27 Aug
10:46pm, 27 Aug 2024
32,965 posts
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Johnny Blaze
Stamp duty on the sales side of property sales as well as the purchase side?
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27 Aug
10:54pm, 27 Aug 2024
22,077 posts
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Chrisull
Fields - you're dead right about Macron, it's an absolute disgrace. The left have requested zero other posts in the govt except for Lucie Castets as PM. Macron has refused. (And yes i know it is brinksmanship by the NPF, but it's fair enough they have the majority in votes). What's he going to do now? Call another election? The NPF can effectively block anything they want. Also it's achieved the effect of uniting Melenchon and the socialists, which seemed almost impossible til now. As for Starmer I cling on to the totally unlikely hope that something like Land Value Tax is brought out of the cold to fix Council Tax, rather than hammering pensions. I have to sit alongside cheg, we're sitting on an absolute timebomb of people not being able to afford their old age. The Tories answer was to reduce life expectancy and raise the retirement age, I'm hoping that Labour's isn't similar. Anything else Labour do around pensions/good or bad is merely tinkering. What worries me is Labour's paymasters BlackRock who all the shots now and are supplying the plan for growth (rather than the Big Green State they sort of alluded to once upon a time): theguardian.com AlJazeera is reliable, but like most news outlets, be aware of the country it is situated in and how it is funded. Everything has some bias or angle. But crikey compared to the BBC it looks non-partisan voice of clear sanity. |
27 Aug
11:34pm, 27 Aug 2024
11,539 posts
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Fields
There are other sources for what Macron is up to in the Telegraph, FT etc they all have their own spin as does the guardian and the bbc. Of course if we are concerned to linking to media owned by foreign types then that rules out much of the British press. Not really bothered what Starmer does. It will inevitably be mostly wrong or not nearly enough or both. It is just possible he knows what needs to be done, but if so he won’t be able to do it. The (foreign owned) UK press are already railing about Labour being in hock to their union paymasters, well even if that were true, unions represent millions of working class people like myself. Whereas the shady corporate donors that the Tories (and Labour too, let’s not forget) rely on for funding do not - they represent a very small number of super rich people. So I would always be comfortable acting to benefit the many, not the few. To coin a phrase. Frankly I wouldn’t mind a bit of asset confiscation (with extreme prejudice) @Yakima Canutt but as a realist I accept that is not going to happen. I have more solidarity with those in small boats crossing the Mediterranean and the channel than I do with billionaires in superyachts. |
28 Aug
8:12am, 28 Aug 2024
17,699 posts
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jda
We need private provision of pensions, the question is how big the tax breaks should be and whether the richest few should get the vast bulk of the tax breaks.
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28 Aug
8:14am, 28 Aug 2024
17,700 posts
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jda
Stamp duty is the worst sort of tax, discouraging people from moving house when social mobility is already a problem. A smaller annual levy whether you move or not would make much more sense.
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28 Aug
8:30am, 28 Aug 2024
29,063 posts
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richmac
Or just a flat fee for the land registry
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28 Aug
8:44am, 28 Aug 2024
17,701 posts
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jda
A flat fee would of course be incredibly regressive. In other news, we apparently have a once in a generation opportunity to reset relations with the EU. Is it a tragedy, or a disgrace, therefore, that the govt isn’t going to take it? theguardian.com |
28 Aug
9:01am, 28 Aug 2024
9,907 posts
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simbil
It's a very important shift from demanding unicorns in an angry and entitled way to asking for unicorns in a serious and professional way  Guess we can hope that not being massive idiots will get something on the table that is better for everyone, but not holding my breath. Noticed we'll be spending millions on border upgrades now that the transition agreements have ended and we finally get to take back control fully. Who knew all this would be so expensive? |
28 Aug
9:07am, 28 Aug 2024
4,413 posts
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Cheg
People keep talking about tax breaks with pensions. The biggest one is straightforward and to my mind fair. You only pay tax once, on the way out. Basic rate, higher rate, additional rate. You put in your money you get it grossed up, you are deferring the benefit. You pay tax on receiving the pension. Doing away with the tax free lump sum is fairer in that regard, but all of these things are just disincentivising paying into a pension when we should be putting measures in place to encourage pension contributions. The problems both in this country and globally are numerous, but the biggest one in the developed world is the aging population and the impact that has on the healthcare and social care system, as well as the pension issue. |
28 Aug
9:34am, 28 Aug 2024
21,735 posts
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Cerrertonia
Cheg wrote: For there to be any value in the pension system, there needs to be a minimum of fiddling about with it by the government and changes need to be introduced slowly with decades for people to adjust their plans. Why would someone in their twenties lock up money in a pension for 40-50 years knowing that is going to be subject to umpteen changes of rules before they get their money back, particularly if there's no tax advantage to doing so anyway? It's already impossible for the self-employed, or private sector workers starting out today (even those on investment banker salaries) to get a pension on a par with those of even junior civil servants, police, army and other public sector jobs. all of these things are just disincentivising paying into a pension when we should be putting measures in place to encourage pension contributions. Stamp Duty is a bad tax - it's not paid by people like me that live in one place for decades, it's paid by people who move to take a better job. In some parts of the country, it's barely paid at all because of lower house prices. It discourages old people from downsizing, when we should be doing the opposite. The only thing in its favour is that it's cheap to collect and impossible to avoid. As jda said, charging people an annual tax based on property value is a much better idea. |
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