Toffs Taxing the Poor More
Minimum alcohol pricing won’t affect champagne drinkers, it will hit those on lower incomes. Again.
Regressive taxes aren’t just about forcing up the price of supermarket booze, it was putting up VAT – a mistake that boosted inflation which was already above target and hit consumer spending when it was already weak. Unquestionably that was a regressive tax. Even the usually austerity friendly IMF cautioned against the VAT hike.
The squeezed middle aren’t spared either. Air Passenger Duty means that a family of four flying to America for their annual holiday can pay up to £587 in taxes. The Fawkes family fly back and forth to Ireland regularly spending more on air taxes than on air tickets. UK subjects pay more in air taxes than all the rest of the EU’s citizens – combined. It won’t bother the Chancellor on his £10,000 skiing holiday weeks, but those of us in the private sector, not on benefits, reckon he could do more to cut spending and the tax burden. It is called a growth strategy…
More social engineering bullshit from Camoron…
The thin veneer is Tory, but a few microns underne*ath, Dave is a socialist who believes in Marxist command and control bollocks.
Hands off our knobs Dave, William, Liam, Gideon, Dave Laws…!
omg ! VAt hike a mistake….. doth my ears decieve me – is even the xmas spirit getting Guido (arch-liebore) to now accept Balls VAT cut policy ?????
come on guido – either country in real mess and VAT increase only way – or you telling porky pies about how bad johna and the balls were …….
merry xmas and happy new year
was this a guido post – or neo-guido ?
To be fair to Guido, he has consistently argued against the VAT increase since it was first mooted as a possibility.
There is nothing conservative about The Conservatives!
Balls only wants a temporary VAT cut. Can’t say how temporary though!! 1 week,1 month, 1 year??
This is a guido post…or so it says at the top of the post on the mobile version of this site
Surprising that Guido has fallen for Balls silly line on the VAT rise.
A rise in VAT hits the rich far more than it does the poor simply because the rich spend much more on goods and services that are chargeable to full rate VAT.
In the UK, unlike other EU countries. core essentials like food are zero rated for VAT.
A VAT rise really hits the wealthy south east and all those rich russians and fugitive greeks. It hits all those bankers spending their bonuses. It will hit all the foriegn tourists that come for the Olympics.
Guido (and Balls) have this wrong.
It doesn’t hit the rich harder because they have far more disposable income.
Dave – you are scum sucking champagne socialist filth
Hans, a middle-aged German tourist on his first visit to Orlando, Florida, finds the red light district and enters a large brothel. The madam asks him to be seated and sends over a young lady to entertain him.
They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she gasps and runs away! Seeing this, the madam sends over a more experienced lady to entertain the gentleman.
They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear, and she too screams, “No!” and walks quickly away.
The madam is surprised that this ordinary looking man has asked for something so outrageous that her two girls will have nothing to do with him. She decides that only her most experienced lady, Lola, will do. Lola has never said no, and it’s not likely anything would surprise her. So the madam sends her over to Hans. They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she screams, “NO WAY, BUDDY!” and smacks him as hard as she can and leaves.
Madam is by now absolutely intrigued, having seen nothing like this in all her years of operating a brothel. She hasn’t done the bedroom work herself for a long time, but she’s sure she has said yes to everything a man could possibly ask for. She just has to find out what this man wants that has made her girls so angry. Besides she sees a chance to teach her employees a lesson.
So she goes over to Hans and says that she’s the best in the house and is available. She sits and talks with him. They frolic, giggle, drink and then she sits in his lap.
Hans leans forwards and whispers in her ear, “Can I pay in Euros?”
What government is doing is to, tax the poor and give part of it back to the poor.
What is the point in taxing someone and then giving him / her benefits to live! Could save a lot on administration cost.
The point? To make us dependent on the state, to turn us into a compliant underclass.
They’ll only succeed if you let them. Just don’t let them. Problem solved.
More shit from the Chipping Norton shiterati.
Quite, and although I don’t believe in Governments interfering in any way at all, I have to take issue with Guido’s comment that Champaign drinkers (that’s me) won’t suffer, well we aren’t the ones roaming the highstreet causing trouble everywhere.
The best answer is to bring back the cat-o-nine tails and whip them as we used to do decades ago. This time, with a slight difference. If a group of them are caught, and for the whipping, they can hear each other yell and scream. It will keep the memory alive much longer which in turn will make them fearful of going through it again.
And the whipper should be given one year in gaol if he doesn’t cause bums to bleed. It might be a good idea to have an attractive blonde as the whipper for the men and a good looking guy for the women. This will make their anguish even heavier.
God but I have a terrible mind!
Harsh…but fair!
95% of drunks ‘roaming the streets’ are entirely harmless.
The rest are criminals who use drink as an excuse for their criminality.
Of course if we had a regime of punishing criminal behaviour worth a fart, many of these criminals would soon realise that using drink as an excuse for their criminal behaviour did not wash. And that if punishment was even more severe for drunken criminals, rather than less, I suspect that drunken criminality would actually decre*ase substantially.
Hear Hear
Just when I was thinking of voting Tory at the next election he pulls this load of bollocks. Next they’ll be raising the VAT on condoms.
We put up with 13 years of unbearable shit from Labour but at least with the hjope that when they were voted out we’d get a sensible government in stead.
Now it turns out that we are being government by another bunch of fucking imbeciles. Seeing as the ballot box clearly isn’t working, what remains?
The bullet box?
its well outta of order while they spend our taxes on sibsidised bars.
Hang them!
My take on it over at #Blottr
http://www.blottr.com/columnist/old-holborn/taxing-festive-cheer-new-low
Splendid post
+100
Flog ‘em first
The Beast is hungry. The Beast must be fed. Big Government don’t come cheap. Now empty your pockets…
I would have thought the the Tory Party would go for the popular vote, having seen the boost to the Gov’t's popularity when it used the veto in the EU…… not rocket science.
Sending overseas aid to Brazil, China and India and the likes, using higher taxes on what little pleasures we have left, is just political suicide.
They don’t think it is because they do not feel it personally. Yet.
Well if the morons who aspire to government come and ruins my life’s little private pleasures, they are going to have to learn that two can play at that game. I do not think I am alone in feeling like this.
Can you share your action plan with the rest of us?
Did I beat Billy?
Clearly not!
However, not quite bringing up the rear.. Lomax
Guido
time to start a e-petition to get the subsidised bars in the Palace of westminster closed?
If we are not allowed cheap booze then why should they?
Excellent idea……
Indeed – the taxpayer should not be subsidising the anti social behaviour in the House…
We don’t like it – and the squeaker doesn’t like it either
Cracking idea!
Why stop there Billy? We subsidise every aspect of their greed filled lives with our hard earned labour.
Yet at every turn they feel compelled to rob us at every turn.
Surely the parasites should be stripped of every expense that we cannot claim and forced to live in the same world they have created in their infinite spite, for us.
Agreed
Is it moral for the young to have access to cheap booze. #justasking.
What do you define as cheap? Or for that matter young?
If people are old enough to fight and die for this country, then are you suggesting they should not be allowed by law access to other adult behaviour or legal goods and services or they should be rationed by government decree?
There is a nannying stench from your post that is as unhe*althy as it it revolting. You sound like every other do-gooder wanker, quite prepared to forfeit freedom for the ‘greater good’ whatever that is and however you define it.
Is there such a thing as under-age dwinking.
Bullseye Archer, what an f in tosser “justasking” my arse!
I really think that as they can affaord it, they should pay MORE tax. How about the bars in the Houses of Parliamnet being double taxed, to set an example?
+1
I keep telling you, if what you REALLY want is for people to drink less alcohol, make it illegal. Works for me!
You pull a knife, we’ll pull a gun. You send one of ours to the hospital, we’ll send one of yours to the morgue.
Yeah, real funny, ya prick, now go home and get yer freakin’ shine box!
+ 1.
Home brew beer is 30p a pint and a bottle of home made wine 60p. Now where are the damsons?
Don’t count on that lasting when the grasping prohibitionist’s re*alise, they can pillage the home brewers with taxes.
I’ve just bottled nearly half a gallon of sloe gin. That should last for….oh at least a week. And I know of a damson tree ..damson gin next year.
Homebrew wine is 15-20p per bottle if you pick your own ingredients or buy cheap fruit from the reduced section at the end of the day (eg bananas 10p per kilo)
Have you counted in the white stick to go with the strong stuff
P.S. “There a three things of which no man need be ashamed, a fish from the stream, a deer from the moor and a drop of his own liquor” – I cannot find the original gaelic.
Four things: you missed out the fruit-flavoured butt plug.
and make them comply with the smoking ban while they are at it. If it’s good enough for us……
Perhaps rather than single salvoes at individual taxes, the public should launch an attack on a broad front against regressive taxes. Any talk of looking after the poor is rubbish whilst the politicians tax them off the road, out of the skies, off the bottle, forcing them to make ferry runs to France. Let’s make 2012 #notoregressive taxes.
Worked for me 238 years ago. What’s been taking you so long?
Has this site been hacked by The Mirror?
Care to elaborate further?
Are Labour against the council tax freeze?
I have come across of a flyer saying that a council (Lab) will freeze council tax for the 4th year.
But i am sure that Ed said it would mean more cuts to councils?
Can someone help please?
Hey, It’s a bandwagon. Let me on !
Ed is desperate and desperate men will say anything. I wouldn’t put a penny on anything the clown says. We all know when he was in office, hurting the poor was the le*ast of his concerns.
During the last election I remember Dave holding a pint of Guinness and saying it was his favourite drink.
After the election he is offering Sarkozy a bottle of cats urine fermented by some micro brewery in Oxfordshire.
Would you really want to go drinking with a person who behaves like this ?
“”I remember Dave holding a pint of Guinness and saying it was his favourite drink.”"
Yes … it was his favourite drink …. at that particular moment in time when the cameras were there!
Just like when he was filmed in the National War Memorial paying his respects
I wonder if the BBC’s Mark Thompson has watched BBC tv this christmas.
Everyone has – dozens of times before.
You can’t get BBC tv in Tuscany
WHAT!
But you can get BBC Tuscany accross the whole of the UK.
They have no other ideas, taxing is all they know.
It’s like waking from a thirteen year nightmare, only to discover that your liberators are as bad as your previous captors and filled with every bit as much hectoring, greed filled spite.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…
This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard from a British Government since the last stupid thing they told us about.
Guido, why do you allow some of these posts through? They are simply offensive, not witty, no insight offered – just offensive. We can all type rude words – we simply chose not to.
Read this.
http://www.order-order.com/2004/01/about-guidos-blog/
The right to say ‘Huntflaps’ is enshrined in the UN Charter. Now fuck off.
I smashed Louise Mensch’s back doors in
Fuck off then.
f uck off then!
It took B£iar and Brown 13 years to create Broken Britain and to venerate binge-drinking. Don’t let the wicked Tories undo all that good work.
Yeah, that’s right you tell ‘em, while you are at it, will you be using the subsidised bars our political masters enjoy?
Of course the best way to resolve everything is tax, tax, tax, tax and then even more tax.
It has no effect on the economy at all does it?
Moron.
It’s none of your business, Ached Knacker, but no I don’t dine out at subsidised establishments.
So apart from insults, what’s your brilliant answer ?
Answer to what? Drunken behaviour in city centres? Easy, the full force of the law. Binge drinking? Easy, the full force of the law and charging people for their the medical cost over undgulence. Criminal behaviour as a consequence of excessive drinking, see my post at the top of this thre*ad.
Cost of prison £40k/annum…
Not if they live on bread and water twice a day.
.. and have no access to tv, ipods, gyms, sports facilities. Lots can be saved with a bit of Scroogist policies.
‘UK subjects pay more in air taxes than all the rest of the EU’s citizens – combined.’
Must run such as this past my MP.
If he seeks re-election, his thoughts on the matter will be… germane.
Last time I booked a flight 60 % went on taxes and charges.
It flashed up on my computer for 10 seconds and then disappeared.
Apparently there is some little known EU legislation that says the punters have to be shown this info.
perhaps this explains the eurosceptic position?
yes rusty Dave you are the heir to Blair
no wonder poor old Millipede can’t put any clear blue water between your party and his, your policies are his policies
by the way, Dave, how’s that cast iron promise working out for you? Not the referendum the one about spending less of my money and nannying me a bit less than the last lot of crooks?
And controlling boozing is like invading Afghanistan – it never works. 20 minutes on Google will get you all you need to know on home-distilling, and not the poisonous Polish ‘vodka’ that’s killed lately, to say nothing of encouraging the ‘entrepreneurial’ to bootlegging.
You are behind the times mate.
Dave has his eyes on Somalia now.
And the Iranians are egging him on in the Straits of Hormuz.
We will be going into battle without an aircraft carrier!
Forget the cheap booze and hit the crack cocaine I say.
Them Farkin, Farkers. Rag heads all dancing in the streets and shootin’ their guns in the air. Lyin’ on a doormat every half hour to pray to Moe Hammond.
Reminds me of New Addington..
I get great wines on which no taxes have ever been levied. Red and White in a choice of grapes. The Bourgogne could have come from the best French vineyards but is made locally. I pay around £1.20 per litre though I buy 20 litres at a time.
The grappa is 65%-80% and is a medicine.
The Guinness I have to import.
I have exercised choice – what competition is all about. The problem is that most Brits either can’t (schooling/relatives) or won’t.
If this proposal is going to increase the pr!ce of vintage port or Marston’s Pedigree, then I’m dead against it. If it reduces the sales of industrial lager, cider and similar gnat’s piss in oil-drum quantities by low-end supermarkets to chavs and winos, then I’m willing to give it a go.
If it causes the aforementioned chavs and winos to take up home distilling, then good – anything to keep them occupied and out of other peoples’ homes has to be a bonus.
Tosser!
Go brew yer own, then.
I’d rather not have yet another increase in tax actually.
Thanks all the same.
Reguarding Rangers football clubs outstanding debt with HMRC , surely HMRC should insist that all players are sold to help pay off the 40-45 million pound in evaded taxes they owe.
I mean it would only be £50, but every little helps right?
Keep booze cheap but increase the fine for Drunk and Disorderly to £500. Problem solved!
Better than the continual cautions these people get.
Very Good. In the 50′s a fine of 10/- was normal for being D&D. What proportion of a man’s pay was that? £500 sounds about right.
We come up against the reality that in many of these cases, the offender is on state benefits; result, the assessment of their ability to pay means that the fine cannot be more than a token amount (to show their ‘goodwill’ towards the court).
So build more prisons with the extra tax raised! Or, of course, send them back where they came from…
‘minimum price on cheap alcohol’
Sometimes cameron is such an idiot. U Turn coming up imminently!
Without doubt, a ‘hate crime’ and I hate crime.
There’s an alternative view. Blair’s party used to publicise something totally off the wall and while everybody was up in arms about it sneak through something far more deadly. Just maybe the Heir-to-Blair has cottoned on?
More like: “We’re going to stick a red-hot poker in your anus. Just kidding– a footlong dildo with barbs!” Thank goodness for small mercies!
Yes, in case nobody has noticed, the clamour for our referendum seems to have gone away over the past couple of weeks. Bread and circuses to distract the attention. Never fails.
You go ahead with this you slimy wanker and we’ll introduce you to colonic irrigation with White Lightning & Buckfast.
Leave me alone you wanker.
Utter socialist filth in disguise.
There’s always Khat.
It’s legal and culturally sacrosanct – and it’ll stimulate the Somali export trade and it’s one way to get your kids to eat greens.
The Somalis import most of theirs from Kenya.
I might offer to pay more tax on booze if that c’unt David Laws pays his unwarranted and fraudulently claimed expenses back.
They won’t listen Guido, they don’t get it.
They will suck every last drop of working capital out of the country rather than admit their command economy ideals don’t work.
I can see where your comming from on this one guido , and I agree tax cuts are choice in the tool box when looking at growth , the question as ever is which tax cuts do the right effect ?
The deficet requires very careful consideration , as I dont think you can afford any tax cut that reduces the overall tax take ie if you produce growth it must either increase total take or at least be neutral .When the deficet comes right then , growth increases have a much more comfortable effect .
The debt (noting it has increased) is pretty much dependent on growth post , sorting the deficet , which means even after taming the deficet , you will still be running certain taxes at a high rate , as you will increase public spending because of infaltion .
I do not see any scenario where you can make broad tax cuts , but I do see selective tax cuts , that are helpful to none imported bits of the economy .
Interest rate scenario would be far far worse in my view .
I like the 1p on every text or mobile call , collecting it should be easy and efficent job , and it goes straight to exchequer to aid deficet (perhaps would prefer if it just went on debt) .
Tax cuts straight to peoples pockets are useually in ammounts that are inconsequential unless you can do fuel/energy at say 10% .
The problem is taming the deficet until you can get at the debt better , labour not only left no money , they left the economy merrily steaming ahead at high deficet , leaving the bottom to be found some years after they left office . Osbourne has a two holes to fill dilemma , should he try and fill , both a long steady rate , or should he fill the deficet one in first and then get to the debt , reducing the overall time in filling them , than if trying to fill both ?.
Its tax cuts that create UK growth and not merely take in imports that have the improving economic future , in my view . Probebely what i am thinking contavenes the EU somewhere , british made and british used is what I think needs tax cuts .
Good stuff.
Osbourne can save billions.
First he needs to cut all foreign aid (and that includes all payemnts to the EU, which are nothing but foreign aid in yet another guise). Then he has to bring the UK forces back to their proper barracks from overseas (They will do more good sitting on the Falklands than getting blown up in Afghanistan) . He can get Pickles off his arse and stop the money bleeding out of the public purse through the leaky bucket that is local government, and also start RECOVERING all the money stolen by the lcoal councillors, bent local government grafters and the corporate parasites who fix contracts to rip us off (Firms like Keir Group spring to mind).
He can cap housing benefits properly (ie no more than £200 per week per household, no matter how many children and no matter where in the country they are) and timelimit all benefits other than disability benefit for a maximum period.
Anyone not a citizen or not married to a British citizen should be ineligible for benefits after six months. If they can’t find work in that time, they live on their savings or leave the country, including EU nationals and their dependents. Citizenship should only be granted to people with a clear five year record of not claiming benefits of any kind.
Sell the BBC.
+1000 End tory socialism asap also. Tax and spend socialism is the problem and no amount of pretend can obscure it.
If call me Dave reads this he will have an attack of the “vapors” – he is a blowhard he hasn’t got the backbone to do anything radical.
So he won’t be legalising cannabis then, with all the savings that we will make through taxing it as well as the additional benefits of making a lot of corrupt policemen dispensible.
There are also a couple of billions to be raised by enforcing court fines properly (dismantling a large chink of the Ministry of Justice will also save a lot of wedge: the magistrates will very happily administer their own courts for far far less than the curent overbloated civil service does it, like they used to for 600 odd years).
I could go on but as the current government are in thrall to the self-serving state-worshippers, there is not much point in castig pearls before swine.
Where is the follow-up action.
Time for some leadership?
+1 to all of the above contributions.
I like the idea of a 1p “tax” on every txt or mobile call, what about a 5p tax on all cash withdrawals and electronic bank transacations. No a clue what the tax take would be but should be easy enough to collect.
Why should we be taxed for withdrawing our own money? The banks make a handsome profit already from our lending it to them in the first place (for safe-keeping of course).
bring back the BES with full 40% tax rebate
Not a Machine,
Nobody reads your stuff because it is too long. Mostly it is just deleted.
Did you have summarising exercises in English?
We did. Stuff should be re-read before hitting the submit button, especially if it is long.
Somebody should have told Mr Tolstoy that before he wrote ‘War and Pe*ce’.
That is quality though! Maybe Marcel Proust?
Hear hear! About time you told him to stop rabbiting on boring the rest of us to death.
Brew your own, it’s pretty easy, and very cheap.
All very well to talk about cut spending cuts … And the government should be targeted on unnecessary expenditure …
Our absurd levels of contribution to the UN (say relative to china) does not look fit-for-purpose. Can the government justify what purpose our more than double the contribution of china serves? Minimum $80million saving there.
Saving public money by politicians, not a cat in hells chance, your more likely to see pigs flying over the HOC, than see a politician saving public money.
This is defeatist talk.
If soft lad Davey puts up prices, we want to see the subsidised bars in the HOC show the same pricing for food and drink as in a commercial restaurant of equal stature, if not then fuck off and hope your polls don’t slip down to zero.
Hick…!
Wot’s all this ahhbout? First them poles come over ‘ere an’ take our benefits and now all them Mooselimbs want to to stop decent people like me from havin’ a few Red Bull and Vodkas?
Its a frakin’ disgrace. Fark off back to farkin’ Poleland and take them Nigellias an all.
This country is a joke coz of youse lot not standin’ up for decent British people like I is.
If i want to fall down drunk on a traffic island and get a police car to take me home then I will, and all you Poles and wops and mops and Bosmans can fark the fark off!
This is David Cameron’s Poll Tax moment. What a bloody fool.
This is clearly a vote winner and I await with bated breath the next election where the Tories will win a clear majority
Cheaper airfares, remove all taxes from turboprop flights that leave the UK, unless you are in one hell of a hurry it won’t matter to you that it takes you twice as long to Dublin, Paris etc. Please the Green lobby to!
Dave can save a load of money by refusing to go and let any british offciials go to any more summits. Anywhere. .In future such meetings should take place on Skype.
Good idea, but regrettably there are certain countries in which Skype is totally banned. Not much ever comes from these summits anyway, apart from large bills from the participants and organisers, so probably not much being missed really.
If he wants to tax cheap weak beer out of site this shows that our Dave has never done a days work on a building site in his life.
Supermarket ownbrand is the only beer brickies can drink all day and stay sober.
What a plonker!
It’s modernisation, not morality, that is the dirty word of politics
Peter Oborne
Form over substance. Appearances over political philosophy. I have been saying this for a long, long time. One day we have to go back to this.
It’s modernisation, not morality, that is the dirty word of politics
Peter Oborne
Form over substance. Appеarances over political philosophy. I have been saying this for a long, long time. One day we have to go back to this.
It’s that other “snow” he likes in the evenings that costs most of the difference.
I’m with Guido on this, anything that makes dr.u.nk dr.iving more expensive is an outrage. It’s my god given right to mow down unsuspecting ped.estrians and I’ll fight anyone who says any different.
wanker
A drink, an accident, a death of a child, the death penalty.
Aufgeficken!
[REDACTED - TOO LONG & BORING]
I actually don’t mind them screwing more revenue from booze.
For too long, Brits have treated alchol as though its consumption bestowed upon them a temporary licence to become an asshole. Witness our towns and cities which at night become squalid, intimidating places due to alcohol.
Alcohol is not really a tax issue. It’s a mental health issue. People that consume alcohol without being able to handle it can often fuck up other people’s lives.
A very, very few Brits abuse alcohol, most of us just enjoy a relaxing, sociable tipple.
Penalise the piss-heads and leave the drinkers alone!
This is from 2004 but it is worth reading; how to cut a Civil Service to the bone, and make money!
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2004&month=04
this government as well as the previous one have done more to isolate, discriminate and bugger the poor, the unemployed and the disabled than anyone since the second world war.
they are all c’unts
if this country, known formally as Rip Off Britain, was in the near east we would invade it to free its citizens
If you believe our Coalition Government are that bad, and I tend to agree with you, wait until you examine what some of the Conservative controlled Local Councils are doing. Hundreds of millions in reserves and look at how they act.
If useless Dave really believes this is the way to go, wait till 2015 and present it to the country as a flagship policy in the GE campaign. Then he’ll see how many agree with him. Just another revenue raising scheme dressed up as social policy.
I laugh at lazy boozers, thick as a brick!
Do you remember? “sunshine bread” it was utter paper mash type papp,
it lasted for weeks in the fridge!
Then you tried real fresh bread and marveled how fresh bread could have such a wonderfully delicious taste.
Your average supermarket cheap booze is your “Sunshine booze” chemically enhanced papp.
FFS get a life make your own, its so so simple! the first batch or two will probably be crap but at no more than 50p a liter bottle its worth a little patience….like most things it gets better….and much better with practice, build up your stock..say 60 or so bottles and laugh at the tax increases.
2 hours a month (average) to make, now work out how much you spend on booze times that into two hours…..get the picture?
Buy the ingredients online, brew and after 3 weeks and you can enjoy real ale and great real wine wait a little longer read, superb!
Forget the spoilers the vested interest, they need the mugs to pay up and keep the lolly rolling in, or like I (brewing for five years now) you can toast the chancellor and get pissed every night of the week if you want for less than £182.00 per year (say £60 set up costs first year).
It really, really is that simple!
Cheers!
So minimum price of booze in the papers today and a warning about the dangers of counterfeit vodka.
The more you tax it the more the criminals are attracted to it, hint to Cameron, beware the unintended consequences…
Congrats on discovering socialism.
Guido Fawkes says:
January 2, 2012 at 8:20 am
It doesn’t hit the rich harder because they have far more disposable income.
*******************
Guido. I never said it hit the rich HARDER. I said it hit the rich FAR MORE. It is a subtle differrence. The truly poor for example a single pensioner on state pension and benefits pays hardly any VAT simply because they do not buy much in the way of goods or services that have VAT on them. Similarly the single mum living on state benefits (provided she buys healthy foods).
You really do have this wrong, just like Ed Balls. VAT in the peculiar way it is applied in the UK is a progressive tax, not regressive, with the welathier paying proportionally much more than the poor because of the way they spend their income. Now that would change if the people in Brussels got their way and standard rated everything. Until then, you could not be more wrong.
Given that tax has to be raised somehow, high taxes on luxury expenditure is a pretty fair way of doing it. More fair for example than a one per cent rise in the standard rate of income tax.
Temporary cuts in the standard VAT rate as advocated by Balls would mostly not filter through to consumers. Business is too hard pressed. Simply put HMG needs the money to pay of the debt inherited from Balls and Brown.