Wednesday, November 29, 2006
SUMS ?
The SNP's Alex Salmond ( all time winner of the most lost elections ) has decided that a flat tax is a good thing. The usual group of monetary crazies have predictably given their support, one known to us is our old friend 'rightforscotland' no show without punch eh! his logic is that 20% means £200,000 tax for a millionaire and £4,000 tax for a plumber on £20,000 there is a certain simplistic logic to this farce, particularly if you are not political. The millionaire will certainly vote for rightforscotland who will leave him with £800,000 to spend and the plumber with £16,000 - being involved in politics and as a socialist I would leave the former with less and the latter with more. I have the uncomfortable feeling though that I shouldn't have to explain this to our libertarian right wing monetarist, his philosophy is 'the devil take the hindmost' a brutal way to treat people, he's a nasty ! someone told me he claims to be twenty eight, what cruelties must have been visited on him in his childhood to produce this ?
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13 comments:
Oh, yes and totally forgot that flat tax means no other taxes. Business's pay one tax on profits and individuals pay one tax on their wages. No VAT, no tax on fuel (which will help our plumber friend transport his tools as 85% of the pump price in this country is tax), no tax on interest on savings, no stamp duty for buying a house. Your entire contribution to the State is in your wage.
And you fail to note that even before all the indirect taxation is taken into account the plumber is paying £3,300 in tax (assuming a 30% take after a 5k allowance but not taking into account the 17.5% he will pay in VAT or the 85% he will pay on fuel). So in your misunderstanding of true flat tax you have kind of made my point for me.
We will convert you to CFT yet.
rightforscotland - An ex prime minister, Disraeli, said "there are lies damn lies and statistics" I doubt if he was one of your kind of right wingers. We can clarify this by saying I believe in paying taxes and those who can afford it should pay more. That is something which is non negotiable as far as I am concerned, You clearly know your stuff on taxes I'm more comfortable on the principles of taxation, someone wrote a comment ( can't remember if it was you ) complaining that under my taxation methods people like Richard Branson and Cliff Richard would continue to leave and live in the Bahamas. Game set and match to me surely ! Would I be right in guessing that there is an element of selfishness in your comments, are you being hit hard by big bad Gordon? I do hope so.
Again envy politics.
Under my scheme you mentioned about the plumber on £20,000 paying 4k in tax. At present he is paying 6k. How can it be then that you hold him up as an example of the unfairness of my system yet don;t acknowledge that he will be better off than at present? At the end of the day the only thing that matters to the working man is how well off he is.
Yes Brown is shafting me as he shafts everyone else. I have two tax deductions from my salary and I have to deal with the child tax credits. Your default position is that those who can pay more should? Well they would under the flat tax, again we are talking about the same rate not the same amount. When someone earns more they will pay more in tax. If you make a single band of tax you discourage dodging and more money comes into the Government.
Indeed how can you claim Branson should leave the country and then say that people like him should pay more? If you live in the Bahamas then you are paying a lot less. This is why a lot of pensioners are leaving the country, not because they are the middle class but because they are the working class whose meagre income will go a lot further in places with cheaper cost of living.
Tell you what. As a compromise would you back the scrapping of NI and its absorption into PAYE. Lets say we increase PAYE to 30% (so give a little break to the worker) and get rid of the 10% band. Would you not agree that this would be a more efficient way of collecting tax?
Alex Salmond (winner of Banff and Buchan time and time again) quote: "has decided flat tax is a good thing?" Not that I`ve heard, or indeed seen in any press coverage. Perhaps you can link to the story that you are refering to.
The SNP's principles on personal taxation are well know, that they should be based on ability to pay - which is why we plan to replace the current council tax with a local income tax when we form the Executive after the 2007 election.
I would argue that Council Tax is very similar to a flat tax at the moment. A millionaire and a plumber who live in the same street would pay the exact same amount of tax. Not particularly fair and I would have thought against your basic priciples as a self-described socialist?
rightforscotland - yes your figures are right but I could have chose any tradesman on any wage and any tax rate, do you really not see that ? I don't consider Brown to be shafting anyone I think he is far too lenient with the rich, high taxes would be worth paying to get rid of Branston and Cliff, that was meant to be a joke, I might add that I have never known anyone personally, pensioner or otherwise who retired abroad, your analysis of the working man is crude and arrogant,this working man cares about others as well, that's what makes us different.I wouldn't want to compromise with the libertarian right on taxes and I'm behind Brown all the way, you really should try something other than this 'politics of envy' stuff it's pretty sterile.
Davie Hutchison, you are a rare creature, a nat who is prepared to be identified. Salmond has led the SNP to defeat after defeat and was still able to come back and lead them again, with other parties an electoral defeat means a new leader that among other things makes the SNP pathetic. The stuff about Salmond and the flat tax was in a sunday paper recently where he attacked Mike Russell and made him change his book or he ( Alex ) would not let him stand as a candidate, SNP democracy eh ! check it up he said a lot more than that but you will not like it. Perhaps you can reciprocate and tell me where to find the street with the plumber and the millionaire. I do not of course support the council tax. There's a part of me which would like to see the SNP win a clear majority, after a little while they would be finished for good, unfortunately the people would have to suffer under a party which has one policy - hatred of the English.
My parents are pensioners who retired after a lifetime of [poorly paid] public service and they have a lot of friends out there who have done the same.
Certainly, pick any tradesman on any salary and the maths will hold true, they will be better off under a flat tax regime. My analysis of the "working man" is based on your definition of him, my close experience of being one and having a best mate who is a self-employed tradesman and seeing what he and his wife go through to keep a roof over their son's head. I fear that you have some kind of stereotype image of me in your head which is way off. However if you wish to tightly define the working man's lot I would be happy to produce a proposal on how CFT would benefit him and by extension society as a whole.
So you support the tax regime at the moment. One in which Brown can pledge not to raise income tax but then raise NI which is income tax by any other name?
What would you call it when you are attempting to win an argument by ignoring the benefits to an individual but instead forcing a comparison between him and someone else. I do not care that I don't have the cash to spend on the plasma telly my neighbour has, or the Sky Sports, or the flashy car. All I know is that if my lot is eased and I can clothe the pup a little easier I will be content. I will not look on my neighbour and be consumed by envy because MY life (and the life of my daughter) will be better. At the end of the day that is my number 1 priority. But CFT goes beyond that and says "yes I will be better off but so will everyone else" and everyone else will feel the same relief as I would at having more of my money to play with.
On the other hand socialists clearly believe that they can spend their money better than you but with massive IT failures in the NHS and CSA that is what is really condescending and arrogant.
Interesting that you should choose to contrast a millionaire with a plumber earning £20,000 a year - is that your idea of someone at the bottom of the economic heap? It's a matter of perspective, I suppose. Personally, I've spent the majority of my adult life in the productive class (although not at the moment) but I've never had a job that paid that much - at least, not yet. One day I will. In the meantime, why should it bother me if someone is earning more money than me? If a plumber is earning enough money for a nice car and a holiday every year, and Richard Branson has made himself a millionaire, that doesn't hurt me any. Good luck to them both, they earn their money, unlike politicians who live off money extorted from taxpayers. I don't want to punish people for being more successful than me.
That's the difference between a capitalist and a socialist - the capitalist sees a rich man and tries to work out how to emulate him, whereas the socialist robs him and claims to be acting in the interests of "justice".
By the way, thanks for plugging the "Right for Scotland" blog so heavily, I hadn't been aware of this one before. He seems a pretty intelligent, level-headed sort of bloke, I must remember to add his blog to my links next time I'm updating.
It depends what you mean by "spending your money better than you" we have different priorities and that is not about to change, I would spend the wealth of society for the good of everyone and you wouldn't - so what next ? is there any point in carrying on with this? I'm really baffled by your parents and their friends ability to live abroad, no elderly people I know could afford that.
I've erased 'Max' only to find on reading his comment that he'd stopped foaming at the mouth, he's been taking his medication i Think. However I should have published him as he seemed to be trying to make a point about how taxing the rich drives them away and the poor have to pay more, so there ! Friedman, Keynes, Galbraith etc. bow before'mighty Max' god knows I'm no economist but I feel better after reading his comment.
Citizen Stuart - I didn't make the initial comparison between rich and poor 'rightforscotland' did, but you've missed the point anyway. I don't want to comment on the rest of what you say I'll leave it here for people to see, it's an example of the dross I have to put up with.
Cooncillor Kelly - can you appreciate for a minute that Keir Hardie, a socialist far greater than you or anyone else living just now, never led the Labour Party to victory in an election but no one in their right (or left) mind would denigrate him for that alone. Alex Salmond is on course to lead the SNP to victory on 3 May, just as Tracie McGee is on course to win the Elderslie by-election next Thursday and in so doing take Renfrewshire Labour's majority away. So maybe justice will be coming...
Grant Thoms - I'm replying against my better judgement because you haven't addressed the points I made. Is Ms McGee a hypocrite or not? ? and why is Salmond still leader after so many electoral defeats ? have another go if you wish but if you don't try to answer these questions then you won't be published.
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