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Is This Season Going To Happen for The British ???

 Poster: A snowHead
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@Gordyjh, I don't think I explained myself well, sorry. I meant proportionate increase.

If a 2% inflationary uplift in the basic rate tax threshold doesn't happen, someone on basic rate (assuming their income rises with inflation) will end up paying £50 more tax a year. But that increase is the same whether they are earning £15,000 or £45,000, with the latter suffering a much lower proportionate decrease in take-home pay.

For higher rate taxpayers there is a bigger impact (£400) but again it stays the same whether someone is only a little way into the higher band or is a millionaire.

(Of course if you are a nurse, getting a sub-inflationary pay rise because you didn't really contribute much to the Covid crisis did you, that will have an impact too. By contrast estate agents living on commission will do well from Sunak's actions aimed at increasing property prices; I wonder which group has most influence on the Conservative Party).
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
5 years ago, I took a bit hit to my income (and future pension) to care for my Parents. I currently receive Carers allowance.

I do not get Income support, so did not get the extra £20. Apart from the saved travel expenses (as I opted to moved in with them to shield them), I actually gained nothing financially during the pandemic. However, when I return to work, I will have to pay extra tax to cover the cost for those that did. I accept this as a fact of life.

A few pounds a week from a wage packet is a small price to pay for the keeping tens, or hundreds of thousands of people safe.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@j b, Tax bands are there for a good reason. If we try to have too many, the cost of administration outweighs any extra income.

Everybody has a paranoia about increasing personal taxation, which is currently very low from a historical perspective.

Many of you have never experienced high personal taxation. Some of you of a similar age to myself will recall a base rate of 34% in the late 1970's. - Under a Labour Government. Reduced under Margaret Thatcher.

I still believe the best assistance to low paid was the 10p band, introduced by John Major, but then cancelled by Gordon Brown under the Blair Govt. - the biggest tax hike for the low paid ever!

Time for everybody to get into the real world. Governments DO NOT have any money. Every penny they spend has to be raised by some form of taxation.
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I would have gladly paid more tax.
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brianatab wrote:
@j b,

Time for everybody to get into the real world. Governments DO NOT have any money. Every penny they spend has to be raised by some form of taxation.


Too true. I think Sunak has played a rotten hand pretty well.
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@Gordyjh, I reluctantly have to agree. I’m not a fan of this government (this is an understatement, btw) but the latest budget is a decent one. Sure there are holes in it, but on the whole it is good.
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I've been very impressed by Sunak all the way through this.

He'd only been in the job a couple of weeks. Due to a situation out of his control, his first Budget was in shreds before the ink was dry.

He came up with a rescue package within 24 hours. Yes there were some gaps. Only to be expected. Some of these were filled later. Others were left, but reasons given.

He made it quite clear that the NHS would get every penny it needed to fight the pandemic, and it did. Yes there were mistakes made in some contracts, but lets be honest, who would have got every decision right first time every time?

There simply wasn't the time to go through the normal tendering processes. (how long do they normally take?)

He ensured that there was a basic income for people on furlough, and he set up support packages for tens of thousands of businesses.
We have lost some high street names, but they were vulnerable before this situation.

There has been fraud, which was inevitable, but he is intent on identifying it.

NO other Country in the World has provided such support in this Pandemic.

I fully agreed with his decision to exclude the newly self employed due to the risk of fraud, (Caution ignored in Scotland, for which WE will have to pay). - Although I might have given some consideration to those who had previously submitted interim returns, and paid some tax. (Isn't that how it's supposed to work for everybody? Puzzled )
There will be changes to the tax system for self employment in the next couple of years. He already warned this when he announced the additional package.

He helped small businesses in the form of grants (based on previously declared profits.) In this Budget by excluding them from the increase in CTG. There is already a review underway regarding business rates. - However, every penny reduction will have to be made up somewhere else.

Not too sure about the low deposit for house buyers. It's only likely to increase prices even more.

Yes, more money could have been given to NHS workers, but that would have required substantial tax increases this year to compensate, which might slow down economic recovery. Hopefully he will find some next year.

I would have liked to see some form of windfall tax on those companies that benefited from the lock down.


Overall 9/10.
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@Gordyjh, Freezing my tax threshold has not made me pay more tax.
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@NickYoung, if you freeze tax thresholds (where in the past they have always increased each year) it means people who do get pay rises (private sector) some of which will move into higher tax band and therefore pay more tax etc
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It's also worth remembering that a huge proportion of Public Sector workers will get a pay rise....because their jobs have years-of-service increments that are entirely automatic.
Something very rare in the Private Sector.
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rungsp wrote:
It's also worth remembering that a huge proportion of Public Sector workers will get a pay rise....because their jobs have years-of-service increments that are entirely automatic.
Something very rare in the Private Sector.


The proportion of people with increments still to come is pretty small compared with people at the top of their scale. The standard number of increments is 4, so once you've been in post for 4 years, that's it, and it's fairly standard for people to remain in the same role for a long time in the public sector.

Having worked in the private and public sector it's my experience that pay rises are more frequent and far more generous in the private sector for white collar workers, and probably the reverse for blue collar workers.
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rungsp wrote:
Something very rare in the Private Sector.


These days it is, but it used to be standard in a lot of industries. getting paid for experience.

Disappeared overnight with the introduction of minimum wage, Workers that had been paid a higher rate for years suddenly found their jobs' value had been reduced down to the lower level.
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So he hasn't put my tax up then. @ajc2260626, @rungsp,
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@NickYoung, You will pay the same rate of tax. It is also true to say that you will pay a larger amount of tax if you get a pay rise. This is a larger amount in both cash terms and as a proportion of your salary.

If you don't get a pay rise, then an increase in the personal allowance would have helped keep the purchasing power of your income similar, however as there is no increase, your take home will be lower in real terms because of inflation.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
I'm disappointed that he ducked all the hard choices: pensions tax relief, CGT, social care funding, NI harmonisation, self-employment tax harmonisation, IHT...

COVID provides a clear mandate and reason to think more radically, but instead we get some tinkering round the edges.
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Poster: A snowHead
rungsp wrote:
It's also worth remembering that a huge proportion of Public Sector workers will get a pay rise....because their jobs have years-of-service increments that are entirely automatic.
Something very rare in the Private Sector.


I think that has (largely?) disappeared. I remember spine points when I first started in the civil service in 2002 but not for very many years
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
brianatab wrote:
Time for everybody to get into the real world. Governments DO NOT have any money. Every penny they spend has to be raised by some form of taxation.

Not strictly true. Since the 2008 financial crisis the UK government has created a massive £900 billion through quantitative easing that wasn't balanced by taxation.

I agree that something feels wrong about it in intuitive "conservation of matter" terms. Maybe it will need taxation at some point in the future to stop adverse consequences (like runaway inflation) but nothing awful has happened yet.

You can be cynical and call it the Magic Money Tree, or use academic terminology and call it Modern Monetary Theory, but it does seem to be the case that a government that owns its own currency can create it when it needs to simply by telling the Bank of England to adjust its computer spreadsheet. I presume that some sort of limit should apply but no one seems to know what that is.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
j b wrote:
brianatab wrote:
Time for everybody to get into the real world. Governments DO NOT have any money. Every penny they spend has to be raised by some form of taxation.

Not strictly true. Since the 2008 financial crisis the UK government has created a massive £900 billion through quantitative easing that wasn't balanced by taxation.

I agree that something feels wrong about it in intuitive "conservation of matter" terms. Maybe it will need taxation at some point in the future to stop adverse consequences (like runaway inflation) but nothing awful has happened yet.

You can be cynical and call it the Magic Money Tree, or use academic terminology and call it Modern Monetary Theory, but it does seem to be the case that a government that owns its own currency can create it when it needs to simply by telling the Bank of England to adjust its computer spreadsheet. I presume that some sort of limit should apply but no one seems to know what that is.


Not necessarily. It could be inflated away, or at least inflated to a level that it doesn't matter. 50 year gilts are at about 1.2% at the moment (they were lower last month). I know inflation is currently low, but that is because we're in crazy times, but if you assume that inflation over the same period was 2% (which is the target) then in real terms that £900bn is more like £300bn (using very crude maths) when it comes to repay/refinance, and all you've had to do is service the debt though taxation at £11bn a year. Inflation is eroding about £18bn a year off the real value of the debt, so you've effectively getting away with £7bn a year.
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j b wrote:
brianatab wrote:
Time for everybody to get into the real world. Governments DO NOT have any money. Every penny they spend has to be raised by some form of taxation.

Not strictly true. Since the 2008 financial crisis the UK government has created a massive £900 billion through quantitative easing that wasn't balanced by taxation.

I agree that something feels wrong about it in intuitive "conservation of matter" terms. Maybe it will need taxation at some point in the future to stop adverse consequences (like runaway inflation) but nothing awful has happened yet.

You can be cynical and call it the Magic Money Tree, or use academic terminology and call it Modern Monetary Theory, but it does seem to be the case that a government that owns its own currency can create it when it needs to simply by telling the Bank of England to adjust its computer spreadsheet. I presume that some sort of limit should apply but no one seems to know what that is.


Problem is it drives rampant commodity prices
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One thing is for sure...the 1% for NHS is 100% bad politics.
Very badly misjudged on so many levels.
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rungsp wrote:
One thing is for sure...the 1% for NHS is 100% bad politics.
Very badly misjudged on so many levels.


I couldn’t help thinking this may be a negotiating position.

So imagine if the government manage to double that to 2%. Wow how generous it looks they are doubling the offer.

Yet if they started with 2% the reaction by NHS and public would be pretty similar....
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@NickyJ, I suspect you’re right.
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NickyJ wrote:
rungsp wrote:
One thing is for sure...the 1% for NHS is 100% bad politics.
Very badly misjudged on so many levels.


I couldn’t help thinking this may be a negotiating position.

So imagine if the government manage to double that to 2%. Wow how generous it looks they are doubling the offer.

Yet if they started with 2% the reaction by NHS and public would be pretty similar....


Perhaps, but they have got the public mood very wrong if so.
1% says: "You got a load of Thursday night claps, and some old bloke walked up and down his garden fo you. What more do you expect??"
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RCN wants 12.5%. One extreme to the other. Labour says it's not for them to suggest a level Very Happy
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@Charliegolf, Wot, Labour not having a policy?! Very Happy
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brianatab wrote:
Time for everybody to get into the real world. Governments DO NOT have any money. Every penny they spend has to be raised by some form of taxation.


Not strictly true

Quote:
the state isn’t a household. It has far greater powers and an entirely different purpose. Unlike a household or business, it is almost impossible for the UK to go bankrupt because the UK controls its own currency. It can increase the amount of money in circulation to fund its own debt repayments.

It can even borrow money from itself (a substantial percentage of UK government “debt” is held by the Bank of England). In theory, the UK’s money supply is not unlimited because “printing money” can ultimately lead to inflation. Governments, however, can and do create huge amounts of money without triggering an inflationary reaction.

In 2020, for example, the Bank of England created £100 billion of new money, yet inflation remained at 0.8%. For this reason, investors are keen to buy government bonds even when state borrowing is high.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
2% is still misjudged
12.5% is equally so.

Pay up 5%...do the right thing.....and be seen to do the right thing politically...except that opportunity is now very tainted with the perception of another Rashford moment.
Honestly...these people are supposedly professional politicians, they never fail to act like total amateurs.
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ringingmaster wrote:
Problem is it drives rampant commodity prices

I deliberately didn't get on to that! Actually I don't know whether QE affects commodities but I am pretty sure it drives up asset prices.

The argument against governments creating money is that that causes inflation, which actually is another way of saying that they can't get away without taxing eventually to limit the effect. QE quite specifically injects money into the stock and bond markets: if you were to label the rise in asset prices "inflation" there would be pressure to counteract it. But everyone likes their share investments to go up in value (and attributes it to their good stock-picking, not QE), and the property value increases that follow on its coat tails.

The current question though is whether money creation (because that is where it has come from so far) to overcome the collapse in economic activity due to the pandemic will have an inflationary effect. It isn't entirely obvious that it will, and if so the expenditure needn't be balanced by taxes. And with quite a lot of businesses having collapsed or downsized, and many jobs lost, there is much more to be gained by stimulating the economy as we return to normal rather than hitting it with taxes.

@Timmycb5, I agree, inflation helps with redeeming debt. And @maggi, thanks for that quote which states what I was trying to say far more eloquently.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Charliegolf wrote:
Labour says it's not for them to suggest a level Very Happy


Labour says it's not for them to have a policy on anything.

It's not an opposition offering an alternative.

Labour has no identity at all and is scared of its own shadow.
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Timmycb5 wrote:
rungsp wrote:
It's also worth remembering that a huge proportion of Public Sector workers will get a pay rise....because their jobs have years-of-service increments that are entirely automatic.
Something very rare in the Private Sector.


The proportion of people with increments still to come is pretty small compared with people at the top of their scale. The standard number of increments is 4, so once you've been in post for 4 years, that's it, and it's fairly standard for people to remain in the same role for a long time in the public sector....

See here. Not sure if this is still current, but spine point rises still typically continue up to 5-8 years, although now not every year I think graduate nurses typically start in Band 5, and over 7 years they will still get a 20+% pay rise, on top of any 1% or whatever annual increase. (And that's assuming they don't get a band 6 job in that period, which many of them will). That still seems quite generous compared to many in the private sector. I agree that anyone on the top of their scale won't get anything extra, but they will have enjoyed some significant increases in the past.
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Just an observation, but haven't we gone a bit off topic? Very Happy
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To me the key argument here is that there are a huge number of nursing vacancies. There are issues other than pay but some of them are related to wider NHS funding. One front-line nurse in our family - a senior midwife - is very stressed and unhappy about the implications of chronic under-staffing. She is looking to transfer and become a sexual health specialist so she can do clinics, have a more predictable life, and will not have to spend any more 12 hour nightshifts dashing from labour room to labour room keeping too many balls in the air. She feels that they can no longer provide a good quality service - so job satisfaction is poor. A friend who is now past retirement age is still working in community midwifery, part time, because she loves it. She said there is NO WAY she would go back to working in hospital midwifery.
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MorningGory wrote:
Just an observation, but haven't we gone a bit off topic? Very Happy


It's a bit like Godwin's law. Any conversation, about any topic, will eventually turn into a debate about the pandemic.
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@telford_mike, This is about the nurses pay rise though!
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MorningGory wrote:
@telford_mike, This is about the nurses pay rise though!


It is now, but give it time... Toofy Grin
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I did think this earlier, but maybe there should be a thread for anything budget related:

so here we go...... https://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?p=4749864#4749864
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If I could just drift back to the thread... the answer is : nope not this year. Not a chance
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@Steilhang, to be pedantic, this season, may be possible to ski this year in December
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@Boris, ok, pedantry accepted.
If they havn't sorted this mess out by then I'm dumping the skis and taking up knitting.
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Still time if we get some snow at the end of this month. Eh oh!
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