Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

[SpiderSpurs]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1952822339797737764

 

[Gutter Boy]

Government have to find £41.2 billion in tax revenue or spending cuts in the autumn budget to meet their spending rules according to the NIES. They also state that rises in major taxation (i.e. income tax, VAT) would assist in boosting market confidence and reduce UK bond yields, which are currently at historical highs, and have been pushed higher than they were following the Truss mini budget, following the govt climb down on benefit reforms. The govt risk getting into a vicious cycle of borrowing costs rising and continuous additional tax rises or spending cuts being required just to meet rising interest payments on debt as market confidence in UK government economic competence evaporates.

Align capital gains with income tax. Put the top rate back up to 50%. Job done.

 

[Mikey10]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1952822339797737764

Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway together. Don’t see how the British public could fail to vote in that combination. Seems unfair to ask any other parties to run against them.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

Align capital gains with income tax. Put the top rate back up to 50%. Job done.

I don't think either are realistic candidates to raise the additional revenue required as that sort of significant increase in capital gains would be offset by likely drop in revenue from investments in stocks in the UK as you're effectively making that sort of investment far less attractive particularly versus competitors and you would likely experience an overall drop in economic activity and revenue. Similarly you already have an extremely top-heavy tax revenue stream with income tax providing circa a quarter of all public revenue and over 60% of that provided by the top 10% of earners and 30% by the top 1%. This makes the UK extremely vulnerable as per analysis and market concerns to changes in activity and income in a very small subset of extremely mobile people.

As per the analysis significant increases in income tax and VAT targeting the broader population coupled with significant spending cuts would likely be the route to stabilising market confidence in the UK economy.

All Starmer and Reeves need to do is say "when we said 'we would not raise taxes on working people', this clearly meant those on the lowest incomes and our analysis shows that this group is made up entirely of the unemployed"

The fact that I could actually imagine those very words actually coming out of Starmer's mouth and it doesnt actually feel like too much of a satirical stretch says all you need to know for me

 

[Gutter Boy]

I don't think either are realistic candidates to raise the additional revenue required as that sort of significant increase in capital gains would be offset by likely drop in revenue from investments in stocks in the UK as you're effectively making that sort of investment far less attractive particularly versus competitors and you would likely experience an overall drop in economic activity and revenue. Similarly you already have an extremely top-heavy tax revenue stream with income tax providing circa a quarter of all public revenue and over 60% of that provided by the top 10% of earners and 30% by the top 1%. This makes the UK extremely vulnerable as per analysis and market concerns to changes in activity and income in a very small subset of extremely mobile people.

As per the analysis significant increases in income tax and VAT targeting the broader population coupled with significant spending cuts would likely be the route to stabilising market confidence in the UK economy.

All Starmer and Reeves need to do is say "when we said 'we would not raise taxes on working people', this clearly meant those on the lowest incomes and our analysis shows that this group is made up entirely of the unemployed"

The fact that I could actually imagine those very words actually coming out of Starmer's mouth and it doesnt actually feel like too much of a satirical stretch says all you need to know for me

We're the most socially unequal country in western europe, so tax the poor?

Abolishing the triple lock and merging NI into income tax are other things that would help a lot.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

We're the most socially unequal country in western europe, so tax the poor?

Abolishing the triple lock and merging NI into income tax are other things that would help a lot.

On what measure are we the most socially unequal country in western Europe? The gini index is the most widely used assessment of wealth inequality and in the last assessment, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece and Luxembourg were all rated worse than the UK and Germany had exactly the same score as us.

The world happiness report attempts to measure living standards and UK ranked above France, Spain, Portugal, Greece etc in that report.

Just for example.