Does anyone agree with taking money off the poor to give to the rich?

[SevenRivers 10]

With the latest announcement of £10 billion pounds worth of cuts to the welfare bill (the recipients of whicha re the poorest in society) following closely on from the reduction in tax rates for the richest people I'm wondering if anyone actually supports this policy and if they do why?

 

This has got to be the most grotesque government in my living memory (even worse than Thatcher) and I just don't understand why people could support these policies.

 

The well-off Bankers caused the deficit, why should Benefit claimants be made to pay for their errors?

 

I don't agree with taking peoples' earnings off them full stop, and if it has to be, it should be as little as absolutely necessary.

 

Not everybody of considerable wealth is a banker. Some are engineers, entertainers, scientists, entrepeneurs et al.

[Anna Glypta 10]

I didn't say I'd sell any of the assets off, you mentioned the debt we've got and I pointed out the increased wealth during this period.

 

But should the politicians discover the bottle to tackle people other than the poorest why not sell off all the Council Houses, they'll have gone up in value considerably and I;m sure people would buy them at the right price. There are lots of other things we could sell off to raise money and avoid these cuts.

 

Alternatively why not tax the profit made by people on the huge increases in property value, they haven't done anything to earn it so we won't get the I worked damn hard for this argument.

 

So to sum up you don't have a clue.

[*_ash_* 88]

It isn't that difficult really, you could sell off some of the assets we currently have or tax the profits/wealth people have accrued over this time.

 

I didn't say I'd sell any of the assets off, you mentioned the debt we've got and I pointed out the increased wealth during this period.

 

 

-

 

Anyway, (non-bold) - you know that the 'accrued wealth' over this time was within property prices yeah?

 

So how do you get money out of this house price boom? (which is where the most of the accrued wealth is).

 

Let's say 2 people own a mortgage on a house currently worth £200,000.

 

One bought the house for £100,000 in 2000.

the other bought the house for £200,000 in 2010.

 

The first one has made a profit out of the boom [if they sell and take the equity], the second one hasn't.

 

Show me the fair mathematical taxation equation that would make the profiteers from this boom pay their fair share, and I'll buy you a drink.

 

You're going to have to point out that if you say 'well, 10% tax on the 2000 buyer is a fair amount', that they could not sell their own house in today's prices and buy the same property - meaning they are losing out by 10%. That would discriminate every single householder who bought before/during the boom. That would be what, 60% of householders? I'd like to see this work. Show me the numbers

 

- I await the illogical response, that Anna made to this point a couple of months ago.

[Titanic99 10]

So to sum up you don't have a clue.

 

Apologies for writing what is beyond your comprehension!

 

If you'd care to tell me the bits you're struggling with then I'll try and explain them in a more simplistic manner,

[Titanic99 10]

 

-

 

Anyway, (non-bold) - you know that the 'accrued wealth' over this time was within property prices yeah?

 

So how do you get money out of this house price boom? (which is where the most of the accrued wealth is).

 

Let's say 2 people own a mortgage on a house currently worth £200,000.

 

One bought the house for £100,000 in 2000.

the other bought the house for £200,000 in 2010.

 

The first one has made a profit out of the boom [if they sell and take the equity], the second one hasn't.

 

Show me the fair mathematical taxation equation that would make the profiteers from this boom pay their fair share, and I'll buy you a drink.

 

You're going to have to point out that if you say 'well, 10% tax on the 2000 buyer is a fair amount', that they could not sell their own house in today's prices and buy the same property - meaning they are losing out by 10%. That would discriminate every single householder who bought before/during the boom. That would be what, 60% of householders? I'd like to see this work. Show me the numbers

 

- I await the illogical response, that Anna made to this point a couple of months ago.

 

Well thank you for acknowledging the increased wealth of quite a few people during Labours tenure, now let's see if we can take some of it from the individuals who've benefitted from doing nothing in order to avoid cutting the income of the poorest.

 

If we accept that a lot of people have a lot of unearned money in their property, then let's tax this. This could be on inheritance, or by enforced equity release schemes that frees a carefully calculated percentage of the increase in value to go to the Chancellor immediately and is deducted from the value of hte property upon death.

 

This way some of those that benefitted under the Labour administration for doing nothing are asked to take a bigger percentage of the burden and it would hit those who made the most the hardest.

[L00b 441]

Alternatively why not tax the profit made by people on the huge increases in property value.

No profit is made whatsoever until and unless a property is sold (and provided of course it sells for more than it was bought for - that's ever less of a certainty since 2008 ).

 

Until then, it's just a meaningless 'paper gain' barely worthy of a pub discussion.

 

Newsflash: such profits are taxed at the time of a sale, and have been for a long time now. It's called capital gains tax, have a look

Edited October 13, 2012 by L00b
typos - my cursor is not showing for some reason

[Titanic99 10]

No profit is made whatsoever until and unless a property is sold (and provided of course it sells for more than it was bought for - that's ever less of a certainty since 2008 ).

 

Until then, it's just a meaningless 'paper gain' barely worthy of a pub discussion.

 

Newsflash: such profits are taxed at the time of a sale, and have been for a long time now. It's called capital gains tax, have a look

 

Following a recent bereavement I've just inherited (along with other beneficiaries) a fairly significant amount of money, I did absolutely nothing to earn that money yet I've benefitted considerably.

 

I won't pay any inheritance tax on it as it is below the thresholds.

 

Why do so many people on here demonise the unemployed when so many others are receiving considerably more from doing absolutely nothing and following on from this then let's reduce the levels at which you pay Inheritance Tax and use this additional revenue to partially address the budget deficit.

 

By the way I wouldn't mind some of this "paper gain" you refer to coming my way if you don't want your share.

[Conrod 10]

. . .. now let's see if we can take some of it from the individuals who've benefitted from doing nothing in order to avoid cutting the income of the poorest.

 

If we accept that a lot of people have a lot of unearned money in their property, then let's tax this. This could be on inheritance, or by enforced equity release schemes that frees a carefully calculated percentage of the increase in value to go to the Chancellor immediately and is deducted from the value of hte property upon death. . . .

Nice choice of words: "let's see if we can take some of it".

 

Think real terms though. There are plenty of families on moderate or low incomes in relatively exensive properties, especially in the South East.

 

So, imagine somebody living in a modest semi in Ealing, husband and wife shop workers, in a house the family has lived in since the war when their parents had it. Due to property inflation its paper value (meaningless to the people who just want to continue living in it) had gone up from £250k in 2000 to £500k in 2012.

 

They don't have £25k to pay the envy tax, unless they sell the house. Is that fair?

[Cyclone 10]

Well thank you for acknowledging the increased wealth of quite a few people during Labours tenure, now let's see if we can take some of it from the individuals who've benefitted from doing nothing in order to avoid cutting the income of the poorest.

House price inflation didn't benefit anyone and in reality it didn't increase anyones wealth.

If someone owned 1 house in 1995 and they still own 1 house now, then they are no more or less wealthy than they were, unless you're suggesting that they can live in 0 houses and realise the change in the value?

 

If we accept that a lot of people have a lot of unearned money in their property, then let's tax this.

This is an incredibly stupid idea.

When the value of housing went up where were people to find money to pay this tax? They weren't earning extra money, indeed they could even have been the precious poor people who you don't think should pay for anything, so all this policy would do would be to cause people to loose their homes due to an unasked for housing price boom that labour encouraged.

This could be on inheritance

Inheritance tax already exists.

, or by enforced equity release schemes that frees a carefully calculated percentage of the increase in value to go to the Chancellor immediately and is deducted from the value of hte property upon death.

Equity release? So you're going to force people to mortgage their home to pay a tax on an unasked for increase in value.

 

This way some of those that benefitted under the Labour administration for doing nothing are asked to take a bigger percentage of the burden and it would hit those who made the most the hardest.

The only people who benefited would have owned more than 2 houses, the vast majority of people who only own one house didn't benefit at all.

[SevenRivers 10]

Following a recent bereavement I've just inherited (along with other beneficiaries) a fairly significant amount of money, I did absolutely nothing to earn that money yet I've benefitted considerably.

 

I won't pay any inheritance tax on it as it is below the thresholds.

 

Why do so many people on here demonise the unemployed when so many others are receiving considerably more from doing absolutely nothing and following on from this then let's reduce the levels at which you pay Inheritance Tax and use this additional revenue to partially address the budget deficit.

 

By the way I wouldn't mind some of this "paper gain" you refer to coming my way if you don't want your share.

 

I trust you will be voluntarily donating this money to the Exchequer, since you did nothing to earn it?

[Conrod 10]

Following a recent bereavement I've just inherited (along with other beneficiaries) a fairly significant amount of money, I did absolutely nothing to earn that money yet I've benefitted considerably.

 

I won't pay any inheritance tax on it as it is below the thresholds.

 

Why do so many people on here demonise the unemployed when so many others are receiving considerably more from doing absolutely nothing and following on from this then let's reduce the levels at which you pay Inheritance Tax and use this additional revenue to partially address the budget deficit.

 

By the way I wouldn't mind some of this "paper gain" you refer to coming my way if you don't want your share.

If somebody buys you a pint, should you pay tax on it? After all, you didn't earn it.

 

Inheritances have already been taxed; the person who died and left the inheritance paid tax on it when it was earned. Inheritance tax is entirely unfair because it is taxing the same income twice - it's driven by pure undiluted politics of envy. There should be no inheritance tax.

[Anna Glypta 10]

Apologies for writing what is beyond your comprehension!

 

If you'd care to tell me the bits you're struggling with then I'll try and explain them in a more simplistic manner,

 

Well that's pretty easy.

 

First you neglected to tell us how you were going to tax Lewis Hamilton who was reported this week to be earning £20 million/year on his new contract.

 

Then you failed to say how you would tax folk on this notional increase in the value of their property.

 

Lets take an example.

 

A guy puts down a deposit on his first house in 1980 for £50K. He lives there for 5 years paying a mortgage at an inflated rate of interest. He then gets divorced and moves to another house that he buys for £80K taking out a 100% mortgage. He remarries and they move house a few more times and now he lives in a £200K house on which he owes £180K.

 

How much tax is he required to pay?

 

Then we can get onto the guy who buys a derelict barn and rebuilds it.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Anna Glypta