hitch_1980 Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 I hate to be the bringer of bad news but from April next year the starting level for higher-rate tax will fall by £1,500 to £42,375 and it will be frozen at this level for 3 years. Thats not a bad thing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sibon Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Thats not a bad thing It is. It means that anybody earning over £42375 will take their laptop and phone and relocate to the far east. Have you not read the Telegraph recently?... or some of the posters on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hitch_1980 Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 It is. It means that anybody earning over £43000 will take their laptop and phone and relocate to the far east. Have you not read the Telegraph recently?... or some of the posters on this forum. Ummmm, companies tend to decide where they go.....or have i missed something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sibon Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Ummmm, companies tend to decide where they go.....or have i missed something. Yes. You've missed some of the richest members of our society trying to blackmail our Government into taxing them less and the rest of us more. And you've kind of missed the point of my post too:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hitch_1980 Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Yes. You've missed some of the richest members of our society trying to blackmail our Government into taxing them less and the rest of us more. And you've kind of missed the point of my post too:) That happens all the time .....on both points Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sibon Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 That happens all the time .....on both points Too true. I do hope that Vince Cable gets his way. We might all be better off then... apart from a select few at either end of society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hitch_1980 Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 Too true. I do hope that Vince Cable gets his way. We might all be better off then... apart from a select few at either end of society. lol, i dont mind admitting it Well the graduate tax thing has now been scrapped......so vince cable is not getting all he wants....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Matt] Posted October 9, 2010 Share Posted October 9, 2010 You know i really dislike the Daily Mirror as a newspaper purely for its political views but there's one columnist that writes for it that occasionally hits the nail on the head. I've always thought that child benefit should be scrapped entirely as we're simply paying people to have children and I find myself reading Tony Parsons' column within the daily mirror today and find out that he agrees with me... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/opinion/2010/10/09/sorry-mum-it-s-time-to-scrap-child-benefit-115875-22620380/ Sorry Mum, it's time to scrap child benefit By Tony Parsons 9/10/2010 I heard a lot about child benefits when I was growing up - because my parents never got a farthing for me. My mum was never happy about living without child benefit. "Politicians!" she would spit, slamming my fish-fingers down on the table dramatically. "Mum," I would say. "You spat on my fish-fingers again." I don't remember my father ever mentioning the total absence of any child benefit coming our way. But my mum talked about it endlessly. And it made her blood boil. Because for over 30 years, child benefit was never paid for the eldest child. And in a little family like ours, where I was the only child, it meant that from one end of childhood to the other, we never saw a shilling. Child benefit was introduced by the Family Allowances Act of 1945 - one of the cornerstones of the welfare state. But it was not payable for the first-born until 1977. And by then I was all grown up and skipping down the street with Johnny Rotten. And if a family could have used a wad of child benefit, it was us. My dad was a greengrocer and my mum was a dinner lady. For the first part of my life, we lived above the shop where my dad worked. My parents never shared the secrets of their wage packets with me. But I don't see how either of them could have ever made more than the minimum wage. And it was probably less. My mum was not like one of these middle-class mummies who spend child benefit on everything but the child. She was not like one of these not-very-hard-pressed middleclass mothers of today, who see child benefit as a rather laughable bonus dished out by the generous welfare state. My mum could have used that money. And in my memory of her discontent, I see the flaws of the welfare state. No moment in our nation's history was ever more noble or idealistic than when men of goodwill decided to construct a safety net for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. And yet we all know that far too many times the welfare state has neglected the truly needy and lavished its bounty on the cunning souls who can best work the system. My mum needed child benefit infinitely more than all these yummy-mummies doing the school run in their Chelsea Tractors with a brood of blazered brats in the back. But she never got it. Yet we survived. My dad had spells of unemployment but he was never out of work for very long. And somehow I was raised to manhood without a penny of child benefit. People - it can be done. There are two very strong arguments in favour of universal benefits. One is that it is scrupulously fair - we all contribute to the state and so we all get something back, the poor mum on the bus, the rich mum in her Chelsea Tractor. And the other argument, which I think is even more compelling, is that universal benefits are easier to administrate. There is no point in means testing if all that paperwork costs more than it saves. The whining about cutting back on child benefits has been from the people with the deepest pockets - the ones who don't really need it, the ones most likely to spend it on a Hermes handbag. The family that I grew up in had very shallow pockets. We never received a lousy sixpence of child benefit. My mum resented it. But we got by. Because child benefit was always the cherry on the cake of the welfare state. And in a time when the disabled, the unemployed and the old are all being asked to tighten their belts, its very existence is ludicrous. Child benefit? They should get rid of it for everyone. I can't see why the state should slip anyone compensation for having children. I know my mum would have loved to receive child benefit for me. But in my heart I also know that she would only have spent most of it on Engelbert Humperdinck records and Woodbines. And she would have no doubt wasted the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondeo Man Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 I hate to be the bringer of bad news but from April next year the starting level for higher-rate tax will fall by £1,500 to £42,375 and it will be frozen at this level for 3 years. So someone on £44,000 will pay a whole £12-50pw, at the higher tax rate Poor souls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandad.Malky Posted October 10, 2010 Share Posted October 10, 2010 Poor souls. Instead of mocking them why not aspire to be one of the higher earners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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