The Labour Party and the 50p tax chimera.
Redistribution means squeeze the rich until the pips squeak right? So per se bringing back the 50p tax rate (which affects those earning over £150,000: less than a fraction of 1% of Scotland's workforce) to spend on bringing the poor up seems like a left wing policy, eh no? Only when the Labour Party shouts it from the rooftops, it isnae.
Labour mean to bring back Brown's hated 10p tax. Ed Balls has said he will. In order to not show up the Lamont fudge at the weekend Labour had to hastily rework Devo-Nano to allow a future Scottish Government to bring in the tax rate (which because Labour is devolving 15p of income tax would actually *RAID* the Scottish budget to plug the 5p gap) affecting the lowest earners. That's just under about 1/3 of Scots to be badly affected (the mode average wage is 14k; many many more earn much less). So easily up to a poorest third or so, in Scotland's low wage, "retail regeneration" central belt 'economy.' If someone can tell me the projected tax take from that measure I'd be much obliged, but it's likely to be a lot lot more clawed from the meagre earnings of the very poor than the £10million won back from the rich.
The Tories abolished Brown's 10p tax, and brought the threshold for paying tax to 10 grand, after the liberals lobbied for it. Labour want to bring the 10p rate back; it remains to be seen just what the threshold will be. Miliband has only haivered equivocally about it. Under Brown people were liable for a 10% rate of income tax on earnings after a stupidly low income (just over £5000). If you earned as little as £8000 a year you would be liable to pay tax on much of that. Imagine what that means. Being poor is really really expensive. By contrast George Osborne's move to lift a whole section of the very poor out of tax altogether (admittedly a liberal policy, but the Tories aren't bidding to be the 'party of the workers' without at least a figleaf) paints him in crimson red against a hammer and siccle background in comparison to Balls' vicious plans (which Devo-Nano was hastily rewritten to accomodate).
If somebody can point out how Labour's 10p tax plans are part of some bold left wingness I'd very much like to hear about it. What I see is a totemic policy (the 50p rate) which will affect next to naffall people, generate just £10million in Scotland, as a figleaf for the policy of bringing in the 10p tax which will plunge hundreds of thousands of working poor Scots, ironically made richer under a Tory Chancellor (some former Labour Government, eh?), into deeper poverty out of some 'national unity' BritNat 'One Nationism' where all must make sacrifices (but especially those least able).
As for the super rich - the Tony Blairs and Gordon Browns of this world and their mates in the City of London: people earning megabucks - they can choose whether to pay tax or not. We're forever told Gordon Brown gives all his tidy earnings to charity. Indeed he does: his own. This exempts him from tax, but as Tory blogger Guido Fox uncovered, Brown's 'expenses' for running his office and jetting about the world lecturing and hectoring, are of the order of £10,000 a day. How it works for the super-rich is like this: corporation Brown or corporation Blair takes a fee as a contractor. The company or charitable trust or shell company is paid for their 'services', then the money passes thru various opaque charities or shell companies in dribs and drabs, sometimes in kind, or in capital, and said millionaire gets an expense account from one of their many firms, indemnified from tax by their army of accountants and PR men, with almost no limit on how much they can spend without paying a single penny to HMRC. This is entirely legal in the UK at the moment. For instance in one year Tony Blair plc (or whatever egotistical name he calls it) earned £7million, and paid £0 and 0p to HMRC. A working mum in Shettleston, Craigmillar or the Hilltoun cannot afford an army of accountants to turn her into a corporation, so the pittance she earns will be liable to be taxed but that's OK because the super rich (who only ever pay tax on their earnings for PR purposes anyway) are now going to be hit with a 50p tax rate which most will never pay, because they don't have to.
This isn't redistribution. It's a dastardly scheme to present scunner-extremism of a right wing variety, which even George Osborne disdains, as progressive. Yet again the Labour party wants to make the pips squeak, in housing schemes and pokey tenement flats across Scotland.
Redistribution means squeeze the rich until the pips squeak right? So per se bringing back the 50p tax rate (which affects those earning over £150,000: less than a fraction of 1% of Scotland's workforce) to spend on bringing the poor up seems like a left wing policy, eh no? Only when the Labour Party shouts it from the rooftops, it isnae.
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| Johann Lamont, showing off her stage props after having a pop at FM Salmond and his wife's lack of bairns: the loving mother. |
Labour mean to bring back Brown's hated 10p tax. Ed Balls has said he will. In order to not show up the Lamont fudge at the weekend Labour had to hastily rework Devo-Nano to allow a future Scottish Government to bring in the tax rate (which because Labour is devolving 15p of income tax would actually *RAID* the Scottish budget to plug the 5p gap) affecting the lowest earners. That's just under about 1/3 of Scots to be badly affected (the mode average wage is 14k; many many more earn much less). So easily up to a poorest third or so, in Scotland's low wage, "retail regeneration" central belt 'economy.' If someone can tell me the projected tax take from that measure I'd be much obliged, but it's likely to be a lot lot more clawed from the meagre earnings of the very poor than the £10million won back from the rich.
The Tories abolished Brown's 10p tax, and brought the threshold for paying tax to 10 grand, after the liberals lobbied for it. Labour want to bring the 10p rate back; it remains to be seen just what the threshold will be. Miliband has only haivered equivocally about it. Under Brown people were liable for a 10% rate of income tax on earnings after a stupidly low income (just over £5000). If you earned as little as £8000 a year you would be liable to pay tax on much of that. Imagine what that means. Being poor is really really expensive. By contrast George Osborne's move to lift a whole section of the very poor out of tax altogether (admittedly a liberal policy, but the Tories aren't bidding to be the 'party of the workers' without at least a figleaf) paints him in crimson red against a hammer and siccle background in comparison to Balls' vicious plans (which Devo-Nano was hastily rewritten to accomodate).
If somebody can point out how Labour's 10p tax plans are part of some bold left wingness I'd very much like to hear about it. What I see is a totemic policy (the 50p rate) which will affect next to naffall people, generate just £10million in Scotland, as a figleaf for the policy of bringing in the 10p tax which will plunge hundreds of thousands of working poor Scots, ironically made richer under a Tory Chancellor (some former Labour Government, eh?), into deeper poverty out of some 'national unity' BritNat 'One Nationism' where all must make sacrifices (but especially those least able).
As for the super rich - the Tony Blairs and Gordon Browns of this world and their mates in the City of London: people earning megabucks - they can choose whether to pay tax or not. We're forever told Gordon Brown gives all his tidy earnings to charity. Indeed he does: his own. This exempts him from tax, but as Tory blogger Guido Fox uncovered, Brown's 'expenses' for running his office and jetting about the world lecturing and hectoring, are of the order of £10,000 a day. How it works for the super-rich is like this: corporation Brown or corporation Blair takes a fee as a contractor. The company or charitable trust or shell company is paid for their 'services', then the money passes thru various opaque charities or shell companies in dribs and drabs, sometimes in kind, or in capital, and said millionaire gets an expense account from one of their many firms, indemnified from tax by their army of accountants and PR men, with almost no limit on how much they can spend without paying a single penny to HMRC. This is entirely legal in the UK at the moment. For instance in one year Tony Blair plc (or whatever egotistical name he calls it) earned £7million, and paid £0 and 0p to HMRC. A working mum in Shettleston, Craigmillar or the Hilltoun cannot afford an army of accountants to turn her into a corporation, so the pittance she earns will be liable to be taxed but that's OK because the super rich (who only ever pay tax on their earnings for PR purposes anyway) are now going to be hit with a 50p tax rate which most will never pay, because they don't have to.
This isn't redistribution. It's a dastardly scheme to present scunner-extremism of a right wing variety, which even George Osborne disdains, as progressive. Yet again the Labour party wants to make the pips squeak, in housing schemes and pokey tenement flats across Scotland.
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