The National Debt
#21
FenlandBoing Wrote:
Brentbaggie Wrote:Little or no pensions. People dropped dead quicker. Cheap labour. Cheap imports from the colonies. High export demand for GB quality goods. Post-war population boom, end of rationing, etc., etc. UK manufacturing relatively intact post-war. Then everyone catches up, modernises, lose markets, labour costs rise, oh dear, UK goods can’t compete, wages rise, imports cost rise, etc., etc. All goes tits up. UK manufacturing out of date, political strife, oo-er missus. Boom. Bust.

Looking at some other stats - in the surplus decades we only spent 1-2% on health, education, social care and recent decades it seems to be between 6-8% for each. SO maybe these are the areas we need to spend less? I imagine the rise is in part to increasing population of those of retired age / aged - as you pointed out. But maybe we need to review how we spend the money we do in those areas and reduce it. Of course I'm not in favour of losing services but it's how we have our systems set up and administered so we reduce waste to an absolute minimum - such as making those responsible legally accountable for their errors when it costs the tax payer so much money, it always seems no-one is held to account - even if sometimes they are.  

The tax system is ridiculously complicated too and I would streamline this completely to 15- 20 basic rules which everyone can understand and follow both for personal and business tax to make it as transparent as possible and also fairer to all.
Absolutely. It is such a smoke and mirrors business. My own accounts these days are so simple I am seriously thinking about just doing the tax return myself. Last time I suggested that to my accountant he pointed out his job is to save me more in tax than I pay him. Now I'm a small operator but unfortunately that principle is the same for the biggest corporations and their multi storied accountants, where we are talking in figures the size of telephone numbers.
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#22
(10-21-2020, 06:51 PM)Tom Joad Wrote: Absolutely. It is such a smoke and mirrors business. My own accounts these days are so simple I am seriously thinking about just doing the tax return myself. Last time I suggested that to my accountant he pointed out his job is to save me more in tax than I pay him. Now I'm a small operator but unfortunately that principle is the same for the biggest corporations and their multi storied accountants, where we are talking in figures the size of telephone numbers.

Your accountant would be negligent if he told you otherwise. So would any company's accountant.

There is nothing wrong with any company paying the tax that is legally due, and no more.
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