50p tax rate 'failing to boost revenues’

[Robinho]

Not really, two workers require two desks/computers/software licences, two seats in the canteen, two carpark spaces, all that kind of infrastructure. It also increases the employers costs as there is double the exposure to: holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay, pension, death in service etc.

Simplified for example. And i would say it would have a beneficial hedging effect on all those exposures you mentioned. Essentially carrying your eggs in two baskets instead of one.

Either way it still moves the tendency of pay structure to move towards more more cheaper workers that what the natural law would dictate

But if an 80% rate was introduced, it's the employees net income that would be affected, not the gross.

If your salary didn't change overnight it would but over time the market would react. In such an extreme situation the supply of jobs that paid deeply into that 80% bracket would probably decline quite a bit.

[DodgyAgent]

You keep asserting that public services "fail miserably" and that making them more accountable would somehow make everything better. On what criteria are they "failing miserably"? Compared to what "more accountable" example? Or is this judgement based on some unachievable utopian concept of free market perfection?

The fact is an awful lot of private sector stuff "fails miserably" as well, witness pensions misselling, the Hatfield rail disaster, or the recent spate of comedy gold that is a4e. Wherever you try to do something more complex than having a tulip (and even then, on occasion) you will have room for improvement and no doubt the occasional failure.

They run the most god awful schools. Their employees take far more days off than any other type of worker. They cannot sack incompetent workers without either Unions jumping in or employment laws protecting them. And one only has to look at the competency of their procurement to see how useless they are. They waste billions of pounds on computer systems that do not work. There is not one public service that works effectively other than the front line armed services. They fail to regulate the monopolies within the private sector and they have a single strategy of pouring money into the health service.
You only have to walk into a government public office such as a DVLA office to see how they treat the public. Late opening times understaffed, long queues.
The mere fact that they are actually able to take time off work and strike without a care for their customers illustrates perfectly where their priorities lie.
If the public sector worked effectively there would be little need for people to buy houses in safe areas or areas where there are decent schools, and therefore little need to earn lots of money to even exist. Most of us work hard to earn money because we do not want to have to rely on the state to house us and educate our children.

Your pathetic little anecdotes of private sector failings are irrelevant.

[doodab]

They run the most god awful schools.

They also run some very good ones, and most of the sexual abuse cases have been confined to private schools. I would say that's pretty awful, personally.

Their employees take far more days off than any other type of worker.

Might this not be because they have some very stressful jobs? Police, Fire, Ambulance services etc....

You only have to walk into a government public office such as a DVLA office to see how they treat the public. Late opening times understaffed, long queues.

Maybe if you didn't walk in there with such a massive chip on your shoulder you would get treated a bit better.

The mere fact that they are actually able to take time off work and strike without a care for their customers illustrates perfectly where their priorities lie.
If the public sector worked effectively there would be little need for people to buy houses in safe areas or areas where there are decent schools, and therefore little need to earn lots of money to even exist. Most of us work hard to earn money because we do not want to have to rely on the state to house us and educate our children.

If the private sector worked effectively there would be no need for a public sector. Are you seriously suggesting that if we did away with the police force and let those who could afford it hire private security the world would be a safer place?

I'm starting to wonder if you aren't actually a rampant lefty choosing to advance your agenda by the means of reductio ad absurdum.

[d000hg]

So a tax system which hurts most those earning (and contributing) least seems backwards.

How does it do that?

Because 10% tax on your 20k salary could be 50% of your disposable income, while 10% of your 200k salary is not really affecting you much at all.

People don't really pay income tax though, employers pay their income tax.

What difference does it make if you pay through PAYE or SATR? Just because you never have the money in your hand, it's still your money that is paid.

[Doggy Styles]

Because 10% tax on your 20k salary could be 50% of your disposable income, while 10% of your 200k salary is not really affecting you much at all.

How is that 50%?

10% of 20K is 2K, that leaves 18K. It sounds like an improvement on the current situation. And that's without any tax-free margin.

By saying "they (those on 200K) are not affected" it sounds like you just want to punish people for earning lots of money.

Instead of worrying about how much money they have got and what they spend it on, which is not for us to determine, remember that in your example they are paying ten times as much tax as those on 20K, for the same services. That doesn't sound like a problem to me.

[d000hg]

How is that 50%?

10% of 20K is 2K, that leaves 18K. It sounds like an improvement on the current situation. And that's without any tax-free margin.

10% is just a number picked out of the air to make the maths easier. The point is, 10% of your earnings affects you more when your earnings only just cover the essentials.

Instead of worrying about how much money they have got and what they spend it on, which is not for us to determine.

I've lived on a low income so I speak from experience. As it is now, I pay a higher % of my income as tax than I did back then, but paying it is far easier now.

[doodab]

How is that 50%?

He's talking about disposable income. It depends on the cost of living. If you peg that at say £14k then the £20k person has a disposable income of £4k and £2k in tax represents 50% of that, whereas the person earning £200k has a disposable income of £166k and £2k in tax represents a much smaller fraction of their disposable income.

If you start to account for the UEL on NICs and the tax credit system then flat tax gets quite complex, and it works out you need a marginal tax rate of something like 46% (including NICs) assuming that you go for a truly flat rate (i.e. abolish the NIC UEL) and keep roughly the current tax free allowances with a small increase to account for the tax credit system. This might incentivise high earners but it will do little for the majority of the workforce who will see their effective marginal tax rates increase considerably.

[DodgyAgent]

They also run some very good ones, and most of the sexual abuse cases have been confined to private schools. I would say that's pretty awful, personally.



Might this not be because they have some very stressful jobs? Police, Fire, Ambulance services etc....


Maybe if you didn't walk in there with such a massive chip on your shoulder you would get treated a bit better.




If the private sector worked effectively there would be no need for a public sector. Are you seriously suggesting that if we did away with the police force and let those who could afford it hire private security the world would be a safer place?

I'm starting to wonder if you aren't actually a rampant lefty choosing to advance your agenda by the means of reductio ad absurdum.

Some very good schools is not good enough. What is worse is that many of the worst run and lowest achieving schools let down those who most need the best education. There is no excuse just because a job is stressfull (my brother is a fireman and it can be stressful at times) to take vast amounts of time off.
Many private schools have indeed been exposed as having abused children. Firstly they have been forced by the markets to get their houses in order and secondly what on earth is going on if we are paying taxes to educate our system through the state and we find that we have to then pay for private education because the state options are so poor.
There is nothing absurd about what I am saying. It is simply that apologists like you seem to come from a position that working for the state represents some sort of virtuous voluntary activity and that the rest of us should feel grateful for what they dole out to us. The reality is that the state supplies vital services upon which so many people rely and pay for. We are entitled to ask in return that the services they give are at least as good as those supplied by the best of the private sector. If they educated everyone properly there would be a huge reduction in the need for welfare, police and many of the "patch up the mess" public services - which is exactly why they remain so shi* because too many lefties have too big a stake in the need to perpetuate the status quo.

[d000hg]

Some very good schools is not good enough. What is worse is that many of the worst run and lowest achieving schools let down those who most need the best education. There is no excuse just because a job is stressfull (my brother is a fireman and it can be stressful at times) to take vast amounts of time off.

You've stated that public sector workers take far more time off than private sector, which is a very wide statistical area, and then applied that to teaching. I very much doubt the average time off in either public or private teaching is the same as the entire-sector average. Do you have such information... because comparing a 'front line' job like teaching or fireman to a job in the district council offices isn't really fair.

Does your fireman friend take lots of time off? Presumably as a public sector work he is off sick half the time himself?

[doodab]

There is nothing absurd about what I am saying. It is simply that apologists like you seem to come from a position that working for the state represents some sort of virtuous voluntary activity and that the rest of us should feel grateful for what they dole out to us. The reality is that the state supplies vital services upon which so many people rely and pay for. We are entitled to ask in return that the services they give are at least as good as those supplied by the best of the private sector. If they educated everyone properly there would be a huge reduction in the need for welfare, police and many of the "patch up the mess" public services - which is exactly why they remain so shi* because too many lefties have too big a stake in the need to perpetuate the status quo.

I'm not an apologist for the state at all, I simply enjoy pointing out that your dogmatic rantings in favour of free markets are no more grounded in reality than the communist utopia that you seem to think anyone who disagrees with you is in favour of.

Suggesting that state services should be "at least as good as the best of the private sector" is ridiculous given that in those areas where a comparison is even possible (e.g. education) the private sector is granted special status (i.e. as charities), is free to charge what it pleases (e.g. ~£6000 per term for the one over the road from me as opposed to £4-9k per year funding for state schools) and has better raw material to work with as they can operate selective admission policies. In most areas (emergency healthcare, policing, fire & ambulance services etc) no such comparison is even possible so your rantings make even less sense.

I'm not suggesting there isn't room for improvement in these services, there is always room for improvement, but your unjustified hyperbole simply grates on the nerves. If you want to give a like for like example of private sector service provision that is significantly better or cheaper than an equivalent public sector service knock yourself out, but until you can come up with one you might want to stop ranting away on the basis of dogma and actually look at the facts for a change. The public sector exists to provide necessary services that market fails to provide because it simply isn't possible to make a profit from doing so. This is the elephant in the room that dogmatic free market believers such as yourself can never acknowledge, because it means admitting that their way of doing things needs a bit of fixing.

Acknowledging this doesn't mean one considers public services "virtuous voluntary activities" at all, simply that one realises they are necessary and that the free market will not provide them of it's own volition. There are plenty of things the free market is good at, but providing essential services to all members of society isn't one of them.