proposition. Basically, the narrative from Labour is that everyone who runs a business is a rich tory toff who needs to be whacked with as much tax as possible. They are pointing at the likes of Mike Ashley and making out that he is representative of every business owner in the country. Well, no, simply not true.

    The reality is that millions of people in this country are employed by small businesses who employ between 1 and 50 staff.
    People who make sacrifices to start their business, and then continue to do so to try to make it successful.
    People who take risks with their financial health to ensure that it is successful, who put many many unpaid hours in. Many people will take little or no salary for all their effort because they need to make sure everybody else gets paid before they can allow themselves to be paid.

    Any if they are then successful, they are not the devil, they deserve their success and any material rewards that may come with it.

    The message that people get from listening to Labour and seeing the policies that they adopt is that anyone who is successful is a leach on society - success is to be frowned upon. It makes my blood boil and is why I hope to God they never get anywhere near power. They would utterly ruin the country. Such left of centre policies are fine in the debating chamber when a few bits of tax here and a bit of money spent there would make the world perfect, but they have no place in the real world.

    The talk is that people who earn more than 70k would fall into a new top tax bracket, because they are "rich". In what world is someone who earns 70k a year rich?
    It is just the politics of envy. Nothing changes.
     
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  2. BFC Dave

    BFC Dave Well-Known Member

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    Since 2016/17 owners of family companies who are paid up to the threshold for higher rate tax are £2,025 pa worse off as a result of the dividend tax. I'm not going to argue whether it is fair or not, I just cannot believe that a Conservative chancellor introduced it. Together with the abolition of higher rate interest relief on buy to let properties it seems that Osbourne liked kicking his core voters.
     
  3. JamDrop

    JamDrop Well-Known Member

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    I was interested to read the rest of your post DSL as I'll admit to never giving much thought to small business, not being a business owner myself and it's always good to see things in a new light.

    You're having a laugh though if you think someone who earns more than a 70k a year isn't rich. They may not be a millionaire but they are certainly earning enough to pay extra tax on the part of their salary above that threshold (assuming it works the same as now so they'll only pay the new tax rate on any wage they make over the 70k.)
     
  4. dek

    dekparker Well-Known Member

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    he's not having a laugh jd,i know some folk who earn these kind of figures but they dont live around here,they live in areas where houses and rents are quadruple to what people pay around here.
    70 k would be a cracking wage around here and is something most working class folk can only dream of,but in some parts of the country it buys them a slightly above average lifestyle and chances are those that do earn these figures are working very hard to achieve it.
     
  5. PLOBBY

    PLOBBY Well-Known Member

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    70k a year isn't that much , ask Josh Scowen :)
     
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  6. Sco

    Scoff Well-Known Member

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    But would an extra 5-10% on anything above 70k put them in the workhouse, or would they just have to reduce their discretionary spend? For someone earning £80k, 10% tax would be an extra £84 a month in tax. That is maybe 50p per hour. It is not like the suggestion is a maximum wage of 70k - although I would support a maximum wage of a multiplier of the average annual wage per month :)
     
  7. dek

    dekparker Well-Known Member

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    tell you summat DSL,if i started and took into account the work i do that is unpaid i'd probably finish up throwing myself in the cut...bookwork,vat returns,staff paye's,etc etc,add all this lot up and i've above ten hours a week,week in week out doing work that earns me nothing..We even used to have to pay our staff their tax credits then **** about claiming it back from the government...i had staff on 30 odd hours a week but as soon as the tax credits came in they wanted 20 or 16...now the tax credits are disappearing they want more hours in the shop.you couldnt make it up.
    i remortgaged my house and used every cracker of my pit redundancy to start in business and now i'm earning less a hour than my staff that just turn up on an evening when me and our lass have done 10 hours and seen to all our deliveries..
    theres nothing in running your own retail business anymore,i suppose you could employ nobody and keep everything for yourself,work from 6.30 am to 9 pm everyday,but if you've got no staff what happens if you are i'll or want a weeks holiday...er,you cant,simple as..
    in the 20 years i've been here i've had 16 pins in my leg and plates and pins in my arm after a RTA,i've had cancer and last year i had two discs took out of my neck and the only time i've been off work was when i was laid in hospital...luckily i can draw my pit pension whenever i feel the need,so if the minimum wage does go to 9 or 10 quid then i'm off,**** it..The shop will be bought by asians who employ nobody so there'll be another 4 lasses out of work,five if i include our lass,all as a direct result of the wage increase.
    as i've said you cant magic cash out of thin air.
     
  8. JamDrop

    JamDrop Well-Known Member

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    Yes I understand that, but they would only pay the higher tax on the wage they get above the 70k mark, the first 70k would be taxed at the same rates as now.
     
  9. dek

    dekparker Well-Known Member

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    not got a problem with a bit of extra tax scoffer,i was just pointing out that 70k doesnt mean you are rich ;-),
     
  10. Sco

    Scoff Well-Known Member

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  11. BFC Dave

    BFC Dave Well-Known Member

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    Anyone earning above £100k has their personal allowances removed at £1 for every £2 above £100k. If you earn £100k the tax (not including national insurance) is £29,200. If you increase that to £120k then the tax is £42,400. The tax on the extra £22k is £13,200 or 60% on that element.

    Now I don't think this will affect many in Barnsley or the majority of the country outside the city of London, but if they were to reduce that withdrawal level to £70k it could have a devastating effect on anyone who had commitments such as South of England mortgage etc.
     
  12. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    This is NOT what's being said and indeed Corbyn spoke at the FSB recently about how small business was part of the economy we need. The ones on the cross hairs are the Mike Ashley's and Phillip Green's who consistently and persistently rip off the nation and their workers. It's time to stop them.
     
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  13. Jimmy viz

    Jimmy viz Well-Known Member

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    They should raise the minimum wage to what they think is a genuinely liveable level (without a tax credit top up) and should use the money not spent on tax credit to assist small businesses in paying the living wage.

    As a tax payer I don't want to be subsidising A FTSE top 50 company like Capita in paying low wages. They can shave some of profits. They can pay a genuine living wage (whatever that is) and the money saved on tax credits can be channelled to assist SME's to pay their staff equivalently. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

    I have to say though my missis runs a small business (cafe) and paying the NLW far in advance of being told to has actually helped her in terms of staff retention though I appreciate your situation is different her approach is if you can't afford to pay people a decent wage that they can live off then it's best not to employ them.
     
  14. dek

    dekparker Well-Known Member

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    troubler is when legislation is brought in,whether that be written law or the living wage it makes no difference whether you are mike ashley or a sole trader in barnsley,we are all expected to abide by the same rules?..
    what sort of business is it jimmy?
     
  15. Jimmy viz

    Jimmy viz Well-Known Member

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    Cafe/bagel shop. Employs 10 mostly p/t
     
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  16. DSLRed

    DSLRed Well-Known Member

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    In London, anyone who has done relatively well and is in a qualified profession is close to that limit - I know of people who are rank and file Finance staff in colleges and universities who are on 50k+ and secretaries or Personal assistants on 35-40k. Middle management is all it takes in London to reach the £70k threshold. Their housing costs are beyond belief - £1500 a month to rent a 1 bed flat. They are not rich.

    Without giving too much detail, I am not too far from that limit myself when bonuses are added on. No way do I consider myself to be rich. Fair enough, I am relatively comfortable, but I have a sizeable mortgage, and like everyone else I have to save up for holidays or other big purchases because I can't just pull a couple of grand out of my back pocket. I am not rolling in money, and I tell you what, I work damn bloody hard for every penny I get. Taking both tax and NI into account, as they are both taxes, I already pay 50% of every penny above the approx. £44k - just how much of what I earn do you think it is acceptable to hand over?. You may say I can afford it, but only by cutting back elsewhere, which is money that is not going into the economy then when I spend it. There is only so much money, it doesn't magic itself up.

    If such a threshold were to be introduced, and a bit of pay rise took me over that limit, so that above that limit, every extra ounce of effort means 40% for me and 60% or more for the government, then I would do what many other people would do and start reducing my hours so I was back under the limit, thus reducing the overall tax take of the country. I could do with starting to work less and live more, and I am ****** if I am going to work my ass of for the government to take even more than they already do.

    I don't understand this often quoted notion that people who earn more than average don't pay their fair share. 40% of not much is like 40% of more - its still 40%. What's not fair about that? Making the tax percentage higher for higher earners is reducing the fairness in my book, they earned that money and to take the same percentage of it as is taken from others is fair. When the actual numbers are looked at, the amount in readies that is paid in tax when you earn say over £100k is an awful lot of money.

    I once saw a picture of a payslip for Carlos Teves - the "Tax year to date" column had a figure in it measured in millions. Was he not paying his fair share?. There is a different argument about how ridiculous his salary is in the first place, but having been paid that, I think that the amount he paid back out in tax was certainly fair - it was more than I would pay in my life.

    I understand the concept, and am prepared to agree with it, that there are matters of public importance upon which we should spend more money - social care being the most pressing one. But if we accept that we need to pay more tax to properly fund certain areas of public expenditure, then we should ALL be paying it. The burden should not all be placed on higher earners because of some misguided notion that they are all rich.
     
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  17. JamDrop

    JamDrop Well-Known Member

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    I would happily pay more tax and have never begrudged any of the amount that I have paid. I still believe people who earn over 70k are rich though, they just don't recognise that they are because they live to their means and so don't have a lot of disposable cash. Obviously, it depends what your definition of rich is but I feel most people are pretty well off but just have so many unnecessary luxuries in life and such high expectations they feel much poorer than they truly are.

    The argument about how hard people work for that money is a separate matter and not something I really want to get into apart from to say that a lot of people work ridiculously hard too but don't earn such a high amount. I was killing myself working almost 70 hours a week for the past 6 years but didn't earn even half of that. Junior doctors work incredible hours but don't earn anything like that. More money doesn't always mean more effort.
     
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  18. DSLRed

    DSLRed Well-Known Member

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    Well that's certainly the message I receive, loud and clear. Businesses are evil - got it.

    To give an analogy, there is often discussion / argument on here about how evil the Tories are because they stigmatise people claiming benefit, with the hidden message that everyone on benefits is cheating the system. Patently not true of course, but it has been said many times on here that this is the subliminal message that is fed out.

    Well, the same is true of Labour's message on business. All I hear is about how they don't pay their fair share and they are all cheats. In reality, there are not many Mike Ashley's and the amount of time spent stigmatising them is completely disproportionate to the number of people involved. The vast majority of people who run businesses are not like that, but they are the backbone of this country, employing millions of people. Placing additional burdens or levies on businesses affects these people the most and the losers are the people they no longer can afford to employ because of it, just like dekparker indicated, and therefore the country's economy as a whole. Such policies are fit only for debating chambers because they do not take into account the principles of cause and effect. Like I said above, if you start unfairly targeting and taxing me more, my response will just be to work less, to the detriment of the economy. We have seen that effect in France, where as soon as Francois Holland got in and started taxing high earners to death they all pissed off to London.
     
  19. DSLRed

    DSLRed Well-Known Member

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    We clearly have different definitions of what constitutes "rich" then. Like many on here, I have a decent house in a pit village, drive a reasonable car and take 2 fairly bog standard holidays a year. If that makes me rich then you're having a laugh.
     
  20. JamDrop

    JamDrop Well-Known Member

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    I think that's very true. I am meaning rich in the loosest possible sense but I do think someone owning a decent house, a reasonable car and taking two bog standard holidays a year is. That's all anyone needs and if you have everything you need in life and more then I think you can be classed as "rich". As I've said before, not sure if it was in this thread or not, but I live very simply and maybe I've studied history too much, I don't know, but the things people have now compared to not all that long ago is staggering. Sometimes I look around my small 1 bed flat and think how lucky I am to have somewhere to live just my husband and I, without having to share a house with my family to be able to afford to eat. I never struggle to make rent, we run 2 basic cars, we can afford to go out to eat fairly regularly plus we've been on some amazing holidays these past few years and we don't make 70k with our wages combined (we make just over 40k now I've changed jobs but I'm talking about before). I know one person making 70k is taxed differently to two people making that because of the non-taxable allowance but if one person in the relationship is making 70k then there is most likely going to be a partner making more to add to that total. If the person is single, then being able to afford a full house all to yourself if still rich by my standards.
     

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