4 ms·

It's already 77% totalled up where the economist is based (UK). 40 Income, 10 NI, 12 Employer's NI, 15 VAT. (NI is National Insurance similar to Social Securit

by glymor 18y ago

It's already 77% totalled up where the economist is based (UK). 40 Income, 10 NI, 12 Employer's NI, 15 VAT. (NI is National Insurance similar to Social Security and VAT is sales tax). Mortgages aren't tax deductible and capital gains starts at 50% (decreasing over 10 years). Insanely enough the services people actually use come from separate council tax (a local authority tax). It was about 1000GBP pa last time I was in the UK.

halo 18y ago
Oversimplified. Taxes are progressive and the /highest band/ starts at £37,000. Council tax differs from place to place and is also in bands based around the type of property you live in. You can't simply add VAT like you have, because you obviously can't spend money you don't receive: clearly if you're only receiving 38% of your income, a 15% VAT rate at most can be a smaller percentage of that you do receive, or 5.7% of your total.
- glymor 18y ago
  Scaling VAT is 7% (17.5*.4) but than you should consider that tax petrol/alcohol is very much higher. My figure for council tax is low as it was sharing and was not in London. The "rich" living in London will be paying a lot more. Progressive income tax would have only minor effects on the "rich". It is obviously a big help for those just above but people in the middle earning say 100K are already only about 5% and the difference only declines.
  - halo 18y ago
    I'd argue that £100,000 is not "the middle" by any stretch. The median wage is £27,092, while top 10% of earn more than £49,192. (citation: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285).
    - glymor 18y ago
      First, they disagree about who precisely "the rich" that the motion refers to are. Mr Piketty defines them as the very, very rich: the top 1% or perhaps 0.5% of the income distribution. Mr Edwards, on the other hand, is referring to a broader segment of the population: perhaps the top quintile or quartile. How you define "the rich" would be a big part of the debate. I would argue that a max rate at 35K is far to low. Most more modern tax systems go up in much smaller steps and max out much higher (Singapore maxes out at ~150,000GBP (20%) for example). Piketty's attempt to define the rich as top 1% isn't borne out in at least the UK's tax code. I was originally making a point that the amount of tax we pay is quite a bit more than the headline rate. A minimum of 52% of everyone's money is going to the government. If people really though about just how much of their money this is and how badly they could do with it they would probably find someone better than "the rich" to be angry with.

by glymor 18y ago

halo 18y ago

Oversimplified. Taxes are progressive and the /highest band/ starts at £37,000. Council tax differs from place to place and is also in bands based around the type of property you live in. You can't simply add VAT like you have, because you obviously can't spend money you don't receive: clearly if you're only receiving 38% of your income, a 15% VAT rate at most can be a smaller percentage of that you do receive, or 5.7% of your total.

glymor 18y ago
Scaling VAT is 7% (17.5*.4) but than you should consider that tax petrol/alcohol is very much higher. My figure for council tax is low as it was sharing and was not in London. The "rich" living in London will be paying a lot more. Progressive income tax would have only minor effects on the "rich". It is obviously a big help for those just above but people in the middle earning say 100K are already only about 5% and the difference only declines.
- halo 18y ago
  I'd argue that £100,000 is not "the middle" by any stretch. The median wage is £27,092, while top 10% of earn more than £49,192. (citation: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285).
  - glymor 18y ago
    First, they disagree about who precisely "the rich" that the motion refers to are. Mr Piketty defines them as the very, very rich: the top 1% or perhaps 0.5% of the income distribution. Mr Edwards, on the other hand, is referring to a broader segment of the population: perhaps the top quintile or quartile. How you define "the rich" would be a big part of the debate. I would argue that a max rate at 35K is far to low. Most more modern tax systems go up in much smaller steps and max out much higher (Singapore maxes out at ~150,000GBP (20%) for example). Piketty's attempt to define the rich as top 1% isn't borne out in at least the UK's tax code. I was originally making a point that the amount of tax we pay is quite a bit more than the headline rate. A minimum of 52% of everyone's money is going to the government. If people really though about just how much of their money this is and how badly they could do with it they would probably find someone better than "the rich" to be angry with.