Monday, Jan 15, 2007
Income tax rise of 4%?
TimesOnline: Public spending 'will need income tax rise of over 4p'
A report has found that from the middle of next year income tax will have to rise by 4p on the basic rate of income tax to fund the difference between government income and its expenditure.
Posted by denzil @ 12:29 PM (135 views) Add Comment
13 Comments
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1. Cstanhope707 said...
Heres a radical approach how about review what is not working and get rid of the dead wood and Cut Costs. Our current Public Sector should be half it's current size. The NHS IT Project is a classic example 20 billion for a IT Database....
2. harold said...
I've got an idea, why doesn't the government just get the BoE to print more money and then 'borrow' it from them - they've been doing for years in the US. Wey hey, problem solved!
3. tyrellcorporation said...
A Treasury spokesman said: “The PwC figures are based on speculative assumptions and arbitrary scenarios that are likely to change over the long term.”
...Phew, that's ok then! What do PwC know anyway? bunch of cowboys!
4. sovietuk said...
"The PwC figures are based on speculative assumptions and arbitrary scenarios that are likely to change over the long term.”
Yes of course, silly us, everything is getting better by the day.
5. george monsoon said...
4p in the pound will this still be the case WHEN sterling crashes?
This will hurt! good.
6. Chillilizard said...
As far as I'm aware of international economics, America is a very large consumer of low skilled manufacturing from other countries, namely China. That's why America can just print its own currency, the dollar won't devalue as long as China want to protect their exports. (Maybe that's about to change.) As I understand it, that's why some think america's trade deficit is really a form of tribute (read here, middle ages - give us money or else). We are not as big so anything we do is going to play fiddle to whatever America does. So we can't presumably print money.
On the subject of (don't you love a lecture) healthcare. well... yeah that IT project, and try 5000 doctors getting over 400 000 pa last year. and a dentist getting over a million for servicing inmates, and hospital closures and nurses not being hired and working double shifts And whatever happened to bird flu and MRSA?
I think the best thing is to face up to the idea that this government hasn't got a hope in hell of administering this properly. As health declines, we will all start paying for private health care, which I think is good (in the mainstream, bad for the elderly etc) as it will increase competition and bring down costs due to heightened competition. Also heightened competition will increase quality of the service.
Unfortunately it will leave a lot of people out in the cold, and will cost us all more. But hey - better than giving this money to the government so they can maintain the current farce of 'non-jobs'. And maybe eventually we will have a health system we can all rely on.
And at some later point certain people can claim back their expenditure (a percent there-of - so they are still inspired to seek value for money and a quality service) from the government.
The worse thing that can happen, if you ask me, is that government will start spending more. I've lost all faith in these guys getting it right.
7. enuii said...
I wonder what nohpc's angle is on this and where is glorious sunshine these days.
8. Cyril said...
Cstanhope - sorry but I get a bit cheesed off when HPC bloggers blame the public sector for problems? For one thing, the NHS computer fiasco is being run by a private sector company called iSoft.
Sure you can blame the government for mismanaging the economy but really the public vs public sector debate is a bit stale, especially as most public services are delivered by private companies these days.
Who is to blame for HPC? Who has lent everyone too much money in the first place? Which sector do estate agents work in? Which sector do BTL's operate in? You get the general idea.
9. Dohousescrashinthewoods said...
Staggering incompetence in a system where you can't fire anyone or get a definite answer on anything, and the whole thing covered over with a paper-mache of press-releases.
The irony is that it's not just the civil service, it's the commercial companies "working" for them - pumping out tax money and delivering what, exactly? They are as bad as each other - government can't formulate what it wants with any clarity and the big commercials don't seem to give a hoot about delivering value, they just plug in and start pumping. No wonder the government is in debt, all that tax flowing liberally into the coffers of multinationals. The NHS is in fact the exception - why else did Accenture pull out - the contract was set up to penalise the supplier, not the client.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams:
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says of New Labour's government that 'it is very easy to be blinded by the essential uselessness of it by the sense of achievement you get from getting it to work at all.' In other words -- and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the New Labour Project's success is founded -- their fundamental flaws are completely hidden by their superficial flaws."
10. Mjchum said...
How about not sending £450 million to Pakistan in aid. Or stop supplying the EU corruption fund, or pull out of Afganistan, make do with current Trident, tax the big city players a little more than the £1500 a year some pay on multi-million pound incomes.
Recommend eveyone takes to the black economy.
11. tyrellcorporation said...
GS was really good value - but like a sweaty dogger in the bushes, I reckon he's looking on, just waiting to pounce! :)
12. iguana said...
So pwc are pontificating about the governments failure to collect enough tax to pay for the Health Service, most word fail me (other than rude ones). PWC are at the forefront of the burgeoning tax avoidance industry, the methods of avoiding true liability that they have proposed in the past rely upon fantasy, a complete revision of reality as perceived by us ordinary beings. Could it be that they now really believe the fairy stories that they have generated and can now be seen as the 'good fairies' able to dispense wisdom and good advice the the HMG that they have denied the true tax yield relied upon to fund expected expenditure.
Cowboys?!!!!? splutter
13. Nohpc said...
Enuii.. why did you single me out for an opinion on raising income tax? Surely everybody is opposed to this idea especially as the Labour Government is probably the most wasteful and least efficient government the country has ever had.