Tories giving the disabled another kicking

Soldato
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I don't understand why people don't understand that having to pay a higher percentage above a defined band is unfair. It should be sufficient that the individual is already paying more tax by virtue of a higher salary.

You could flat rate it, have little to no admin in the system, force everyone to be PAYE, with stakeholder pensions, and then slam luxury taxes on items, suoervat so to speak.
So those with the nice masses of excess cash can chose to soend it as they like, but with supervat, we make some of the lost taxes back.

Would be novel for sure, interesting to see how or what might be in favour of it.
 
Soldato
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I don't understand why people don't understand that having to pay a higher percentage above a defined band is unfair. It should be sufficient that the individual is already paying more tax by virtue of a higher salary.

And that is just opinion (also contrary to your previous assertion, of course an opinion can be discriminatory...they aren't mutually exclusive concepts :confused:)

Anyway, the point to a progressive taxation system is that your 1st pound earnt hasn't got the same 'value' to you as the 100,000th. Once the essentials gave been covered, the rest is not as essential.

So a flat tax rate can also seem to be unfair, because, say at a 10% rate it means a lot more to someone paying £2000 on £20k income than £10,000 on £100k income.

And the current system of incremental tax bands is not a 'punishment' on success, lol...such a stupid statement, its a recognition that no-one achieves that success in isolation to societies structures around them. So once your income is of a certain level, you can afford to pay a higher amount back into the pot as your standard of living is not going to be negatively affected by it.
 
Man of Honour
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It's intersting that the term progressive tax is used. This makes it sound like it gets better as the percentage gets higher. An alternative would be to call it a regressive tax to indicate a deteriorating tax position for those earning more.
 
Soldato
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And the current system of incremental tax bands is not a 'punishment' on success, lol...such a stupid statement, its a recognition that no-one achieves that success in isolation to societies structures around them. So once your income is of a certain level, you can afford to pay a higher amount back into the pot as your standard of living is not going to be negatively affected by it.

Except the current system isn't a recognition of this at all. It is a mash of countless previous systems tweaked countless times to suit the political needs of the government of the day.

All of which were entirely short term. And which has resulted in a complete mess.
 
Caporegime
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There's just so many variables, like location. Someone living in London will probably need far more of their £50k for housing and living costs than someone earning that in the North. Shouldn't they be allowed a bit more relief?
 
Soldato
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It's intersting that the term progressive tax is used. This makes it sound like it gets better as the percentage gets higher. An alternative would be to call it a regressive tax to indicate a deteriorating tax position for those earning more.

That's just because you are using the wrong definition of the word 'progressive'.

In this context all it means is :-

noting or pertaining to a form of taxation in which the rate increases with certain increases in taxable income.


Except the current system isn't a recognition of this at all. It is a mash of countless previous systems tweaked countless times to suit the political needs of the government of the day.

All of which were entirely short term. And which has resulted in a complete mess.

I am just talking about ideological differences between a progressive and flat rate tax system, rather than the reasons behind why we've ended up with what we have now
 
Associate
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Except the current system isn't a recognition of this at all. It is a mash of countless previous systems tweaked countless times to suit the political needs of the government of the day.

All of which were entirely short term. And which has resulted in a complete mess.

And if they change it to simplify it they'll have an unemployment crisis on their hands with all the government staff needed to administer it, on top of the hit to the accountancy industry.
 
Soldato
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There's just so many variables, like location. Someone living in London will probably need far more of their £50k for housing and living costs than someone earning that in the North. Shouldn't they be allowed a bit more relief?

They do, via higher wages and london weighting on benefits
 
Soldato
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There's just so many variables, like location. Someone living in London will probably need far more of their £50k for housing and living costs than someone earning that in the North. Shouldn't they be allowed a bit more relief?

Tube drivers earn 50k in London, you have to be a Senior Manager to earn 50k+ where I work in Leeds
 
Caporegime
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Yeah about 3500 tube drivers earning a "decent wage" is really indicative of the average London wage. :p

i dunno what an office worker takes home these days but i doubt its over 25-30k
 
Caporegime
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I'm a disabled DLA claimant and I do work, thank you very much. Please don't assume that DLA / PIP claimants are out of work.

Put of curiosity given the reasoning behind this desicion how much do you get from the dla each week and what extra costs does your disability cause on a weekly basis?
 
Caporegime
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Put of curiosity given the reasoning behind this desicion how much do you get from the dla each week and what extra costs does your disability cause on a weekly basis?

If I'm going to be upfront and honest Tefal, PE may be different, but I find that the benefit sometimes outstrips the costs incurred. But it's horses for courses. Some people on their own will have far greater costs and it may not cover it, but the likes of myself who live at home, dont incur as many costs.

I get £125 a week ESA to help with general costs of living. The £82 a week DLA is for costs associated with my disability. Some weeks I'll need it all, some I wont, depending on what I am doing. Most of it goes into petrol for the car as the mobility component is taken up completely by the car hire, and as I stated earlier, my auto astra is ridiculously thirsty. Luckily, I'm due a change soon, so I'll look for something more economical.

Thats why I have never advocated more money for disability benefits as I think the current level is spot on.
 
Caporegime
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If I'm going to be upfront and honest Tefal, PE may be different, but I find that the benefit sometimes outstrips the costs incurred. But it's horses for courses. Some people on their own will have far greater costs and it may not cover it, but the likes of myself who live at home, dont incur as many costs.

I get £125 a week ESA to help with general costs of living. The £82 a week DLA is for costs associated with my disability. Some weeks I'll need it all, some I wont, depending on what I am doing. Most of it goes into petrol for the car as the mobility component is taken up completely by the car hire, and as I stated earlier, my auto astra is ridiculously thirsty. Luckily, I'm due a change soon, so I'll look for something more economical.

Thats why I have never advocated more money for disability benefits as I think the current level is spot on.

Do you get 80 pound a week to help pay for aids/other things you need to help you fuction at a normal level.


Yet your only real expendature of it is on petrol, which you'dspend disability or no disability (the aid being the specially modified car which alows you to use it not the fuel).

So that 80 quid a week is being wasted on you as its just money because your disabled not to mitigate thr disadvantage
 
Soldato
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How much it costs can be difficult to quantify. My wife has been in and out of a specialist hospital in London a lot lately, and each trip there costs £30 in fuel, £12-£15 to park and another £5-£10 on taxi fares...
 
Caporegime
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Do you get 80 pound a week to help pay for aids/other things you need to help you fuction at a normal level.


Yet your only real expendature of it is on petrol, which you'dspend disability or no disability (the aid being the specially modified car which alows you to use it not the fuel).

So that 80 quid a week is being wasted on you as its just money because your disabled not to mitigate thr disadvantage

You say that about the petrol, but a hell of a lot of the trips I take are to the hospital for appointments, the doctors for INR checks, pharmacy for meds etc, not jollies down to the coast every 5 minutes.
 
Caporegime
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How much it costs can be difficult to quantify. My wife has been in and out of a specialist hospital in London a lot lately, and each trip there costs £30 in fuel, £12-£15 to park and another £5-£10 on taxi fares...

Yeah, you cant make a budget sheet of where your £80 goes. It changes all the time, depending on whats happening in your life at that time. A couple of weeks back for example, I needed some new exercise bands as mine were knackered, that's £25.
 
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