That **** Cameron

Frank the tank

We are in favour of the hard working people of Britain.

Millions of people work very hard and receive minimum pay and have to claim state benefits to sustain a very moderate lifestyle. These people will have their benefits frozen (if Cameron &co get back in) These hard working people will be punished by the tories.

Perhaps the employers of these hard working people should be made to pay them a proper living wage rather thasn be subsidised by the state. Heaven knows, they're probly not paying their fair share of tax either (employers that is)

Good old Dave sticking up for the working man again, I think not.

ballysmate

Welcome back Frank.
We would all like to be paid more, but how many of us would like to pay more for goods and services that go up to pay the extra wages?
I agree that some working people will be penalised by the proposed measures but how about laying the blame at the feet of those that could work but refuse to. There is only so much money in the welfare pot and it should be targeted at the genuine.
If you detest Cameron so much, there is always Millipede who appears to cruise Hamstead Heath, looking for people to pester. He is so preoccupied with this he seems to forget about the economy and the deficit when he lays out his master plan.
Millipede is no man of the people either, having inherited his wealth from his Marxist old man who tied his estate up to that his kids wouldn't have to pay inheritance tax. Amazing how these lefties espouse policies for other people but not themselves.
I wish I was rich enough to be a leftie. Sending their kids to private schools and using private health care. Hypocrites.

RDW

Going off at a tangent about people who aren't working, then Milliband, doesn't really address Frank's point, which is about people who are working, but aren't being paid a living wage. They are now going to be squeezed further, while the better off will have further tax cuts. Which is, of course, exactly what we expect from Cameron.

ballysmate

I work with some people who flatly refuse to work beyond a certain number of hours as it would impinge on their benefits. A system that favours those who refuse to work is patently wrong.

Stevo_666

Frank the tank wrote:

We are in favour of the hard working people of Britain.

Millions of people work very hard and receive minimum pay and have to claim state benefits to sustain a very moderate lifestyle. These people will have their benefits frozen (if Cameron &co get back in) These hard working people will be punished by the tories.

Perhaps the employers of these hard working people should be made to pay them a proper living wage rather thasn be subsidised by the state. Heaven knows, they're probly not paying their fair share of tax either (employers that is)

Good old Dave sticking up for the working man again, I think not.

Here we go again...

I don't see how raising the tax free income threshold to £12,500 or raising the threshold for 40% tax to £50,000 is punishing hard working people? Please explain.

Have you ever thought that the income support system is a bit messed up - the State takes money off people in tax then gives it back to them as income support. Labour no doubt thought that was a good idea as they assumed the beneficiaries would be eternally grateful to the State for giving them their own money back (and get people to vote for them). How about a radical solution? - Don't tax people as much in the first place then you don't have to pay them as much income support. See Cameron's tax proposal above...

I work hard and if I want punishing I'll just vote Labour.

And while you're at it, give us a workable definition of 'fair share of tax' so HMRC can go and enforce it :roll:

Frank the tank

I'm no fan of the tories with a red rosette, let's clear that up for a start.

The fact is millions work hard for 40+ hours a week and still need to claim state benefits. This to me is morally wrong, don't care who is running the show it is not right, not while it is lining the pockets of others.

mamba80

the benefits system is corrupt, you have folk who know they ll lose out if they work too many hrs, employers use it to pay as little as possible and then u have benefits cheats who will never work and the genuine in need get passed over.
raising tax thresholds make zero difference as the extra comes off benefits and even if it didn't, private land lords would put up rent so they get their share.
the answer - more social housing, rent caps, progressive incremental tax system, way over the 40k to 50k band, living wage, based on employers ability to pay, small/poor businesses claim back extra wage paid, just as they claim back vat or other taxable benefits, wealthy business pay ALL their own staffing costs, instead of me contributing to their share holders dividends.
Finally, state funding of political parties, so they are no longer in hock to unions or the wealthy.

arthur_scrimshaw

People need to wake up to the reality. The bigest part of the welfare cost is spent on pensions, and they aren't going to cut that. The proportion of welfare fraudulently claimed is a tiny percentage of the amount paid in error (tax credits mainly) by the government. All of this pales into insignificance compared to the amount lost in unpaid, avoided and evaded taxation. Most of this is by businesses who are prime supporters of the Conservative party.Go figure why they aren't chasing this vast sum of money.

ballysmate

The biggest part of the welfare bill may well be pensions, but I am content to pay tax to look after the elderly. My brother in law has kids due to leave school who cannot remember their dad going to work. Given a choice of where I would prefer my taxes to go between keeping him or my elderly relatives, it is a no brainer.
He hasn't committed fraud but has been cossetted by an over generous benefit system which is badly in need of overhaul.

arthur_scrimshaw

Ballysmate wrote:

The biggest part of the welfare bill may well be pensions, but I am content to pay tax to look after the elderly. My brother in law has kids due to leave school who cannot remember their dad going to work. Given a choice of where I would prefer my taxes to go between keeping him or my elderly relatives, it is a no brainer.
He hasn't committed fraud but has been cossetted by an over generous benefit system which is badly in need of overhaul.

Have you read my post? Its the 80/20 rule, if you want to save money you go after the biggest abusers. Despite the Daily Mail headlines it's not your brother in law and his ilk who are bankrupting the UK (but I agree its not right) it's businesses and individuals who don't pay their share of tax. A lot of us on PAYE have no option but to pay our share.

Stevo_666

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

People need to wake up to the reality. The bigest part of the welfare cost is spent on pensions, and they aren't going to cut that. The proportion of welfare fraudulently claimed is a tiny percentage of the amount paid in error (tax credits mainly) by the government. All of this pales into insignificance compared to the amount lost in unpaid, avoided and evaded taxation. Most of this is by businesses who are prime supporters of the Conservative party.Go figure why they aren't chasing this vast sum of money.

Can you back up your claims with some numbers?

ballysmate

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

The biggest part of the welfare bill may well be pensions, but I am content to pay tax to look after the elderly. My brother in law has kids due to leave school who cannot remember their dad going to work. Given a choice of where I would prefer my taxes to go between keeping him or my elderly relatives, it is a no brainer.
He hasn't committed fraud but has been cossetted by an over generous benefit system which is badly in need of overhaul.

Have you read my post? Its the 80/20 rule, if you want to save money you go after the biggest abusers. Despite the Daily Mail headlines it's not your brother in law and his ilk who are bankrupting the UK (but I agree its not right) it's businesses and individuals who don't pay their share of tax. A lot of us on PAYE have no option but to pay our share.

Fully agree that everyone, large and small should meet their tax obligations.

muttley_109

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YBumQHPAeU

joelsim

I'm in favour of making it harder to get benefits. This country is already teetering on not being able to afford the increasing welfare bill, which is only going to get worse as the population lives longer. The elderly should definitely not lose out. I also want more to be done on getting businesses such as Google and Amazon to pay their fair shares of Corporation Tax, and as stated above the (major) political parties should be state funded to avoid conflicts of interest.

arthur_scrimshaw

Stevo 666 wrote:

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

People need to wake up to the reality. The bigest part of the welfare cost is spent on pensions, and they aren't going to cut that. The proportion of welfare fraudulently claimed is a tiny percentage of the amount paid in error (tax credits mainly) by the government. All of this pales into insignificance compared to the amount lost in unpaid, avoided and evaded taxation. Most of this is by businesses who are prime supporters of the Conservative party.Go figure why they aren't chasing this vast sum of money.

Can you back up your claims with some numbers?

It's all out there, nothing hidden but if you want a sumary you could do worse than read this
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ut-welfare
Note point 7 and the link.

Stevo_666

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

People need to wake up to the reality. The bigest part of the welfare cost is spent on pensions, and they aren't going to cut that. The proportion of welfare fraudulently claimed is a tiny percentage of the amount paid in error (tax credits mainly) by the government. All of this pales into insignificance compared to the amount lost in unpaid, avoided and evaded taxation. Most of this is by businesses who are prime supporters of the Conservative party.Go figure why they aren't chasing this vast sum of money.

Can you back up your claims with some numbers?

It's all out there, nothing hidden but if you want a sumary you could do worse than read this
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ut-welfare
Note point 7 and the link.

Noted on link in point 7. Contradicted ironically by a guardian source with a much lower number (£35bn vs £120bn) - just goes to show you can come up with pretty much any number depending on how you define and estimate the tax gap.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/11/uk-tax-gap-rises-hmrc-avoidance-nonpayment
Here's the HMRC analysis:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249537/131010_Measuring_Tax_Gaps_ACCESS_2013.pdf

And the claim that annual tax avoidance losses are 'more than the deficit' - I'm calling BS on that. The UK owes £1,377 billion in debt. Annual avoidance losses per the guardian link are £35 billion per year. So if you closed every loophole and got all those tax paying businesses to stay put, it would only take 40 years to pay off what we owe...

Just for info, the top 100 UK companies pay around £78 billion a year in taxes. What a bunch of evil tax avoiders :roll:

The conclusion is clear - the issue is not tax avoidance, it's that the State spends way too much.

BTW - closing loopholes are easier said than done in my experience. They've been trying to do it for years.

arthur_scrimshaw

However you cut it, and whatever numbers you take as correct you cannot dispute the difference between the benefit and tax fraud numbers? The reality is there is a disproportionate of media attention paid to benefit fraud and not to tax avoidance/evasion etc and to me it just doesn't stack up. For some reason people get off on demonizing these people and shrug their shoulders when it comes to dealing with the tax issues. It's too difficult? Or is it that tackling it is seen as anti business and both Labour and Conservative governments have lacked the appetite to deal with it. Here is another take by the CAB.
http://www.cas.org.uk/features/myth-bus ... efit-fraud

Stevo_666

Joelsim wrote:

I also want more to be done on getting businesses such as Google and Amazon to pay their fair shares of Corporation Tax, and as stated above the (major) political parties should be state funded to avoid conflicts of interest.

Wrong area to focus on. Corporate tax is less than 10% of the total tax take in the UK and going back to the HMRC stats in this link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249537/131010_Measuring_Tax_Gaps_ACCESS_2013.pdf
then less than 15% of tax avoidance/evasion etc is corporate tax. You're not going to pay off the national debt quickly by collecting an extra £4.7 billion in corporate tax (actually about 293 years by my calculations....)

verylonglegs

Why is Cameron getting the blame for this? He's merely continuing what he inherited from New Labour, a fuxxed up tax credit system. Don't get me wrong, it's still a crap situation but we should at least put the blame in the right place.

Stevo_666

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

However you cut it, and whatever numbers you take as correct you cannot dispute the difference between the benefit and tax fraud numbers? The reality is there is a disproportionate of media attention paid to benefit fraud and not to tax avoidance/evasion etc and to me it just doesn't stack up. For some reason people get off on demonizing these people and shrug their shoulders when it comes to dealing with the tax issues. It's too difficult? Or is it that tackling it is seen as anti business and both Labour and Conservative governments have lacked the appetite to deal with it. Here is another take by the CAB.
http://www.cas.org.uk/features/myth-bus ... efit-fraud

It's not all tax fraud - far from it. See my link above to the HMRC stats. Avoidance is perfectly legal and about 25% of the gap.

About 20% is error and mistake - mainly because its so damn complex. A third is black economy and criminal activity. 1/7th is evasion.

It's my line of work and like I said, closing loopholes is far easier said than done. Massively complex area and almost impossible to control fully even though HMRC puts massive resources into stopping it. As mentioned above - very much depends on how you define 'fair' - which for those on the left of centre is often a bit skewed and emotive.

Most of the problem is due to Labour spending money we didn't have and racking up mind boggling debts for which we now have to use loads of tax money to pay the interest. Who wants to give the keys back to the idiots that crashed the car in the first place?

arthur_scrimshaw

I understand your point but the UK has always had debt and the reality is the aim is not to pay it off but reduce it to manageable levels again. The percentage of GDP to debt is currently running at 88% whereas up to 2007 it was consistently around 40 to 50% A staggering amount of money.

pblakeney

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

People need to wake up to the reality. The bigest part of the welfare cost is spent on pensions, and they aren't going to cut that. The proportion of welfare fraudulently claimed is a tiny percentage of the amount paid in error (tax credits mainly) by the government. All of this pales into insignificance compared to the amount lost in unpaid, avoided and evaded taxation. Most of this is by businesses who are prime supporters of the Conservative party.Go figure why they aren't chasing this vast sum of money.

Yeah!
Tax everyone one to death and if they make it to 65 then kill them.
Winner!

PS:- Regarding your latest post, the Country is broke and any solutions are bandaids on an amputation.

Stevo_666

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

I understand your point but the UK has always had debt and the reality is the aim is not to pay it off but reduce it to manageable levels again. The percentage of GDP to debt is currently running at 88% whereas up to 2007 it was consistently around 40 to 50% A staggering amount of money.

Fair enough some debt is unavoidable - even if you halve the numbers I quote on debt, it's still a shocking amount. If Cameron's lot have done one thing wrong, they have not done enough on cutting debt - IMO.

CiB

There are few things duller than some right-on lefty desperate to prove his credentials by telling us how much he personally hates Tories, and how somehow he alone has the simple answer to the nations's problems that those in charge have singularly failed to spot.

If I were you Frank I'd turn my ire on to "that **** Brown" who p*****d all our gold up the wall, farked up the pension schemes by helping himself to a few billion quid intended for those who'd paid into these schemes in good faith for 49 years or more of their working lives and then to cap it all decided that the best way to help poor hard working families (copyright All Major Parties) was to take a load of extra tax of us all then give it back to us as 'benefits' to create a) a welfare-dependant majority and b) a few million more Labour voters terrified that they'd lose this gift from above if they voted properly (not noticing that it was their own chuffing money in the first place).

We had 11 years of that ****t blair and that even bigger **** Brown, and between them they completely farked everything up. Good f.....ing riddance to the pair of them. I'll drink a rather colossal bottle of expensive champagne next May when this *** Cameron gets back in and continues with his sorting out the enormous f......ing mess that he inherited, only this time he'll be able to get on with it without having to worry about what Mr 7% Clegg thinks of it all.

graham.

Always wondered why folks who have a more "Human" approach to politics are vilified as being "Right on Lefties"?

pblakeney

Graham. wrote:

Always wondered why folks who have a more "Human" approach to politics are vilified as being "Right on Lefties"?

In a nut shell, left wing governments look after the people, right wing governments let the people look after themselves.
The required taxes and benefits vary accordingly. Left wing, high tax, high benefits. Right wing, low tax, low benefits.

finchy

PBlakeney wrote:

Graham. wrote:

Always wondered why folks who have a more "Human" approach to politics are vilified as being "Right on Lefties"?

In a nut shell, left wing governments look after the people, right wing governments let the people look after themselves.
The required taxes and benefits vary accordingly. Left wing, high tax, high benefits. Right wing, low tax, low benefits.

It depends where you are. Anglo-Saxon conservatism and continental European conservatism are two very different beasts. I have had quite a few conservative friends from the continent and they all found British and American politics far too brutal. My German friend who is a member of the CDU told me he could never vote for Tony Blair because he found New Labour to be "too right wing".

pliptrot

These arguments are circular. The simple truth is that since 1979 we have had successive Governments -every one of them- that have pursued and accelerated the concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. The disparities between rich and poor in the UK and the USA are approaching levels last seen 100 years ago, and it was only a war which gave any impetus to change that. Those who are losing out - the vast majority - are arguing over trivia. It is easy to persuade an entire nation that things are not as they really are, evidently. What we need is some leadership and courage to lead us out of the mess neoliberal capitalism has landed us in. No one offers that. Cameron last week demonstrated that he is stupid, dishonest, can't add up and is contradictory. His speech was some attempt at rabble rousing last seen by one A. Scargill and one A. Hitler. He doesn't really have the touch to do this, does he? He and this Government are a national disgrace.

Coach H

pliptrot wrote:

These arguments are circular. The simple truth is that since 1979 we have had successive Governments -every one of them- that have pursued and accelerated the concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. The disparities between rich and poor in the UK and the USA are approaching levels last seen 100 years ago, and it was only a war which gave any impetus to change that. Those who are losing out - the vast majority - are arguing over trivia. It is easy to persuade an entire nation that things are not as they really are, evidently. What we need is some leadership and courage to lead us out of the mess neoliberal capitalism has landed us in. No one offers that. Cameron last week demonstrated that he is stupid, dishonest, can't add up and is contradictory. His speech was some attempt at rabble rousing last seen by one A. Scargill and one A. Hitler. He doesn't really have the touch to do this, does he? He and this Government are a national disgrace.

Is there an alternative you propose?

pblakeney

johnfinch wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

Graham. wrote:

Always wondered why folks who have a more "Human" approach to politics are vilified as being "Right on Lefties"?

In a nut shell, left wing governments look after the people, right wing governments let the people look after themselves.
The required taxes and benefits vary accordingly. Left wing, high tax, high benefits. Right wing, low tax, low benefits.

It depends where you are.

I was referring entirely to UK politics, and the British attitude to them. And loosely at that.

Mikey23

Watching workers on the breadline beeb 1 right now. Weird reading this and suddenly becoming aware of whats on the box!