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Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Posted in here as it's loosely related.

At first glance some quite sensible suggestions from David Willets. A shame those across the corridor seem so incapable.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -tory-peer

Main points:

The big hole in public finances would, if tackled just through income tax, add 15p to the basic rate.

To spread the cost more evenly across the population, Willets proposes targeting accumulated wealth - a reduction of the inheritance tax rate, but a broadening of the base. Also an overhaul of Council Tax to reflect the much wider spread of property values.

Paging Stevo...

I'm too busy working out how to spend my ill gotten gains - will get back to you later

rjsterry

Eh? Bit defensive there

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Eh? Bit defensive there

I was...joking. Not a well recognised concept in Cake Stop

That is one persons view: I'm sure others will disagree. Although its funny how most things any Tory says are treated with derision on here then the moment one says something about more tax they are suddenly OK and require some sort of rebuttal from me. I suppose if you vote Corbyn then the era of tax cuts will definitely be over.

He did say the alternative was an extra 15p income tax on the next generation. That deserves some consideration too.

rjsterry

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Eh? Bit defensive there

I was...joking. Not a well recognised concept in Cake Stop

That is one persons view: I'm sure others will disagree. Although its funny how most things any Tory says are treated with derision on here then the moment one says something about more tax they suddenly OK. I suppose if you vote Corbyn then the era of tax cuts will definitely be over.

Relax, mamba's on a sabbatical. I'd like to think I'm open to good ideas regardless of who is proposing them, although I have my leanings as does everyone. My previous comment about the other side of the corridor was meant to imply all parties - there's not much good coming out of either side of the HoC at the moment. The article points out that Labour and the Lib Dems' Mansion tax is a real blunt instrument, and I agree it reinforces the idea that it is something that other (wealthier, less popular) people should pay.

Anyway, I was interested in your views on the suggestions, seeing as it's sort of your field. I understood it as the £60-80Bn hole was just to stand still, not improve on anything. In particular the idea of reducing the rate of inheritance tax but applying it more widely seems like a way to get over the emotive response to anything involving inheritance. I think the criticism of the fairly arbitrary basis of Council tax is fair, too. Although I'm not sure what the answer is on that one.

surrey_commuter

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Eh? Bit defensive there

I was...joking. Not a well recognised concept in Cake Stop

That is one persons view: I'm sure others will disagree. Although its funny how most things any Tory says are treated with derision on here then the moment one says something about more tax they suddenly OK. I suppose if you vote Corbyn then the era of tax cuts will definitely be over.

Relax, mamba's on a sabbatical. I'd like to think I'm open to good ideas regardless of who is proposing them, although I have my leanings as does everyone. My previous comment about the other side of the corridor was meant to imply all parties - there's not much good coming out of either side of the HoC at the moment. The article points out that Labour and the Lib Dems' Mansion tax is a real blunt instrument, and I agree it reinforces the idea that it is something that other (wealthier, less popular) people should pay.

Anyway, I was interested in your views on the suggestions, seeing as it's sort of your field. I understood it as the £60-80Bn hole was just to stand still, not improve on anything. In particular the idea of reducing the rate of inheritance tax but applying it more widely seems like a way to get over the emotive response to anything involving inheritance. I think the criticism of the fairly arbitrary basis of Council tax is fair, too. Although I'm not sure what the answer is on that one.

This is the same hole I previously mentioned. One of the other solutions was increasing and widening the VAT base.

I can’t remember the other options but suspect the solution will be a bit of everything.

As a rule I am in favour of lowering the rates, widening the base and removing exemptions.

pblakeney

Economic stability.
My arse.

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Eh? Bit defensive there

I was...joking. Not a well recognised concept in Cake Stop

That is one persons view: I'm sure others will disagree. Although its funny how most things any Tory says are treated with derision on here then the moment one says something about more tax they suddenly OK. I suppose if you vote Corbyn then the era of tax cuts will definitely be over.

Relax, mamba's on a sabbatical. I'd like to think I'm open to good ideas regardless of who is proposing them, although I have my leanings as does everyone. My previous comment about the other side of the corridor was meant to imply all parties - there's not much good coming out of either side of the HoC at the moment. The article points out that Labour and the Lib Dems' Mansion tax is a real blunt instrument, and I agree it reinforces the idea that it is something that other (wealthier, less popular) people should pay.

Anyway, I was interested in your views on the suggestions, seeing as it's sort of your field. I understood it as the £60-80Bn hole was just to stand still, not improve on anything. In particular the idea of reducing the rate of inheritance tax but applying it more widely seems like a way to get over the emotive response to anything involving inheritance. I think the criticism of the fairly arbitrary basis of Council tax is fair, too. Although I'm not sure what the answer is on that one.

He's kidding himself.

IHT brings in about £5bn a year tops. How is he going to broaden the base materially when it applies on a person's entire estate over a certain threshold? Without screwing modest inheritances.

Council tax brings in about 30 billion. How much would he propose to raise council tax on mostly South eastern homes to plug the gap? That's ignoring the point that property value does not always reflect the occupants ability to pay.

rjsterry

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Eh? Bit defensive there

I was...joking. Not a well recognised concept in Cake Stop

That is one persons view: I'm sure others will disagree. Although its funny how most things any Tory says are treated with derision on here then the moment one says something about more tax they suddenly OK. I suppose if you vote Corbyn then the era of tax cuts will definitely be over.

Relax, mamba's on a sabbatical. I'd like to think I'm open to good ideas regardless of who is proposing them, although I have my leanings as does everyone. My previous comment about the other side of the corridor was meant to imply all parties - there's not much good coming out of either side of the HoC at the moment. The article points out that Labour and the Lib Dems' Mansion tax is a real blunt instrument, and I agree it reinforces the idea that it is something that other (wealthier, less popular) people should pay.

Anyway, I was interested in your views on the suggestions, seeing as it's sort of your field. I understood it as the £60-80Bn hole was just to stand still, not improve on anything. In particular the idea of reducing the rate of inheritance tax but applying it more widely seems like a way to get over the emotive response to anything involving inheritance. I think the criticism of the fairly arbitrary basis of Council tax is fair, too. Although I'm not sure what the answer is on that one.

He's kidding himself.

IHT brings in about £5bn a year tops. How is he going to broaden the base materially when it applies on a person's entire estate over a certain threshold? Without screwing modest inheritances.

Council tax brings in about 30 billion. How much would he propose to raise council tax on mostly South eastern homes to plug the gap? That's ignoring the point that property value does not always reflect the occupants ability to pay.

If IHT is 40% of everything over £325,000 unless you donate at least 10% to charity, the £5bn figure would suggest a lot of people either leave less than that amount or are leaving enough that it's worth going to some effort to avoid. A lower rate and a lower threshold might well counter both of these and increase revenue overall*, although as you say, it's not going to bridge that gap on its own.

Agreed on Council tax. Property values are also a poor indicator of how much revenue a local authority needs. A local income tax has been proposed at some point, but this also would need some form of national-level redistribution to avoid the same problem.

*I think you've pointed this principle out on a number of occasions

surrey_commuter

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Eh? Bit defensive there

I was...joking. Not a well recognised concept in Cake Stop

That is one persons view: I'm sure others will disagree. Although its funny how most things any Tory says are treated with derision on here then the moment one says something about more tax they suddenly OK. I suppose if you vote Corbyn then the era of tax cuts will definitely be over.

Relax, mamba's on a sabbatical. I'd like to think I'm open to good ideas regardless of who is proposing them, although I have my leanings as does everyone. My previous comment about the other side of the corridor was meant to imply all parties - there's not much good coming out of either side of the HoC at the moment. The article points out that Labour and the Lib Dems' Mansion tax is a real blunt instrument, and I agree it reinforces the idea that it is something that other (wealthier, less popular) people should pay.

Anyway, I was interested in your views on the suggestions, seeing as it's sort of your field. I understood it as the £60-80Bn hole was just to stand still, not improve on anything. In particular the idea of reducing the rate of inheritance tax but applying it more widely seems like a way to get over the emotive response to anything involving inheritance. I think the criticism of the fairly arbitrary basis of Council tax is fair, too. Although I'm not sure what the answer is on that one.

He's kidding himself.

IHT brings in about £5bn a year tops. How is he going to broaden the base materially when it applies on a person's entire estate over a certain threshold? Without screwing modest inheritances.

Council tax brings in about 30 billion. How much would he propose to raise council tax on mostly South eastern homes to plug the gap? That's ignoring the point that property value does not always reflect the occupants ability to pay.

If IHT is 40% of everything over £325,000 unless you donate at least 10% to charity, the £5bn figure would suggest a lot of people either leave less than that amount or are leaving enough that it's worth going to some effort to avoid. A lower rate and a lower threshold might well counter both of these and increase revenue overall*, although as you say, it's not going to bridge that gap on its own.

Agreed on Council tax. Property values are also a poor indicator of how much revenue a local authority needs. A local income tax has been proposed at some point, but this also would need some form of national-level redistribution to avoid the same problem.

*I think you've pointed this principle out on a number of occasions

Charging IHT at 10% with no exemptions would be interesting.

Council Tax is a small fraction of what councils spend so a couple of extra bands is just a way of increasing overall taxation. They are against local income tax as they want to tax wealth rather than income. Apparently on a global basis our wealth taxes are very low.

I would let local councils keep local business rates and let them have a cut in any uplift as a result of granting planning permission

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Eh? Bit defensive there

I was...joking. Not a well recognised concept in Cake Stop

That is one persons view: I'm sure others will disagree. Although its funny how most things any Tory says are treated with derision on here then the moment one says something about more tax they suddenly OK. I suppose if you vote Corbyn then the era of tax cuts will definitely be over.

Relax, mamba's on a sabbatical. I'd like to think I'm open to good ideas regardless of who is proposing them, although I have my leanings as does everyone. My previous comment about the other side of the corridor was meant to imply all parties - there's not much good coming out of either side of the HoC at the moment. The article points out that Labour and the Lib Dems' Mansion tax is a real blunt instrument, and I agree it reinforces the idea that it is something that other (wealthier, less popular) people should pay.

Anyway, I was interested in your views on the suggestions, seeing as it's sort of your field. I understood it as the £60-80Bn hole was just to stand still, not improve on anything. In particular the idea of reducing the rate of inheritance tax but applying it more widely seems like a way to get over the emotive response to anything involving inheritance. I think the criticism of the fairly arbitrary basis of Council tax is fair, too. Although I'm not sure what the answer is on that one.

He's kidding himself.

IHT brings in about £5bn a year tops. How is he going to broaden the base materially when it applies on a person's entire estate over a certain threshold? Without screwing modest inheritances.

Council tax brings in about 30 billion. How much would he propose to raise council tax on mostly South eastern homes to plug the gap? That's ignoring the point that property value does not always reflect the occupants ability to pay.

If IHT is 40% of everything over £325,000 unless you donate at least 10% to charity, the £5bn figure would suggest a lot of people either leave less than that amount or are leaving enough that it's worth going to some effort to avoid. A lower rate and a lower threshold might well counter both of these and increase revenue overall*, although as you say, it's not going to bridge that gap on its own.

Agreed on Council tax. Property values are also a poor indicator of how much revenue a local authority needs. A local income tax has been proposed at some point, but this also would need some form of national-level redistribution to avoid the same problem.

*I think you've pointed this principle out on a number of occasions

You would need to do the sums on a big rate cut and see what effect it is likely to have.

That said, it is an easy tax to avoid as you have your whole life to plan for it. And if the threshhold is reduced without a big rate cut then people will probably 'plan' accordingly - even if planning means p1ssing it up the wall so to say. Which will then leave less for care fees. Probably a case of the law of unintended consequences making it worse with a well intentioned tax 'rise'.

Although fact of the matter is that a good chunk of many peoples wealth will go on care fees before they die.

rick_chasey

bompington

Entertaining for sure, and no surprise about the Mail's hypocrisy.
The question, though, is to what extent Milliband's scheme amounted to "confiscation", and whether May's is different in any way.

There is certainly evidence that the major homebuilders - by now something of an oligopoly - are deliberately sitting on land to keep the supply restricted.

rick_chasey

bompington wrote:

Entertaining for sure, and no surprise about the Mail's hypocrisy.
The question, though, is to what extent Milliband's scheme amounted to "confiscation", and whether May's is different in any way.
.

We'll never know.

rick_chasey

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068

alent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure
A. Pluchino. A. E. Biondo, A. Rapisarda
(Submitted on 20 Feb 2018 (v1), last revised 25 Feb 2018 (this version, v2))
The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is due mainly, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, efforts or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant material success. But, as a matter of fact, it is rather common to underestimate the importance of external forces in individual successful stories. It is very well known that intelligence or talent exhibit a Gaussian distribution among the population, whereas the distribution of wealth - considered a proxy of success - follows typically a power law (Pareto law). Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale, and the scale invariant distribution of outputs, suggests that some hidden ingredient is at work behind the scenes. In this paper, with the help of a very simple agent-based model, we suggest that such an ingredient is just randomness. In particular, we show that, if it is true that some degree of talent is necessary to be successful in life, almost never the most talented people reach the highest peaks of success, being overtaken by mediocre but sensibly luckier individuals. As to our knowledge, this counterintuitive result - although implicitly suggested between the lines in a vast literature - is quantified here for the first time. It sheds new light on the effectiveness of assessing merit on the basis of the reached level of success and underlines the risks of distributing excessive honors or resources to people who, at the end of the day, could have been simply luckier than others. With the help of this model, several policy hypotheses are also addressed and compared to show the most efficient strategies for public funding of research in order to improve meritocracy, diversity and innovation.

surrey_commuter

Rick Chasey wrote:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068

alent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure

translation please as I barely don't get the relevance

rjsterry

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068

alent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure

translation please as I barely don't get the relevance

Not sure how it links into the thread, but there's a lot of guff about those less fortunate just needing to apply themselves and riches will naturally flow their way.

I'd file this under empirical evidence of what anyone with any experience of the world would know already.

rjsterry

You know a week or so ago everyone was getting excited about Corbyn having met a Czech spy/fantasist. I think there were even a few nudge nudge comments alluding to it at PMQ. A bit awkward that it's now emerged that the Conservatives have received about £3M from Russian oligarchs. Especially considering that you don't get far in Russia without being on good terms with Putin, and the reason we all forgot about Corbyn's Cold War past was that there appears to have been something straight out of the Cold War in a Salisbury shopping centre.

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068

alent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure

translation please as I barely don't get the relevance

Not sure how it links into the thread, but there's a lot of guff about those less fortunate just needing to apply themselves and riches will naturally flow their way.

I'd file this under empirical evidence of what anyone with any experience of the world would know already.

How many of those do to think will better themselves by sitting on their ar$es? My own experience is that short of the odd lottery win, you need to put something in - and that to some degree the old saying that you make your own luck is a good one.

That said, not sure what Rick's point is.

rjsterry

Possibly I was heading off in the wrong direction as the article mentions "talent" rather than application. I'd agree that the latter can compensate to some degree for a lack of luck. The flipside of that is that it's very easy to think that some success is entirely down to you. On the other hand, bad luck can do for you however hard you've worked for something.

I'm less convinced of the existence of talent to any significant degree. When people have investigated "talented" individuals, they've tended to find that they have put in that much more time and effort than others to master whatever skill or ability.

pblakeney

rjsterry wrote:

Possibly I was heading off in the wrong direction as the article mentions "talent" rather than application. I'd agree that the latter can compensate to some degree for a lack of luck. The flipside of that is that it's very easy to think that some success is entirely down to you. On the other hand, bad luck can do for you however hard you've worked for something.

I'm less convinced of the existence of talent to any significant degree. When people have investigated "talented" individuals, they've tended to find that they have put in that much more time and effort than others to master whatever skill or ability.

In my experience it seems to be the talentless arselickers who get promoted out of the way.
It is a risky strategy to gamble between promotion and the sack, and one I've not been prepared to risk, but it seems to work for quite a few. I'd say talent is the least attribute required for success.

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

Possibly I was heading off in the wrong direction as the article mentions "talent" rather than application. I'd agree that the latter can compensate to some degree for a lack of luck. The flipside of that is that it's very easy to think that some success is entirely down to you. On the other hand, bad luck can do for you however hard you've worked for something.

I'm less convinced of the existence of talent to any significant degree. When people have investigated "talented" individuals, they've tended to find that they have put in that much more time and effort than others to master whatever skill or ability.

To some extent, I think talent is a mixture of intelligence, application and interest in the relevant areas.

I know that there are areas of what I do that many people simply cannot grasp - as witnessed by some of the tax related threads on this forum Maybe that makes me talented, but without the hard work it wasn't going to happen.

rick_chasey

We all chill about Russians (who kill residents in the UK and are comfortable with UK citizens being made ill and dying as collateral) having donated almost £1m to the Tory party since the EU referendum?

But the '80s fake communist stuff, that's the real bad sh!t.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

We all chill about Russians (who kill residents in the UK and are comfortable with UK citizens being made ill and dying as collateral) having donated almost £1m to the Tory party since the EU referendum?

But the '80s fake communist stuff, that's the real bad sh!t.

Keep up

rick_chasey

Yeah soz

surrey_commuter

Rick Chasey wrote:

We all chill about Russians (who kill residents in the UK and are comfortable with UK citizens being made ill and dying as collateral) having donated almost £1m to the Tory party since the EU referendum?

But the '80s fake communist stuff, that's the real bad sh!t.

so the issue is that they weren't careful enough around UK citizens?

Russians and their associates die all the time in Surrey and nobody seems to care

rick_chasey

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

We all chill about Russians (who kill residents in the UK and are comfortable with UK citizens being made ill and dying as collateral) having donated almost £1m to the Tory party since the EU referendum?

But the '80s fake communist stuff, that's the real bad sh!t.

so the issue is that they weren't careful enough around UK citizens?

Russians and their associates die all the time in Surrey and nobody seems to care

Course.

But it wasn't reported on; at least, it didn't pass through my window of news.

surrey_commuter

Rick Chasey wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

We all chill about Russians (who kill residents in the UK and are comfortable with UK citizens being made ill and dying as collateral) having donated almost £1m to the Tory party since the EU referendum?

But the '80s fake communist stuff, that's the real bad sh!t.

so the issue is that they weren't careful enough around UK citizens?

Russians and their associates die all the time in Surrey and nobody seems to care

Course.

But it wasn't reported on; at least, it didn't pass through my window of news.

of course they may be unusually prone to mental and physical health issues and helicopters are a very dangerous mode of travel.

rolf_f

Stevo 666 wrote:

I know that there are areas of what I do that many people simply cannot grasp - as witnessed by some of the tax related threads on this forum Maybe that makes me talented, but without the hard work it wasn't going to happen.

That just makes you relatively talented. But we are all relatively talented compared to eg slugs in most things (other than in sticking to walls) - what matters if you really care is to be talented in absolute terms. This of course is how people like Cameron, May and Corbyn succeed; they are just a bit less crap than the other dreadful alternatives.

Stevo_666

Rolf F wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

I know that there are areas of what I do that many people simply cannot grasp - as witnessed by some of the tax related threads on this forum Maybe that makes me talented, but without the hard work it wasn't going to happen.

That just makes you relatively talented. But we are all relatively talented compared to eg slugs in most things (other than in sticking to walls) - what matters if you really care is to be talented in absolute terms. This of course is how people like Cameron, May and Corbyn succeed; they are just a bit less crap than the other dreadful alternatives.

I'll settle for being relatively more talented thanks. It helps in a competitive world and as I'm sure you know from areas like pro cycling, small margins can make a big difference

Stevo_666

Oh dear Jezza...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/03/20/jeremy-corbyn-russia-must-given-novichok-sample-would-still/
But no surprise really.