Start a tax awareness campaign

**milanbenes** · 14 September 2005, 07:40

Dimmy,

it's not going to get any better.

Leave while you have the chance and while your pounds are worth something

Milan.

**DimPrawn** · 14 September 2005, 07:44

Yep your right Milan, pointless. The chavs and pikeys don't care as long as the state handouts are free flowing.

**sunnysan** · 14 September 2005, 08:10

Tax awareness

Yep, it looks like its going to get better as well if you try to read the political winds.

I am not really sure about this child poverty thing. Those of you that have travelled will probably agree that in global terms abject poverty does not really exist in the UK. But it will still be used as a justification for tax increases in an increasingly socialist and unstimulating regime.

NL have started to fiddle with what poverty actually is and have shifted the goalposts somewhat. Social apathy and poverty are not the same thing and the former is increasing owing to badly implemented socialist policies.

But it will still be used to justify tax increases so that the nonpaying portion of the electorate will continue to put their cross next to NL

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx...international/

UK must reverse pro-rich bias, says UN
Larry Elliott | London13 September 2005 03:00ad_script('MGnIns','dmg','MGnIns.Int.Gold','10','2 20x240');http://[img]http://a.coza.com/image....3505[/img]
The United Nations has warned British Finance Minister Gordon Brown that in Labour’s third term he will have to levy taxes on the better-off if the government is to meet its ambitious goal of halving child poverty by 2010.

In its flagship annual study charting progress in tackling poverty, the UN highlights Britain as a country where inequality has put the brake on development and said there would need to be a complete reversal of the pro-rich bias of the 1980s to eradicate the legacy of Margaret Thatcher.

The UN’s human development report (HDR) praises Labour for its efforts to tackle child poverty since 1997, but says a cash-strapped Brown needs to go further in his coming budgets and contemplate politically sensitive increases in taxes to maintain the progress made in the past eight years.

“If the next 10 years did for the poor what the 1980s did for the rich, that would bring the United Kingdom within touching distance of the child poverty goals,” the UN said.

The report singles out Britain and the United States as two wealthy countries where a growing gap between rich and poor has emerged in recent decades, leading to a greater incidence of child poverty and big discrepancies in health outcomes.

Overall, the UN said the world was making faltering progress towards meeting the millennium development goals (MDGs) set by every nation in 2000. These include cutting by 50% the number of people living on less than $1 a day, reducing infant mortality by two-thirds and putting every child in school.

“There is little cause for celebration,’’ the report concludes. “Most [poor] countries are off track for most of the MDGs. Human development is faltering in some key areas, and already deep inequalities are widening.’’

In Britain the incomes of the richest 10% rose by 3,7% a year on average from 1979 to 1990 compared with a 0,4% average increase for the poorest 10%. Taxes on top earners were cut from 83p to 60p in the first Conservative budget in 1979 and from 60p to 40p in 1988.

The UN said that if the incomes of the poor rose by 3,7% and those of the rich rose by 0,4% until 2010, child poverty would be cut from 23% to 17%.

The UN said Labour’s untrumpeted tax and benefit changes since 1997 had resulted in the incomes of the poorest fifth of the population rising by 20%.

But the report argues that more needs to be done to load the tax and benefits system in favour of the less well-off, to make it easier for parents in poor families to find work and to make “fundamental changes to the underlying distribution of earnings and income’’.

The UN, using data provided by Britain’s Institute for Fiscal Studies, said there was a limit to what Brown could do in his budgets to meet the goal established by Prime Minister Tony Blair of cutting child poverty in half by 2010 and eradicating it within a generation.

“Meeting the 2010 target [of halving child poverty] will require more redistribution, a change in working and employment patterns among parents and more fundamental changes to the underlying distribution of earnings and incomes.’’

The HDR -- published each year since 1990 -- concentrates on the problems of poor countries, but a central theme of the report is the negative effect of inequality in both high-income and low-income countries. It highlights how countries with low per capita incomes are often doing better than countries with higher incomes in meeting human development goals because they are pursuing pro-poor policies.

Noting that the US has a worse infant mortality rate than Malaysia, the report says: “Some countries that spend substantially less than the US have healthier populations. US public health indicators are marred by deep inequalities linked to income, health insurance coverage, race ethnicity, geography and -- critically -- access to care.’’

The report also criticises two of the world’s leading developing countries -- China and India -- for failing to turn stronger growth into better health outcomes. -- © Guardian Newspapers 2005

**BoredBloke** · 14 September 2005, 08:27

I would like employers to start showing the following

Total wage - Employers NI = Gross Wage - (Employees NI + income tax) = Net wage.

That way Joe blogs can see that the govt are taking a bigger slice of his cash than he thought.

**wendigo100** · 14 September 2005, 08:39

Originally posted by DimPrawn

The chavs and pikeys don't care as long as the state handouts are free flowing

Believe it or not, the chavs and the pikeys do not form the majority of voters. They have always voted Labour, but the majority voted the other way for 18 years and kept them out.

It is "middle Britain" that you need to convince, specifically those naive fools who:

* think the tax they pay has remained roughly the same for the last 8 years

* say they "don't mind paying a bit more tax to improve schools and hospitals and poverty abroad" (God I hate the stupidity of these in particular)

* are oblivious to the pensions timebomb that will affect them

**ancient** · 14 September 2005, 09:03

Born free taxed to death

From the contractor perspective:

a) The market can distorted by those who pay there dues (IR35) and those that don’t (e.g. EBT Schemes), thus those on scams undercutting rates.
b) Those who smoke, drink and drive 20,000 miles a year and on IR35 must feel discriminated against.
c) Add professional indemnity, and the costs of employing an accountant.
d) Add cost of own training, pension, down time between contracts, insecurity, un-paid holidays, sickness etc

How about contracts showing Gross Rate – employee NI – employer NI – expenses – insurance – down time – pension – IR35 – holidays – other benefits = probably less than a permanent job.

Just having a rant.

**DimPrawn** · 14 September 2005, 09:08

Every time we are billed for something I want to see exactly how much goes to the government. Every shop by law should show all taxes, duties levied etc on the till receipt in BIG letters.

That would be a bit of red tape legislation New Lie might not be so keen to pursue with their usual vigour.

****ed off with paying the government to waste my money on tulipe.

**wendigo100** · 14 September 2005, 09:12

Originally posted by ancient

b) Those who smoke, drink and drive 20,000 miles a year and on IR35 must feel discriminated against.

I'm not sure that smoking and drinking is particularly a contractor thing but I might be wrong.

**ahardy66** · 14 September 2005, 10:38

what are all these free hand-outs that chavs and pikeys get, and can I have some too?

Start a tax awareness campaign