4 ms·

The government has to tax to pay for things. Birmingham has been legally constrained to raise taxes at a maximum of 5% per year, even with the massive inflatio

by HWR_14 3y ago

The government has to tax to pay for things. Birmingham has been legally constrained to raise taxes at a maximum of 5% per year, even with the massive inflation in the past few years. A 10% increase this year (what they are asking for) will still put them at an (inflation adjusted) lower tax rate than 2019.

gumballindie 3y ago
It also has to spend money well, stimulate growth, and whole lot of other things than taking people's money away to patch things. The only option as it stands is privatising the NHS.
- fakedang 3y ago
  > The only option as it stands is privatising the NHS. This is akin to political suicide though. Remember, the conservatives' Brexit battle cry was 300 million pounds for the NHS.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    Well it’s either the NHS, the tories, or the country. Labour dont have a plan either. Taxing everyone to death is patchwork. The UK is in deep, deep, trouble and it ain’t the politics causing it. It’s the culture of making one bad choice after the other.
    - fakedang 3y ago
      Between the three choices you mentioned, it's pretty obvious the Tories are going to take down the country before taking down either themselves or the NHS. Although in all fairness, the quality of service in the NHS has already gone down for both doctors and patients.
- KaiserPro 3y ago
  > The only option as it stands is privatising the NHS So we have a shortage of doctors, nurses and hospital places. Currently the state keeps a lid on costs because it sets the wages of about 1 million people nationally (more or less, its complicated, but doctors are paid in grades, and those levels are nominally set nationally, same with nurses, however scotland, wales and NI have some level of independence.) We have huge pent up demand (7 million people on the waiting list) And we have a limited and shrinking skilled workforce. It takes a good 12 years to train a doctor. 6 to train a nurse. what do you think will happen to wages when the whole thing is privatised? Yeah, so privatising healthcare isn't going to make things cheaper. especially as the NHS is pretty cheap per head by EU standards.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Alternatively, Britain could go back to allowing Polish doctors in to make up for the lack of domestic medical personnel. That may require rejoining the EU, but probably not.
SenAnder 3y ago
I'm confused. Are Birmingham taxes levied in absolute units of currency, not as a % of income? Because if it's a % of income, then inflation is irrelevant, no?
- nvarsj 3y ago
  It's a fixed amount. And hilariously outdated - it's based on property valuation in 1991. I pay more council tax on my modest home than some mega mansions in the area. The other silly thing about it is the tenant pays, not the owner.
  - benmmurphy 3y ago
    Tax incidence likely means it doesn’t matter who the nominal payer of the tax is. In the present situation even though the renter pays 100% nominally they might not be paying 100% of the incidence and vice versa if the nominal tax fell on the owner.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  Correct, local tax is not an income tax. You are charged a fixed amount based on how much the property you live in was worth in the 1990s. This is done in bands, not as a direct percentage of the property value.
- pmyteh 3y ago
  Yes. British local taxation is banded (and deliberately regressive WRT property values) rather than proportional. It's a compromise between the old Rates (like a US millage) and the poll tax which Thatcher disastrously tried to introduce which had no property value component at all. Further, rates are arbitrarily constrained by central government on a value for money and/or starve the beast basis. Councils are in theory free to raise taxes less than this, but in practice the maximum increase is way less than the annual increase in what it actually costs councils to provide services[0]. Coupled with an almost complete removal of government grants (which used to represent ~35% of council income) councils have been cutting everything that moves and still circling the drain. This has been going on since 2008. Every council issuing a Section 114 notice has its own local reasons for getting to this point now, but frankly the whole sector has been buggered. TLDR: proposition 13, but imposed by central government instead of the voters, for all possible sources of income except user fees rather than just property taxes, and with no reduction in legal responsibilities to discharge. [0]: The most expensive local government services are intrinsically staff heavy and so suffer from Baumol's Cost Disease. Teaching class sizes are basically limited to 30, for example, and require one qualified teacher each. Child protection is the other biggest expense.
johngladtj 3y ago
Stop paying for things then. Cut everything, and I do mean everything down to the bone. Fire half of all government employees in every ministry tomorrow. Then a year from now fire half of the ones that are left. Stop hiring for the next 5 years. Then stop providing any services that do not involve foreign relations/military/most public infrastructure. Yes, I'm talking all those licensing requirements, NHS, welfare, etc... Eliminate them all tomorrow. I can assure you that 10 years from now when the government is 1/10th of what it is today things will still be running.
- LastWeekendWas 3y ago
  [dead]
- gumballindie 3y ago
  > Then stop providing any services See, the government in the UK has already stopped proving a good number of services. Policing is limited to extreme cases, schooling is meh, public healthcare is meh at best, and the list goes on. So where is all the tax money going?
  - johngladtj 3y ago
    Welfare. Which they should stop.

by HWR_14 3y ago

gumballindie 3y ago

It also has to spend money well, stimulate growth, and whole lot of other things than taking people's money away to patch things. The only option as it stands is privatising the NHS.

fakedang 3y ago
> The only option as it stands is privatising the NHS. This is akin to political suicide though. Remember, the conservatives' Brexit battle cry was 300 million pounds for the NHS.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  Well it’s either the NHS, the tories, or the country. Labour dont have a plan either. Taxing everyone to death is patchwork. The UK is in deep, deep, trouble and it ain’t the politics causing it. It’s the culture of making one bad choice after the other.
  - fakedang 3y ago
    Between the three choices you mentioned, it's pretty obvious the Tories are going to take down the country before taking down either themselves or the NHS. Although in all fairness, the quality of service in the NHS has already gone down for both doctors and patients.
KaiserPro 3y ago
> The only option as it stands is privatising the NHS So we have a shortage of doctors, nurses and hospital places. Currently the state keeps a lid on costs because it sets the wages of about 1 million people nationally (more or less, its complicated, but doctors are paid in grades, and those levels are nominally set nationally, same with nurses, however scotland, wales and NI have some level of independence.) We have huge pent up demand (7 million people on the waiting list) And we have a limited and shrinking skilled workforce. It takes a good 12 years to train a doctor. 6 to train a nurse. what do you think will happen to wages when the whole thing is privatised? Yeah, so privatising healthcare isn't going to make things cheaper. especially as the NHS is pretty cheap per head by EU standards.
HWR_14 3y ago
Alternatively, Britain could go back to allowing Polish doctors in to make up for the lack of domestic medical personnel. That may require rejoining the EU, but probably not.

SenAnder 3y ago

I'm confused. Are Birmingham taxes levied in absolute units of currency, not as a % of income? Because if it's a % of income, then inflation is irrelevant, no?

nvarsj 3y ago
It's a fixed amount. And hilariously outdated - it's based on property valuation in 1991. I pay more council tax on my modest home than some mega mansions in the area. The other silly thing about it is the tenant pays, not the owner.
- benmmurphy 3y ago
  Tax incidence likely means it doesn’t matter who the nominal payer of the tax is. In the present situation even though the renter pays 100% nominally they might not be paying 100% of the incidence and vice versa if the nominal tax fell on the owner.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
Correct, local tax is not an income tax. You are charged a fixed amount based on how much the property you live in was worth in the 1990s. This is done in bands, not as a direct percentage of the property value.
pmyteh 3y ago
Yes. British local taxation is banded (and deliberately regressive WRT property values) rather than proportional. It's a compromise between the old Rates (like a US millage) and the poll tax which Thatcher disastrously tried to introduce which had no property value component at all. Further, rates are arbitrarily constrained by central government on a value for money and/or starve the beast basis. Councils are in theory free to raise taxes less than this, but in practice the maximum increase is way less than the annual increase in what it actually costs councils to provide services[0]. Coupled with an almost complete removal of government grants (which used to represent ~35% of council income) councils have been cutting everything that moves and still circling the drain. This has been going on since 2008. Every council issuing a Section 114 notice has its own local reasons for getting to this point now, but frankly the whole sector has been buggered. TLDR: proposition 13, but imposed by central government instead of the voters, for all possible sources of income except user fees rather than just property taxes, and with no reduction in legal responsibilities to discharge. [0]: The most expensive local government services are intrinsically staff heavy and so suffer from Baumol's Cost Disease. Teaching class sizes are basically limited to 30, for example, and require one qualified teacher each. Child protection is the other biggest expense.

johngladtj 3y ago

Stop paying for things then. Cut everything, and I do mean everything down to the bone. Fire half of all government employees in every ministry tomorrow. Then a year from now fire half of the ones that are left. Stop hiring for the next 5 years. Then stop providing any services that do not involve foreign relations/military/most public infrastructure. Yes, I'm talking all those licensing requirements, NHS, welfare, etc... Eliminate them all tomorrow. I can assure you that 10 years from now when the government is 1/10th of what it is today things will still be running.

LastWeekendWas 3y ago
[dead]
gumballindie 3y ago
> Then stop providing any services See, the government in the UK has already stopped proving a good number of services. Policing is limited to extreme cases, schooling is meh, public healthcare is meh at best, and the list goes on. So where is all the tax money going?
- johngladtj 3y ago
  Welfare. Which they should stop.