Time to increase taxes?

UTmaniac said:
Tax the people who needlessly use motor vehicles for short journeys, instead of cycling.

If people used bicycles for journeys shorter than ~5 miles, the UK population would be far more healthy and their life expectancy would increase, IIRC official government figures now show that current 40+ year old are not expected to live as long as the previous generation. As a nation, we are heading for "Couch Potato Central."

Encourage people to get healthier; spend less money on travel; reduce traffic congestion for vehicles that really need to use the roads; reduce the burden on the NHS etc.
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What about the lost fuel tax? How would that be made up?
 
Hades said:
What about the lost fuel tax? How would that be made up?
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Reduced NHS expenditure is going to help, as is the sale of bicycles and equipment.

Not to mention, there will a significant number of people who will continue to want to add to the traffic congestion, which will now be handsomely adding to the taxation pool.
 
Err no, already pay enough in taxes as it is, income tax, NI, council tax, vat the list goes on, i tell you what i will just give over my entire wage packet to the government should i :rolleyes:, stop spending all of the money in london would be a good start.
 
Spook187 said:
Err no, already pay enough in taxes as it is, income tax, NI, council tax, vat the list goes on, i tell you what i will just give over my entire wage packet to the government should i :rolleyes:, stop spending all of the money in london would be a good start.
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I actually wouldn't mind paying just one giant tax if they stopped all the others I pay. But it would be wide open to abuse.
 
The_Abyss said:
The example you quote would have supporters and would also have a queue of people angry that the better off families are getting free breakfasts when they can afford their own. Then another group will call for means testing for school meals, and then another will say that children are being stigmatised for having free school meals and then another will say that means testing is more expensive than actually providing universal free school meals and then Jamie Oliver will get involved because the taxpayer has demanded value for money in providing all these school meals so the local authority thought they use some nice cheap deep fried steroid turkey from America to save a few pence.
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This is so spot on and where we are at with basically every political debate in the UK at the moment. There are no clear visions and consensus for anything anymore.
 
Edrof said:
I'm sorry I bore you. So all the companies operating in the UK are now paying the tax they morally should be? Good to know.
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I'm just bored of hearing "make all of those companies pay their taxes!!!!1111". It gets dull. International tax reform has been massive over the past two years and authorities have tightened up the holes that allowed for double non-residence (ala Apple) or the Dutch-Irish sandwich.

Companies adapt to changes in rules and do things like move material operations to low tax countries such as Switzerland, Ireland, etc.
 
MookJong said:
Time to improve efficiency before upping taxes, I was in hospital on Monday and was amazed yet again to see some of the practices and inefficiency in the NHS. Doctors wandering around waiting areas rifling through various unorganised stacks of paper records looking for things. I mean it is a world away from the modern business work environment.
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Yes, doctors walking around is a sign of inefficency, they should be sitting down, or only in for the exact minutes they're needed, and imagine using paper records in this day and age for something that requires 100% uptime, I mean it's not like computers ever go wrong.

I've (unfortunately) had to spend a fair bit of time in the hospital the last few months and from what I've seen the staff are stretched pretty thin, the only time they've been "walking around" without a specific purpose was when they were waiting on other things (and even then they were typically talking to each other about work related stuff much of the time).

You cannot and should never try to run a health service like a business, as whilst it's no real problem in a supermarket if you have to wait 10 minutes in the checkout queue (although if that happened regularly I'd change store), in a hospital you can't afford that wait for a doctor, not to mention you never know how long it's going to take to see a patient so you need to have enough staff to go through them at a reasonable rate, but balance that with how much downtime those staff will have.
 
Werewolf said:
Yes, doctors walking around is a sign of inefficency, they should be sitting down, or only in for the exact minutes they're needed, and imagine using paper records in this day and age for something that requires 100% uptime, I mean it's not like computers ever go wrong.

I've (unfortunately) had to spend a fair bit of time in the hospital the last few months and from what I've seen the staff are stretched pretty thin, the only time they've been "walking around" without a specific purpose was when they were waiting on other things (and even then they were typically talking to each other about work related stuff much of the time).

You cannot and should never try to run a health service like a business, as whilst it's no real problem in a supermarket if you have to wait 10 minutes in the checkout queue (although if that happened regularly I'd change store), in a hospital you can't afford that wait for a doctor, not to mention you never know how long it's going to take to see a patient so you need to have enough staff to go through them at a reasonable rate, but balance that with how much downtime those staff will have.
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I think you have me wrong! I'm on your side!

I could see his frustration, he was literally being impeded in his job hunting for the lost file. Doctors should be getting on with helping people not battling with frustrating admin tasks. These files were not being stored in any kind of logic I could see, they were literally just stacked in "an area" behind the department reception desk. This is in the brand new part of the hospital which has had million spent on it. I have witnesses similar things at another hospital that is less than 2 years old. This can't be right surely?

I've had nothing but fantastic experiences with staff in the NHS. My brother and sister in law are a surgeon and doctor respectfully, but when I mention these things and compare them to industry they agree. They tell me first hand about the lack of organisation in certain areas.

Doctors and nurses are there to provide care and we should be streamlining all of the surrounding tasks with known good practices so they can get on and do what they do best.
 
Had an ex who was a physio. You hear about all these big IT projects that then fall on their face due to the complexities and politics of protecting patient information, even when it comes to sharing between departments. It all needs streamlining before trying to design a one shoe fits all system.

Other silly things like having to use paper diaries. Want to go on holiday? Track down other members of staff (who only have a tiny amount of admin time) with their diary and try to offload your caseload to them.
 
I voted for Brexit so the NHS will be fine with the £350 million a week that Boris and Gove will give them :p

Before I see tax increases I want to see tax efficiency. Remember the moat for the duck pond we paid for? the extra houses for MP's paid for by tax money, all the food they eat.. I take my own lunch to work every day I don't see why MP's can't do it. Wasteful ops on the NHS like the woman who got a boob job then sued the NHS because now she has back pain and wants a reduction op, provided by the NHS of cause.
 
No the problem we have is collective greed. Those in the public sector are more concerned with their jobs and their budget than truly saving the public sector from itself . Sad but true.
 
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