I'm not sure I can argue with that... Although I would be pleased to have the added flexibility of essentially a limitless ISA and not having to add the interest tax line in Microsoft Money that Nationwide do separately from the interest.
The Budget 2015 – 12:30
- Thread starter Cosimo
- Start date
I'm not sure I can argue with that... Although I would be pleased to have the added flexibility of essentially a limitless ISA and not having to add the interest tax line in Microsoft Money that Nationwide do separately from the interest.
I disagree with the North Sea oil one. It is genuinly in need of a tax reform to ensure maximum recovery from the basin and sustained investment. It's about looking at the longer term picture.
Quite the opposite. This is helping lower earners. Higher earners lose their personal allowance so they don't benefit from those changes.
NI threshold change as a percentage of income benefits lower earners the most.
Nearly all of them benefit lower earners more than higher.
But we can't have maximum recovery and in the longer term all fossil fuel recovery needs to come to something pretty close to a stop. We need to leave about two thirds of the fossil fuels we know about in the ground to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change; and the sooner we get properly on board with these facts the lower the economic damage will be.
Funding for hydroelectric will be announced today.
This is a myth. I posted about it in the General Election thread last night. Here's the impact of the existing £10k change by income decile:
(via the IFS)
The impact of further rises in personal allowance is even more skewed since less and less of the money goes to low earners. Now, if the rises are counterbalanced by reductions in the threshold levels (which I actually think that's unlikely to happen, but it may) then the very top part of that distribution will be slightly reduced but it will still be case that most of the money goes to middle-to-higher income households. Very little goes to the lowest income households.
Well I was thinking more along the lines of raising the tax threshold, green light for HS3, north sea tax cuts, etc.
But we're nowhere near replacing fossil fuels yet, so the tax relief is really a mid term plan to maximise production before it runs out/is replaced by another energy source.
You just argued it was a long term plan!
We're in no immediate danger of running out; and we'd be in much better shape for the longer term if we invested this money in renewables rather than squandering it on tax cuts for oil producers.
No. It doesn't. Look at the graph I posted immediately before your comment, here it is again, the black line is percentage:
And the situation is worse for continued rises. As a percentage, these increases don't benefit low income households the most and as a proportion of the money spent very little goes to low income households, with the majority going to middle-to-higher income households, and is thus a very ill targeted change if the aim is to aid lower income households.
Last edited:
The simple answer and it is very very simple, to understand and administer.
Increase income tax across the board for everyone by 2p, increase it more for the %40 bracket by a extra 4p.
The deficit must be cut, and services need to be trimmed along with it.
Oh and cancel trident.
Increase income tax across the board for everyone by 2p, increase it more for the %40 bracket by a extra 4p.
The deficit must be cut, and services need to be trimmed along with it.
Oh and cancel trident.
We never defined what "long term" meant
. I was talking about the next few decades.You're right, the world oil production isn't a problem, but the tax cuts are for the (selfish) benefit of the UK, it's relative production and protecting an industry.
Unfortunately it's human nature that need necessitates change, and I fear the same will occur with regard to renewables/climate change (there's not enough 'need' at the moment for people to care enough about making bit step changes).
We never defined what "long term" meant
I'm unconvinced it's even in our benefit; at most we're prolonging the period over which pain must be felt. I also feel that as one of the world's richest nations it's important that we take a lead on these matters.
Will be interesting to see how they propose "scraping" the annual tax return. I envisage it will import as much data as they currently have but things like self employment income, deductions, etc isn't something that is easy to do.
They plan on linking business accounting software to their systems but how do people know if an expensive is deductible or if it qualifies for the various allowances if they don't have an accountant?
As an accountant quite a few of my colleagues are holding out to see how this affects us. In reality, the system would fall apart without us at the minute.
They plan on linking business accounting software to their systems but how do people know if an expensive is deductible or if it qualifies for the various allowances if they don't have an accountant?
As an accountant quite a few of my colleagues are holding out to see how this affects us. In reality, the system would fall apart without us at the minute.
I'm also waiting to see how this works. It will probably hit my income.....thanks Obama!
Also, most of the Sole Traders I do don't even use accounts software, it's just done on spreadsheets (by me)....and I can image people loving the thought of linking up their bank accounts to the HMRC! Especially when their personal account & business accounts are one in the same.
It seems they want everyone, business, self employed etc to be like PAYE and report their income on a monthly basis.
As with Universal Credits, anyone who is self employed will have to submit their monthly income & expenditure figures every month to get their working tax credits, I really don't see how that's going to work, since as you say people employ us to do it properly!
Last edited:
The problem is, and with all due respect to the micro businesses, the people submitting the numbers won't be trained. The numbers are likely to be incorrect in nature (e.g. expense vs capital expenditure), when to recognise income, etc. This will only lead to an audit if they then have to go back and change things.