50p tax rate is raising less than expected

2trueblue

Amazing that we have actually ended up with a surplus at this stage in the game when you consider that unemployment has grown in every sector and still the takings are more than expected. Amazing that our negative media have not stated that simple fact. The fact that we are in this position is a very positive sign. Labour will no doubt come out with something and the old BBC will have a negative slant on it, what else would you expect?

john gerard

Raising less than expected? Are the calculators working at HMRC? Surely this can't be true, a cruel joke played by the Gods of Fate on the plucky little Lib Dems?

The top rate on earned income should be no more than 20%. That's more than generous enough.

telemachus'

Predictable Telegraph peddling the standard excuse of the rich who do not wish to contribute to the turnround of the deficit

Fergus Pickering

Whereas, telemachus, all the poor (e.g. you and me) are clamouring to contribute our shillings. Every panny in tax is extorted from me unwillingly. How is it with you?

telemachus'

Fergus.
Me, I see a Chancellor egged on by the right wing press feathering the nests of the rich while you and I have to think how many minutes(sic) we can afford to put the central heating on this week
Fortunately it is a bit warmer today!

David L

Even for the Brown Government the 50p tax rate was not so much an economic measure, more a symbolic gesture to the gods of austerity - rather like slaughtering a goat. It would make sense to remove it, but politically it wil have to be done within a bundle of other tax reductions - and it's not yet possible to make those reductions. But I predict it will be gone by the next election.

Nicholas

And predictable pro-Labour mouthpieces peddling the standard soundbite of the noisy socialist collective who think the answer is all in the intent and not the result.

Pot Head

I agree that the 50p tax rate is a silly idea, but if you a want a "potent message that Britain is once again for business" get rid of the literally closed for business sign hung around Britain's neck, the unfreemarket Immigration cap

telemachus'

May I refer titan to 2 replies to Pete's 9.04 post of yesterday. Namely the 11.18 comment and the 13.52 reply clearly the antithesis of above regurgitated revanchism.
PS the comments on the cosy new wall are also NOT true.

TrevorsDen

If, tech, the tax is not raising any revenue then what is the point? You merely expose your thick bigotry.

The deficit will not be removed by taxation but by enterprise.

Nick

There is no data available yet as to whether the 50p rate is raising or not raising money.

The ridiculous Telegraph article even mentions this and says all self-assessment forms aren't in yet so it is impossible to know the full impact.

tom jones

I'm on the fence on this issue because I see both arguments. It would look terrible if we were seen to be helping the rich over the poor by axing the 50P rate. Try telling a working class voter that upping taxes on the rich doesn't raise money. They'd think we're lying through our teeth. But also, I see the need for Britain to be more business friendly than we have been for years and I think a sensible thing to do would be to cut the top rate to 45P so that we can politically say "Labour had a 40P tax rate for 12 of 13 years. The richest pay more under us than under Labour" but it'd also send a signal that the tax rates will be coming down in the coming years (as growth returns) and I think sometimes a comprimise like this is the best route to take. Also, I agree with taxing wealth over income and I agree with cutting taxes for all and not concentrating just on those at the top. Let's not play into Libdem/Labour hands by cutting to 40P. Most people on 50P won't be voting Labour or LibDem anyway in 2015. They're well educated and well educated people don't vote for lefties.

Nicholas

telemachus, I realise you labour under the need to hide behind a pseudo-nym but my name is not "titan" it is Nicholas. If you can't bring yourself to address me correctly then please don't address me at all, thank you.

As for revanchism (almost as tedious an inappropriate cliché as "dog-boiling") it is not, nor ever will be, synonymous with conservatism or the right wing, however much you parrot it.

On the other hand "head against brick wall" (or repeat the same mistakes ad infinitum) obstinacy in assertions which have clearly been negated by experience and the empirical evidence does appear to be synonymous with a leftist collective viewpoint.

The comments on the "cosy" new wall might or might not be true, but it is a delight that you can't post there and have to articulate your window licking lurking here!

francbanc

Maybe Socialists want the higher rate of income tax to be between 80 and 90 odd percent like it used to be. We know the greedy, fat rich people are good for it, afterall.

telemachus'

Nicholas.As I said cosy and gladly so isolated it will die.
But back to the Telgraph

"Senior sources said that the first official figures indicated that there had been “manoeuvring” by well-off Britons to avoid the new higher rate."

Instead of trying to influence the budget debate to try to drop the tax to please the rich they should be exhorting the revenue to do something about the tax haven brigade

Nicholas

telemachus, freedom of ideas and thought doesn't die no matter how many single-agenda authoritarian socialists wish to kill it. That is wishful thinking that is.

Take a long hard look at the election results and try very hard to understand that diversity and democracy means that people can hold right wing views and express them without being "wrong" to do so.

It doesn't add up...

Nick:
There is a lot of data

It doesn't add up...

that allows a preliminary assessment of the 50p rate.

It doesn't add up...

Income tax revenue in Apr-Jan is down £0.4bn on the previous year,

It doesn't add up...

yet the numbers in employment have remained stable.

It doesn't add up...

The budget projection was that there would be an extra £6.1bn raised this year,

It doesn't add up...

so we're £6.5bn behind target. HMRC publish data that show the distribution of incomes and tax bands and tax paid.

It doesn't add up...

You would have to assume either a) a substantial decrease in employment among those on lower incomes - disproved by the employment statistics,

It doesn't add up...

or b) substantial pay cuts among the lower paid,

It doesn't add up...

or c) big cuts in current mega bonuses replaced by long deferred ones (part of the story, and motivated by avoiding 50%)

It doesn't add up...

and d) emigration and reduced activity by fairly small numbers of the best paid (also part of the story, and motivated by avoiding 50%).

Barry

Nick is the only sane person in the room today. He points out that the figures have not been collected yet. Amen

It doesn't add up...

The final nail in the coffin is much lower self assessment receipts in Jan, which were the last refuge of those who believed in 50%.

How else do you make the numbers add up?

FF

If the 50p tax rate is raising less than expected, the rich should be happy. Perhaps the Chancellor should look for a more effective way of getting taxes out of them?

Given that most people approve of state funded programmes such as welfare, education, defence, taxes have to be raised somehow. If raise less from the rich you have to raise more from poorer people instead. That's the potent message I am sure the Coalition is very conscious of.

telemachus'

So we are all agreed to aggressively target the folks with accountants in tow that are denying onnery folk the revenues that will stop the coaltion snatching money from the poor and the sick

Fergus Pickering

I have an accountant, fellow. Everybody not on th government payroll or otherwise paying pAYE has an accountant. Your heating engineer has an accountant. I grudge te bugger every penny he wrings out of me and always pay him as late as possible. Oh, and by the way, he's not a rich man either.

telemachus'

A poor accountant sadly has to clean his own Mercedes

Ostrich (occasionally)

telemachus' 22nd, 12:58pm

Is that 'poor' in assets, or in ability?

Cynic

"Will [the Coalition] leave the rate in place for symbolic reasons or will they reduce it?" My guess is the Conservative element will be too scared of "nasty Tories" taunts not to stand up for reality against the LibDems.