Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Brown robs the poor to give to the rich!

During Joseph Stalin's Gordon Brown's last budget, he has on the one hand reduced the basic rate of income tax by 2p to 20p in the pound. Good news you might say, but on the other hand has funded this by scrapping the 10p in the pound rate altogether which puts up tax for all those who earn less that £17,000 per year.

Those on less than £11,500 may well be able to claim Working Tax Credit, but those not able to will be hit.

One person I know will be £8 a month worse off as a below average wage earner, whilst an above average wage earner (but not higher rate) will be better off!

Why is Gordon robbing the poor to pay the rich? It's a bit regressive isn't it?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rich? From £18k to £39k you are marginally better off by varying degrees. Not what I'd call rich.

Above £39k, you're worse off, because of the massive increase in NI of 10% between £34k and £39k,

Benedict White said...

Anonymous, rich can be a relative term. Someone on £30K is richer than someone on £10.

I have not done the numbers at that end of the scale but I will later.

Anonymous said...

Can you imagine what Labour would be saying if a Tory government scrapped the 10p band ?

Anonymous said...

Benedict.
Before you make a total fool of yourself,look at the tax credits money.

Benedict White said...

Fr, Yes they would be appoplectic.

Anonymous, A lot of the people affected can't claim it particularly those without children who are above the WTC threashold. So I can't see I am making a fool of myself.

Anonymous said...

look at the extensions

Benedict White said...

Anonymous, at 5.29, What extensions?

The tax bil for those between £5K and 17K will go up!

yes some can claim some back through WTC or WFTC, but this does not cover anything like that!

Anonymous said...

Benedict.
Look at the extra money and look at where its going.
Please.you're making a fool of yourself

Benedict White said...

Anonymous at 5.42, Look at where which money is going? I don't care! I care where it is comming from, and it is comming from those on the low ends of the pay scale!

Anonymous said...

You'll be embarrassed in the morning.
look at the extra tax credits and the movements in allowances.

Benedict White said...

Anonymous at 5.49, I have looked at the increased allowances and they certainly do not make up for the tax rise, what is more Working tax credit as opposed to working tax credit is not going to extend all the way up to £17k per annum is it?

Currently if you are single you can claim if you earn less than £11.5K. Is that really going to rise that far?

What is the take up of WTC in any case?

Anonymous said...

Take up is the only argument.
Youve made an idiot of yourself on the rest.

Benedict White said...

Anonymous @ 5.58, Sorry, you are talking tosh. Are you suggesting that WTC is rising to give money all the way to £17K for single people?

If not, it seems to me that it is you who are making an idiot of yourself!

Anonymous said...

Oh dear Benedict.
Wait till the Papers come out.
You do know that Cameron didn't even spot the 10p stuff dont you.
Hence Campbells jibe at his intellect.

Anyway, I'll look in tomorrow,when you've corrected yourself.

Benedict White said...

Mark Senior, You have a remarkably jaundiced view of the Conservative party. I will therefore ignore your jibe.

Anonymous at 6.29, I don't really care what other people have spotted, however I repeat myself, are you saying that WTC is gong to be available up to £17K PA?

If not then a raft of below average tax payers will lose out.

Anonymous said...

Summary then:
10% rate increased to 20%; 22% rate decreased to 20%; 1% NI rate increased to 11% until half the distance between the former upper threshold of NI and the upper threhold of tax, to close the gap completely in one more year.

Effects:
Tax rise of 10% between about £5.3k and £7.6k
Tax cut of 2% between about £7.6k and about £33k
Effective Tax rise of 10% between about £33k and about £39k

Unchanged above that

NB - tax rises only apply to those in work - unearned income exempt from the lower tax rise (specifically exempted) and the upper effective tax rise (no NI on unearned income).

And to soften the blow of the higher tax rates at the lower end, increased dependency on benefits (yeah - that will help with the poverty trap. Not).

At the upper end - your fault for working too hard, Buster. To be fair, the impact at the top isn't too bad (with my upcoming promotion this summer, I'll fall smack bang in the category, but I won't resent it too much - I'll still be on noticeably more.

It does look like "Oh, bugger - the middle income lot are squealing - let's throw them a bone or two. The cost to the poor can be mitigated at the cost of increasing the poverty trap a bit - well, some poor buggers will lose out, but who else will they vote for?"

I think, though, that it may backfire - and look as though he's spinning a non-tax cut really hard.

Press predictions:

- The Sun will go mad with rapture.

- The Mail will balance the reporting with a "give with one hand, take with the other" tack.

- The Express will call it a con. And maybe ask for a Diana death investigation :)

- The Mirror will hail GB as the New Messiah.

- The Telegraph will use it as a stick to beat Cameron with on tax cuts.

- The Times - erratic of late; can't predict it (The Sunday Times will attack it).

- The Guardian will give faint praise (Polly will explode in rapture; the editorial line will be more measured).

- The Independent will go on about how wonderful the EU is or how guilty we are of global warming ...


If I'm right, I will of course, point to this comment as proof of my predicitive genius. if I'm wrong, I'll try to bribe you to delete it :)

Benedict White said...

Andy Cooke, yep that is about the size of it.

Mind you you have to get up to £17 or £18K to make up for the lose of the lower tax band.

Not sure that I should delete your post if its wrong though!

Anonymous said...

Theres no hope here.

THE 10% DOESNT GO TILL 2009

Anonymous said...

Ahem.

-clears throat-

OH YES IT DOES - IT'S FROM APRIL 2008; COINCIDENT WITH THE 22%-20% STUFF

-coughs-

Right, enough shouting. And by the way - why does anyone want to post as "Anonymous" anyway - it's hard to keep track. Are you the same unidentified person who has been posting earlier?

Benedict White said...

Andy Cooke, many thanks for that.

I presume the anonymous posters are just astro turfers.

Benedict White said...

Mark, on your first comments, Yawn...

I agree Cameron was not bad and had some good sound bites, but as you say was let down by not seeing the significance of the 10p cut, because otherwise they could have had a real killer sound bite across the MSM of Gordon robbing the poor to give the the rich.

That would have immediately deflated the "tax cut" across the whole MSM.

That said budgets are difficult because the devil is in the detail and there is so much to wade through tobe able to make a response.