Should Contractors pay their fair share of tax?

[LondonManc]

Yes, they are fatally flawed because, among other things, they fail to account for the CT and VAT being generated indirectly by an employee.

And, conversely, the CT and VAT being generated indirectly by the contractor with their contribution to the hiring company.

[d000hg]

Sigh, another brainwashee

No, you'd have a cheaper more effective privatised equivalent

Doubtful. Private healthcare can only work if it's so heavily regulated and monitored that we end up back where we are now, or some approximation. Look at the rest of Europe - you pay quite a lot for health insurance AND taxes are still high.

[SpontaneousOrder]

The state makes the rules stating insurers cannot exclude people for a pre-existing medical condition (which meant millions were without any health insurance) and provision an affordable policy, but the entities providing the insurance/care are the same old greedy insurance companies and HMOs.

How about the rest of the rules you chose to omit?

[SpontaneousOrder]

Private healthcare can only work if it's so heavily regulated and monitored...

Why's that?

[seanraaron]

How about the rest of the rules you chose to omit?

Like what, the requirement that working adults have some kind of health insurance? Still not sure how that means private enterprises aren't providing the care.

Look, if you're happy to see a two-week hospital stay cost your insurance company £1.5million and to have a lifetime cap on what you can get paid knock yourself out. I'll tolerate waiting times and keep the NHS, thanks.

[OwlHoot]

Actually we are good with NHS and i wouldnt change it much

It's a bottomless pit, and a millstone round our collective necks!

You could literally double NHS spending and in no time demand would also double!

So by the same token it would probably make little difference if NHS spending was halved.

[d000hg]

How about the rest of the rules you chose to omit?

Because if it's private it's run for profit, and the temptation will always be to make savings and degrade the service to improve profits - we see this fairly inexorably in large companies. However unlike your phone company outsourcing support to Uzbekistan being an inconvenience, when it's healthcare this will affect people's health and ultimately lives.

So we have to have a private company which is prevented from profiteering from the sick... you simply cannot rely on the people running it to "be decent".

[LondonManc]

NHS should remain as a free public service, with chargebacks for foreign nationals to their country of origin.

No problem with parts of the NHS being sub-franchised to third parties so long as the overall quality of delivery does not suffer.

[Waldorf]

Germany has got 25% flat dividends tax... beats near 40% mark in this country from April

But the corporation tax rates in Germany are much higher (30 - 35%), so even with the new rates on dividends from April, the overall tax is less in the UK than Germany.

[AtW]

But the corporation tax rates in Germany are much higher (30 - 35%), so even with the new rates on dividends from April, the overall tax is less in the UK than Germany.

Corp tax in German is 15% federal + 14-17% local, so 29-32%, I say 30% is good - Deloitte says it's 30-33% including "solidarity" charge - https://www2.deloitte.com/content/da...rates-2015.pdf, and I'd take their word for it, rather than yours, so 30% max rate then (get incorporated in the right place, since there is a choice there).

£1 mln profit -

Germany: £300k CT, £700k divs paid - 25% tax on that is £175k = 47.5% total.

UK: £200k CT, £800k divs paid, 38.1% tax on that is £304.8k = 50.5% total.

So yes, Germany is lower taxation even if you include 30% corp tax.

More importantly, as individual one would be more concerned with rate of tax on dividends, if you got pension and it's nicely invested then why do you care what corp tax is? What matters to you is that in Germany you'll pay 25% tax flat rate and in UK you'd pay 38.1% tax (highest band obviously) - how about that for a difference? 52% higher dividend tax in UK!!!

And this is under "pro-business" Tory Govt! What will Labour do when they inevitably come to power, cut taxes??? No! They'll increase them further and overall tax burden will be up again thanks to Tory Scum who, instead of cutting taxes, increased them - something they had no mandate for.

Oh, the best part is that with LOWER taxes Germany actually balances their books!!!