Promises promises

[teamsaint]

exactly



(cut these out to give to prospective politicians who might come knocking on your door)

they don't come knocking at our doors.

Because the blue tories win.

The orange tories campaign in Chippenham.

The Red tories stay safe in Southampton.

And the politicians all agree with high fees anyway, because those with any kind of influence get their kids good internships that they can fund.

( A person who really should have paid off their mortgage by now writes........)

[P. G. Tipps]

Hmmm... where would the money come from to pay that direct financial assistance, do you think?

My simple point was that raising the Personal Income Tax Allowance has nothing to do with assisting those who already pay no income tax. That's a matter for social security departments.

The writer in the article that Flosshilde provided criticised the raising of the threshold as it didn't benefit those right at the bottom who pay no income tax. That was never its function.

Its only function was to increase the number of people who have to pay no income tax, which I'd have thought was a welcome and progressive step, most obviously for those directly affected.

I trust that's now clear.

[MrGongGong]

they don't come knocking at our doors.

Because the blue tories win.

The orange tories campaign in Chippenham.

The Red tories stay safe in Southampton.

And the politicians all agree with high fees anyway, because those with any kind of influence get their kids good internships that they can fund.

( A person who really should have paid off their mortgage by now writes........)

:smile:

Maybe they don't know which of your many doors to knock on ?

When they knocked on ours, in spite of a sign saying "No Canvassers" I asked the teenage tory candidate if he really would vote for someone who can't read.
He went away

[teamsaint]

exactly



(cut these out to give to prospective politicians who might come knocking on your door)

Good idea GG, despite my grouchy post !!

[amateur51]

What's that got to do with income tax when those who most need economic assistance already don't pay any?

Direct financial assistance to the non-tax-paying poor is a matter for government social security departments and no longer anything to do with the collection of income tax!

No such name, no such number. come back from the last millennium

[P. G. Tipps]

No such name, no such number. come back from the last millennium

Oh, you old Welsh Windbag, you ...

You will note my description was couched quite deliberately in lower-case letters indicating it was not necessarily the official title of the department(s) in question. My description is much more meaningful in the context here than the latest fancy title, ie, the Department for Work & Pensions. And there are departments within departments, I'm sure, even within the Department for Work & Pensions!

[amateur51]

Oh, you old Welsh Windbag, you ...

You will note my description was couched quite deliberately in lower-case letters indicating it was not necessarily the official title of the department(s) in question. My description is much more meaningful in the context here than the latest fancy title, ie, the Department for Work & Pensions. And there are departments within departments, I'm sure, even within the Department for Work & Pensions!

Knowing what a stickler you are for matters factual scotty I'm rather surprised by this recent rather cavalier relaxation of standards.

As long as it applies to me the next time...:winkeydoodah:

[Flosshilde]

My simple point was that raising the Personal Income Tax Allowance has nothing to do with assisting those who already pay no income tax.

Quite; that's why it's a red herring as far as helping the low-paid is concerned - but then that's not really what the present government wants to do.

Its only function was to increase the number of people who have to pay no income tax, which I'd have thought was a welcome and progressive step, most obviously for those directly affected.

It's been of greater benefit to people at the top end; therefore it's actually regressive.

[teamsaint]

Quite; that's why it's a red herring as far as helping the low-paid is concerned - but then that's not really what the present government wants to do.





It's been of greater benefit to people at the top end; therefore it's actually regressive.

oh, he knows really, Floss.

here is a rather good article.

http://theconversation.com/britains-regressive-tax-regime-fosters-a-regressive-recovery-28342

One should particularly note that the poorest 10% (god only knows what that must be like) pay more tax proportionately than the top 10 %.


A statistic that I think we could all do with repeating a few times.....


Utterly, utterly scandalous.

I nearly swore then

[P. G. Tipps]

Quite; that's why it's a red herring as far as helping the low-paid is concerned - but then that's not really what the present government wants to do.

No, it has obviously helped the low-paid which was precisely what the present government wanted to do.

The red herring is bringing the group who previously paid no income tax at all into a discussion about the raising of the Personal Income Tax Allowance, indicating that it didn't benefit them. Well it couldn't, so it didn't!

It's been of greater benefit to people at the top end; therefore it's actually regressive.

Now teamsaint will no doubt be delighted and relieved to learn that's an argument I completely fail to understand.

Maybe you or anyone else can carefully and slowly explain to me how the raising of the Personal Income Tax Allowance is of greater benefit to those at the top end rather than those nearer the bottom?

[teamsaint]

No, it has obviously helped the low-paid which was precisely what the present government wanted to do.

The red herring is bringing the group who previously paid no income tax at all into a discussion about the raising of the Personal Income Tax Allowance, indicating that it didn't benefit them. Well it couldn't, so it didn't!



Now teamsaint will no doubt be delighted and relieved to learn that's an argument I completely fail to understand.

Maybe you or anyone else can carefully and slowly explain to me how the raising of the Personal Income Tax Allowance is of greater benefit to those at the top end rather than those nearer the bottom?

This one is for free. After that tax advice is £50 an hour.

If you earn 50k a year your top rate is 40%. On your last 1k your marginal rate is 40
%. Therefore, if the threshold is raised 1000 by your tax bill reduces by £400 PA, because you have 1k extra completely free of tax, and you gain at your highest rate.

But if you are on 20k, your marginal rate is 20 %, so if the threshold goes up 1000, you gain by only £200 pa.

If you are already below the threshold level, earning say £10k, you benefit by zero. So the better off you are, the bigger the benefit.


(Governments sometimes try to negate this effect by playing around with tax bands so that top earners only benefit as much as middle earners, but there is a limit to how much you can do this,and it is in any case essentially regressive in an already regressive system.)
See the link in my # 114 for details.

[P. G. Tipps]

This one is for free. After that tax advice is £50 an hour.

If you earn 50k a year your top rate is 40%. On your last 1k your marginal rate is 40
%. Therefore, if the threshold is raised 1000 by your tax bill reduces by £400 PA, because you have 1k extra completely free of tax, and you gain at your highest rate.

But if you are on 20k, your marginal rate is 20 %, so if the threshold goes up 1000, you gain by only £200 pa.

If you are already below the threshold level, earning say £10k, you benefit by zero. So the better off you are, the bigger the benefit.


(Governments sometimes try to negate this effect by playing around with tax bands so that top earners only benefit as much as middle earners, but there is a limit to how much you can do this,and it is in any case essentially regressive in an already regressive system.)
See the link in my # 114 for details.

£50 an hour is a bit out of my league, I'm afraid.

I still don't quite get your figures. If we assume that everyone on 20% gets a £1000 increase in allowance that's a £200 saving for everybody assuming they earn at least £1000 over the threshold figure? The 40% rate starts around £31800 so if earnings don't change the saving will still be the same? Also, the allowance decreases gradually slightly up to a certain figure and for those right at the top (earning over £120000) it is abolished altogether.

So I still can't work out how an increase in the tax threshold is supposed to benefit those at the top rather than those nearer the bottom!

I'd be somewhat tempted to reduce your tax advice rates drastically, teamsaint ... maybe we should call in ahinton for an authoritative ruling? <winkeye>

[MrGongGong]

I still don't quite get your figures.

Most people (me included) don't understand how percentages work.
The people I DO know who understand these things seem to be saying the same thing as MrSaint

(Mr Hinton won't help, he is a composer, so has an army of people doing everything for him so he can gaze out at the sky imagining :wink: )

[ahinton]

£50 an hour is a bit out of my league, I'm afraid.

I still don't quite get your figures. If we assume that everyone on 20% gets a £1000 increase in allowance that's a £200 saving for everybody assuming they earn at least £1000 over the threshold figure? The 40% rate starts around £31800 so if earnings don't change the saving will still be the same? Also, the allowance decreases gradually slightly up to a certain figure and for those right at the top (earning over £120000) it is abolished altogether.

So I still can't work out how an increase in the tax threshold is supposed to benefit those at the top rather than those nearer the bottom!

I'd be somewhat tempted to reduce your tax advice rates drastically, teamsaint ... maybe we should call in ahinton for an authoritative ruling? <winkeye>

Why not visit HMRC's website and do some research on this and then put any remaining questions to them (if you can get through to them)? They don't even charge at all!

[P. G. Tipps]

Why not visit HMRC's website and do some research on this and then put any remaining questions to them (if you can get through to them)? They don't even charge at all!

I have researched it on their website ... which is where I got my info!!

No one needs to ask anyone anything, it's all there in print ...

https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates/income-tax-rates