Budget Bluff
There has been an extraordinary amount of pre-briefing of this budget, allegedly because of the necessity of the coalition’s components lobbying for their policies out in the open. The pundit class has been confidently staking out their “informed” takes on the budget. Guido can’t help noticing that different papers are saying different things will happen on the 50p top rate. For example The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour splashed on the front page that the rate will be cut to 40p and The Telegraph is reporting it will be cut to 45p. Do the pundits really know or are they just, y’know, bluffing?
If Osborne really wanted to wrong-foot the two Ed’s response, he could just leave it at 50p for now…
Misfoot 2 eds. Bring the rate down to 35%
Lets cut with immediate effect rather than bringing in in 12 months time leaving the BBC 12 months to spin how this is so unfair. As with the NHS once its happened and working it rather destroys the BBC/Labour/Gaurdian hyperbole
Wealth Managers and Accountants exist to mitigate tax exposure for the rich. Cutting the 50p tax rate back down to 40p will add comparatively little at this time.
The Treasury know there are other more effective measures to spur growth and collect more revenue.
The middle classes are beyond the fulcrum of zero disposable income which is killing any hope of growth. The biggest problem is not the efficiency of what government collects from the electorate, but the cost of inefficient big government.
Ed Balls and Miliband were at the centre of Blair and Brown’s 30% expansion of the civil service where the state sector is bigger than the private sector.
THIS HAS TO BE REVERSED AS CIVIL SERVANTS DO NOT CREATE GROWTH.
The coalition has to take the fight to the avaricious unions and the self serving vested interests of big corporations and banks, both who are lining their own pockets at the expense of the tax payer
The fact is that this poor excuse of a Conservative government has been emasculated by the Libs.
There is no hope of a recovery until the UK government manages on the same % income as the Chinese government and that is just 25%. Human Rights, Health & Safety, the EU, Overseas Aid, bailing out banks, too many Quangos, and the Elephant in the room; WELFARE account for more than the difference. The choice is yours.
Yes, that’s right. It’s all the LibDems fault. Damn them. Damn them all to Hell!
*walks away, whistling innocently*
The choice was ours at the last election
Unfortunately, no party got a majority and we have to live with the government the country selected (not counting postal vote fraud).
The choice is clear
Vote Blue for less government and a little more personal freedom
Vote Red for big government control and freebee’s for apparatchiks and the faithful
Vote Yellow if you are too wussy to make your mind up as every one is really nice and friendly if they could only be given another chance and have a hug.
The choice doesn’t look that clear to me.
What happens if anyone is stupid enough to vote for Dave and his crowd of wankers? They don’t seem to fit into any of your categories.
“everyone a sinner” is obviously a beneficiary of Labour Party largesse and happy to let others subsidise his champagne sociopath lifestyle.
While I am no fan of Oily Dave and his band of apologists for the big corporations and banks, at least he is trying to sort out the country. All Tony Blair wanted to do when he got into office was win a second term. All Gordon Brown wanted was to be Prime Minister. All Mandleson wanted was power and influence (lots of money required). All Ed Balls wanted was to be Chancellor and even Brown wasn’t mad enough to let him). And finally, when Ed Miliband became leader of the Labour Party, his first address was I will fight 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until I am in No. 10 – nothing about about servant of the people, just I want to be Prime Minister.
Ken Livingstone is a prime example of how Labour are just rammed full of odious, postal vote stuffing, mendacious megalomaniac, champagne sociopaths who will say and do anything to get power. The cast of characters is long and not salubrious, Whelan, Draper, Campbell, McBride, Izzet, Bellardinelli, Woodcock, Ellam, Dugher, Fletcher and Baldwin.
These people should not be allowed near public office
You can’t wrong-foot the two Eds. They’ve both got two left feet.
I suspect Milliband wrong-foots himself every day the moment he gets up in the morning.
And sometimes Ed does The Wrong Trousers as well
Great Photo of the Electorate or should I say the iliterate.
I saw him outside Morrisons in Camden yesterday. He was with that foghorn Reeves woman. Has anyone else noticed the size of Ed’s feet? Right and left – they’re huge
Tax cut from 50% to 40% will mainly cut tax paid by top civil servants, top council employees, top housing association employees, bankers, etc. It will not help people like Lord Ashcroft or Mr. Green as they hardly pay any tax.
But it will make many people happy.
Until they realise it is not going to create any jobs. How will it create more jobs when you give tax cut to CEO of a council?
The head of the council has more money to spend.
Gardeners. Builders. Decorators. Bathroom/kitchen fitters, etc etc.
The head of the council gets all that done for free anyway by council employees.
Gardeners. Builders. Decorators. Bathroom/kitchen fitters, etc etc. As if though these people pay tax!
why doesn’t the government the top rate of the tax on fuel first to stimulate growth
I’d much rather that nobody was “mis-footed”. I just want taxes reduced and waste eliminated. That’s all.
+1000…
Guido, it is not 50p it is 62p. The Ni scam misleads people to think their tax is less than what it is. We should all be able to have the largest proportion of our salary/wage. it is not as if the Government has done anything useful with the money. £45 million a day on Europe and what do we get in return? Why is it in our interest to help the Eurozone or give Greece billions because they have not taxed their own people properly?
I am sick of the huge taxes we pay. We need a campaign Taxed Enough Already. And a campaign for the Government to spend less not tax more.
Exactly!
If you think I am going to work my arse off to earn a pound and then give you 62p of it to piss down the drain you are fuckin daft.
why is it in our interest to help our ‘friends’ in the Republic of Ireland with £7billion (at least), which they use to have much lower corporation tax and air passenger duty rates than our fellow countrymen in Northern Ireland?
The problem isn’t so much the tax take – it’s fucking huge.
The problem is that ‘governments’ are shit at spending it and just get ripped off. It’s not how or where they spend it but when they decide to spend it other people tend to make a lot of money.
It should be run along the lines of a small business where every penny counts
’tis true. This isn’t a revenue problem. It’s an expenditure problem. When the state takes over half of earnings from people on middle ranking salaries, you can forget growth or any signs of vibrancy in the economy.
Shame we haven’t got a Tory government to fight this fight.
they aren’t as much “spending our tax” as giving it to their supporters
Sorry old boy – taxes, whatever they are, and waste, – whatever that is – reduced?
No chance old bean – my jolly chums and I are in it for the duration!
Got any room on your estate for a wind farm? – nice little earner! And we can fix the local dullards who say no.
Watt?
you’re a Shampagne socialist for sure
( shampagne , not a typo )
Great minds think alike, Capt.
but fools seldom differ
Except on here.
20 Weights and a half of Guinness mate.
Pheww, won the pools have you Cat? I’ll have 5 Woodbines and a half of mild.
When I started to work, I smoked Perfectos or State Express 555:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sludgeulper/4619825250/
Ostentatious rubbish!
The adverts used to say [insert some name] smokes Perfectos
so does his best friend (see above)
The picture above would be some glamourous woman as if smoking the cigarettes was a passport to ensnaring such a beauty.
Have not smoked for 25 years now. About the women, …
FIVE!!
Nellie Johnson in Scotland Road Liverpool used to sell Woodies singly.
Again, in English this time. Fucking pretentious pissed up paddy. I only hired him to suck me cock.
A 0% increase should cover all the bases
.. and all three could be right, 50p for now, 45p in the next tax year and 40p in the lead up to the election in 2015.
I was thinking the same, Osborne is a master of strategy and has got Labour on the run with talk of top rate tax changes.
But that’s the trouble with Osborne, too much time worrying about Labour Losers and lobby strategy instead of repairing the economy.
I would like to see a something for something approach.
A reduction in government can be matched with a corresponding reduction in taxes.
That way, a link is re-established in the minds of the generally unthinking (for which read what you like) between income and expenditure.
If Maggie could get that one across, why can’t any of the buggers do it again now?
Get rid of one or two Departments straight away. How about getting rid of the Government Equalities Office. And not forgetting the Department of International Development. Just send that lot scurrying back to the Foreign Office. That’ll save a few Billion we can’t afford.
Chop Ed Miliband’s idiotic Climate Change Act and save a minimum of £780 billion over the next thirty odd years and it’s decimating effects to our industries and standard of living.
Perhaps a better idea would be to privatise them – then see how long they remain in business…
Nothing concentrates the mind better than having to earn the money to pay for one’s expenditure.
Let them have an MBO!
There won’t be one single thing the Opposition approves of – that’s why they have no credibility. All Conservatives should pray Labour keeps the two Eds.
When you say ‘the opposition ‘ are you refering to the Bbbc?
Lets just take it as read that Chancellor George Osbourne, with multi millionaire mates Dave Cameron & Nick Clegg are going to carry on with the same fiscal lunacy as Brown.
Except Brown knew when he was spending & taxing too much, unlike these Hoons.
Vote UKIP – save the British economy, countryside, history & heritage from the EU fifth columnists in the Lab / Lib / Con Party
We are too late to be saved….This country is well and truly fucked…..I wanted to emigrate 8 years ago for the sake of my 2 boys but my wife didnt, sure dont want to tell her I told you so in a few years time……….
I told you at the time darling, you could have run away with me.
I like your thinking
Run that line again?
“Except Brown knew when he was spending & taxing too much”
You are taking the Fawking peas, aren’t you? That thick cnut didn’t understand the first thing about economics- he spent his entire tenure trying to change the batteries in his solar powered calculator, trying to undermine the person who put him in a position of power and generally trying to hang on to that power at all cost, mainly ours.
Blair was a god bothering, lying shyster who couldn’t be trusted to sit the right way on a lavatory, but Brown was the Chancellor who royally f*cked up the job on his watch.
I genuinely lol….thank you mars…
Sophie, I never know how to classify you, Troll or interjector of great truths.
How many gov depts do we need? 3 – defence, home office , treasury abolish big Gov
And reduce the head-count in each of the three by 50% at the same time.
Hmm.
David took his eye off bro Ed
Will Boris take his eye off bro Jo?
So when all these millionaires leave thru the 50% tax rate who makes up the shortages in the tax take-oh shit its us the sheeples
Wrong foot them by abolishing the income tax, and simply reduce govt spending to what it was in 2006.
‘leave the 50p tax rate as it is to wronngfoot ed and ed ?…’
Well he could but don’t forget the 50p tax rate has cost the Treasury £halfbillion every month since gordon imposed it.
Privatise the BBC. It hits poor people and is an unfair tax-licence fee.
It’ll raise a load of cash for the treasury and sound the death-knell
for Marxism.
+10 and then some.
So practical and obvious it’s bound to be a non-starter………!!!!
Look! How many times do we have to tell you that basically what we’re gonna do is, we’re literally gonna take the news and dissemble it – I mean deconstruct it – then we’re literally gonna spread it round the place – I mean plate – and smear weird stuff round the edge and drizzle some spicy opinions over the top.
OK?
Now pay yer Telly Tax.
And just who would buy the Broken Backside Corp?
Scrap the TV tax today.
The BBC creates 3,000 female crimminals a week and takes up a tenth of all court time in the UK. All because it will not issue encrypted viewing cards instead of paper licences.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117389/TV-licence-cheats-make-TENTH-magistrate-court-cases.html
Get rid of NI. Adjust IT accordingly
That has niggling side effects.
I’d suggest integrating the two fully, but have a theoretical divide, so that the calculation is made up of A% NI and B% NI.
Thats for people who have income from savings, or work in different countries within the space of one year.
A% Income tax
Abolish them both. The Napoleonic wars are over. National insurance should be voluntary.
So much for budget purdah.
Clearly the present government resembles nothing more than a sieve.
Given all this leakage, what’s the point of Leveson, at least with hacking there’s some effort on the part of journo’s.
But why the sheep pic if the pundits are all going off in different directions?
Surely, the sheep would be appropriate if they were just following each other?
Was this one of Junior’s efforts?
“Lambs led to the slaughter” springs to mind. The briefers are the Judas goats. Well, we know they’re mostly Judases anyway– anything for their 30 shekels.
Don’t forget that it was Thatcher who put VAT up from 8% to 15% and Major who put it up to 17 1/2%.
Tax cutting Tories my arse.
But Mrs T had to raise it to help sort out all the debts created by the previous Labour government. Sound familiar?
That was a decision to move the tax burden around. From Income tax to “purchase taxes”.
Mainly becuse VAT is a very efficient tax. Cheap to collect and hard to avoid, unlike income tax.
Perhaps. I bought the line that it was a philosophical thing. you could chose to save instead of buying. Best not to encourage people not to work.
Of course, the EEC wanted it to happen too.
It is instant take with no effort required. Raise it today and the money rolls in straight away unlike complicated income taxation that needs an army of civil servants to administer.
Can I have a breakdown as to where all my Vat payments go please?
No.
+1
Tax ? Tax ? Why bother to pay it ?
Just cut back on civil servants, they are costing the country a fortune. The EU is the civil service’s dream with all its rules and laws, it is not by chance that we are the only member of the EU club to obey all its rules.
By the way India has just told its airlines not to take part in the EU airline emmissions scheme, just has china has done. The EU is now pricing our ailines out of business. Dave should follow china’s and India’s lead and tell Brussels to Fuck off too. What is the point of being the PM of a British government if non elected EUSSR Commissars say what you can and can not do?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/19/uk-india-eu-emission-idUKLNE82I02Y20120319
+1, although Dave has plenty of previous. Apart from the occasional bit of unavoidable gesture politics, he does his masters’ bidding.
They should return the army to its barracks immediately (putting a couple of regiments on the Falklands. That will save loads.
Raise the tax threshold to £20K and abolish welfare for anyone under 60. No child benefits, all unemployment insurance to be based on contributions. If you don’t work you don’t sit on your arse and watch telly, you emigrate.
Jolly good! Just one problem there…..where are the JOBS???
People can go abroad and steal them, just like everyone who comes here does.
You mean back to their homelands, for the immigrants?
..and a £500 per head one off payment to indigenous residents to bugger off to Oz?
Like it!
..Not sure the Aussies would be so happy though.
They can do what the aussies do – sneak in on working holiday visas and overstay
I’ve just had a bangin’ shit.
Reasonable take on it from Doug Carswell http://www.talkcarswell.com/
The press seem to be making headlines out of what, in the grand scheme of things, will not make any real difference.
He highlights the amount of tax revenue collected in 1997 £316 billion to that collected this year £575 billion.
And what have we got to show for it? Bugger all and £1 Trillion of debt!
What do we have to show for it? A Space Programme, that’s what. You should be proud of this. Even if it’s not actually OUR Space Programme. But mark my words, I am spending your high taxes wisely and ONE DAY, Mr Patel will stand on the Moon, and he will say, “Thank you, British taxpayers, for allowing me to be here.”
Actually, he probably won’t say that. But nevertheless, it will be YOUR money that got him there. The sacrifices you will have to make may be severe, the tax hikes you will have to suffer may be harsh, but you should be proud. You should be very proud.
Toodle pip!
China and India take on the EUSSR and I hope they win, I really do. I just can not muster an iota of loyalty to the EU and it is quite telling that I would want China and India to grind it into the dust.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/19/uk-india-eu-emission-idUKLNE82I02Y20120319
I think that the Government are right to deny me a pay rise for the good of the country.
When I mentioned this to my friend Bert he told me not to spend my life being a fucking twat and get out onto the streets rioting.
Bert said Governments do not give a fuck about teenagers because too many of them do not bother to register to vote.
Apparently when a MP sees a pensioner in a wheelchair he shits himself.
The MP or the pensioner?
Or Bert.
When our council sees a pensioner in a wheelchair they apply a wheelclamp, paint a disabled bay round it, send it a load of leaflets in gujarati and wait for the local yobs to turn up and steal the metal bits for scrap.
Yeah, I live in Knightsbrige as well.
There’s a trougherfest on on BBC1 at the moment.
Is Fawkes there with his dynamite?
Where is it I have been through all the channels and can’t find it? Boaz.
No tax at all. Just ‘the right to bear arms’.
easy way to f**k the libs raise the limit to £250.000 for the 50%. It will hit only the truly rich. Come on the so called 1% have clever ways of avoiding tax. the only people who would suffer are the accountants. Scrap the limits on ISA’s as well so that people are incentivised to save. Do not increase social security benefits freeze the amounts.
Over at the guardian the bleating has already started its like a SWP meeting at Uni in the local pub. If polly and her ilk really care she should sell her house in clapham and tuscany and move to the stockwell park estate so she can be in it with the rest of us instead of bleating in the guardian and trouging over £115,000 per annum from a loss making enterprise
50 percent is an incentive tax.
Well I think Osborne should bring back the 10p Tax band
He could wrongfoot them even more by RAISING the top rate to 61% and reducing the NI for businesses by an equivalent amount.
So inflation this month is in at 3.4%.
Looking at the coverage in the British Press the masses are being told they should be kind of grateful for this sort of good news.
The target for Christ sake is 2%. The figures represent a 70% failure and this sadly mirrors the performance for the last four years.
When in opposition Cameron sounded a lack of support for Mervyn King. For nearly two years now he has been in a position to boot King out and bring his own man in to achieve the target figure.
The only thing Cameron has done is to knight the fucker!
And you wonder why the country is in a mess.
Yes I agree with Guido we Chancellors love to outfox the foxes ( and indeed shoot them ).
Personally I believe Lord Fauntleroy will privatise the whole of the Cabinet and declare them an offshore enterprise thus enabling the realisation of any accrued profits to be taxed at minus 49 percent .