Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

And I suppose by definition you are going to assume...what? That perhaps not everybody funds the tax take of the UK? Corporate taxes are ultimately paid buy the consumer, don't you agree. The rates of income tax is no the only indicator of how much tax a taxpayer pays.

---------- Post added at 19:28 ---------- Previous post was at 19:26 ----------

Forgot to ask:

What were the tax rates from nineteen eighty-eight, compared to two thousand and ten?

What were the VAT rates from nineteen seventy-eight, compared to to nineteen ninety-one?

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

£1500 = approx 275gal = 13750 miles@50mpg = £4K (@40ppm) + £937.50 (@25ppm) = £4937.50

turnover - expenses = profit (ie you're taxed on what you earn after expenses have been paid, you don't take expenses out of the tax you've paid)

This is assuming £1500 extra cost in 6 months for business mileage.

Even when I worked for NTL as a basic tax rate payer on PAYE I claimed over £1500 one year.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

... or possibly just stop asking questions and start answering some for a change... :D

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Love the way you pick certain years.

Forgot to ask:

What were the tax rates from 1976, compared to 1989? (answer, 35% basic and 83% highest, compared to 25% basic and 40% highest)

What were the VAT rates from 1979, compared to 2009? (answer, 15% compared to 17.5%)

Easy game to play, this......

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

See there you go asking questions and answering them .... :D

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

That is the amount of money you can set against your taxable profits, not the amount of money saved from the amount of tax you pay. On your calculation, of thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifty miles, you would pay nine hundred and eighty-seven pounds less tax, on basic rate, not four thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven pounds.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Seriously, how can you not understand that when the economy is doing well, more tax is paid as more people are earning and spending, and when the economy is doing badly, less tax is paid because fewer people are earning and spending?

---------- Post added at 23:01 ---------- Previous post was at 22:55 ----------

Last time I checked it's the tax man (HMRC) which dictates that you can claim the 40ppm and 25ppm as legitimate expenses.
You don't put a claim in for the tax you would have paid had you not claimed the expenses.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Since I've seen you do this before: when figures go over a certain amount, I find numbers a lot easier to comprehend. As in:

Being a lot easier to digest than:

Is there any specific reason for using the long-hand notation? I find it really hard work...

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

I haven't confused anything, it is many on here who are refusing to accept that the Tories have taxed us more than Labour have.

The tax rates are lower now than they were when the last Tory government were in power, are they not? The Tories increased the standard VAT rate from eight per cent to seventeen and a half per cent, didn't they?

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Don't have the figures to hand, will look for them when I can. The ones we have aren't hugely helpful as they are not the same as nominal tax rate which is the key thing, not how much tax was actually paid as that has many influences.

The only thing that is unequivocal from the figures is that, despite being left a strong and healthy economy in surplus Labour, without any economic downturn, turned that surplus into a deficit and increased taxation at the same time (evidenced by GDP growth with a simultaneous increase in tax take as % of GDP).

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Presumably you mean: There have been certain years under the Tories where the tax rates were higher than in certain years under Labour? Which is as valid a statement as the reverse would be, which renders the whole exercise rather pointless.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

What? You told Homer that he he could net over four thousand pounds by claiming forty pence per mile.

But that is not possible, as a schedule "D" tax payer, one does not "claim back" anything. One uses that amount to reduce, i.e. set against, one's taxable profits (in other word increasing ones expenditure), therefore not having to pay tax on the equivalent amount of profit. If that equivalent amount of profit is four thousand pounds, it would mean you would pay eight hundred pounds less tax.

---------- Post added at 23:37 ---------- Previous post was at 23:29 ----------

The first thirteen years of Tory rule, the mean percentage against GDP was thirty-six point three, the thirteen years of Labour it was thirty-five point three.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Net as in a string bag used to catch things :rolleyes:
Sorry flyboy, but if you aren't able to fathom that HMRC allow you to claim it back as expenses then I really wonder how you're going to understand that while VAT was increased from the two rates of 8% and 12.5% to a single rate of 15% income tax was reduced considerably.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Yes, let's compare an administration that inherited double-digit inflation, a nice fat recession (2.36% drop in GDP in Q3 1979), and militant trade unions with one that inherited a stable, surplus running economy shall we?

Makes it impossible to compare the tax take, which is the stat you are looking at. The actual tax rates, no idea of, however it would probably be somewhat fairer to take the Tory numbers a bit later on once they'd had a while to work on the economy.

This is interesting reading.

Oh here's a thought for you Flyboy, despite the crap the Tories inherited they still managed better average GDP growth than Labour.

Thought number 2 - Brown removed the tax credit on share dividends, increasing the size of or causing pension deficits within companies, and causing people to invest in property instead of standard pension funds - cost to pension funds of this by the way is guesstimated at upwards of 100bln. People investing in property caused a housing bubble, more demand for similar supply. As part of satiating this demand and due to the ever increasing house prices lenders such as Northern Rock began to offer riskier and riskier mortgages on the assumption that the non-stop and rapid rises in house prices would continue.

You see where I'm going with this. That smash and grab on pension funds caused incalculable damage to our economy. From people not being able to afford homes due to the housing bubble through to mortgage backed debt bringing down lenders through to people using their homes as cashpoints, fuelling their consumption with debt while bankers fuel the economy from their end gambling away the liquidity the housing market generated.

This was the basis of a good part of Labour's economic growth, public sector employment was responsible for a good part of jobs growth.

One thing you really, surely, honestly aren't going to do is try and say that Labour's policies were good for the economy?

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

A self-employed person does not claim anything back, because they haven't paid anything to HMRC, before they calculate their taxable profit at the end of their accounting period. Any mileage allowances are added to expenditure, therefore reducing the taxable profits, I have not said that someone cannot use a mileage allowance. I think that you are the one who is confused and are trying to do a bit of wriggling.

As far as VAT is concerned, you may have noticed that I wrote "standard rate." So, no misunderstanding at all then, eh.

---------- Post added at 23:54 ---------- Previous post was at 23:51 ----------

Wouldn't mind doing a quick comparative analysis of those GDP figures, I don't suppose you have them to hand, do you.