>VAT fraud biases the system even more in favour of the rich, as those with enough money coming in can register for VAT and claim expenses back, but the likes of me cannot.

My understanding was that any person carrying on a business with an annual turnover of more than £50,000 must register for VAT, but those below this threshold may register if they wish. Has that changed with the most recent budget?

No idea.

Yep. Threshold's around 56K but you can register for VAT at any time. It doesn't affect your ability to claim expenses at all; once you're VAT-registered you have to charge VAT on everything you do, and you can claim back the VAT on everything you spend (for business). If your business spends a lot on raw materials or whatever then it should balance out; if your business is based around creative things rather than physical things, you'll pay much more tax than a non-VAT registered business.

Dull but true :-)

The biggie isn't VAT fraud but corporation tax, IMO. Certain newspaper groups are particularly good at avoiding it.

>>One answer is to allow tourists to claim back all their tax by keeping their receipts and filling out a form when they leave the country.

I think that is already the case. I didn't know about it until I worked for Dixons. Various tourists came in with forms for us to fill in to confirm purchases so they could claim the VAT back from customs at the airport. Don't know much about it though. I think that most people don't realise you can either.

You can't miss the tax-free publicity stuff in airports and shopping-based tourist traps.

On a tangent, I think the budget increased the tax-free allowance for personal imports from outside the UK. Can't remember any details though.

> Central government wouldn't need most of the money, because most services would be provided locally. If local
> government want to raise taxes, they should be free to do so, and, if you don't like the tax regime in one area, you
> can always move elsewhere.

Ah, I misunderstood slightly. So VAT wouldn't be the only tax - there would be a local authority tax as well. This would have to be massive - remember that over 80% of current local government funding comes from central government, and you're asking local authorities to supply considerably more than they currently do.
How would this local tax be raised? Would it be income-based, property-based, or a poll tax?

You also imply that all people are always completely free to move to different areas, which is just not true. I can't move to Wandsworth Council's area to take advantage of their low council tax, because I'd be separated from my family, would find it difficult to get a job doing what I do there, and I can't afford to live there on my wages. This last factor is, of course, no co-incidence. Your proposal would create enclaves for the rich, with high property prices and low taxes, and ghetto areas with poor housing and astronomical service bills. There's already an element of that with the current council tax system – with inner city areas having to deal with local poverty and foot the bill for city centre services, while commuters work and spend their leisure time using a city's services without paying for them, as they stay just outside the city boundary, under councils who don't need to provide services and therefore have a low council tax.

> Yes, otherwise known as "the rich", exactly the people who are supposed to pay more income tax.

And exactly the same people who are supposed to pay more VAT. You've skirted my original point that those same objections can be raised about VAT.

> Look, even if you don't want to see income tax replaced with VAT, I think people on both sides of the income-redistribution debate can agree that the tax code should be simplified. Administering a system that complex costs a fortune.

I agree that the tax system needs to be simplified. Where we disagree is on which taxes should remain.

> Yes, which is why I also said I'd get rid of all tax allowances. That includes claiming back VAT.

Again, why not just simplify the income tax system? It already has far fewer allowances, and the ones it has mostly operate across the board.

> That's a fair point. We already sting tourists for tax, of course — they pay VAT and airport tax; they pay our massive
> duty on fuel, either directly when they hire a car or indirectly through taxi and bus fares — but it's still a fair point.

If all (or the vast majority) of tax was raised via income, tourists would be exempt. Also, the resulting low cost of items that are currently subject to duty or VAT would encourage more people to visit and spend money. Also, cutting consumption-based taxes reduces crime, as it no longer becomes profitable (it's currently more lucrative to smuggle cigarettes than heroin, because of the high duty).

> Because, as things stand, we rely on the US for our own defense.

Firstly, you'd be looking to spend around half of your government's very small income on defence, which doesn't seem feasible. Secondly, where do we need to spend all this money, post Cold War? I don't personally believe the threat from Islamic extremists is anywhere near as great as we're told, but even if it was, conventional military tactics don't work against terrorists.

> Interestingly, the US Navy prevents and punishes piracy across the world's oceans. Cut that portion of
> US defense spending, and the Third World's fucked.
I hardly think the role provided by the US Navy makes up for keeping the third world in poverty.
If the Third World was self-sufficient, it could defend itself. India, for example, already wants its own Navy to take on that role for its own waters.

> After the post-Dunblane handgun ban, violent crime involving guns in the UK increased rapidly. I'd like to reverse that
> increase.
And what evidence is there that allowing everyone to have guns will reverse the increase in gun crime? More guns = more deaths, whatever way you slice it. I've never gone with the argument that because something is shit at the moment, we should just accept it and let it get worse. Why not at least try and crack down on illegal guns?

> I have no idea what Danyel's on about here. Is there something about multiculturalism that precludes
> geographical areas below a certain size? New one on me.
Don't be facetious - the term 'parish council' has a religious connotation, and I was questioning your choice of words. How big would these not-at-all-connected-with-a-local-church-parish councils be?

> Danyel thinks that services provided by local government are private services.
See my point above. You didn't mention that local authorities would raise taxes to fund these things themselves. However, in our current climate of PFI, and the free-market slant of your ideas, it's likely that private companies would be brought in to provide these services.

What about the economies of scale afforded by nationally run institutions? It's been estimated, for example, that it costs four times as much to collect each pound of council tax as it does to collect income tax. And then there'd be all the extra bureaucracy caused by the different agencies having to communicate with each other.

> We already have a two-tier system based on wealth. Look at house prices in the cachement areas of good
> state schools. Poor people can't get to the good schools, I'm afraid: they can't afford to live near
> enough to them.
You may have got your cause and effect mixed up a bit. Surely it's less the case that 'good' state schools cause house prices to rise in an area and more the case that the fact that a school is in a rich area and has fewer kids from poor backgrounds attending is what leads to those good results? Again though, I don't believe that the fact inequality exists means that we should accept it and set up a system which encourages it.

> Ah, that old chestnut. Danyel thinks I'm rich. I wish.
I never said I thought you were rich. I didn't get the impression you were. I implied you were against income-based taxation. Which you are.

> I don't particularly mind paying the level of tax I currently pay, but I do mind getting fuck all in
> return.
Yet your main solution involves cutting tax, and the dismantling of the things central government does currently provide for you.

> what left-wingers think of policial ideas other than their own:
That's right - we disagree with them. Aren't we allowed to do that?

> I'd never even attempt to compete with that.
Largely because it's pretty much consistent with what you proposed, you didn't answer my points about National Insurance, health provision and undemocratic peers, and your tax sums don't add up.

Andy - it's £56000 before you have to register. You can register if your turnover is smaller, but people don't tend to, and tend to deregister when their turnover drops below the £56K limit.

Like I said, Danyel, I don't have time to reply to every one of your points, because each of your comments is about a zillion words long. If you really want a question answered, ask it. If you want a hundred questions answered, sorry, but I do have other things to do.

I've got a couple of minutes, so, in brief....

> you're asking local authorities to
supply considerably more than they currently do.

No, I'm giving people the power to decide how much their local council has to do for them. You're assuming that everything currently provided by the state always will be. I'm saying people should have a choice about that.


> You also imply that all people are always completely free to move to
different areas, which is just not true.

No, it's not true. Life sucks. However, the system works in two ways: firstly, people can move to an area whose legislation they prefer; secondly, people can pressure their own local government to adopt the polices of other areas if they see those policies working.


> You've skirted my original point that those same objections can be raised
about VAT.

No, I said that no claiming back of VAT would be allowed. Other than hiring cash-in-hand tradesmen — which anyone, rich or poor, can do — that's how rich people avoid VAT.


> why not just simplify the income tax system?

No reason at all. Don't get me wrong: anyone who proposes scrapping most of the allowances and rebates on income tax in order to make the system simpler will get my vote. I'd just prefer an even simpler system.


> it's currently more lucrative to
smuggle cigarettes than heroin, because of the high duty

I'd scrap all duties and other trade barriers, and I'd legalise all drugs.


> where do we need to spend all this money, post Cold War? I don't personally believe the threat from Islamic extremists is anywhere near as great as we're told

The thing about military spending is that it takes years to take effect. Spend now and we'll be ready for a war that starts in 2012. Taking into account human nature and world history, are you willing to bet that we won't need a military to defend us from something or other in 2012? I'd like to think we won't, but human beings just aren't like that.

> conventional military tactics don't work against terrorists

That's an argument for spending money on different things, not for ceasing to spend it at all.


> what evidence is there that allowing everyone to have guns will reverse the increase in gun crime?

In every country that has introduced restrictions on gun ownership, those restrictions have been accompanied by corresponding increases in gun crime; the more the guns are criminalised, the more gun crime increases. Every US state that has experimented with issuing concealed carry licenses to pretty much anyone has seen their gun crime stats drop. If you don't believe me, look it up.

But forget the stats. It's an issue of freedom. No matter what the government does, criminals will find a way of getting hold of guns. Any gun control legislation therefore amounts to disarming innocent people and leaving criminals armed. You no doubt want to see the criminals disarmed; I agree. But what are you willing to sacrifice for that? Should the police be allowed to stop and search people randomly, to search massive numbers of houses without warning? Should every single vehicle entering the country be gone through with fine-toothed combs? Should all metal workers and anyone else who might be capable of making guns be subject to 24-hour surveillance?

In the absence of the police state necessary to destroy all weapons, I say that innocent members of the public should be allowed to own the same weapons that the criminals who attack them are armed with.


> Don't be facetious - the term 'parish council' has a religious connotation

Oh, right. Didn't even think of that. No, I was picking parishes because of their size.


> You didn't mention that local authorities would raise taxes to fund these things themselves.

That's because they wouldn't necessarilly (though most probably would). The whole point of federalisation is that the local electorates can decide for themselves how their government runs things. If I were Prime Minister, it simply wouldn't be up to whether they raised taxes.


> You may have got your cause and effect mixed up a bit. Surely it's less the case that 'good' state schools cause house prices to rise in an area and more the case that the fact that a school is in a rich area and has fewer kids from poor backgrounds attending is what leads to those good results?

Lots of research is against you on this one. If a previously poorly performing school turns into a good school, house prices in its cachement area rise by around 20%.

Interestign to see that you think poor kids are academically incapable. I strongly disagree, I have to say.


> I don't believe that the fact inequality exists means that we should accept it and set up a system which encourages it.

The problem with the education system as it stands is not income inequality (although that is a problem) but lack of education. The schools, the examining boards, and the government are all one big organisation, which means that the people who win votes by pointing to better exam results are the same ones who define how difficult those exams are. It's a dreadful conflict of interest, and it's had predictable results. I suggest making schools independent to set their own standards.

And inequality does exist: some kids are cleverer than others; some are better at science than geography; some are great with their hands, others are totally malcoordinated but great at abstract reasoning. Since our society requires lots of different types of people to do different types of jobs, I don't see the problem with having different types of education for people with different talents. The days when people who who used their braisn to make a living were the rich elite and those how used their hands were the poor and downtrodden are long-gone. If some kid's got a talent for woodwork, why not let him concentrate on that from the age of, say, 14, rather than pressuring him to study history, German, and chemistry? He'll be a first-class carpenter by the time he's 25, earning good money by the time he's 18 — unlike the supposedly privileged academics, who just get big student loans.


> I implied you were against income-based taxation. Which you are.

No, I'm really not. As I said before, my objection to income tax is that the ability to dodge it increases with income. If anyone can come up with an income tax system that doesn't suffer from that problem, I'm all ears. I don't think VAT is perfect — far from it — but I think that any sensible tax policy should recognise that tax-dodging will occur, so should try to make sure that tax-dodging is no easier for the rich than for the poor.


> the dismantling of the things central government does currently provide for you.

Like what? The NHS that forced me to go private because they wouldn't treat my back, even when it was so bad I couldn't walk? The NHS that doesn't even know to put a diabetic on a glucose drip when they're not eating? The NHS that caused my wife the worst pain she has ever experienced, for no reason other than forgetfulness? The state pension that we are forced to pay for even thought he government tell us that it's so worthless we'll all need private pensions? The benefits system that refused to pay my wife disability benefit when she couldn't work on the grounds that she had spent two weeks between jobs without signing on to the dole over a year previously? The education system that is producing levels of illiteracy not seen in this country for decades, that no longer teaches foreign languages because they're "too hard", that has led to only a tiny minority of the population having a clue how to use a bloody apostrophe? What is it you think the central government provides for me, exactly?


> That's right - we disagree with them. Aren't we allowed to do that?

Of course you are. That's not what I was referring to. As well you know.

Anyway, I've really got to do some work. You can write another novel in my comments if you like — I'm generous that way — but please don't expect more answers.

Just got an email from Vic about this. I've changed the names of our friends mentioned in it:

The NHS alone is a reason to remove central government. Emily being a case in point. 2.5 years ago she went to her GP with a big but fixable problem. Through neglect and general (what appears to be) indifference, she is now facing a hysterectomy — at 32. Do you think this would have happened had she been paying private medical insurance instead of being forced to pay NI? And look how much she's costing this fabulously equal and efficient central government now.

I am so angry I could cry. How can 'socialists' care so little about the victims they supposedly champion? My life, Emily's life, Jane's life (remember the open wound she's not had treated for three years?) and Sara's life have been almost ruined by enforced socialist health care. And we're not even allowed to complain about it by bastards like Danyel because it is, of course, 'the best in the world'.

> The NHS that forced me to go private because they wouldn't treat my back, even when it was so bad I couldn't walk?

*waves, weakly*

I'd never really looked into the NHS until the last few months, but the more I find out about it the more appalled I get. Anyone who thinks we don't already have a two-tier system - people without money suffer, people who go private get fixed - is living on another planet.

To be strictly fair to the NHS, they didn't refuse to treat my back: they "treated" it by prescribing me ibuprofen. So they gave me a slip of paper that enabled me to buy for a mere £5.75 a drug I can buy in a supermarket for £1.

What never ceases to amaze me about left-wingers in Britain is their unshakable attachment not to the ideal of free healthcare for all or even of free healthcare for the poor, but to the NHS itself. So my suggestion that A&E should be the 4th emergency service (and therefore state-funded) and that the state should give financial aid to those who need it for their healthcare causes people like Danyel to conclude that the result would be a world where "paramedics make accident victims sign a Direct Debit mandate with their one remaining arm before treating them." There are a million ways for the state to pay for healthcare, and the NHS is probably the worst of them.

> To be strictly fair to the NHS, they didn't refuse to treat my back: they "treated" it by prescribing me ibuprofen.

In my case, they did refuse: the doctor agreed that I needed a scan, but the higher-ups wouldn't pay for it because I wasn't an ambulance case. So we've been trying an endless procession of NSAIDs (which don't work for what I've got) while I try various private things. Next one tonight.

I don't want to fill your blog up with this because obviously I've been writing about it on my own, but when you start looking into things it's apparent that in a lot of chronic cases, the NHS is about teaching you to live with the problem rather than treating it. It's broken.

Look at Glasgow, for example. We're in the middle of an A&E bed crisis, and the bosses have decided that the perfect solution is to, er, close a couple of A&E departments.

I mean FFS, we've got people dying of basic hygiene and god knows how many people on waiting lists in severe pain. The system's screwed and arsing around with things such as PFI - a pathetic kludge to try and reduce short-term NHS costs because people scream bloody murder if anyone dares suggest the NHS isn't the perfect system for everything - is just making it worse.

re the comment about reducing MPs' salaries and then tying them to inflation: How about having MPs' salaries set in stone for all of eternity with no prospect of their ever getting an increase? Then there would not be any more inflation.

Brilliant, Steve. I think you may have solved inflation there.


Gary, write all you like here. Danyel does.


> the NHS is about teaching you to live with the problem rather than treating it.

Yup. Vic's buggered knee is a case in point. It's only because she badgered them for two years that they eventually gave her (inadequate) physio. Their initial prognosis was that it was just wear & tear and she would have to accept that her joints would go as she got older. This to a 29-year-old woman who couldn't climb stairs. That's just old age for you; get used to it. Of course, that sort of response keeps the all-important waiting lists down.

We have since been told that the injury was initially very minor and would have been easily cured at the time, but is now far worse than it should be because it wasn't treated promptly. For this we have to pay.

> You can write another novel in my comments if you like — I'm generous that way — but please don't expect more answers.
Boo! I was enjoying this :)
I came across your blog and saw your "what I would do if I was in charge" post. I don't know if it was made in all sincerity, or if you were just trying to impress your mates, but I think if someone posts something like that, they should be prepared to defend their ideas.

> people can pressure their own local government
I suppose there is the idea of local accountability, but I'd rather pressure a national government, so that everyone gets the good deal, rather than just the people in North Down, or East Dumbartonshire, or wherever.

> No reason at all. Don't get me wrong: anyone who proposes scrapping most of the allowances and rebates on income tax in order to make the system simpler will get my vote.
We agree on something, then :)
However, even once you remove rebates, income tax and VAT are still very different things, both in practice and ideologically. That's what you seemed to be skirting.

> I'd scrap all duties and other trade barriers, and I'd legalise all drugs.
We're in agreement here as well!

> the more the guns are criminalised, the more gun crime increases.
Your logic works if there are already a large number of legal guns around, and then they (and the people who own them) are criminalised. But I don't see the same thing happening if you introduce guns to somewhere like the UK, where gun ownership isn't, and never has been, very high.

> In the absence of the police state necessary to destroy all weapons, I say that innocent members of the public should be allowed to own the same weapons that the criminals who attack them are armed with.
I admit a police state would be a rather high price to pay for the complete eradication of guns, but don't you think the number of deaths (including accidents) that would occur if everyone had guns is quite a high price as well?
Should people be allowed to carry knives, tear gas, stun guns etc?

> > You didn't mention that local authorities would raise taxes to fund these things themselves.
>
> That's because they wouldn't necessarilly (though most probably would).
Surely they all would, unless they could provide services for free? Or not bother providing services - like those Tory Councils in London where the council tax is really low, but they don't bother emptying the bins.

> Interestign to see that you think poor kids are academically incapable.
Strawman!!!
Poor kids do badly academically because they're poor, not because they're stupid. We both know that.

> The schools, the examining boards, and the government are all one big organisation
It would just make a lot more sense to make the exam board autonomous, so that we'd have a national standard, rather than privatise schools and let them set their own - which would lead to some schools simply 'selling' exam passes.

> If some kid's got a talent for woodwork, why not let him concentrate on that from the age of, say, 14, rather than pressuring him to study history, German, and chemistry?
I totally agree. The current school system needs major reform. But privatising it isn't the answer. This is the problem with you free-market types – if something doesn't work, you suggest privatising it. When privatisation doesn't work, you say it's because it's not privatised enough, or the market isn't free enough.

> the dismantling of the things central government does currently provide for you.
I'm sorry you, your wife and her friends all had a bad experience with the NHS. I am fortunate enough to be in perfect health. I think the answer is to reform the NHS, by removing incompetent and expensive private contractors and bringing all services back in-house, as well as removing the layers of management and extra bureaucracy that various Labour and Tory initiatives about "choice" have saddled us with. I'd rather do that than scrap it, and force everyone to go private.

I hope you didn't post that comment from your wife as an appeal to emotion, which isn't in keeping with your otherwise very logical arguing style. I don't enjoy being called a "bastard" because I believe in the idea of a state healthcare system, especially as your wife accused me of saying something I didn't actually say.

> The benefits system that refused to pay my wife disability benefit
I work for the benefits agency, and I'm not aware of any rule like that, so I can't comment there. Maybe it was a problem caused by the faulty computer systems put in at great taxpayer expense by PFI contractors?

> The education system that is producing levels of illiteracy not seen in this country for decades, that no longer teaches foreign languages because they're "too hard", that has led to only a tiny minority of the population having a clue how to use a bloody apostrophe?
Ironically, the reduction in standards in education can be linked directly to the free-market, laissez-faire attitudes that you want to see more of. Recent governments have tried to turn education into a service industry with the parent as customer. As parents want their little darlings to get good exam results, and 'the customer is always right', the whole education system has been changed so that more and more pupils can get better and better passes, regardless of ability. Parents think it's great, cos their kid gets an A and can go to Uni, but actually the standards have just been lowered. And there's the whole debate about private contractors providing poor quality food actually having a detrimental effect of pupils' concentration and learning ability.
As for apostrophes, there's been a big push recently for the "three Rs", because that's what parents wanted. Primary school pupils get grammar hammered into them now, in a way that you or I wouldn't have done when we were at school. It'll be a while before we see the fruits of this, though.

Fair enough if you're too busy to reply further. Your blog has pointed me to some much more rabid right-wing types, who need put right. But, it's been fun.
No hard feelings.

You've caught me on a quiet day. Lucky you.


> I'd rather pressure a national government, so that everyone gets the good deal

But then everyone gets the bad deals, too.


> Your logic works if there are already a large number of legal guns around, and then they (and the people who own them) are criminalised. But I don't see the same thing happening if you introduce guns to somewhere like the UK, where gun ownership isn't, and never has been, very high.

Who said anything about introducing guns? I'm talking about legalising them. You're right that there's never been much gun ownership in Britain, but that was true back before there were gun-control laws.


> those Tory Councils in London where the council tax is really low, but they don't bother emptying the bins.

Or those Labour councils in Glasgow where the council tax is really high but they don't bother emptying the bins.

The reason bins don't get emptied is that the bin-emptiers have a legally-enforced monopoly.


> Poor kids do badly academically because they're poor, not because they're stupid.

This is so insulting to so many poor people. Poor kids do badly because they choose to, just as many non-poor kids do. Poverty does not lead to academic inability, as a large number of Indian immigrants have ably demonstrated. A hundred years ago, Britain's miners passed the time down t' pit by discussing literature and philosophy, and they funded huge libraries. There is nothing about poverty that makes learning impossible.


> It would just make a lot more sense to make the exam board autonomous, so that we'd have a national standard

That worked so well in Scotland, didn't it?

> privatise schools and let them set their own - which would lead to some schools simply 'selling' exam passes.

See, this isn't theoretical: we already have private schools. And what you're suggesting is an inevitable result of privatisation simply doesn't happen. Private schools have far higher standards.


> the answer is to reform the NHS

How many times does it need to be reformed before people get the message that it doesn't work?

If you want to see the left-wing argument against the NHS, it's here.


> I hope you didn't post that comment from your wife as an appeal to emotion, which isn't in keeping with your otherwise very logical arguing style.

The comment wasn't from me; it was from my wife. She doesn't have the same arguing style as me.


> I don't enjoy being called a "bastard" because I believe in the idea of a state healthcare system, especially as your wife accused me of saying something I didn't actually say.

Well, look at it from her point of view. She's diabetic, and the NHS's "care" for diabetics sucks. They won't give her an insulin pump — something that American diabetics can get no problem — because it's too expensive. The NHS tell diabetics to deal with hypos by eating sugar and carbs, which tends to make their blood sugar even less stable, leading to further health problems and weight gain. In America, diabetics deal with hypos by injecting a hormone (glucogon?), but it's cheaper, though far less effective and less healthy, to tell people to buy their own food rather than providing them with hormones. She's probably going to die young because of the NHS, and that knowledge, as you can imagine, pisses her off. Then there are her knees: she hasn't been able to climb stairs without excruciating pain for over two years now, because of the NHS's refusal to treat a very minor injury that the NHS themselves now tell her has only got so bad because it wasn't treated promptly. Everyone in Britain knows that NHS is fucked, and yet we live in a climate where to even suggest scrapping it is electoral suicide — and that's largely because of the stupid and false claims people like you always make about paramedics refusing to treat patients and chronically ill patients being chucked out of hospitals because they're poor — neither of which happen in the US, incidentally, because both are illegal.


> I work for the benefits agency, and I'm not aware of any rule like that, so I can't comment there.

I explained that here.


> Ironically, the reduction in standards in education can be linked directly to the free-market, laissez-faire attitudes that you want to see more of. Recent governments have tried to turn education into a service industry with the parent as customer.

This is funny. You actually think that a government have any clue how to behave like a private company. If the parents were customers in a service industry, they'd be able to go elsewhere. That's the key motivating factor that makes competitors in a market do a relatively good job, and it's the one thing that the government absolutely do not provide.


> As parents want their little darlings to get good exam results, and 'the customer is always right', the whole education system has been changed so that more and more pupils can get better and better passes, regardless of ability. Parents think it's great, cos their kid gets an A and can go to Uni, but actually the standards have just been lowered.

Yep, I'm aware of all this. If you reckon it's caused by the state education system behaving as if it were privatised, you need to explain why it hasn't affected private schools and why it didn't start sometime in the 1800s.


> I think if someone posts something like that, they should be prepared to defend their ideas.

Yes, quite. Sorry; are you saying that I'm not?