Wednesday 21 March 2012

Quick poll - 50p tax


Before George gets up to tell us how great everything is, a quick readers poll.

Should the chancellor scrap or lower the 50p tax rate?
Yes/No

Just in the comments please.

*Note as usual on budget day the C@W bloggers are somewhat busy.
Updates as possible.

17 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

Its a bold move. Maybe even a necessary one. But would vote against it on political grounds.
It gives much needed ammunition to the almost empty muskets of the Labour opposition.
It affects few who aren't going to vote Tory anyway.
It becomes the central talking point of the budget, instead of the expected tax threshold rise that impacts for the better on tens of millions of taxpayers.

Good economics; poor politics.
{well, at least that's the opposite of the last lot.}

Chris Gilmour said...

Lower it to 45%, then see what happens for a year or so, then tweak again as necessary, so instead of being a symbol of bashing the rich, it becomes just another adjustable point on the tax curve.

Richard Elliot said...

Yes.

The Economist had an interesting blog on the politics of the tax. They actually argued now is the right time:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2012/03/budget-and-50p-tax-rate

Botogol said...

they are caught in a trap on this one - best chew your leg off and escape. Cut the tax.


BTW - Capitalists@work is now blocked for me, ironically, at work.

it's Google's new country redirect - users in the UK are now redirected to blogspot.co.UK those in france to blogspot.co.FR etc etc (it's in the news)

trouble is, the automated blocking system installed at work identifies blogspot.co.uk as a 'placeholder' which I guess it is, and blocks it.

There is a work-around (blogspot.com/ncr) but that's a pain.

time for you guys to get your own domain name, perhaps.

chris said...

No. Hike it to 60% for a starter.

Alex said...

I like Chris Gilmour's idea.

Bill Quango MP said...

Richard Elliot - Good article i hadn't seen. Thanks.
Very strange comments on it though.One person believes lower wages will improve the economy. Seems unlikely.

botogol: I will repost that for cityunsliker's attention.

Anonymous said...

Should he? Yes.

Will he? No.

Budgie said...

As Anon 11:03 -

Yes, he should.

All the publicity is a teaser to toy with frothing Balls, so no he won't.

Monty Cristo said...

Of course he should; it would be nice to see him grow a pair and take a chunk off employers N.I. as well.

I'm sure an NGO or 50 could be found to fund it.

patently said...

Of course he should.

And if anyone bleats that the rich should pay more, he should point out that 40% of a large number is more than 23% of a small number.

Dan said...

Scrap it forthwith!

Have people learned nothing from history? Every time a government tries to soak the rich, the rich dodge the tax. Every time a government reduces tax rates to reduce levels of avoidance, the tax take goes up.

Also worth thinking about is who actually pays the most income tax. At present, the top 10% of earners pay 55% of all income tax. This is very nice of them, since it saves us lower paid majority from having to make up the shortfall. If we push up the tax on higher earners, then we're going to see avoidance behaviour starting to take place JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER TIME TAX RATES HAVE BEEN PUSHED UP.

If you try to rob high tax payers, they either dodge, scarper or simply don't work as hard. Learn from history, please, and keep tax rates nice and low.

roym said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jan said...

Yes it should be scrapped.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Yes of course. All taxes on earned income should be scrapped, second best is a flat tax.

SumoKing said...

Yes he should get rid of 50p rate but it's not the most urgent tax cut he should make

slashing VAT and low/ middle income tax rate is far more urgent (possibly merge NI and Income tax to hit home to the public what the true rate of tax might actually be)

Anonymous said...

No. It needs to go, but politically this is dangerous.

I can't see the economy improving much prior to the next GE, a high minimum wage will ensure high youth unemployment, and the 50p tax band is a bit of a sideshow when those affected will have changed their tax exposure accordingly - so it provides Labour with a sizable stick.

"5 years?", they'll say, " 5 years and all they've achieved is helping their rich friends"

And the public quickly forget positives, but negatives? Those fester.

Unless the Coalition pull some economic miracle out if a bag, they're squarely aiming footwards with this one.