Hospice Care In Danger Of Collapse Due To Rising Costs

[GabrielC]

3 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

Yes it's all a wonderful theory but just how exactly do you "spread the wealth".

 

Say if my corporation earned a million pounds and the law said I was compelled to pay 20% taxes on that. How exactly are you going to force me to "spread out" or "give away" or "share" some of that 80% remainder. It's mine.  

You do it though a fair tax system something the Tories are not into hence why their money is in a  tax heaven. Panama Papers scandal showed the full scale of it.

[El Cid]

2 minutes ago, GabrielC said:

You do it though a fair tax system something the Tories are not into hence why their money is in a  tax heaven. Panama Papers scandal showed the full scale of it.

I dont understand international taxes enough to comment in detail, unlike others. But I do know that Amazon are very good at avoiding tax and they can do that because they have offices all around the world.

I know they avoided tax by being based in Luxembourg as much as posible.

Corporate tax rates in Luxembourg are set at 7%

[Delbow]

32 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

Oh yes, how original. Makes you wonder why nobody has thought of that before. It's all so simple....

 

The rich and the corporations do pay their tax. How many more times have I got to say this. They pay what the law states they have to pay. Just like anyone else they are not going to be morally blackmailed into voluntarily paying more than they have to. It's business.

 

As per usual, you'll jump to the simplistic "tax-rich arguement".  But how about some other factors like the NHS stopping their mass waste every year on 1001 quangos and pen pushers and auxiliary services that it shouldn't be dealing with.  How about they kerb the unions and stop these ridiculous stoppages and strikes and inflation busting unreasonable paid demands that come along seemingly bi-annually.  How about charging patients for malingering or self-inflicted injuries or failing to follow advice or abusing the system or time wasting using up precious resources that could be better spent on other things.....

 

Let's start with a bit of that.

Moral vacuum.

[peak4]

22 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

Yes it's all a wonderful theory but just how exactly do you "spread the wealth".

 

Say if my corporation earned a million pounds and the law said I was compelled to pay 20% taxes on that. How exactly are you going to force me to "spread out" or "give away" or "share" some of that 80% remainder. It's mine.  

I believe it's the government of the day who decides that this corporation is due 20% tax, so they could set a higher figure if they chose. No-one is telling the corporation how to spend the rest.

The UK has a very high level of income inequality compared to other developed countries.
The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK    The Equality Trust

By 2023, the richest 50 families in the UK held more wealth than half of the UK population, comprising 33.5 million people.

If the wealth of the super rich continues to grow at the rate it has been, by 2035, the wealth of the richest 200 families will be larger than the whole UK GDP.

 

The NHS, surprisingly to some, spends less on admin than many other developed countries.
Just maybe if we spent a bit more on high quality admin and organisation, then we could use that admin spend better and more efficiently, rather than constantly firefighting.  

Comparing the NHS to the health care systems of other countries: five charts    Kings Fund

[ECCOnoob]

1 hour ago, GabrielC said:

You do it though a fair tax system something the Tories are not into hence why their money is in a  tax heaven. Panama Papers scandal showed the full scale of it.

What is a "fair tax system". There are legal ways to avoid tax which individuals use all the time just as much as corporations do. The only differentials is the scale and the amounts involved.  

 

If you are going to close loopholes and make it totally fair it has to be across the board.

 

So if you are going to stop tax offsetting or jurisdictional switching or charitable donations or reallocating profits to stop corporations avoiding their tax, it's only fair that of course individuals get barred from offsetting tax through their pension contributions or avoiding capital gains tax through ISA services and trusts or avoiding inheritance tax by applying spousal thresholds or early gifting assets to children or clumping down on unregistered home businesses, reselling schemes, serial ebayers and penalising people for use of cash in hand off the books discounting.... 

 

Fair right? 

 

[ECCOnoob]

1 hour ago, peak4 said:

I believe it's the government of the day who decides that this corporation is due 20% tax, so they could set a higher figure if they chose. No-one is telling the corporation how to spend the rest.
 

Yes they can. But that comes with its own consequences which have to be taken into account.  How much do you think it could be increased by before a company decides they've had enough and will go elsewhere where the rate is lower. That is the nature of business and being on global marketplace. Unless you are going to get a universal tax rate that all countries agree to, it's never going to happen. 

 

People are telling the corporations how to spend the rest all the time. They do it whenever they scream over simplistic guff like "tax the rich corporations".   Fact is they ARR being taxed. They are paying what the law states them to pay.

 

The fat remains that has to be savings in other ways. Let's take the 2023 NHS budget. 40% of that budget was just on staffing costs. That equates to £72 billion before so much as a cotton swab or bedpan was purchased.  You're telling me that's not right for some cost cutting there? I wonder how much of that 72 billion of being diverted towards carers or hospices. 

 

People keep banging on about fairness but how about another scenario. The fact that many of those extremely wealthy people who are being bullied into paying more into the system are the ones who are least going to use it. Many of the extremely wealthy have their own private doctors, their own private clinics and private nurses.  

 

What about those others less wealthy who have paid into the system for years, worked hard all their lives to build up some modest assets but  eventually end up paying £100s a week in a care home, receiving the exactly the same treatment in exactly the same facility as someone in the bed next to them who was wasted their life, played the system, spent years on the dole not paying and contributing and yet there they are same treatment, same facility getting their care funded by the state. 

 

Fair?  Moral? Equal? 

Edited May 7 by ECCOnoob

[GabrielC]

6 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

What is a "fair tax system". There are legal ways to avoid tax which individuals use all the time just as much as corporations do. The only differentials is the scale and the amounts involved.  

 

If you are going to close loopholes and make it totally fair it has to be across the board.

 

So if you are going to stop tax offsetting or jurisdictional switching or charitable donations or reallocating profits to stop corporations avoiding their tax, it's only fair that of course individuals get barred from offsetting tax through their pension contributions or avoiding capital gains tax through ISA services and trusts or avoiding inheritance tax by applying spousal thresholds or early gifting assets to children or clumping down on unregistered home businesses, reselling schemes, serial ebayers and penalising people for use of cash in hand off the books discounting.... 

 

Fair right? 

 

It's up to the government to set up a fair tax system you always get people ( like the Tories) to dodge tax it's human nature. 

[hackey lad]

Obviously this has turned into another Tory knocking thread by the usual suspects but were Hospices treat better by  Labour  governments ? Honest question . 

[GabrielC]

29 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Obviously this has turned into another Tory knocking thread by the usual suspects but were Hospices treat better by  Labour  governments ? Honest question . 

Yes there was more funding under Labour not just for hospice care. What has happened is costs have been allowed to get out of control the government could have put on price capes but didn't. Fuel, food, water, electronic and gas have skyrocketed but the government funding has stayed the same. The short fall is getting worse  resulting in bed closures at a time NHS needs more beds that are taken up by patients who could be transferred. If no help is found hospices around the country will close. 

 

 

 

 

[peak4]

England’s adults’ hospices have faced a real-terms cut in their Government funding of £47m in the past two years, according to new data from Hospice UK.

Insufficient NHS funding means many hospices are struggling to keep up with inflation and rising costs.

Hospice UK has gathered data from Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) across England which shows that there is not a single part of the country where Government funding of local hospice services has not fallen in real terms in the last two years.

 

Report finds current set up of hospice funding 'not fit for purpose'    The actual APPG report is available from the next link

A new report by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Hospice and End of Life Care has found that despite a law passed in 2022, the way hospice services are commissioned in England is not fit for purpose.

As a result, the cross party group of MPs found that services hospices provide for dying people and their families, and the support they provide to the health system, are at risk.