50p tax: the coalition's most expensive policy

DavidDP

If I understand your overall position correctly, the deficit needs to be addressed.

Now, if Bob Crow threatens to withdraw his member's Labour in protest of the cuts that are being implemented to help do that, he is holding the country to ransom and mustn't be given in to.

But if people decide to withdraw their labour and business over the taxes that are being used to help address it, then they are right and we must give in and do what they want.

Slight double standards at work I think.

TGF UKIP

Back to RR and his pig story.

Meanwhile Fraser, in the most recent S. Times, Martin Ivens was banging on about why your mate Dave needs a Charles/Jonathan Powell figure at his right hand to stop him doing all the daft things he keeps on doing. Interestingly Ivens says that this is because Osborne is too busy as Chancellor, Coulson with media matters (and presumably the Met) "while Steve Hilton is working on a long-term strategy 'to decontaminate the Tory brand'." Now come on Fraser, you're a member of the inner court, so what's the Labour Mole up to and would "decontaminate" be, by any chance, a euphemism?

TrevorsDen

Politics is not just about logic. The public have to be taken on board.
Its a problem but I do not think it can be solved without some significant carrot to the working and middle classes (if there is a difference these days).

At the time I was more than happy to support the 60% rate coming down to 40% and did not see the point of putting it up to 50%, But right now I would not be at all happy to see lower tax rates just for the rich.

The barrow boy bankers and spivs and gamblers who earn these egregious bonuses are a disgrace. The whole banking sector are just one step above scum.
The notion that they cannot get on with their already well paid jobs for a year or two in the entirely extreme circumstances we find without their usual grasping demands is nauseating.

Its views like mine which you read above which constrain the government. I suppose you meet these people in the course of your work Mr Nelson. Please pass on my opinion. Thank you.

Hugo Chav

It is political folly but the Left's daft economic illiteracy rules the waves.

If you want true structural change in this country we must inhibit house price specu;ation and funnel the capital into productive capactity. I believe you do this by creating the Personal Savings Plan, scrap ISA's, SIPP's and phase out corporate and public sector pensions.

PSP - key features:

~No tax relief on money put in to the PSP.
~No tax levied on money taken out of the PSP.
~You can put in as much as you want at any time.
~You can take out as much as you want at any time.
~The money inside the PSP will grow tax free.
~The PSP can invest in cash, bonds, equities and commercial property.

The PSP will give personal freedom and the incentive to save in a simple way.

We need a huge cultural change, it doesn't seem the elite chimps running our system have the faintest.

Dimoto

I think you are preaching to the converted here Fraser. Maybe you should explain this in simpler terms in your newspaper column ?

Of course, the "banker bashing" and the 50% were just mines laid by the outgoing government. Surely they will be abolished in good time.
But some things are just politically impossible for a fragile coalition, it will take time to wean the population from it's Labour-implanted envy obsession, and hopefully, help them see their self-interest.

Gary Williams

Fraser, what do you mean by "stamp duty tax"?

Edward McLaughlin

Any chance we have of getting rid of the deficit, will come from a rejuvination of our ability to make things and do things which will be bought by other nations.

Far from being dependent on the hallowed 'highest paid 1 per cent' over which you persistently beat your meat in public, the real heavy lifting, if it is to come, will be done by those on the shop floors, in the design studios and on the desks of those who earn wages just above subsistence.

One of the first things we must do is jettison the debilitating notion peddled here, that our fortune is purely dependent on the caprice of those who earn most.

If they can help they are most welcome, if not they mun bugger off.

TomTom

Hardly. Simply live between the lines in a Ltd or Plc and dividend out the gravy....that's how they do it. I note you haven't mentioned the Non-Doms who don't even bother with the 50%....just what does Lakshmi Mittal declare for his UK-sourced income ?

Why do Ireland and Britain still retain alone in the OECD a tax regime inherited from The Raj to protect the nabobs of The East India Company ?

Surely we should ask Russian billionaires to pay their way ?

GrahamE

If the UK had in the past directed its resources and talent towards actually making things people want - as does Germany - rather than simply constructing financial instruments, we would not to so reliant on a group of people without any commitment to this country.

Cojock

Absolutely correct that tax on earned income should be drastically cut to maybe 10 to 20%.

What you omit to say is that the richest 0.3% of the population owns two thirds of UK land and 90% of the UK population are in debt to the other 10% who now own almost all of the UK's unencumbered wealth.

I agree with the classical liberal position - from Adam Smith through JS Mill to pinko subversives like Winston Churchill and Lloyd George - that we should tax unearned income and gains from privileged property rights, rather earned income.

The net effect for 90% of the population of such levies - eg a land value tax; a levy on non-renewable resources; a levy on intellectual property; a levy on GROSS corporate revenues in respect of the privilege of limited liability - would be positive. The wealthiest 10% would pay more - in some cases a lot more - than they do now that the greater part of their wealth goes untaxed. Moreover, they could be taxed in a way that would be impossible to escape. They may be mobile, and could leave the UK, but the land they own stays where it is. Other levies on gross revenues arising in the UK could be simply collected through the clearing system.

The savings in the public and private sector administration, and the increases in collection due to the impossibility of avoidance and evasion, would be phenomenal.

Of course, the privileged turkeys who own, manage and milk the country would never enact Christmas, but that does not make the excessive taxation of earned income any more acceptable. It just exposes the neo-liberals currently in power - and the equally culpable neo-liberal New Labour contingent in power for the last 13 years - for the hypocrites they are.

tomdaylight

Too right - for all Labour's erroneous bleating of spending cuts "taking money out of the economy", that's exactly what 50% tax does.

Occasional Ostrich

"far greater than Osborne realises"

Oh, I think he fully realised it. But in the early days of the coalition it was a subject that couldn't be addressed without Liebour spinning it as "taking care of his toff pals"

Like Dimoto, I hope that in 2012 (or sooner, if it can clearly be shown that the treasury has lost revenue instead of gaining it through the 50% tax) it will be dumped.

Think This

This is why I love reading the spectator, genuine economic liberal analysis rather than the dirgism that has ineffected so much of the supposedly right wing press. Please Fraser, sell this message to Cameron and osbourne!

libertarian

@trevors den

What a complete crock of nonsense you spout.

It's you who is the brainless spiv, go away, do some research, find out a least a shred of a semblance of understanding and don't post again until you have, cretin

TrevorsDen

cojock - young people with massive mortgages are in debt whilst old people who own their own houses are relatively massively rich. The 10% 90% guff is just that.

Dear UKIP - if I were you I would be worrying more about all the silly things Mr Farage is doing
http://critical-reaction.co.uk/2802/05-11-2010-ukip-treason-and-plot

Leaving aside all the financial and personal scandals (and the 'strong links' with socialists) we read of Farage...
'his latest Brussels project, a lavishly taxpayer-funded pan-EU party ...executed in the face of an overwhelmingly supported motion at the recent UKIP conference ... Top of the list is ... the Sweden Democrats, a party born out of the Swedish neo-nazi movement, and the extreme-right Flemish party, the Vlaams Belang, with proposed additions from Geert Wilders’ party in the Netherlands and Italy’s notorious far-right Lega Nordent ...'

UKIPs current grouping has dubious far right connections and its going to get worse ... but its keeping Farage on clover.

TGF UKIP

Of course, if you had been entirely frank with your readers, Fraser, you would have pointed out that while this may indeed be sensible economics, re-positioning the Tory brand via what can be portrayed as "progressive fairness" trumps sensible tax policy every time. The 50p band will stay because the Labour Mole requires it to stay.

daniel maris

What you fail to factor in, Fraser, is the great benefits that will accrue from the super-rich moving out of the UK. Firstly all the rich can move up one into the homes of the super-rich.This in turn will free up homes further down the food chain and so on, all the way to one bed flats.

The housing infrastructure will benefit enormously. Building new housing requires huge investment. By b'ing off somewhere else these super rich essentially bequeath us the infrastructure.

Commentator

Britain has the Government it deserves: a soft-left one in succession to its harder left predecessor, because the complacent British refuse to leave their pathetic socialist comfort zone. It's no surprise that having been robbed blind by socialists and their One Nation Tory bedfellows, they still want to hold onto taxation policies which actually deprive the UK of revenue needed to repay its astronomical and growing debts. They then whinge because the bills have to be paid anyway and the burden is therefore heavier on those who are left behind.

normanc

I hereby give this article the nasty stamp of approval.

Which means this has no chance of becoming policy whilst the Cameroons still rule the roost.

It's unfortunate that they put spin ahead of Britain's welfare but it shouldn't come as news to anyone.

We swivel-eyed fruitcakes have been saying this for months. It's nice to see the Spectator confirm that socialism doesn't work.

John David Barnett

The 50p tax rate may be pernicious but it is hugely popular with the public. There is zero chance that it will be scrapped. Which makes this discussion pointless.

True Bred Pomponian

"I define a fair tax system as one where the burden falls greater on the highly-paid"
Surely a fair taxation system is one where we all pay the same, or, at the very least, pay as much as we can afford of our share, since we all benefit from government services.

GDT

@ Commentator.
+1. Totally agree.
This country REALLY needs to roll back the state. The UK is slowly being bled to death by the State. Where does it end? Currently 53% of all economic spending in the UK is by the Government.
Labour tested to destruction the concept that the state can do it all. The coalition is mearly slowing the decline not reversing it. The only logical conclusion is that we are slowly moving to an Orwelian state.
Free people, get the state off our backs. Reward success.

R2-D2

I totally agree that the 50p tax rate is a costly mistake. However, I believe that the child benefit cut may well be more expensive. It affects many more people than the 50p tax rate, and because it makes the effective marginal tax rate ridiculously high, it will strongly encourage people to use all possible measures to avoid getting to the higher rate. This creates an income trap precisely where it has maximum effect on tax revenues. And of course, like all income traps, it will have a massive indirect effect by hindering economic activity in general. Are there any calculations of how much that is going to cost in total?

David Bouvier

I think ostrich is right - the one feature of this government that is coming clear is that they think about the dynamics of opinion, and know that you have to lead the people through an experience, not just present the answer. This is the essence of politics - it is all about momentum.

Once we have had the 50p rate, and once HMRC figures show that it is hurting not helping, it can be repealed with reasonable popular acceptance, LibDem shufflinf of feet, and with Labour having to either agree, look like hard left nutters, or pick a fight with HMRC and the IFS.

There is a lot of rot talked in this thread.

DavidDP - "withdrawing ones labour" is a euphemism for conspiring to extort ones employers. Which is why registered trades union have to have protection from conspiracy charges and tortious damages not available to the rest of us. The bankers and the banks are simply, while fully honouring their contracts, chosing to move house. Was it intended to be cheap rhetoric of no substance, or did you actually believe the comparison?

TrevorsDen "bankers are one step above scum" - really, which ones? Mostly they are smart people working hard in a tough business. You are on a journey - I hope you will come round in time.

Edward Mclaughing - we make more things than we ever did, just with a smaller share of the workforce (machines you know). Just as we make more food than we ever did, with a smaller share of the workforce. This is the nature of capitalist investment and productivity improvement. There are also issues with reclassification of staff (outsorce the canteen and they go from manufacturing to service industry without moving an inch).

TomTom - UK and Ireland are not unique - try being an expat living in Belgium but travelling many days to clients in nearby countries.Nice.

Cojock - you neglect to mention that only 8% of UK land is developed. A few people own very large amounts of scotland and yorkshire because it isn't good for much. A few Dukes and Prince's have the freeholds of large parts of London, which they have made rather nicer than many other parts. And I suppose there are a few thousand major landowners or wealthy farmers who own most of the good farming land. Whar is your point precisely? Should we all be sent back to the fields in a kind of Good Life meets Year Zero?

But the underlying point is good: I have worked over the years with both multinationals and wealthy families on investment issues and the UK is looking increasingly less good as a place to invest. And that's going to be a problem over the next decades. A good reputation when lost is hard to win back. So long as Cameron is seen to be undoing Brown's legacy as fast as he can, we might be OK. If it gets a second priority, our credibility is shot.

Yup there are some rich landowners in the middle, a few thousand perhaps. But so what

Chris lancashire

I am afraid that the 50p tax rate has suffered in the collision between econmic sanity and politically possible. It would be entirely right, on several levels, to reduce the rate to at least 40p. Unfortunately, all on the Left would depict it as the Tories favouring their friends not engendering economic and tax revenue growth which is what it would do in reality.

As for banker bashing I am staggered at the normally sane TrevorsDen which presumably still represents a good body of opinion in the country.
The banking sector remains an advanced and flexible support to the economy - I'm not a banker but the ongoing operation of my manufacturing business depends upon ongoing support from a supportive financial sector.

The doings of a very small number of financial hooligans (coupled with stupid banking supervision and a govt that stoked a bubble - sorry mixed metaphors) shouldn't continue to blacken all of an important and valuable sector.

oldtimer

I agree with your analysis and conclusions.

Whether or when anything will be done about it is another matter. FWIW - which is not very much - Cameron has said he was pragmatic on the issue, implying a change back to a 40% top rate if it was demonstrated that 50% raised less tax revenue.

I believe it is politically impossible for this change to be made in isolation. It can only be made as part of a wider reform and simplification of the tax system.

In this context the decision to press ahead with reform and simplification of welfare benefits - notably the idea of the universal credit - is welcome and significant. The Chancellor now has the opportunity to produce/signal significant reforms to the tax system in his next budget. This is necessary on two counts. Reform, by reduced complexity and c6000 fewer pages of the tax code, is badly needed in its own right. It is also needed to provide greater incentives to earn money through both work and investment to help generate the economic growth on which everything else depends.

The next budget will determine if this coalition government gets it - to borrow a contemporary expression.

Simon Stephenson

Cojock : 8.41pm

You have it right.

Taxation has two purposes, one to fund services best provided collectively, and two to discourage rent-seeking so that it seen to be not worthwhile.

The low-tax supporters appear to fail to differentiate between wealth-creation and money-making, so that rent-seeking is given pari passu status with productive endeavour - all non-illegal activity that makes money is deemed to be of equal status.

Inevitably this has led to a focus on acquiring the medium of exchange - the facilitator of wealth production - with too little attention being paid to the actual production of real value itself.

Commentator

Britain is now a chronically indebted country running on empty which thinks that the world (aka the "rich") owes it a living. The Coalition is about to introduce a further permanent levy on the financial services industry which (a) falls especially hard on groups headquartered in the UK; and (b) adds to the many reasons for not moving people to the UK in the first place and moving them out of the UK when feasible. It also has the perverse effect of enouraging banks to shrink their balance sheets at a time when Osborne keeps braying about the need for more lending.

normanc

Some people here seem to be of the opinion that Dave can't introduce competitive tax policies as we (Britons) are all socialists at heart so the only way forward is to allow socialism to fail then stand up amongst the ashes and say 'And now for something completely different'.

What kind of way is that to run anything?

Did anyone catch the programme on Ch.4 last night? A sound conservative message put forward with clarity and precision. When the film maker was interviewing the socialists they had no answers, just incoherently mumbling talking points. Conservatism beats progressivism every time. Every single time. Wherever it is tried.

Can you imagine if we had a Conservative Party leadership who'd been putting this message forward the last 5 years, instead of the craven submission that we need to act progressively, sharing the proceeds of growth? And now the masterplan is to hit bottom before starting to rise rather than put forward cogent arguments now.

Commentator

normanc, One Nation Tories like Cameron are conservative in name alone. In reality, they are guilt-ridden members of the upper middle classes who think that socialism has all the best tunes....provided that the interests of their narrow caste and their hereditary privileges are fully protected, if necessary at the expense of the middle classes. Clegg is cut from the same cloth.

Tiberius

I can't let you get away with that headline, Fraser.

If Osborne had not opted for the lesser of the two evils in dealing with Brown's cynical 50p tax trap, then he might have been allowing the issue to conribute to Labour being re-elected. That would have cost the country much more than £4.5b.

Now some will claim that an apparently soft policy on 50p tax is a contributing reason why the Tories did not win a majority, with votes drifting UKIPwards. Well as you no doubt know, Matt wrote last week that that the reason they did not achieve a majority was because they had not gone far enough in brand decontamination. He quoted two independent supporting sources, one being Lord Ashcroft. The biggest mistake the Cameroons made in respect of the election result was in being too honest and open about reducing the deficit, not about the TV debates, immigration or Europe.

It's a sad fact that you can't do the economics if you don't succeed at the politics first.

Simon Stephenson

normanc : 11.42am

"Conservatism beats progressivism every time. Every single time. Wherever it is tried."

Mmmmm ... but how much of this is due to it being absolutely superior, and how much to the fact that it's measuring the difference on terms it has constructed itself? What if there's a conflict between overall good and good as indicated by arbitrary measures?

Might it be the case, for example, that what is required to maximise GDP per head leads to a lower level of overall good than a more equitable policy that aims to achieve a lower level of GDP per head?

GDT

@normanc 11:42,
yes i saw the programme on C4 last night [Britain's trillion pound horror story]. A bloody good programme too.
God this country needs a John James Cowperthwaite.
Instead we have a bunch of appartchiks.

Commentator

Ah Tiberius, the famous brand decontamination.....which always involves swallowing the dogma of the left and drifting ever leftwards. Remind me where that gets us to?

richard

Britain behind Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in a list of countries that people want to emigrate to?

That's why we are seeing a flood of Muslim emigrants from the UK to these paradises I suppose.

Come off it Fraser. I support the thrust of your arguement. But dont make us laugh.

2trueblue

The 50% tax rate and the child benefit fiasco tells us everything we need to know about the coalotion, legislation made on the hoof but with a good soundbite. Far better to actually to think it through and get something right. Rather like offering us a referendum on the EU!!! couldn't delivered, did not make his case before walking into the mud.

I am afraid that apart from the cap on levels allowed for housing benefit I can't find any sense so far with our coalition government. We are not all in this together, our MPs are on another planet and our civil service and councils are run by fat cats who also have no idea how we live. The biggest insult is we are paying for it all.

yank

Actually, it's the VAT increase, increased costs for energy and the ecofoolishness, and other such financial burdens that will cost Mr. Osborne his job, ultimately. These are the corrosives of public opinion. Good of Mr. Nelson to provide such high profile spotlighting of the coalition's progressive right-on-ness, but a well shaped media strategy, whilst consistent with Dave's approach to governance, isn't long term sustainable amongst an intelligent people.

You can dither with whatever you'd like, but when the voters come to feel that they are the sheep being sheared, they will respond in the way that one might expect. UKIP or Labor, doesn't really matter which, but they will reject the soggy dollop for sure.

It's sorta like Mr. Miyagi told Daniel-san. "Karate yes or karate no... but karate 'I think so' and get crushed like grape."

This is a good lesson for we here though. The usuals amongst the statists are itching for a national VAT, to be heaped upon all the other taxing mechanisms extant. Seems the American people have a simple yes/no answer for that proposal, however: Lock and load.

The secret that isn't so secret is that this isn't a revenue problem. Here as there, government spending as a % of GDP is going to have to DROP. That is it and that is all.

Wake us when that number moves... if it ever does.

richardj

This was one the most stupid of many of Brown's decisions (agreed by Darling) and it is total folly and gutless of the coalition to continue with it. If more revenue is obtained from a lower rate then surely it is sensible and logical to continue with the lower rate and not pander to the emotional rubbish put forward by the finacially illiterate.

normanc

Simon Stephenson,

I'm not quite sure what you mean. What I meant is that whenever conservative policies are tried, the rich get richer and the poor get richer, there is less poverty, more upward mobility and better services.

You could, of course, argue that everyone side by side toiling in the rice paddies is better as everyone is equal and none is better than any other (except for the ruling class who require a middle lane for their zils, natch) and I daresay for some on the left that argument would appear sound.

This has been tried numerous times before, Cambodia is a striking example, but even accepting that 'it could work if only we had the right leaders' I still stand by what I wrote.

Baron

Fraser, sir, absolutely correct analysis, faultless conclusions, 100% spot on; and GDT @ 8.27 gets in right on what it is that’s killing Britain.

if we carry on allowing the state to account for a growing aggregate spend soon we’ll replicate the now defunct Red Menace constructs of the East with 5-year plans and stuff. The markets here are getting dwarfed by the monopoly of the State, the private sectors are starved of capital to invest, the centrally allocated resources can never rival the decision making of the great unwashed. When this country was in its ascendancy the State consumed less than half of what it gobbles up today.

Richard @ 1.52:

only those who want to suck on the teat of the welfare system prefer Britain, those who can produce the milk find little incentive to settle here.

Edward McLaughlin

David Bouvier

Pardon? 'we make more things than we ever did'?

By what measure? In real terms.

No, I think we know that our manufacturing base has been denuded by successive governments - some misguidedly and others malevolently - to such an extent that we are at a distinct disadvantage in our efforts to export our way out of this crisis. We almost need to start from scratch.

One example: where is our motor industry? Not the specialists and the chickenfeed niche marques, but those who should be loading container ships to go out across the world and earn real money?

Fraser Nelson

Tiberius, I believe there was a third option - to reserve judgment on the 50p, and say a decision would be made when he looked at the public finances. Osborne reserved judgment on the cuts, so such a position was viable. But more important that that question is whether Osborne should accept the effects of all this (the 50p tax, the bonus tax etc) and make a serious attempt to quantify it. And, also, ask how easy it will be to lure them back by cutting the 50p as he doubtless intends to do. I fear he is accelerating a one-way shift of wealth (and wealth-creators) to the east and that repairing the damage will take far longer than he imagined. Above all, I fear that Osborne is in a "see no evil" mode over 50p - and that its political advantages have blinded him to the growing economic damage.

Paddy

normanc: Yes I saw the programme last night.

It should be REQUIRED viewing in every university and school.

Tiberius

Commentator: I suppose it depends on who you think "us" are.

As far as I am concerned, it keeps Labour out of power. Successive leaders before Cameron failed to do that, with near disastrous consequences.

TGF UKIP

Ah, so glad to see you back again Tiberius and in full flow too.

Your relative absence over recent weeks was really beginning to worry me. Indeed, I was starting to think that the enthusiastic espousal and implementation of the Harriet Equality Bill, all the attacks on the middle classes, the looting of the Armed Forces by the African Dictator Shopping Fund, the white flag at Brussels, the re-orientation of our primary defence special relationship from transtlantic to transmanche and the billion pound business tax on energy, I thought that all this might be proving too much for even you to swallow and defend.

I'm so sorry,though, I really should have known better. I'm beginning to realize that such love for his young Lochinvar hath Tiberius that there are no limits to the "brand decontamination" that won't be swallowed.

As it is, my guess is that your alter ego, the Labour Mole, is going to provide you with all the brand decontamination your heart could desire, though I rather suspect it's going to turn out to be a wholescale re-branding which might test even your devotion.

Oh and by the way, with regard to your other old man's infatuation, I suggest you delve into Private Eye's archives for their piece on Bill Deedes, Sir William Rees Mogg and your beloved Matt. It provides one reason for their always referring to him as d'Arsehole.

Dimoto

Yank writes, (with Baron as little echo):
"Here as there, government spending as a % of GDP is going to have to DROP. That is it and that is all".

Well, quite so .... errr, did you actually bother to read the summary of the spending review, at all ?

Other valuable contributors reckon that if we had just kept the National Coal Board, British Steel, British Shipbuilders, British Leyland etc etc in their circa 1980 format, everything would be hunkydory. This would apparently have been "true Conservatism".

And a word to the wise - our motor industry is actually in rather good shape, and is run by those who can ... Americans, Japanese, Germans, Indians and Chinese.
Or would you rather buy BL?

Major Plonquer 1

In his great wisdom, Trevorsden tells us that 'The whole banking sector are just one step above scum.' I agree, Trev. 100%

We are scum. But now we're Hong Kong scum. Here the top rate of tax is 18%. EIGHTEEN PERCENT. Now when British companies need capital they have to come here and beg. It was also nice to meet your Prime Minister and the 'cream' of British industry in Beijing this week. They were all on their knees, cap in hand with their begging bowls proferred to their Chinese masters. Hilarious.

So now, be my guest. Go ahead. Bash the bankers. You've got what you wanted. And the UK is £4,500,000,000 down on the deal.

You are sooooooooo clever, eh?

Tiberius

It's been one of those busy times at the office recently, TGF, and in any case there are only so many times one wants to say to the wolves howling at he moon, that they are wasting valuable oxygen. Hence my admiration for the tireless TrevorsDen.

TGF UKIP

Concluded the trench is no longer defensible have we, Tiberius, and hopped out to do a little sniping instead.

Nice to see your association with Trevorsden being formalised though Tiberius.

Meanwhile, I note your own whingeing wolf doing a little howling.

JohnAnt

"I define a fair tax system as one where the burden falls greater on the highly-paid."
If the 'burden' were proportional to income, I could follow your logic, but what you mean, Fraser, is that you want the burden to fall disproportionately on those who earn above a certain arbitrary figure - and most libertarians would disagree that this is 'fair'. The idea that profits and incomes should be taxed on a parabolic curve is simply the result of state greed and incompetence. To hijack the word 'progressive' for this arrant nonsense is the last straw.
You play with your nice Scottish 'fairness' toy all you want, Fraser, while capital, trade and talent flees the country in droves. You forget that tax jurisdictions - like businesses - operate on the principle of competition.

Tiberius

Did you enjoy your own little sojourn in the bottom three, TGF?

Edward McLaughlin

JohnAnt

Someone who earns £500,000/annum, can rightly be expected to shoulder more tax burden than someone on £50,000/annum, whilst still enjoying a really comfortable life.

It isn't any more complicated or sophisticated than that.

Any capital, trade or talent which feels like thinning out when faced with this, is very welcome to do so. See how long it is under the new regime, before they see what they are missing.

Edward McLaughlin

Major Plonquer 1

I wish you and your low tax rate and your Sky channels all the best out there. Enjoy your view of the world's finest panorama of high rise housing blocks. Maybe order a Chinese?

We'll all miss you down the Red Lion.

JohnAnt

@Edward McLaughlin
You want anyone who earns in the arbitrary higher rate - more than £43K pa - to pay twice as much tax on the marginal amount as someone who earns below £42K. You also want them to be retrospectively taxed double on all their savings. You want someone who earns £150K plus to be taxed another 30% and lose pension.
And your argument is that they can be 'expected' to. And that you find these exponential tax rates fair.
You seem quite fond of taxing others, but I don't think you've realized that many of these people are multilingual, locationally flexible, extremely sought-after, and perfectly capable of moving elsewhere, regardless of what you 'expect' of them. Many already have moved to more competitive tax jurisdictions where taxes are more pragmatically levied - so have many of their companies. More will follow. Many emigrants will be lower rate taxpayers unconvinced that they'll be 'missing' much. And they'll be replaced by - well, by whom exactly? I think we can guess.
Fairness - whether we agree with my linear percentage taxation concept or your exponential one - is no longer an argument, if milkcow taxpayers aren't there any more to tax. The downtrodden masses can break all the windows they want - it just leaves you with more broken windows to mend. Which of course is prefect economics if you're a keynesian! :-)

NotaSheep

Surely the Climate Change bill will cost this country far more.