Hitting the Poorest Hardest with VAT Hikes
In the rush to talk tough on the deficit Alistair Darling is expected to announce an end to Labour’s limited-time-only 2.5% cut in VAT this year. That means VAT will go back up to 17.5% or, if Darling’s feeling even more stern, to 20%. Since VAT is one of the most regressive taxes this gives the Tories a golden opportunity to shun a tax rise that hits the poorest, hardest. The chart from the Taxpayers’ Alliance [pdf] shows that the poorest quintile pay over ¼ of their in indirect taxes, the richest only some 10%.
The Tories are refusing to rule out the same rise in VAT to 20%. That makes the Lib Dems the only party to promise substantial tax cuts with a plan to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. If you are going to hit the low paid hardest with indirect taxes surely it makes sense to compensate them by raising the income tax threshold accordingly? Lower taxes for the low paid has got to be a vote winner. In any event Guido has a suspicion that Darling’s PBR won’t schedule any rise until after the election…
FIRST FOR LABOUR
THANK YOU
Have you seen/heard the comments by Woolly-Ass to justify the senior folk at the UK Borders Agency recieving a £10k bonus on the Toady programme?
Mr Wooly-Ass said staff at the UK Border Agency were ”very brave”.
This – on the same day the 100th fatality of a soldier in Afganistan is announced.
What is wrong with these demented idiots.
It is a very dangerous job sitting on the top floor of border agency towers.
They had their flu jabs without any tears.
Poxy sticker for your kid, 10,000 quid for them!
Moral compasses all round!
Soneone wants to hang that stupid fuckwit Wollass.I heard the “brave” comment. What a fucking disgrace.
There is a LOLIPOP LADY who tackles the cars every morning to get the kids across the road…. surely she deserves a Victoria Cross !
‘With the creation of the UK Border Agency we assembled a management team from across Whitehall and beyond who are leading dynamic changes across the business. I believe that it is right to reward staff for outstanding work, and bonuses are only ever awarded to those who have performed to a high standard.’
http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2009/december/11-minister-points-to-progress
What exactly is “Brave” about a Whitehall management team Phil?
I was on that management team. Not an easy job at all.
If the polls are bad on a Monday, which they usually were, all hell could break loose from Number 10.
Flying Nokias, photocopiers, fax machines all came down the stairs.
I remember Lord Ahbum and Lord Truculent getting trapped under an interactive white board. Just their legs and arms sticking out.
It was horrible. Horrible. They were taken to the first aid post and missed lunch
I really can’t bear to talk about it anymore… Brave , brave men.
Lovely Dover Sole that day too. Just left on the plate, uneaten. What a waste..
Every working day, Border Agency staff have to handle extremely dangerous equipment; staplers, safety pins (a misnomer if ever there was one; they’re quite sharp) and, in their frequent tea breaks, they handle hot cups of tea. Sometimes, very hot indeed.
So, these people are very, very brave, and fully deserving of their huge bonuses even though, sadly, they fail utterly when it comes to actually doing their jobs.
Sometimes they have to ‘confront’ people and ask to see their passport – nasty business.
It is the law. Ignorance is no defence.
Not of they are named Scotland they dont
29 senior officials will pocket £295,000 for what exactly? I mean a £10,000 bonus for doing your job right and i use that term loosely.
Frankly disgusted beyond belief and they have a cheek to harp on about Bankers.
Dianne Abbott Rap
And it ramps up their final salary bonus obligations. Take a 10,000 GBP bonus.
In simple terms. Take 66% of that number as the Final Salary Payment entitlement per annum, and then multiply by the combined actuarial likelihood of the pension recipient and spouse/partner living say 20 years beyond retirement. (Not hard as they get private health insurance continuance). A quick 133,333.00 GBP.
Multiply that throughout the Civil service and you will see the problem is the old people. Eugenics balances the books very fast really.
They have lied so much, that they can’t actually stop lying. They have become addicted to a warped mantra. Terrified that the original big lies are going to come out. Confirming that he is an utter prick by suggesting that the UKBA are in any way brave, is actually clarification of most British peoples fears that this administration truly does despise our Military.
The big lie is that they want a Fair Britain. Er, not a chance. Anything but.
There is something of the toad about him, and he also looks a bit like Norris in “Coronation Street”.
Let’s face it Dave n George are all over the place on Tax. Some times the want to raise it, at other times they want to maintain the status quo, and then suddenly they say they want to cut taxes.
As Dave n George did not want the VAT cut but wanted a Hereditary tax cut on mansions then one must assume they are the party of higher taxes for the poor and lower taxes for the rich.
Sadly it would seem that way, however Labour just want to make the country bankrupt whilst lining their own pockets.
Labour copy any good ideas. EG
Cameron said on December 6th 2005:
“There is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same thing as the state. ”
Brown said December 7th 2009:
“I have always said that there is such a thing as society and always said also that this is not the same thing as the state”
Don’t forget Labour taxation policies are as much about social engineering than they are about taxation. Hence the very expensive to administer tax credit (big brother state) system. I fear Dave may be of that ilk too.
How many time has IHT been adjusted to compensate for house price inflation under Gordon Brown?
The sting would have been extracted if there had been significant indexation since 1997. However, fairness and justice are far away as Brown seems to be intent on using fiscal drag to bring more estates into his clutches.
What are you on about? They’re in opposition and so couldn’t raise or lower taxes if they wanted to.
The tax burden has been too high for too long. Now that we are shafted we have to find ways of raising more tax to fund the deficit. Therein probably lies the reason for their changes of heart on the issue.
Climategate: Barack Obama’s rule by EPA decree is a coup d’etat against Congress, made in Britain
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100019206/climategate-barack-obamas-rule-by-epa-decree-is-a-coup-detat-against-congress-made-in-britain/
Obama and the EPA: Desperate action by a desperate man.
GW is based upon fiddled temperature measurements.
The CRU people are using climate as a way of propagating their political views.
You lot were decrying the decrease in VAT as a futile gesture last year so you can hardly moan if it is put back up.You all said it didn’t make a difference,endless postings on this.HYPOCRITES I SAY
fuck off Lily
LABOUR CLOSING THE GAP Tories 38 Labour 30 GREAT NEWS
Great news – Tories eight points ahead.
fuck off again, Lily, silly cow
“The poor” vote New Labour who shaft middle England to pay for their layabout ways.
The _genuine_ poor don’t vote because it’s the fake poor that take all their money, and no government cracks down on the fake poor because they want their votes.
So middle England gets it in the neck, and the _real_ poor get it in the neck. The ones that benefit no matter what are the scroungers.
middle england have credit cards they don’t know how to use, credit aint free incase any of you pricks havent noticed and now your paying for your infant spending habbits, having never ownd or used one i can rightfully say burn in hell you fuckin morons.
As for the upper class well who, the fuck needs to earn more than £1000000 a year, they dont earn it they sit like babys having there fuckin arse wiped with money they fuckin steal. capitalisim is flawed this will happen again, again ,again and again. we need a dictatorship to kick all you fucks back into line.
Like Stalin, Hitler, Mao or Pol Pot?
How can the Tories Attack a VAT rise when they were against the VAT cut?
Quite easily sunshine. Plus, the bonus of giving poor people more money is they spend it all on beer and fags, die younger and cost us less – trebles all round!!
Plus we rack up the taxes on beer & fags so much that they end up giving it back to use ten times over, quadruples all round!
Thing is companies will be reluctant to increase prices if it means that fewer people buy their products. What they’ll probably do instead is keep prices the same but increase the proportion of those prices covered by VAT.
That is the line we’ll be taking too. Plus of course it must be remembered that tax increases benefit poor people, tax cuts are selfish.
I feel a bit of a twat now but…who gives a fuck eh?
Easy.
Like the rest of us, they say the VAT reduction was pointless and a pain in the arse for businesses to implement; then they say that the increase to 17.5 per cent merely confirms the pointlessness of the original reduction.
It was an act of stupendous, Gordon Brownian pointlessness.
Good point but lefties are too thick or blinkered by Marxist bollocks to understand you.
Could Gordon be the originator of a new artistic and social movement?
PointlessIsm
doesn’t sound dangerous enough, and as we know he’s fucking dangerous
It was done too fiddle the inflation figures and has cost the Country millions.
Ah but my gags are the best
Quasimodo went into Burtons for some new clothes and asked the assistant “Excuse me do you have a suit that fits me?”
The assistant said “Well if we do someone’s gonna get the fucking sack!”
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
Can you give me an example?
Is it the one that I forget the moment I think of it? (Not this one, obviously)
Give it to Gordon. He’s big on jokes at PMQ’s at the moment.
A horse goes into a bar and the barman says ‘Why the long face?’
No offence Margaret.
Anyway the Horse says “Why the long face? Because you’re all a bunch of Tory Toffs..” ho ho. The backbenchers are going to piss themselves with that one.
A bit into your Mike Reid jokes for such a fuckin lefty, aren’t you??
Vote UKIP for lower taxes
Actually an issue where UKIP’s case is stronger than they realise – if we left the EU we could get rid of VAT.
No, it doesn’t work like that, VAT is a nice little earner, Maggie found that out, though that might just be in healthy economies, where people spend less Vat returns go down, what would be better would be to get rid of the VAT loopholes which create massive profits for international traders.
The Lieboar government don’t seem to realise that just creating laws just to show that they doing something is no good when they they are not acctually administed correctly, or a blind eye is turned towards miscreants, when there are perfectly good laws excist but not administered.
We’d have to have _a_ value added tax or consumption tax – I believe that before VAT was imposed in 1973 there was a Purchase Tax and a Selective Employment tax.
Too true Blue, as inflation goes up the VAT return/take goes up
Eat the Unemployed. Save the country a fortune. Trouble is they are not organic and mostly full of junk food
A Modest Proposal! (Copyright Jonathan Swift 1729)
Nah! Renting them out to Big Pharma for medical experimentation would be more profitable.
Kill a chav for supper an all you’ve got is some minging meat I wouldn’t feed to my dogs. With proper planning, however, you should be able to use the same chav for several hazardous drug trials before you had to consign it to the vivisection lab.
Even then the potential revenue stream wouldn’t be completely exhausted: the remains could be used to fire a chav-powered power station.
Sir, I like your thinking.
I think you’ve already supplied reasons why the results would be a priori invalid for the rest of the population. However that is not a reason for Big Pharma not to proceed with your ‘research’, to go by past history.
I think they’d be a bit fatty and probably full of toxins; you know, ‘baccy’ tar and all the chemicals that go into bottles of that pretend cider drink that chavs likes: White Lightning.
Yuck.
Guido this poster is attacking those things you like booze and cancer sticks
The quality of the raw material does not effect the final quality of food substitute
Eat the Rich, surely?
I have, for many years, pondered a possible worst case scenario for a pensioner existing on the State Pittance who has managed to hang on to his 10 year old Mini and fills up the same week as the vehicle tax,Mot etc is due…His tax burden would be about 350% of the pittance as against the ‘norm’ or only 55% p.w…. Ever thought of that? The TPA needs to think of that. There are 11million or so pensioners…with a vote.
Zat is easy to over come with my mighty majority, we will disenfranchise the over 65s, easy no.
They should also be made aware that the Copenhagen AGW hoax`n`tax fest, will mean more green energy taxation, that will hit them and the poorest in society hardest, just like VAT does.
Forty thousand die each year because they cannot afford to keep themselves warm as it is, when the green carbon taxes start ramping up all costs, they will be poorer and even more vunerable to energy poverty and its life threatening consequences, than they are now.
Over a quarter of their what?
The ‘indirect taxes’ referred to in the TPA’s graph must include taxes other than VAT, or they could never amount to over 17.5% of anyone’s income. Would Guido care to explain? Is the difference Council Tax, Excise Duty or what?
Alcohol Duty.
Fuel duty.
BBC licence fee.
Tobacco tax.
Council tax.
VAT
Insurance tax
Airport tax.
Congestion charges.
Parking tax.
Indirect taxes comprise all payments to local and national government which are not proportionated to income levels.
What will carbon taxes do to the gap between rich and poor?
Quite. Discussion at Copenhagen (as reported in the Telegraph – link below at 43) centres around money, not climate – how much will the developed world put in the pot? Who, in the developed world, will pay? Exactly….
I tried to post all the indirect taxes but some of them are on things disliked by the moderator, so my post disappeared.
Didm’t Mr Brown say it would be stupid to end the stimulus package now.
Yes, but he is stupid.
When it comes to stupidity, we are right, they are wrong.
If you sen the article Greece is about to be downgraded to BBB+ he has to stop the stimulus and get Darling to show some deficit reductions tomorrow or we will be on Negative watch on Thursday for possible loss of AAA rating in Jan 2010 if that happens brown and labour will carry that around as they have subjected the Tory party to the 3 million unemployed tag for 30 years.
Incidenttally they are really manipulating the figures to stop them reaching 3 million to neutralise their attack on the Tory party.
Loose AAA and labour will be like the liberals never allowed in power again
just spotted this in the Times city diary
quote
Gordon Brown’s gibe about Tory tax policy being set on the playing fields of Eton hit the spot — one of Alastair Campbell’s finest, is the general view. But Brown has plainly forgotten, as Prodicus, the political blog, points out, that the man in charge of tax since before 1997, and therefore for Gordon Brown and now Alistair Darling, is Sir Nicholas Macpherson. Educated? Yup, Eton. unquote
Have parliament issue debt free currency: end income tax
Withdraw from UN, EU, IMF, World Bank and WTO: end Stamp duty, IHT and capital gains tax
Do you think you might get less support for your good ideas if you were to change your name?
Quantative Easing (ie. government money creation out of thin air) IS debt free.
Best to ignore all the “FRB is bad”/Goldbug loons.
ALL currency that comes out of central banks has debt attached to it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to central bank issued money.
Good Morning Folks.
Labour has no intention of doing anything, except ruin UK. (It’s in the manefesto, like where’s our EU Refurendum?)
P.S. V. Important. Your Government wish to destroy your country. Don’t listen to anything they say. It’s Communist propaganda.
Darling is a Public School man and will do the right thing.
with a glass of whisky and loaded revolver?
Purser!Purser!Yes ,Prescott,thank you.A Scotch on the Rocks and a Beretta for Mr.Darling.
I hate to say if, but I do feel a tiny bit of sympathy for Darling. He seems to be an honourable man try ing his best.
But you can envisage the grubby hands from No 10 scribbling all over his PBR.
‘ It will be over soon! Spend more!Tax more!Vote winners we need vote winners!’
‘But Gordon we’re all out of options, we can’t do what you want’
‘I don’t care – 5 more years. Are you with me or not?’
Ged away! He was an enormous trougher and flipper!
IMF, you’ve gone mad. Some folks don’t realise our situation… Brown, lampost happier. I suspect we’ll default before the general election, causing bank failures and stealing of savings. No guarantee for savings this time. This psychopath must be destroyed.
Temporary. Normal service resumed. Point being that Brown just bullies everyone into his way of thinking
Fawkes, omission in last line above graph.
I have to agree with Sir William Waad on this one. This chart makes no sense!
Surely its got to include indirect tax, since when has VAT been 17.5% (or more) or anyone’s income.
Once again you expose yourself as good as rumour/gossip but crap at policy.
Go back to what you are good at and leave policy debate to serious people!
Indirect taxes as a proportion of income.
Stands to reason – if you earn say 15kpa most of it will be spent, most of it taxed indirectly. If you earn say £150kpa then a larger proportion will be saved which be taxed, but not indirectly
Thick as Brixjerc.
Indirect taxes doesn’t just mean VAT. There’s booze tax, fag tax, petrol tax, telly tax, motor vehicle tax, the climate change levy on electricity and all the other little hidden taxes Brown has snuck in over the last twelve years. They all hit the poor harder than the rich.
The point is that the bottom quintile spend more than their “gross income”: 37% more, (and over 50% more than their “disposable income” according to the ONS leaflet that graph comes from.
There are three reasons for this, firstly “Gross income” does not include student loans – a significant proportion of the bottom quintile of households by income are students living off grants and loans supplemented by part-time casual work, secondly a lot of the bottom quintile at any one time are temporarily unemployed who are running down their savings while seeking another job – contribution-based jobseekers allowance won’t even pay your rent round here whereas those on income support get it paid for them – and pensioners who are gradually consuming their savings, and thirdly the “gross income” figure is significantly understated as ONS admit the amount of tax credits recorded by the Expenditure and Food Survey is only two-thirds the amount that HMRC paid out, overwhelmingly to those in the bottom two quintiles.
A better set of figure in the same table show that VAT as a %age of expenditure is almost constant across income bands until you get to the top quintile – but this does not look dramatic. The really regressive tax is tobacco duty.
If you saw that fucking moronic lard bucket Prescott on the TV last night holding forth about the moral righteousness of stealing more of my money to put into the crooked carbon credit trading scheme, you’d know that mass armed resistance by the British people, and summary justice for traitors is our only option now. Bring on the new Civil War.
Never going to happen mate. Give up
It already is,Brixjerc.
First time I’ve ever had the slightest admiration for Prescott. He took on that asshole American with great gusto. Thought he was going to upper cut the screen for one wonderful, fleeting moment!
Saw Prescotch throw a punch once.Couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag.
Can’t look at him without thinking of the cocktail sausage. I thought the yank murdered him.
Not on the programme I watched. If you render down his contribution to the piece, nothing.
One of the worst shames brought on by NuLiebore, is the World knowing he was our Deputy PM for 10 years.
BFC is of the Gaiaist faith.
True, our moxie has been slowly starved out of us. Our guns have been seized, our right to protest curtailed, our freedom of speech reduced. The masses have been kept in a blissful state of compliant ignorance with cheap booze, state handouts and endless reality TV shows. If a country were to invade tomorrow we would make the French surrender monkeys in WWII look like Spartans.
If the very obedient and compliant East Germans can do it, so can we.
And we will.
@Marcus Aurelius:
Which program was Prescott on last night?
Newsnight
Off topic but important non the less
This research, link below, — dealing with one station in Northern Australia (important because it is only one of 3) — shows how data has been unjustifiably manipulated to show a warming trend
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/#more-13818
Read it carefully for as the author says, “they are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.”
I suggest everyone dispense the news as far and wide as possible.
Some slective reading of that website Trev.
Missed this part of the article:
“bogus GHCN adjustment for this one station does NOT mean that the earth is not warming. It also does NOT mean that the three records (CRU, GISS, and GHCN) are generally wrong either.”
Thanks mate.MMGW.It’ll never happen.
GISS does not get a clean bill of health.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/gistemp-a-human-view/
CRU is open to question until smoothed over by the investigation, methinks.
Why do they ignore all FoI requests? That includes CRU and NASA. Something to hide perchance?
NASA are heading towards the courts in the USA too, they are being sued for fraud by Chris Horner of the CEI, for repeatedly falsifying their data to fit the warming trend.
A long time ago we had an ice age and much of the landscape of this country was moulded by glaciation. Nobody argues with that.
We have gone from glaciers in Wales and Scotland to our present temperate climate without any human intervention.
Argue with that.
The cave dweller art clearly shows early man hunting dinosaurs in Range Rovers. Indeed one of these paintings went on to win the predecessor to the Turner Prize. Man made global boring has been going on a lot longer than you think.
Absolutely right.
Making sacrifices to influence the weather has been going on since the dawn of time.
What we have now is the modern equivalent of slitting the virgin’s throat to appease the Rain God.
That is one of the most insightful comments I’ve seen on this whole scam.
Labour will not be making any mention of any tax rises. Before or after the election. Tomorrows performance will involve Darling making some outrageous ‘projections’ for the recovery of the UK economy which, thanks to the courageous decisions they have made like borrowing 200bn quid extra and awarding bonuses to Whitehall mandarins will mean that the UK will be out of recession by January. Or April. But definitely by July. Definitely July.
Then he will painfully weave in all the ‘Eton’, ‘toff’ and ‘do nothing’ taunts into his fantasy ‘cost-savings’ which will halve the UK deficit to a mere 100bn quid by 2015. Or 2020 at the latest. Whatever.
If there are any actual VAT rises proposed they will be buried deep in page 245 of the handy appendices along with any pay freezes and departmental cuts.
Damn! Who gave you a copy of the PBR? Tell me and I’ll have him branded a Flat Earther!
Ducking taxes it is the Conservative way.
Just ask Zacharia Goldschmidt.
Flat earthing started in America.
I suppose in the pre-Xmas spending frenzy, accelerated by the imminent return of 17.5% VAT, there will be more economic activity than recently, and we will be told we are out of recession.
Then, January will be dead, and the coming cuts will knock thousands more out of work, and by Spring, we will be in even deeper doo-dah.
Anyone disagree with this economic forecast?
UKIP’s manifesto is for a flat tax with the first £11,000 ( minimum wage) exempt from income tax and national insurance and income tax in one fixed rate.
This will remove 4 million people from tax altogether
It would work, it would be fair, it would be rational and it would be cheap to administer. You would ditch a lot of benefit payments at the same time. Everybody would win. It would give Chancellors less room to monkey about with taxes every year. It won’t happen.
Exactamente SWW
Wahey the government still own your time, hence they claim a %age of it.
Tax an externality like Land Value, the value derived from things around the property, plus the cost of excluding it’s use to others. Rather than a tax that destroys comparative advantage.
Okay. Lets suppose I own a big farm – I dunno – say 1000 acres. What will my tax rate be?
If I own a big house – worth say 1,000,000 quid – what will my tax rate be?
7% of property cost (less cost of rebuilding). Farmland is cheap, Commercial Land in central London is 80 million quid per acre.
7% of property cost? So land at say 3,000 quid an acre would cost me 210 quid an acre every year. And a building plot – let’s say 1/4 acre worth (say) 300,000 quid would cost 21,000 quid a year in tax.
And the average wage is 22,000 quid a year.
You are proposing to make me a slave to my own property.
Property tax is slavery.
But income tax is a direct form of slavery.
Over time of course property affordability would increase.
Also if you lived in the average property you’d get most of that back as a dividend (with a small state).
You will own a big house ‘independently’ assessed as being worth £1, 999,000, simples! (Lib dem proposal.. tax property valued above £2 million).
What if I’m Network Rail, and I owned a railway?
I propose to open proceedings tomorrow in the House with this gag.It should set the tone for the rest of the day
Musharraf calls Bush on 11th sept ….
Musharraf: Mr. President, I would like to express my condolences to you. It is a real tragedy. So many people, such great buildings… I would like to ensure you that we had nothing in connection with that……..
Bush: What buildings? What people??
Musharraf: Oh, and what time is it in America now?
Bush: It’s eight in the morning.
Musharraf: Oops… I will call back in an hour!
The Lib dums could PROMISE a law to ensure every bloke has a million quid, a twelve inch todger and it will be sunny 365 days a year. Never happen since they will NEVER be in power again….EVER. and they know it.
You never know! Pigs might fly.
I hear thousands just have to Copenhagen.
What if you’re a Jamaican millionaire? What have they got to offer them?
You’re obviously a Yardie!
Well I suppose the multi-cult faith LibDums probably do have a lot to offer Yardies.
It won’t just be VAT that hit the poorest. Here’s one for the Copenhagen watchers. Guess what, they’re not talking about climate, they’re talking about money! Now there’s a surprise…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/rowenamason/100002485/copenhagen-why-the-financial-crisis-is-the-taboo-subject-here/
Gordon Brown tried to sell me a marble today for £5 saying it brings good luck to all who possess it.
Judging by his piss stained trousers and bare feet, his intepretation of good luck seems somewhat different to mine.
Next week: How to knit an orgasm!
I cannot understand why died in the wool Labour supporters still stand behind Gordon Brown and his seditious tribe.
This government takes more money from tax payers wallets than any other government in history.
Unemployment has risen under every Labour government
Public Debt has risen to record levels
More children are leaving school unable to read, write or add up.
Convicted criminals are let off with warnings
The economy is going to be dreadful for decades
poor people are poorer under Labour
we have fought two unnecessary wars on a peacetime budget
Labour have given away vast swathes of the UK’s ability to control it’s own destiny.
and meanwhile
the Labour frontbench are now all property millionaires with most of them having entered Westminster as poor as church mice.
LABOUR IS NOT THE PARTY OF THE WORKERS
LABOUR IS THE PARTY OF THE VESTED INTERESTS TO KEEP THEM IN POWER
Mind you, Dave and his crew have shown NO real indication that they will be any different and dismantle big government.
Conclusion
BIG PARTIES ARE ANTI-CHOICE AND ANTI-DEMOCRATIC
Two reasons,
1) Labour supporters would vote for me no matter what I do because they can’t abide anything Tory. If Dave came out and suggested free everything, food, schooling, house’s and even booze they would still say he is only doing it for the “Rich” “Toffs”. That’s what Ally tells them remember.
2) No matter how bad it gets or how wrong I am, when we have the IMF knocking and strikes all over the country, people starving in the streets and children whipping out knives and stabbing old ladies. Remember it was always “worse” under the Tories
It was all Thatcher’s fault – and here’s our latest drama documentary to prove it
DISCLAIMER:
“Some of the names,events and dates have been changed and the rest completley made up for dramatic effect”
Raise VAT what sort of scumbag government would do that?
The Conservatives secretly agreed plans for a “massive” increase in value-added tax from 8 to 15 per cent almost a year before the 1979 general election, party papers from the period, seen by the Independent, show.
The charge that the Tories would double VAT on taking office was levelled during the election campaign by the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, and other leading Labour figures. It was denied both by Margaret Thatcher, the leader of the Opposition, and byGeoffrey Howe, the shadow Chancellor, in a campaign in which the impact on prices of the Conservative’s declared plans to switch from direct to indirect taxation played a significant part.
Sir Geoffrey (now Lord Howe) declared: “We have absolutely no intention of doubling VAT.” The allegation was depicted as one of Labour’s “dirty dozen” lies in a Conservative press release.
But papers marked “secret” and circulated in numbered copies only show that proposals for a “massive” hike in VAT to 15 per cent or even 17.5 were canvassed in February 1978 by Lord Cockfield, a member of Sir Geoffrey’s economic team.
On Sunday 11 June 1978, at a meeting at Sir Geoffrey’s home in Fentiman Road, Lambeth, south London, agreement was reached in principle to raise VAT to 15 per cent. That was 11 months before the election that swept the Conservatives to power.
Strange seem to remember that when ot was lowered, it was pointaless, now its going back up again, we’ll have starvation breaking out.
you should contact Tony Robinson, get a job on Time Team, maybe you would get the opportunity to inspect Carenza’s trench
Now if Labour were to tell an outright lie like that – say put into their election manifesto that they were going to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Constitution and then renege on it because it has been rebadged as a Lisbon ‘Treaty’ then that is jolly funny for all jackass Labour apparatchiks and apologists.
In the same spirit going from 8% to 15% is not doubling VAT. In fact going from 8% to 17.5% is not doubling VAT.
Honourable gentlemen?
My arse.
Unusually jgm2 is right, doubling VAT from 8% to 15% is not doubling it, just as doubling VAT from 8% to 17.5% is not doubling it. However to say it is not doubling it is quibbling.
VAT hits the poorest hardest, that\’s Guido\’s post and that\’s what Conservatives do, hit the poorest hardest and help the richest the most.
Hit the poor, help the rich = Conservatives
Suck don’t blow.
Brown doubled tax rate on poorest from 10% to 20%.
Suck. Don’t blow.
In other breaking news, Lord Baden-Powell was relieved at Mafeking today!
By Master Baiter?
Scouting for Boys.
Under Labour prior to the 1979 election there were two main VAT rates: 8% and 15%. So claiming that the Tories “doubled” VAT rates, without acknowledging the existence of the 15% rate already in use for “luxury” goods (such as TVs) under Labour, is a Liebore lie. Why am I not surprised?
What an odd libertarian you are.
US libertarians almost universally agree on a tax system that is solely a consumption tax.
Correct
Unde common law, no one may demand money from you unless you have a contract signed by you both.
Anyone here signed a contract with the tax man?
OH no longer pays any direct taxes to HMRC and there is fuck all they can do about it without a signed contract. Just being born doesn’t entitle anyone to take the fruits of my labour.
Try it. Just ask for the contract with both of your signatures and watch them go pale.
They’ll kidnap you, remember the state is a Mafia group with good PR.
Sorry, Old Holborn, the Common Law does not work like that. A contract is deemed to exist if both parties have continued to carry out for some time the action subsequently in dispute.
Your Honour.
He’s been paying us protection money for years. We have an “unwritten” contract, see.
So you are saying that Guido is not a libertarian?
Meanwhile another bad excuse for a tax raise hits the rocks.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
“indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming.”
A really good piece of research. Nice link.
Interesting link – thanks.
I also read that the Met Office are not releasing the ‘raw’ data, rather the ‘corrected’ data. But this is where we came in with the CRU fiddling things!
When the rate was cut to 15% duty was Raised on petrol, diesel, alcohol and tobacco to maintain the treaurys take from these cash cows. Question as yet unanswerd, will this additional duty be removed when the vat rate increases on January the 1st.
Reginald,,,,Get the fuck off that website and back to your English studies. Grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Yes Maam
John Scarlett – disgraceful former head of MI6 giving evidence LIVE.
Why disgraceful?
Before he became Head,he was involved in a number of very dubious events.
Read Nigel West’s book on the previous Heads of MI6. Scarlett comes out very badly.
As for the dodgy dossier,this man wrote the whole thing and allowed Blair to sex it up.
This will be very interesting to watch. Watch his eyes – very shifty.
Not only that but he participated in writing press releases in 10 Downing Street, ignored the precedent of all previous heads of the SIS maintaining their distance from the party in power, allowed the SIS to be moulded into an instrument of government and condoned the use of the SIS as a Labour party/government tool.
And that’s just for starters…
VAT has always been a very useful tax from a political point of view – ‘cos any increase can happen almost immediately, therefore having an immediate impact in revenue takings. Its also very difficult to avoid paying.
I fully expect Labour to put VAT back up to 17.5%, and I wouldn’t put it past them to increase it to 20%. Cutting it to 15% in the first place was a total waste of time – real prices weren’t reduced as a result. Retailers just absorbed the difference. Total waste of time. Whereas, of course, if they raise it, the retailers won’t absorb that.
From a taxpayer’s point of view, it’s a crap tax. It’s shit. You are punished when it rises, but don’t benefit when it falls. It’s chargeable on damn near everything, so it’s very difficult to avoid paying it (that’s avoid, not evade).
The Lib Dems have actually come up with the fairest and most sensible tax proposals so far – which is a shame, ‘cos they won’t get in.
This constant Inheritance Tax argument between Labour and the Tories is also pissing me off – Labour keep on whinging that the Tories are keeping the policy to benefit rich people. Fair point – I personally think the Tories should drop the policy. But when they introduced it, Labour introduced the possibility to pass on unused Inheritance Tax allowances to spouses and civil partners, effectively implementing the Tory policy anyway. No one seems to remember that!
Cameron should have thanked Gordo & Darling for implementing a Tory policy, and removed it from his manifesto.
NuLiebour WILL put it back to 17.5% on 1 Jan – it says so on the over-printed VAT return rec’d this morning.
One thing is for sure:
I will have a Christmas No1
After lunch I will have a Christmas No2
Presumably both of them will be cr*p.
The client state pay the most tax – all their booze and fags!
to encourage employment and provide the needed liquidity in the economy that, despite being bailed out the bankers have failed to provide, the personal tax allowance should be raised to £12,500 per year per person and that allowance should be made transferable.
the rate of VAT should remain the same.
to fund this fiscal stimulus the position of the bankers must be considered.
we were told that the taxpayers had to bail out several of the major banks because they were ‘too big to fail’ and if they failed then the entire financial sector would collapse. so we, the taxpayers, have not only saved the banks we have shareholdings in but also every other bank and financial organistion in the country.
that means they owe us their very existence.
I suggest a marshall plan type arrangement whereby all banks and building societies pay the taxpayer yearly points in return for them saving the banking sector form total destruction.
shall we say five per cent of profits in perpetuity?
Ha! That’d be great!
The only problem with taxing the banks (or indeed any big high-profit industry) like that is brain drain. If the bankers think that the taxes are too high in this country, they’ll work elsewhere in the world. Then they won’t pay any tax in the UK. So the reason the government are hesitant to introduce something like that is because they’re thinking ‘a part of something is better than all of nothing’.
I agree with you totally. The problem is, implementing it in a way that wouldn’t make the bastards up sticks and move. The only way to do that would be to get some kind of agreement at an international level. Chances of that happening? Slim.
the bankers will leave the country over a 5% kickback?
don’t be silly.
OK, maybe not leave the country, but you see what I mean. They’ll find some way to wriggle off the hook if its only our government legislating. It’d need a concerted effort from all major economies, and sadly, I don’t think that will be forthcoming.
[...] because of the existence of regressive consumption taxes, which unite Left Foot Forward and Guido Fawkes in opposition, the poorest have the highest overall tax [...]
I remember visiting Jo’burg on a business trip some years ago, just as the were proposing to change from GST to a VAT system. I said they must be mad, but my host was very enthusiastic about it. Why on earth? I asked. He said “because the blacks cant avoid it!”
So, let me get this right:
VAT down to 15% – most retailers keep the extra.
VAT back up to 17.5% – the same retailers will increase their prices ‘in line’ with this.
I’m just seething with hatred for this government. And to top it all, I read that Labour are closing the gap in opinion polls!
Why? Their great work on the economy? Their winning of the supposed ‘war on terror’?
Or maybe because some politicians went to a posh school 20 years ago?
FFS, it’s just pitiful…
I have spent about a week re-pricing for 2010. If it ain’t going to be 17.5% I will be seriously p*ssed off. It means another week re-pricing.
You see in the real world I have to have my prices correct for my customers. Imagine how many other small businesses are in the same boat. How many hours are wasted doing this countrywide
My experience of retailers is that they did pass on the reduction (note: I have no connection with any retail business).
Initially, yes.
But a lot of them very quietly put their prices back up while the masses were distracted with the latest reality show.
I asked my wife for a blowjob yesterday.
Bitch handed me an application form for work at the balloon factory.
How long do your guarantees last Dave?
Because they are cast iron they tend to sink beneath the waves rather quickly.
Laugh ???? We thought we’d never start.
You wont be laughing after tomorrow.
Perhaps Dave should consider a lovely constitutional key, to lock the cast iron guarantee in place once and for all…..oh wait…..
Let me opine:
VAT 25%
Excise duty up by 50 % on drinks and petrol
Basic Rate Tax 25p in the Pound
Car Tax doubled
VAT at full rate on electricity and gas
Even so, all this will still not bring down the borrowing, and the crippling effect (GDP shrinking) on our economy will be profound.
Of course nothing said of this before the election (from any of the main parties)
Basic rate tax 25p? More like 35p or 40p.
Moody’s Downgrades Dubai Companies
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703558004574583591737300028-lMyQjAxMDA5MDAwODEwNDgyWj.html
Not good news for the UK as Gordon openly invited Dubai companies to invest in UK companies and property. If they have to sell up we is in the shit.
We could have built an eco-town off the coast of Ramsey in the shape of a giant turd.
We already have one – its called Glasgow.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091208-707536.html
Fascinating stuff on http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/ describing where all the duff money is at RBS, it\’s a bit of a read so maybe have a lie down first and a cup of coffee for extra mental zing, enjoy!
Note the biggest amounts are bad commercial property loans.
Oh dear!
Also see http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6945945.ece
According to this the top 1,000 investment bankers (who have walked out of RBS) earned the business £700million in the last year.
I bet that doesn’t even cover their salaries – never mind £1.5 billion in bonuses.
Just what is the problem if these Dubai based “investors” go bust?
They are unlikely to ship Knightsbridge back to the gulf
I have always pointed out that Islam is the religion of the ignorant and barbaric
A people ruled by venal creatures such as Blair and Brown but dressed in tea towels and baggy pants
A total shithole
I couldn’t give a damn what Darling has in his report.
We know it will be full of spin, lies, deceit and re-announcements.
What we need is not another load of bollocks but an election to kick this shower of incompetents deep into the long grass.
Perhaps McBroon should ask the Chancellor if the PBR was thought up on the playing fields of Loretto!!!!!!!!!!
Brown really is a nasty man. As are most of his front bench. Darling seems a reasonable guy, but one that has been promoted way beyond his intellectual level in life.
Dirty retarded bastards, Alistair Darling, looks and acts like a children’s party clown. I keep expecting him to pull out balloons and make a sausage dog, and then try to entice some boys to his car with promises of puppies.
Why does everyone forget that this idiot was guilty of flipping on a grand scale?
He was, and remains, an incompetent moron, interested only in saving his own skin and in the position he is because Brown didn’t want somebody in the role of chancellor who had a brain of their own.
for get the crap we ARE fucked do i care im no im in Barbados
pissed again sorry Spain should be Barbados but that Huhne stole my pension
“expected to announce”? We had a letter from HMRC yesterday (8th) telling us about the rise in VAT, sorry “return to its former level” and about some other VAT registration changes.
We also got a pamphlet repeating what was in the letter, but in more detail; and, just so we don’t forget, some “VAT is changing in 2010″ stickers as “A few little reminders for you to stick around the office”.
How much of a waste of money would that turn out to be if it wasn’t going back to 17.5%?
[...] people on only £20,000. He put up VAT which as any left-winger will tell you, is regressive and hits the poorest hardest. What struck Guido was that this is an odd class war political budget, their own core voters are [...]