Poll: Poll: Prime Minister Theresa May calls General Election on June 8th

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The trade simply moved to other exchanges, so not only does a robin hood tax fail to bring the expected revenue, it damages tax take and gdp indirectly as well.

It's economic lunacy.

Specifically though, of what benefit to the nation would these 85% of transactions that were lost be?
What do they do, what do they mean?
If they are not taxed they generate no income for a nation, so what purpose do they serve?

I have no knowledge of this particular brand of 'banking'.

 

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What level of earnings is this new 'means testing' for the likes of pension winter fuel payments etc?
Is it per individual or per household?
Will they expect the taxpayer to inform them if the taxpayer earns too much, in the same way as the **** brained ****wits do with child benefit?
Still annoyed about that lack of joint income determination, given it is obviously a joint income basis in the majority of cases.

 

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That's only because costs for Pensions, the NHS, schools etc have ballooned.

Come on, we all know services have been cut! My local police and county council have been selling off buildings left, right and centre to raise cash. My other half works in adult social care for the council and they've had to cut back a huge amount on services they used to provide.

What magic pot of money would you spend from?
If we are cutting some services back, yet overall amounts of spending have increased, and we are slowly working to a payment static position, isn't this a good thing?
You can't keep spending what you don't have ad infinitum. It doesn't work like that.

 

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I don't understand this, raising the limit on what you can keep from 23,000 to 100,000 and allowing you to defer it is bad why?

Is this exactly what is being proposed?
It certainly isn't being reported or reflected as such?
Does the current assessment take into account income and assets or just income?

-edit
also have they stated any proposal for what the limit on the various pension means testing will be?
I can't seem to find this information anywhere, will it be based upon assets and income also? or purely income?

 

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The current assessment for whether you have to pay for social care just includes income and savings. If you have more than £23k (I think) then you have to pay and could be forced to sell your house. The new proposal includes the value of your house in the assessment, but you won't have to sell your house until after you and your partner (if applicable) are dead.

So it is a completely different system which will nail anyone who owns a house of any size.
It is a much more grabbing system, deferment is the only advantage, which will leave options for the benefactors of the will to get fleeced later.

I don't like it.

 

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In the worst case scenario, under the current system, your children inherit £23k. Under the proposed system, those children would inherit £100k. Like all changes to the rules there will be winners and losers - it's an awful area to deal with because of the emotions on board. I personally wish we could fund social care out of general taxation but as a nation we're not in a position to do that any more.

Are you certain?
If your house is worth 120K, this little insurance pot can only amass to 20K then, to be paid off later?
What about interest it attains, does that have to be paid off also?
What if a property's value increases, does one then have to pay further, or when you hit 100K value do the payments and insurance contributions stop?

Usually the way these systems work, if you are above a threshold you pay, and you keep paying until it is done. Are we certain the value stops when you reach the 100K threshold?
So a joint owned property of 200K isn't vulnerable at all?
If a person has pension gov or pvt paying money to them, is that taken first, and then contributions reassessed every April?
How often will they revalue properly, or will they use council tax/rates bandings?

 

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The issue with the "Dementia Tax" as it has been dubbed, is that it breaks the social contract.

The basis of all our health care provision is that we all pay something into the system, via taxation, and then if you are unfortunate enough to require the help it is provided free at use.

Labour were vilified before with their "Death Tax" which was a 15% levy against your assets on death by all of us to pay for social care, which I think is a much better way of doing it, rather than now making the people unfortunate enough to lose the health lottery and develop some of these long term degenerative diseases potentially lose all their assets above 100,000.

Frankly this health lotto you speak of, I would like to see, for my own personal benefit, some form of euthanasia, so I get to end stage dementia, put me down, so I no longer cost my family anything.
I don't want to live like that, I'm not the person I was, might inhabit that body, but I am not that person, I am no one I recognise or my family recognises.
End it.

 

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Have most pensioners spent their lives paying a mortgage though? Seems like a sizeable portion of them have been living off an appreciating asset, that they bought when it's value was more reasonable in proportion to their income, for the last few decades...

Living off in what way?
Have they magically been melting the bricks and changing those into cash?
I buy house, I live in house, no matter the value of that property and how it changes, it doesn't make me any money while I remain in it, it costs me money, rates and maintenance, not makes money.
I can't 'live off' an asset I live in.

 

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The other point to make on this front is that a significant inheritance tax is progressive in its impact. Everyone can leave a percentage of their estate to somebody. Under the proposed scheme, that's only possible if you don't need care, or you've amassed enough wealth to have something left over after your care costs have been paid.

Or, to put it another way, inherited wealth becomes the domain of the healthy and the wealthy.

The very wealthy seem to create trusts for such things anyway, which avoids all this mess, but then they won't be taking advantage of govt based social care anyway.

 

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Remortgaging (particularly for the purposes of BTL) and equity release was all the rage before the financial crisis.

Pensioners remortgaging prior to financial crash to live of the equity profit?
Pensioners who have no employment remortgaging?
What vast amount of the potential pensioner market do you actually think is living currently off the equity in their property as stacked against the mortgage they own upon the property?

BTL is nothing to do with the home you live in.
You are talking about something completely different.

 

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Even if that were the goal, our current rubbish is a poor way of achieving it. For that we'd be far better off with a presidential system and a sensible form of election for that individual (e.g. IRV, Approval Voting, Score Voting, any of the Condorcet methods, etc. - actually are there any voting systems that have ever been used anywhere as bad as FPTP?).

POTUS system is awful
Lose and still win because... well just because really.

 

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Okay to did the Tory's see a poll a month ago, assume landslide and decided to slap together a load of bucketlist policies assuming we'll win anyway, we can do whatever we like?
Now Corby and his crew have decided, we're not going to get in, so we might as well promise the Earth in all headline grabbing aspects, and when we don't get in, we'll have five years of whinging at the Tory's saying we promised x y and z. All the uncrossed goodness, and win easily in five years time?

Hung parliament would be hilarious, absolutely awfully hilarious. We would actually watch the negotiating position go to oblivion, and associated madness.

Roll on interesting times.

Wonder what labour will promise next week?

 

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You prefer Bojo, Fallon, Fox, Davis, Hammond and Rudd?

To Diane Abbot, yes.
Someone with an IQ of 80 would be preferable to that idiotic racist.

-edit
Diane Abbot is a massive drag anchor for anything she is associated with.
Gobpieces tend to be.