What level of taxation is "fair"?

hurfdurf said:
Shouldn't have all of it, no. For them to live in a country where they are safe to spend the money amongst a healthy, happy population means they must sacrifice a large chunk of it.
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This sort of attitude makes it clear why equality under the law must be enshrined at a constitutional level. Far too many jealous moneygrabbers always after someone else paying for their desires.

no-one should be forced to sacrifice a greater proportion of either their earned income or their wealth than anyone else.
 
Kemik said:
A flat rate of tax would generate more income from the top earners than the current tax system.

That's on the assumption that the personal allowance is moved to around £12k and most reliefs are removed/simplified.
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change from straight flat tax to negative income tax and you also have a highly progressive marginal rate that maintains fairness by treating all income equally and all individuals equally.
 
Glaucus said:
Why should high earners pay proportionally more? What's progressive about that? Neither should the poor struggle whilst paying tax. Or pay tax and get tax back through complicated refunds.

High tax free allowance, insures the poor can live, whilst flat tax after that means everyone's paying proportionally the same.
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I actually agree with most points here.

It is unfair that higher earners who get paid by PAYE get shafted the hardest & it seems counter-productive (not to mention a massive waste of money to organise) to tax low earners (but them give it them back)
 
I often wonder if scrapping tax on income and just having a high rate of VAT and import duty on all goods would be fairer. Those who buy more expensive and luxury goods therefore pay more tax. Unfortunately I'm not an economics graduate so have no idea if this would be viable or not. I suspect it would cause problems with tourism. :p
 
George Hincapie said:
This is a stupid scenario. If it was my family I'd pay the bill outright. I really don't care what happens to strangers. Their lives and well being isn't my concern or responsibility. They can wash the dishes out back :p
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Says it all really.

Unfortunately for you, we live in a society - if you don't care what happens to strangers then you don't have the right to complain when a stranger beats the **** out of your family/mugs you or burns down your family home (as they are simply applying the same logic to you).
 
PianoBasher said:
I often wonder if scrapping tax on income and just having a high rate of VAT and import duty on all goods would be fairer. Those who buy more expensive and luxury goods therefore pay more tax. Unfortunately I'm not an economics graduate so have no idea if this would be viable or not. I suspect it would cause problems with tourism. :p
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No it wouldn't work, let's ignore the highly regressive nature of this tax for a moment, if you're a government you want a balanced mix of tax sources. Essentially there are three sorts of tax - income tax, consumption tax and wealth tax. You need to have a mix all three. Personally I don't think we have enough wealth tax in this country, the only ones I can think of are council tax (based on the value of your property but you only pay a 30% premium over a council house for living in a mansion) and inheritance tax, which I find a bit morally distasteful to say the least.
 
Trouble is if you remove tax breaks then you'll find there would be less investment in things like education, charities, pharmaceuticals, even film and TV.

Unfortunately money makes the world go around and you will always have an element of the wealthy looking to protect their income.

As always it is the middle classes that carries a more than fair chunk of the income tax burden.
 
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aln said:
Even with a flat tax, you'd still pay more if you were capable of doing so.

33% of £30000 is £9900
33% of £1000000 is still £330000.

I don't understand how someone could claim a top earner would not be paying more in a flat rate tax system. I'd argue that our government probably wastes too much money to make a flat tax rate a reality, but it'd be the ideal of the situation in my opinion.
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Kemik said:
A flat rate of tax would generate more income from the top earners than the current tax system.

That's on the assumption that the personal allowance is moved to around £12k and most reliefs are removed/simplified.
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I know this. I was advocating that taxing the higher earners a higher proportion can be easily justified.
 
elmarko1234 said:
Says it all really.

Unfortunately for you, we live in a society - if you don't care what happens to strangers then you don't have the right to complain when a stranger beats the **** out of your family/mugs you or burns down your family home (as they are simply applying the same logic to you).
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What a retarded argument :rolleyes:

Unless the law has changed overnight, then assault is a criminal offence. As my tax pays for the Police then of course I would have a right to complain.
 
Fair taxation isn't about amounts or arbitrary proportions (although efficient taxation is). Fair taxation is about outcomes.

Does anyone feel like they get anything like good value for money? I don't.
 
The problem is, people see taxation at an individual level - which is stupid in itself, it's society's running costs.

While the rich like to pretend they don't live in society, who do they think enforces the value of the money they have?, who protects them from the poor stealing what they have?.

It's the combined cost of the society you are living in, while I agree waste can be reduced (that sounds all good and well, I've yet to hear an argument for increasing waste).

We could reduce the tax burden on all if we spent less money on wars & other frivolous expenditure, but I don't think we should be cutting tax which directly results in the lowering of living standards for most of the population.

Tax, in a perfect form is the cost of sustaining & keeping standards in a given society to an acceptable level.

For me that means no homeless people, no children living in poverty & an equal start for all.

If we did live in a conservative utopia I'd put good money on a revolution of the masses following shortly after - as like it or not, unhappy poor miserable people will eventually get sick of getting the short end of the stick & hell will break loose.

Giving money to the less fortunate is how the rich of this era have managed to stay on top, if they didn't a revolution would have forced change a long time ago - part of me hopes we do get a Tory government for the next 100 year, at least it will force social change through a revolution (instead of Labour who quell the masses with token gifts/bribes/rewards).
 
Jokester said:
Surely the people that benefit most from society are those that get more in benefits?
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A person who makes millions from shuffling around money that only exists on paper benefits from our neoliberal, capitalist society far more than a person getting £45 a week.

Tute said:
I certainly do not agree with making the wealthiest pay as much as they do. I can understand why it is done like it is, but at the end of the day, these are also the people most likely to rely on private services hence they are paying for something they may well not end up using. Hence the flat rate.
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Almost every private service you can think of relies on public infrastructure. A chauffeur driven car won't go anywhere without a road. Private medical facilities would be nothing but a fancy bed and a DVD player if they didn't have an NHS building to put them in.

The rich are the major beneficiaries of our society. It goes to show how much the corporate media has warped everyone's thinking that they are actually seen as victims of the taxman.
 
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