Why has spending gone up and tax revenue gone down if lots more work?

[truman]

I can see your point of view in people going into low paid jobs and paying no tax. However, I can assure you 100% they don't continue to receive full Benefit when this happens so I'd believe it very reasonable to assume that if there are 2 million more people in work, then the Benefit bill should have reduced.

 

Are pensions included in the benefits? Has the number of pensioners increased?

[tzijlstra]

Are pensions included in the benefits? Has the number of pensioners increased?

 

Yes and yes, on top of that pensions have steadily been going up due to being linked with the inflation figures opposed to a hell of a lot of other statistics.

[Mecky]

Found this interesting

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/14/bill-bryson-books-interview-follow-up-notes-from-a-small-island?CMP=fb_gu

[Titanic99]

Yes and yes, on top of that pensions have steadily been going up due to being linked with the inflation figures opposed to a hell of a lot of other statistics.

 

If you have a look at the link they aren't included as there's a different figure for them which shows that spending on this area has gone up from 108 Billion in 2009 to 143 Billion in 2014.

 

---------- Post added 14-03-2015 at 20:08 ----------

 

Are pensions included in the benefits? Has the number of pensioners increased?

 

No they aren't, thought interestingly spending in that area has increased considerably as well.

[biotechpete]

People are still forgetting the 5p taxcut for the highest earners, so I will repeat, the highest earners are the biggest contributors to the income tax, lowering their taxes has taken a chunk out of the income tax revenue for the state.

 

It's true that the top 1% pay a very large proportion of the tax but the argument was that the drop in rate would decrease tax avoiding behaviour in this vital 1%. The IFS has a page on it here and important paragraph is below

 

http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7066

 

However, it is important to bear in mind that there is substantial uncertainty around this central estimate. Calculating the revenue effects allowing for behavioural response requires one to estimate the “taxable income elasticity” – the extent to which taxable income changes when the tax rate changes. HMRC’s central estimate is that this elasticity was 0.45, which is broadly in line with estimates by IFS researchers based on the last time the top rate of income tax changed – in the 1980s – and with estimates from a number of other countries. If instead the true elasticity was 0.35 (which is well within the range of uncertainty), reducing the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p will have cost the exchequer about £700 million, whilst if the true elasticity was 0.55 (again, within the range of uncertainty), it will have actually raised about £600 million. In other words cutting the top rate of tax may have cost the government a bit more than it thought or actually raised a bit. This evidence led the OBR chairman Robert Chote to conclude that, whatever the precise answer, we were “strolling across the summit of the Laffer curve”.

 

---------- Post added 14-03-2015 at 21:32 ----------

 

Best estimates are that the cut cost about the 100m mark

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-50p-top-rate-tax-bring/17601

although the daily mail reckon it raised 9bn.

‘The rareified group of people earning more than £2m declared income of £12.2bn in 2012-13, but paid tax on £26bn of income the following year with the lower rate.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2595611/Cut-tax-rate-sees-revenue-climb-9billion-Amount-paid-wealthiest-soared-50p-rate-reduced.html#ixzz3UOjgMqNa

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[Cyclone]

True, I would suspect that Income Tax makes the bulk of that figure up though.

 

I've given you the links and figures for what income tax makes up. You can't just "suspect" something else because you'd like it to be true.

 

---------- Post added 17-03-2015 at 08:49 ----------

 

People are still forgetting the 5p taxcut for the highest earners, so I will repeat, the highest earners are the biggest contributors to the income tax, lowering their taxes has taken a chunk out of the income tax revenue for the state.

 

The numbers in the 45/50 bracket are so small, and the options for mitigating tax so many, that the change is barely detectable.

Creating the 50% bracket didn't measurably increase income, removing it (or reducing it to 45) won't measurably reduce it.

 

---------- Post added 17-03-2015 at 08:52 ----------

 

Are pensions included in the benefits? Has the number of pensioners increased?

 

Yes to both those questions, wasn't this pointed out on page 1.