Growth

[Protheroe]

Are you the same poster that has been complaining that we are taxed too much, because it appears you have just posted a chart that shows there are only 8 countries that have less tax (taking into account that is 2022 and we may have moved right)

This is merely tax on earnings B1. I'm illustrating that the median earner in the UK is currently relatively lightly taxed. 

The tax burden falls much more heavily on higher earners already, as a progressive system ought to - but creating the disincentives I've bored you all about for years - but which are now coming home to roost in "quiet quitting" in particular, which any sane system of taxation ought to be able to avoid. 

I've also explained the perverse incentives for businesses already created by the tax system which mean you won't really get any more from them.

That's without even mentioning Council Tax & Business Rates neither of which have any basis in fairness nor reality (and never did). We already know Council Tax is going up by 5% each year plus whatever the police & fire service need. I expect I'll be paying £5,000 per annum in a few years time by the time we're quietly quitting.

Rachel Reeves knows there is only one place she can realistically go for the amount of tax she needs, and that is to median earners. Having ruled out increases in the basic rate and NI that either means fiscal drag forever or another volte face. Whichever way you look at it, it will be lower and middle earners who have to make up the difference - you can't squeeze the pips for everyone else forever - as illustrated in that chart.

I agree generally with what you say Proth however the country is hemmed in by it's own fears. We have frozen the debate by loons like Chunk who will ignore the failures of one side and yet scream from the highest hill when the other side make lessor mistakes. God help the poor sod when tax increases do appear. When the situation is as dire as was predicted by yourself last year repeatedly then I'm not certain where they can turn.

We all know the last lot were virtually criminal in their actions and topped it off by politicizing the need to raise taxes when the very thing that was needed in tax increases to afford the state that we need.

I wouldn't say that the others were squeezed to the pips forever, you and I are of a generation that has benefitted from freedoms and legitimate tax avoidance through ISAs and Pensions and those freedoms have been restricted rather than had the life squeezed out of them. The IHT on pensions value being added to the value of our estates is an inconvenience if I died today but probably manageable and avoidable if I make it through the time that I have worked through the amount that I had put aside for the very reason of a pension - to provide a lifestyle when I stop working as opposed to somewhere to hide it away to avoid IHT.

The pips have well and truly been squeezed B1. Disincentives are everywhere for higher / top rate taxpayers or anyone with business or personal assets outside a tax wrapper.

Like I say, if they continue to reject LVT the only way that Labour can hope to raise the money they'll need will be via lower and middle earners - anything else just reinforces the disincentives that already exist.