I didn't say the UK was a banana republic, although it's only marginally better for the majority. I doubt the doctor clients who resettled in the countries you mentioned did so exclusively for tax reasons. There is a shortage of medical staff, particularly in Australia where they earn far more and are treated far better than in the UK. What you suggest Thatcher achieved in tax take is easily achievable if directors or those in a position to do so pay themselves higher salaries to take advantage. Whether this generated extra effort on their part is highly doubtful. Thatcher's government also kept all the profits on council housing, reimbursing council only the original cost of construction and the UK has never recovered from this. The UK tax system is not fit for purpose due to tax evasion. Profits or incomes generated in the UK should be taxed here, wherever the companies or persons are based.
It depends on whether you subscribe to the view that if you tax those with higher incomes at higher rates, “All the best brains will flee the country.” This would only be true if all the best brains were the highest income earners but they aren’t. I cannot see that brain surgeons, barristers & lawyers, or even accountants (chartered or otherwise) would rush to live and sell their skills in a banana republic because there isn’t the demand there and generally these countries can't provide the standard of living they expect. Ideally, incomes & profits should be taxed in the countries they are earned or generated. To do otherwise is a betrayal of the trust of the people who generate those profits.
I’ve never been on strike in my life although I was in a union during my early years in the inland revenue. It seems they perpetually work to rule throughout nowadays! I did though leave my next employer when they decided to close the chartered accountants' pension scheme. We knew graduated contributions would be valueless, and three of us asked them to contribute to annuities for us instead but were refused. Fortunately, I’d built up a good relationship with the clients I’d handled for many years, and numerous approached me whom I accepted as clients after I left. The others did the same. One of the partners who confided in me later said it was one of the worst mistakes they ever made. I can appreciate firms need to discard non or under performers now & then but unless many of their clients are going out of business and their fee income has been greatly reduced it is not fair to ask staff to bear the brunt of this and could be counterproductive.
Quite a few plumbers, small builders, tilers, and other businesses I know of, instruct their customers to order the materials, skips, machinery, etc (I suspect some may place the orders themselves) and have their customers pay the supplier directly. While this means they don’t make a profit on the materials it avoids inflating their sales needlessly. Most say this has worked very well for them and is perfectly legal.
We may have had a bloated civil service 50 years ago. Try ringing the tax office nowadays, they're hopelessly understaffed & poorly trained. The government unscrupulously tried to remedy it by foisting self-assessment & capital allowance claims on a totally untrained public. Tax returns yes, but that was a bridge too far. If accountants only trained their staff to stack shelves we might as might as well all go home.
For that matter, VAT (now 20%) was originally 8% (12.5% on "Luxury goods"). The conservative party has never been the party of low taxation except to the uninformed.
I only paid GP for a couple of years. When I joined a firm with a proper pension scheme, they wrote to me telling me my GP contribs were worth nothing.
If you make that case, current pensioners could make the same valid objection because their contributions were used for those no longer with us. At least younger working people have the option of starting to make provisions.
I think you are looking in the wrong place to see comments about the broken health
care system. I think most on here have alternative insurance anyway. The government admits far fewer people are being treated which is evident but claims they have spent far more money which is debatable. Most people including pensioners would be agreeable to paying higher rates but it must include specific guarantees.
This probably makes sense. I recall in the early 1960s there was earned income relief at some odd rate (about 2/9ths) but it was later wrapped up in a higher personal allowance available to all. That was in the days of the pre-5th April wedding rush to get the married man's tax allowance. If both were working it was better to marry mid-year as the woman was treated as 2 persons and got the lower allowance before and after. Many thought wives were 2 different people before and after marriage, but I was one of the lucky ones.
My answers
I didn't say the UK was a banana republic, although it's only marginally better for the majority. I doubt the doctor clients who resettled in the countries you mentioned did so exclusively for tax reasons. There is a shortage of medical staff, particularly in Australia where they earn far more and are treated far better than in the UK. What you suggest Thatcher achieved in tax take is easily achievable if directors or those in a position to do so pay themselves higher salaries to take advantage. Whether this generated extra effort on their part is highly doubtful. Thatcher's government also kept all the profits on council housing, reimbursing council only the original cost of construction and the UK has never recovered from this. The UK tax system is not fit for purpose due to tax evasion. Profits or incomes generated in the UK should be taxed here, wherever the companies or persons are based.
It depends on whether you subscribe to the view that if you tax those with higher incomes at higher rates, “All the best brains will flee the country.” This would only be true if all the best brains were the highest income earners but they aren’t. I cannot see that brain surgeons, barristers & lawyers, or even accountants (chartered or otherwise) would rush to live and sell their skills in a banana republic because there isn’t the demand there and generally these countries can't provide the standard of living they expect. Ideally, incomes & profits should be taxed in the countries they are earned or generated. To do otherwise is a betrayal of the trust of the people who generate those profits.
I’ve never been on strike in my life although I was in a union during my early years in the inland revenue. It seems they perpetually work to rule throughout nowadays! I did though leave my next employer when they decided to close the chartered accountants' pension scheme. We knew graduated contributions would be valueless, and three of us asked them to contribute to annuities for us instead but were refused. Fortunately, I’d built up a good relationship with the clients I’d handled for many years, and numerous approached me whom I accepted as clients after I left. The others did the same. One of the partners who confided in me later said it was one of the worst mistakes they ever made. I can appreciate firms need to discard non or under performers now & then but unless many of their clients are going out of business and their fee income has been greatly reduced it is not fair to ask staff to bear the brunt of this and could be counterproductive.
Quite a few plumbers, small builders, tilers, and other businesses I know of, instruct their customers to order the materials, skips, machinery, etc (I suspect some may place the orders themselves) and have their customers pay the supplier directly. While this means they don’t make a profit on the materials it avoids inflating their sales needlessly. Most say this has worked very well for them and is perfectly legal.
We may have had a bloated civil service 50 years ago. Try ringing the tax office nowadays, they're hopelessly understaffed & poorly trained. The government unscrupulously tried to remedy it by foisting self-assessment & capital allowance claims on a totally untrained public. Tax returns yes, but that was a bridge too far. If accountants only trained their staff to stack shelves we might as might as well all go home.
For that matter, VAT (now 20%) was originally 8% (12.5% on "Luxury goods"). The conservative party has never been the party of low taxation except to the uninformed.
I only paid GP for a couple of years. When I joined a firm with a proper pension scheme, they wrote to me telling me my GP contribs were worth nothing.
If you make that case, current pensioners could make the same valid objection because their contributions were used for those no longer with us. At least younger working people have the option of starting to make provisions.
I think you are looking in the wrong place to see comments about the broken health
care system. I think most on here have alternative insurance anyway. The government admits far fewer people are being treated which is evident but claims they have spent far more money which is debatable. Most people including pensioners would be agreeable to paying higher rates but it must include specific guarantees.
This probably makes sense. I recall in the early 1960s there was earned income relief at some odd rate (about 2/9ths) but it was later wrapped up in a higher personal allowance available to all. That was in the days of the pre-5th April wedding rush to get the married man's tax allowance. If both were working it was better to marry mid-year as the woman was treated as 2 persons and got the lower allowance before and after. Many thought wives were 2 different people before and after marriage, but I was one of the lucky ones.