Many mornings, after I've turned the Today Programme off in disgust, I like to plot how I would reform personal taxation in this country.
My plans always include an enormous hike in the personal allowance, a scrapping of all the inane 'tax credit' nonsense, and the abolition of NI.
Are politicians really so hung-up on the basic rate headline percentage that they can't actually consider something bold?
Abolishing NI would have many employers throwing street parties - it's both an administrative menace and a tax on employment, and it seems to me that people who found themselves with NO deductions on their payslips ought to feel appreciative.
Wat, are you able to calculate (if there's still space on your envelope) what the basic rate of income tax would need to be with a 10K allowance and no NI?
Yes, increase the personal allowance, and abolish the old national insurance. Then, starting with new employees, make national insurance a real insurance scheme, with, you know, actual contributions in a bank account somewhere!
The Budget, enacted by the Finance Act, is the ultimate display of government arrogance. Its measures are now in place yet the Act has not yet completed its passage through our, so called, Parliament.
[IKB at 11:10 pm]. NI pulls in about £90 billion, the governments second biggest nice little earner after Income Tax at £150 billion. A £10k - instead of £5.5k - personal allowance would cost about £36 billion at a guess. A lot of people would not use it up and I don't know the effect on the number of higher rate payers.
If Quangos are currently gross spending about £170 billion - slightly more than Local Government gross spending. Mr Wat Tyler will need us to send in a lot of envelopes; but, I look forward to his answers as always.
I don't listen to any politician who tells me that the money isn't there. It is there, but they spend it in the wrong places - pointless quangos being an obvious example.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
John Prescott makes shock announcement:
http://www.westbournemouthukip.c...p.com/
toons.htm
IKB
"are you able to calculate (if there's still space on your envelope) what the basic rate of income tax would need to be with a 10K allowance and no NI?"
NI will bring in c £105bn pa this year (Acorn- according to HMT, it increases by £18bn! between 06-07 and 08-09).
Increasing the personal allowance to £10,000 would cost c£25bn in 2007-08(on HMT's tax ready reckoner)
So that's a total cost of c £130bn.
Assuming the 10p rate stays abolished, increasing the unified standard rate of income tax by 1p raises c£4bn pa. So to raise £130bn, you have to increase the standard rate by 32p or so.
IE it becomes 52p.
Hmm.
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