Hi Pete,

I just read your post after posting my last post so hadn't taken what you'd written on board.

You are right.

I'm just stating that income tax is an inefficient way of taxing people and it's a fact that really rich people either legally avoid paying income tax or illegally evade paying income tax which is the same difference in that they don't pay income tax but they often spend money and evading purchase tax is often harder than evading income tax - well, 'maybe' but if you're filthy rich and have avoided paying income tax then is it really worth avoiding paying purchase tax on a meal by getting in your own caterers and paying them cash on the black market? - heck even rich people need to get out and about occasionally even if accompanied by their retinue of minders!

Luckily I am not in that position and have no desire to ever become 'filthy rich' (just a bit 'grubby rich' will do me nicely, thank you very much).

I fully agree with what you say a 'rich' person will do with a £10k windfall (well, I'd agree if you said £100k or an extra one million), but I do feel it is a duty of people who are better off to enjoy life if possible and spread a little happiness around; only yesterday I went out and spent a fortune buying a nice rice cake thing for a euro and a glass of wine for a further euro and I'm sure my extravagance helped the global economy and that spending those two euro (why is the plural of euro 'euro' and not 'euros', dammit?) will have such a beneficial ripple effect that several people shall reach millionaire status as an indirect result.

However, today is another day and I am in mourning for splashing out those two euro yesterday and one famous investor I can't remember said:

'Every dollar spent is a dollar lost to investing'

He must have been one mean old bastard; I believe in compromise and shall do my best to blow a whole euro today without feeling too guilty either way. Should I eat another rice cake or drink a glass of wine, though? Decisions, decisions.............

Robert

"Personally I'd abolish income tax (far too many loopholes), .. increase National Insurance Contributions to 20% of total earned income"

So, you're not abolishing income tax, simply calling it something else (NICs). if somebody took 20% of my income and it looked like an income tax, felt like an income tax, it IS income tax no matter what you call it.

Labour did the same - put 1% on NICs and said "it's not a tax, it's totally different". Nah, looks/feels/IS an income tax.

Income tax would be simple to raise if they just binned the thousands of pages of rules and said "everybody pays X% on all income (be it salary or dividends)".

Nick O

I failed - I had one cheese pastizz and one pea pastizz and one glass of wine - total cost 2 x 30 cents + 1 euro = 1.60 euro but less than the two euro I spent yesterday! ;)

Clive B

No; I'd ring-fence the NIC contributions to pay solely for pensions and anybody not contributing would have zero state pension credits unless they made them up when back in non black market economy employment.

Those who had made zero pension contributions all their 'working' lives would have to survive on family help or charity or receive a small third world equivalent non starvation payment sum purely on a means tested basis as we'll be too poor as a countryto be generous to those unwilling to work from cradle to grave.

People who are genetically or physically unable to work (and I've seen some wonderful Downes Syndrome adults working hard pushing supermarket trolleys and doing other simple tasks that put the average unemployed but healthy to shame) do need help but those who can work should be helped and encouraged and if they refuse to even look for work then all benefits should cease. Reality is sometimes harsh, but 'necessity is the mother of invention' and when push comes to shove then many people are capable of far more than they realise is possible - and I do NOT mean turning to a life of crime!

I know I sound like some asshole who'd like to see the poor houses brought back; that is simply not true.

I want the best for our society that we can afford - and if we can't afford a nanny state it's about time we stopped going down the road of Greece because we are on that same path even if we refuse to believe it.

Governments should not promise what they can't deliver; my suggestion in another post that we should pay out pensions as a percentage of total revenue. This would make sense as pensioners would prosper or suffer hard times in relation to the economy rather than sometimes being left behind and sometimes being better off than those working.

Private secor pensions could never GUARANTEE an inflation proof pension BUT they are better funded than the government scheme which has promised more than it can deliver without either robbing Peter to pay Paul or borrowing ad infinitum.

The problem is that we cannot borrow ad infinitum or we'll all end up like Greece and I've already stated that I believe if all Greece's debts were written off instantly the Greek government would still be in trouble as the Greek government's revenue is less than its expenditure by a huge amount.

The Politicians to-day have absolutely no idea how to husband a country's resources. The last nincompoop in power was persuaded by his boss Blair that Britain even though it was not going into the Euro currency(To risky?) Bnevertheless Britain had to play its part in supporting the new currency. Brown caught sight of the pile of Gold in the B of E. and promptly sold it for less than it costs to get it out of the ground and process it, $24o per Troy ounce he promptly sold the dollars for Euros, 450 tons of the stuff. Today at a conservative estimate this would be worth about $20 Billion more plus the Euro has gone way down against the dollar. To me this is nothing short of Economic treason as the decision was taken against Treasury advice and the B of E. Did it make them stop and think? We only escaped a fate worse than this by Hagues' organised opposition from going in to the Euro as Blair wanted to, and posture as the great I AM.