Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul
A 15% increase, plus the other changes that come with it (that reduce pay) are not "marginal". Are you borrowing a calculator from Old boy.
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It only applies to the amount above the threshold which (in tax terms) is described as marginal tax. National insurance also lowers for income above the threshold (except in Scotland, where the two changes happen at different income levels).
It's one of the most frequently misrepresented aspects of tax because the implication as often presented is that it increases the rate of tax on all of a person's income not just the part above the threshold. The rate of NI dropping 10% is never mentioned.
---------- Post added at 05:23 ---------- Previous post was at 05:14 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
I think we need to stop pretending that that 200 billion or whatever it is, isn’t part of the national debt. But the fact that that number exists is simple proof that there is no way of financing higher education that involves taking significantly more money off students.
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Given that the idea of actually paying the national debt is a pretence in itself I'm not sure why this £200bn (some of which will be repaid) is viewed more robustly than the other £2.8 trillion that will only be paid with more government borrowing to kick the can down the road.
It's also artificially inflated by the exorbitant commercial interest rates applied to loans in England. If you were designing a system to make it a graduate tax instead of a loan it'd look exactly like ours. The problem for charging those on lower incomes is we already pay out a chunk in benefits to those on poverty wages through Universal Credit. It seems fundamentally flawed to push more people above the threshold below it simply to move money around the government spreadsheet.