United Kingdom
General community for news/discussion in the UK.
Less serious posts should go in !casualuk@feddit.uk or !andfinally@feddit.uk
More serious politics should go in !uk_politics@feddit.uk.
Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.
Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.
Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.
If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.
Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.
Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.
view the rest of the comments
As someone who hates the Tories, this is total bullshit reporting, actually. The £3,500 a year figure comes from “an additional £100bn a year for the exchequer – the equivalent to about £3,500 more per household”, but where is that additional £100bn coming from?
A “rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25%, the energy profits levy and the freezing of various income tax and national insurance thresholds.”
Ah yes, “various income tax rates”, that’s definitely not a reference to the top rate of income tax… which is £125k. Fuck off. I don’t give a shit about people earning that much having to pay more tax.
Fuck the Tories, they’re looting the whole country. But this is total nonsense.
Stating you hate the Tories then come out with an opinion to try and promote them. Your last post said
It is like you are saying I hate the Tories as a deflection from the fact you want to denigrate anyone speaking against them.
As for your comments here:
The windfall profits levy is expected to be £5b. I could argue this is government figure, so optimism is key here.
Corporation tax from 2019 year end is £63.2b
Corporation tax from 2023 year end £84.7b
Which is a rise of ~~£21.6b~~ £26.5, this leaves £73.5b in extra tax receipts since 2019. That is still a massive amount. If we assume that the £3500 per household is correct for the total amount, then with the new amount it is still £2572.5 per household, that is without corporation tax and windfall levies. Which is still £172.5 higher than the Tories said we would get if we were stupid enough to vote for Corbyn.
And for icing on the cake, Corporation taxes have actually decreased under the Tories from 28% in 2011, 24% in 2012, 23% in 2013, 21% in 2015, 20% in 2016 and 19% in 2018. The last 5 years have been the lowest rate for corporation taxes in at least the last 60 years. More proof that the burden of finances the country is falling on the poorer people in the UK.
EDIT: Corrected the error in the sums.
Take one look at anything I have ever written on Lemmy and you’ll see that I am by no means a defender of the Tories. Speak against them all you want, I’ll not defend them, but I also won’t abide the media sharing pro-industry, pro-capitalist think-tank bullshit, which is exactly what this is - a think tank that wants the Tories to tax the wealthy even less than they currently are.
Yes, it was dropping until the relatively recent announcement that they’re increasing it to 25% for companies that earn over 250k. That’s one of the reasons why this think tank is complaining about increases of corporation tax costing households money.
Except it’s not. It’s £0 per household, because corporations and fossil fuel companies aren’t households. If I instituted a wealth tax on billionaires and raised £282 billion with it, that’s not costing households £10,000 each is it?
The Tories deserve tonnes of criticism about hundreds and hundreds of things they’ve done. But increasing corporation tax and the concept of a fossil fuel industry levy (as much of a total scam that the implementation is) aren’t among those issues.
This is after taking corporation tax and windfall away from the total £100b (100b-21.6=78.4b). Read it again.
Yeah, misread your comment, sorry!
Your numbers are a wee bit off, but close enough - my calcs give £27bn corp tax rather than £21.6 (remember they’re increasing it this tax year to 25% from 19%).
It’s irrelevant anyways. The windfall tax is all just propaganda to mitigate criticism of the fossil fuel industry. I don’t want to defend the Tories at all, I agree with you that they’re taxing the working class greater for the benefit of the wealthy. But that isn’t what the article is saying, and that’s why I’m annoyed at the article. The article is bullshit not because it criticises the Tories, the article is bullshit because it’s complaining about the wrong things! They mention three conservative government policies which they claim are causing harm to us, and of those three policies, two and a half of them are things we should be pushing for MORE of. (Higher corporation tax, taxes on the fossil fuel industry, higher income tax for people with high incomes). Those policies are bad because they don’t go far enough.
Hands up, you are correct. I edited the post with correct figures.
I think you are reading an interpretation that is not there. They do not claim any policy is harming us. They state the facts of where the largest tax rises are coming from which is very near the wording of the report. The actual IFS report is here.
The guardian states the report is damaging because of the conference next week. It is trying to stir up anxiety among Tory party members, but it does not cast aspersions over which tax increases are good or bad.
I agree the windfall tax is just a sham. I would be very surprised if we see any receipts at all. They built huge cop out options into the bill. Shell have declared a reduction in investment because of the windfall tax while only paying £134m to the government from a worldwide £40b profit. The whole process is nothing more than a façade.
“Causing harm to us” was my short-hand interpretation - I’m just a guy writing internet comments, they don’t have to be perfect - but I don’t think it’s an unfair reading of the article.
Acting like their analysis is unfeeling and unpolitical is classic IFS bullshit. Raising corporation tax, energy profit levy and top rate income tax are all good things and you want me to complain about it just because the Tories are doing it? Is tribalism more important than policy?
I’d call out this crap regardless of who’s in power because it’s just typical neoliberal “taxes are always bad” bullshit. Tax the shit out of corporations and the wealthy, please.
I don't think they are saying the taxes are bad. Every media report will have a bias. The best place to recognise that bias is to follow the money trail. And if you look to the bottom of the report, it was commissioned by ESRC and the Nuffield foundation. The ESRC are independent and rarely get involved in the subject of reports. Nuffield are an independent body usually recognised for reporting on the NHS. The IFS only create the report, they have not chosen the subject matter.
The timing and content of the report is clearly aimed at the Tory conference with the intent of highlighting just how badly the country is performing.
Come on, stop arguing that black is white. The article calls the report damaging and even you said that it highlights how badly the country is performing. The article very clearly has the message of “isn’t it bad how much the Tories have raised taxes?”
Why are you like, arguing about this? I don’t really understand.
There are biases beyond who funds the report. Neoliberalism is biased against taxes, economists are overwhelmingly neoliberal and the think-tank is a group of economists. It’s not that complex, really.
Thresholds, not rates. And, as you'd expect, freezing them hits the poorest the hardest.
The effect of freezing tax thresholds:
I absolutely 100% agree with you that the Tories are stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. But the article isn’t about personal allowance. If you click on the link I referenced in the original post, it takes you to an article about higher rate tax-payers. I don’t think any of us should give a shit about higher rate tax payers, and I’m not going to apologise for holding that opinion.
I’m responding to the article as it stands. Obviously the Tories aren’t good for the country economically, I think that’s self-evident, but the article is extremely misleading.
About £30 billion comes from freezing tax thresholds. Those affect everybody across the board because we all get the same thresholds.
You quoted the article accurately but then misstated what it said.