Tax wealth, scrap disability cuts

Two things you don’t address in this overly simplistic anrticle Anthony: the enormous cost of wilful benefit fraud, and the Laffer curve.

The UK's social security spending is just over the OECD average:

The reason we don't get a wealth tax is because people insist on calling it a wealth tax which is a gift to those who don't want change. If the focus instead was on fair taxation for all it would be much harder for the Sunaks to argue their 22% effective tax rate vs the 33% paid by the Starmers is justified. Closing this gap is a de facto wealth tax that the Telegraph can't weaponise because it's based on fairness not envy.

Well here in Wales we have a "Government" that can afford tens of millions on scarcely used bike lanes, millions on narrowing perfectly good roads, millions on roadsigns that blight that cities and beautiful countryside and thousands of pounds on trees for other countries. Pointless Welsh Government on line promotional adverts that change nothing while our rivers, beaches and towns and cities are polluted with sewage and litter with little recourse. To top that off, the hugely expanded costly Senedd goes ahead at our expense, so we have six MS's per constituency, which is equivalent of 2,500 MP's in London.

Correct. We need an honest conversation about what the state can afford. Not this recycled rhetoric and Jane Hutt’s circular consultations. We will, of course, not get it.

How about a substantial cut in MPs and lords wages, allowances and expenses!! These people are living in the land of milk and honey and know absolutely bugger all about surviving in the real world. Wouldn't it be nice if the general public could make up rules and cuts that only applies to politicians, lawmakers, royalty, the stinking idle rich etc instead of them ruling and robbing us all the time!! Why do we let this 5% screw us all the time?

I genuinely can't believe there are many people who want to see disability benefits cut. But the rising costs projected by the OBR showed annual government spending would have risen by a further 35 billion per year by the end of the parliament. This is an incredible sum of money to find, and particularly challenging when government finances are the worst they've been for a long time. Every school, council and hospital would have faced budget cuts to fill the Black Hole created by additional spending on disability and incapacity benefits! A wealth tax might well be a solution but the current government has no mandate to implement one. As mentioned earlier this is not a tax which can be prepared and implemented in a matter of weeks - it takes detailed planning and consultation, otherwise there would be plenty of loopholes and unintended consequences

I wonder whether the deep rooted dependency culture suits governments in that they have created a means of controlling a part of the population while giving the rest something to moan about thus distracting them from ever thinking clearly about what should really change. I brand myself as socially conservative but find this victimization of people who genuinely need a "safety net" repugnant. Why haven't successive governments been more assertive in their pursuit of those who are fiddling the benefits system ? At the same time they could have been working out ways of reducing and ultimately erasing all those loopholes that enable seriously rich types to duck and dive and evade bearing their share of the tax burden. Instead we are steadily shifting the balance in a direction of which Trump and co would be proud.

Yeah it just feels like another canary down the mine. Gives me the sick feeling in the pit of the stomach that the West (if not global civilization) is about to collapse. It's beyond shocking at this point. It's expected that the people in power have no interest whatsoever in running a country and seem to be just squeezing as much out of the system for themselves as possible before breaking point occurs and the disenfranchised masses turns into the angry mob with pitch forks. Which I think is not too far away. People who support this kind of treatment of their fellow citizens are either mad or have something to gain. Stupidity isn't an arguable defense anymore. It's too obvious. Politicians aren't even bothering to lie anymore. Its just an utter lack of acknowledgement of what the public want and blatant, unapologetic disregard for rights and law and other people's money. It's sick. England is too entangled with the US to get away from them even if they wanted to. The rest of the world is backing away from that country because they have really shown their weakness recently. That country is economically ruined. It can't support it's own weight anymore, and England and extention the UK is pretty much just an annexed state within it thanks to our own foolish decisions. Yeah, its time for Wales to show some backbone. Like Canada, like Europe. It's time to stand up and say, 'eff you and eff your outdated, 1980's, yuppy, 'greed is good', proven wrong hyper-capitalist model'. It's time to actually invest into our country, not just say we're going to invest while pocketing the pennies from the donation box. Social welfare and a function go hand in hand. Fact. If that doesn't suit some people, tough! It's the truth so get over it, get over yourselves and try developing a sense of morality and some basic intelligence. You can't hoard everything and expect society to continue unaffected. It doesn't work that way. Ridiculous era we're in.

If rich people do go abroad do they still own assets within this country and therefore be due to taxation in this country where the income was earned. If this is not possible, then it will involve a change in the law to state that if you earn income in a country then you must be registered in the country and pay taxes due there too.

The real question is why are we paying £30 billion a year interest on money created out of thin air during quantitative easing. This serves no purpose other than enriching private banks for doing nothing. The European Central Bank doesn't do this and nor does the bank of Japan. That is more than enough money to reverse the counter productive Pips cuts.