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Originally Posted by Cobbydaler
It's smoke & mirrors with all politicians...
Give with one hand & take away with the other.
Reduction in the basic rate of tax? Worthless...
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I'm waiting for the give with one hand....
I was at a seminar at the Revenue and Customs a few weeks back...the person there said that the 'reduction' is virtually worthless as they scrapped the 10% band at the same time and altered the thresholds accordingly - so most people will end up paying about the same. Apart, of course, from the people who really benefited from the 10% band, which is the very low paid and part-time workers.
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Originally Posted by Osem
Gordon Brown effectively forced local authorities to raise council tax rates so they get the hassle and the blame.
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That's absolutely correct, and it was the non-Labour councils that had more funding withdrawn than Labour ones too. Sadly they didn't count on the British public being intelligent enough to figure that out!
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Originally Posted by Damien
I like the idea there are legal wars  If Iraq wasnt such a mess it would not be considered illegal. |
Somewhat off-topic, but I would personally define a 'legal' war as one that is ratified by a UN sanction (such as the first Gulf war) or where you are defending your territory (or being asked to defend it) from foreign invasion (such as Falklands or the Iriaqis defending themselves in Gulf War 2).
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Originally Posted by Damien
Anyway, Depending on how you sum up all the taxs we are taxed less than European countrys. I.E France. But then they spend more on public services
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It's not an easy comparison to make in France as they have an very different tax system to us, but it's true that they take about 20% for SSC's (National Insurance) and that income tax rates are higher in some instances but much lower in other...for example the lowest earners are paying only 5% income tax...but they work it out in a way that the maximum anyone will pay (inc SSC) is approx 50%, which is similar to ours, when you include NI.
When it comes to Council Tax eqivalents, the French pay two lots! They pay a services charge and an habitation charge each year...like ours this will vary according to where it is, but generally it's less (quelle surprise) than we'd be paying here.
The other issues that you need to take into account are that the cost of living are generally lower than in the UK and that the cost of property are much lower too, so people are paying less on mortgates etc.
I'm sure there's plenty of stats that will prove either or both sides of the story, but my personal feeling is that the French are about on a par with the Brits, if not slightly better off overall (which is why they have a higher percentage of salary in investments and savings than us) but of course they have first class public services, which we don't.