Oh Dear: 'Families are being taxed until the pips squeak'

[ALM]

"The numbers tie in with our calculations that the tax burden is rising towards its highest level on record. The burden is going up all the time.''

And exactly what do we have to show for this record tax burden? Diddley squat! Why is the incompetence of Nu Labour not treated as a crime? Why can't we just have Bliar and brown hung by their balls?!


_____________________________________
Family finances are being squeezed more than ever before by Labour, according to Government figures released yesterday.

The amount of disposable income Britons take home is rising at its slowest rate for at least a decade as households are forced to shoulder the increasing burden of council tax, income tax and national insurance.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that the amount UK individuals took home increased by just 2.7 per cent in 2004 to an average of £12,840. This was the slowest increase since comparable records began in 1996.

The tax burden has also been rising rapidly since Labour came to power in 1997. The figures show that a gulf is developing between different parts of the country, with Londoners now paying some 70 per cent more in taxes than the UK average.

But families in all parts of the country have been hit hard by rises in council taxes. The rise in national insurance contributions also came into effect in 2004, causing households further difficulties.

Prof Peter Spencer, economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Item Club, said: "These figures show the effect of rising tax bills on spending power. Higher council taxes had a particularly severe impact on families in 2004.

"The numbers tie in with our calculations that the tax burden is rising towards its highest level on record. The burden is going up all the time.''

Fiscal drag is the term given the phenomenon whereby the Chancellor fails to raise tax allowances at the same rate as families' wages are increasing, thereby cutting further into their salaries without raising tax rates.

The ONS figures show that household disposable income per head has grown by smaller numbers since 2002. It increased by almost six per cent in 1997, while it dipped in 2001, compared with far smaller rises of 2.8 per cent in 2002 and 2.7 per cent in 2004. Even when adjusted for inflation, the same scale of slowdown was evident.

Disposable income is how much each household took home after paying "compulsary" charges including income and council taxes, national insurance, mortgage payments and pension scheme contributions - divided between the UK population.

Luke Sibieta, an economist from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: "These figures tie in with the numbers we've calculated ourselves on households' incomes. We've noted that under Labour, income per head grew at its fastest in their first term, but then slowed down in the second term."

Mike Warburton, tax partner at accountants Grant Thornton, said: "This doesn't surprise me at all. Council tax costs have doubled since 1996/97, while inflation has been 26 per cent in the same period. Income tax has also doubled in that period, so a lot of the essential charges in life are increasing faster than inflation.

"In essence, the economy has grown, but it has been the Chancellor who has been spending the extra proceeds - not hard-working people. The greater proportion is going into the Government."

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "This is a stark illustration of how the highest tax burden in history is impacting on Britain's hard-working families.''

A Treasury spokesman said: "With unprecedented growth and record levels of employment, the UK has gone from 7th to 3rd in the G7 in terms of wealth per head.

"Since 1997 net household wealth has increased in real terms by 60 per cent.

"Tax and benefits changes as a result of all personal tax and benefit measures (in real terms on average since 1997) households are £950 a year better off.''

[Gunnery Sergeant Hartman]

What we need is a complex "tax credit" scheme that returns some of the money collected to Britain's hard-working families.

Oh.

[AlfredJPruffock]

What we need is a complex "tax credit" scheme that returns some of the money collected to Britain's hard-working families.

Oh.

GSH

With the upmost respect , you of all people I would have thought would have mentioned the various glorious millitary campaigns which have been funded by the heroic UK taxpayer.

To argue against further taxation is tantamount to supporting Terrorism.

Revel in your Time.


Fades to Land of Hope and Glory

[privateeye]

[QUOTE=zeitghost]But only if they're poor & don't have enough money./QUOTE]

can you be poor and have enough money then?

[Fungus]

What we need is a complex tax credit system that targets those too poor and ignorant to be able to figure out tax credit systems.

[Mailman]

GSH

With the upmost respect , you of all people I would have thought would have mentioned the various glorious millitary campaigns which have been funded by the heroic UK taxpayer.

I know that reality and anti-war goonism dont go together but I do hope that you realise that the war in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with the upwards spiral of tax in this country!

Obviously what is needed is a flat tax rate so that people are rewarded for working.

However even if a flat tax was introduced you can bet you bottom taxable dollar that the government will still find a way of adding NI on top of that and having mutliple tax bands!

After all, its only fair

Mailman

[ALM]

I know that reality and anti-war goonism dont go together but I do hope that you realise that the war in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with the upwards spiral of tax in this country!

As far as I'm aware, the war in Iraq is financed by UK and US taxpayers. The fact that we're spending £billions in Iraq can only be fueling the 'upwards spiral of tax in this country'. It's a pretty simple concept to grasp tbh.

[AlfredJPruffock]

As far as I'm aware, the war in Iraq is financed by UK and US taxpayers. The fact that we're spending £billions in Iraq can only be fueling the 'upwards spiral of tax in this country'. It's a pretty simple concept to grasp tbh.

To further ALMs point regarding Taxation and the Millitary,least we forget the introduction of Income Tax in the UK was to fund the UKs State coffers for the Napoleonic Wars.

True income tax was first implemented in Britain by William Pitt the Younger in his budget of December 1798 to pay for weapons and equipment in preparation for the Napoleonic wars. Pitt's new graduated tax began at a levy of 2d in the pound (0.8333%) on incomes over £60 and increased up to a maximum of 2s (10%) on incomes of over £200. Pitt hoped that the new income tax would raise £10 million but actual receipts for 1799 totalled just over £6 million.


Income tax was levied under 5 schedules—income not falling within those schedules was not taxed. The schedules were:

Schedule A (tax on income from U.K. land)
Schedule B (tax on commercial occupation of land)
Schedule C (tax on income from public securities)
Schedule D (tax on trading income, income from professions and vocations, interest, overseas income and casual income)
Schedule E (tax on employment income)
Later a sixth Schedule, Schedule F (tax on U.K. dividend income) was added.

Pitt's income tax was levied from 1799 to 1802, when it was abolished by Henry Addington during the Peace of Amiens. Addington had taken over as prime minister in 1801, after Pitt's resignation over Catholic Emancipation. The income tax was reintroduced by Addington in 1803 when hostilities recommenced, but it was again abolished in 1816, one year after the Battle of Waterloo.

Finally, U.K. income tax was reintroduced by Sir Robert Peel in the Income Tax Act 1842. Peel, as a Conservative, had opposed income tax in the 1841 general election, but a growing budget deficit required a new source of funds. The new income tax, based on Addington's model, was imposed on incomes above £150.

U.K. income tax has changed over the years. Originally it taxed a person's income regardless of who was beneficially entitled to that income, but now a person only owes tax on income to which he or she is beneficially entitled. Most companies were taken out of the income tax net in 1965 when corporation tax was introduced. Also the Schedules under which tax is levied have changed. Schedule B was abolished in 1988, Schedule C in 1996 and Schedule E in 2003, though the Schedular system and Schedules A, D and F still remain. Rates peaked in the late 1970s at 99%.

[DimPrawn]

Rates peaked in the late 1970s at 99%.

Until 2007, when the Prime Minister Gordon Brown introduced the new Social Fairness Levy to help cover the cost of 15 M new immigrants and the war in Iran.

[Mailman]

As far as I'm aware, the war in Iraq is financed by UK and US taxpayers. The fact that we're spending £billions in Iraq can only be fueling the 'upwards spiral of tax in this country'. It's a pretty simple concept to grasp tbh.

No ones argueing that tax dollars are being used for operations in Iraq. However for you to try and blame high taxes on that conflict is another example of you grasping at straws

Your taxes are not going up because of that conflict...your taxes are going up because you are a sheep and allow YOUR government to raise taxes without challenge!

Mailman