Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

yeah i wondered that to

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Sorry,I disagree.
It's much better to tax consumption than work.After all,I'd like to see work and entrepeneurship being rewarded again in our beloved country. 15 % flat tax on all income,next to no benefits and 25% VAT,I could live with that!

Oh,and by the way,my voting power is 0.858 :D Hove,East Sussex

---------- Post added at 13:24 ---------- Previous post was at 13:20 ----------

well,only let those immigrate who are a clear benefit to the country,well-qualified,with money,and the willingness to do something with their lives when they are here.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

but that would only impact the low paid

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

If they did that they would get my vote.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Do you think the LibDems would change our laws to do that? I don't get that impression. We have virtually no control of immigration from the EU and I really don't see the Lib Dems getting tough on migration from elsewhere. If I'm wrong about that I'll be delighted to read their proposals on how they'd aim to achieve Clegg's aim.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

:clap::clap:

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Yes and after all the success they've enjoyed over the last 13 years you'd have thought New Labour and their supporters would be armed with a myriad of reasons why we should vote for more of the same... :rolleyes:

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

No,they probably wouldn't.None of the mainstream parties would,as they don't want to be 'racist'. I would call it sensible and looking after oneself,but that's just me.... ;)

---------- Post added at 13:36 ---------- Previous post was at 13:34 ----------



well,ummmm,well,aahh,well.... I give up :D

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

So have they I reckon.... :D

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

What about if things happen and you are forced to use the social security safety net that has been reduced to 'next to nothing'.

Smacking VAT up like that will reduce consumption. Reduced consumption means less jobs.

I'm as much for rewarding hard work as you are but for those on lower incomes the above system would hurt in a huge way. The social harm it would cause would be quite extensive and a balance has to be struck.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Lumping the tax take onto VAT is a highly regressive measure that piles the burden of paying for Great Britain plc unfairly onto those with low incomes.

25% VAT may not be of any consequence to you if you have a large disposable income because you can just soak that increase up. But what of someone living well below the average wage? Paying VAT already eats up proportionally more of their income than it does yours (I'm assuming you're not a low earner). Increasing VAT simply magnifies that problem.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Not at all - those on higher incomes spend more money on VAT-able items, which makes it a progressive tax.

Again, people should be encouraged to save. A combination of low income tax and higher VAT does just that.

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Make VAT so high that it becomes viable for me and people like me on higher incomes to make large purchases outside the UK and import them I'll do just that and there's nothing the government can do about it, so by trying to charge 25% instead of 17.5% of that 1k LCD TV the government gets nothing while another country in Europe gets 20% along with an export to the UK harming the UK's balance of trade.

Encouraging too much saving isn't wise. Excessive saving cools consumption and slows the economy. Instead of money being spent on goods and services and providing jobs and economic growth it is sitting in people's savings accounts doing nothing. There was a savings glut in Japan which had some rather serious effects on their economy.

Interest rates would end up sitting very low to try and persuade people to consume and if people were to consume and inflation rise for any reason the primary instrument to control it, interest rates, is gone.

People saving drops the government's income as it's relying so heavily on sales taxes, sales taxes have to go up again to try and compensate, consumption reduces and/or goes into importation and/or grey/black markets as increased rates of taxation cause increased evasion as it becomes more worthwhile and round and round it goes.

Purely from the economic point of view it's really not a hot idea.

The idea was mooted in the US and shot down:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...dding-fairtax/

EDIT: Re: Regressive nature of this proposal:

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Yep, there's definitely a GE round the corner....

I wonder how?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7094911.ece

Re: The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 1
 

Well their strategy seems fairly clear. Throw mud at the opposition and fire bovine excreta at us with no regard for fiscal responsibility.

The first paragraph is hysterical in the context of the second one.

Both of which will evidently cost nothing significant. Minimum wage increase and increase in paid paternity leave are both quite strongly anti-business measures. Brown appears to have sloughed off any pretence at being centrist now and is pushing a populist and potentially harmful left-wing socialist agenda with total ignorance to the costs of his bribes both to the public and private sector.