General Election 2019 - AND IT’S LIVE!

[oldbitterandgrumpy]

12 hours ago, oaksoft said:

You are justifying yourself here and it doesn't surprise me that your conscience is not bothering you.

If you're OK with being a hypocrite then I have no problem with that but you might want to remember that you are part of the problem as regards the housing crisis.

Personally I'd like to see tenants given a right to buy to stop all this greed.

 

The guy rents out a flat for less than market rate. 

I'm failing to see greed and hypocrisy there. 

[Fullerene]

51 minutes ago, Paco said:

 

 

This is both amazing and horrifying in equal measure. Angry man who claims to earn over £80k a year claims he isn’t in the top 50% of earners.

 

So more than half the population earn more than £80,000 a year.  That's amazing.

.. or maybe he has got his facts wrong!

[welshbairn]

27 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

Have Labour publicised the figure for the start of the 5% they're targeting?

According to this it's £75,000.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax

 

[Suspect Device]

Also read online that his extra tax wold be a £8 a month under Labour's plans.

Not exactly going to put him in the poor house if he's on £80k.

[Double Jack D]

3 hours ago, Paco said:

 

 

This is both amazing and horrifying in equal measure. Angry man who claims to earn over £80k a year claims he isn’t in the top 50% of earners.

 

Every now and again something pops up that brings my faith that everyone should be entitled to vote into doubt.

I had a similiar-ish debate with a Tory voting pal of mine who was adamant that the National debt was less than £50bn and the Tories were the only party that could be trusted on the economy.

I explained the difference between debt and deficit and that, since 2010, the Tories have added more to the national debt than every other govt combined in history. The response was, well Corbyns a terrorist!

The truth doesnt really matter in this election, I blame journalism for that!

[Pet Jeden]

2 hours ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

3 hours ago, Paco said:

This is both amazing and horrifying in equal measure. Angry man who claims to earn over £80k a year claims he isn’t in the top 50% of earners.

I don't know what's worse, his insistence that he isn't in the top 5%, the hopelessness of Fiona Bruce or the fact the BBC were tweeting this clip without commenting that he was in fact part of the 5%. Lots of people also wondering what kind of job he has that earns him 80 grand a year whist paying his taxes PAYE. Thought the Labour guy handled it pretty well although it would have been nice if he had used statistics to back it up.

The guy is bound to be in, or close to, the top 5% - for Income Tax. But he might not be as comfortable as you think if the job is insecure or fixed term ( I know, I know. What job is secure?) But. The biggest part of personal wealth these days is pensions and houses. Any long-serving public sector middle/senior manager with a pension of £25-30k pa (index linked and with a widows provision) has something that would cost £1m to buy. Anyone middle aged down south with their mortgage paid off has an asset worth at least £0.5m. And lets not forget successful skilled tradesmen getting paid cash or through their company, or "self-employed" IT contractors, (not to mention mediocre footballers) and  you can see what he is getting at. He's maybe not in the top% wealthy people. But he will be for income tax.

Interesting adverse the reaction this guy will get (although he was a wee bit unhinged) compared to the near silence that is meeting the GPs who are effectively working to rule because they don't like the higher tax rates that their £1m pension pots are tipping them into. But I suppose they are NHS and therefore nobody - particularly during an election campaign -  is allowed to criticise them. 

[Pet Jeden]

34 minutes ago, Double Jack D said:

Every now and again something pops up that brings my faith that everyone should be entitled to vote into doubt.

I had a similiar-ish debate with a Tory voting pal of mine who was adamant that the National debt was less than £50bn and the Tories were the only party that could be trusted on the economy.

I explained the difference between debt and deficit and that, since 2010, the Tories have added more to the national debt than every other govt combined in history. The response was, well Corbyns a terrorist!

The truth doesnt really matter in this election, I blame journalism for that!

tbf the last decade has been shaped by the bank bail outs (and our consistently unbalanced budgets up to that point) It was Labour's Alastair Darling who was at the helm for the banks' melt down and he did an excellent job in scary circumstances. I don't think you can fairly have a go at any chancellor in the 4-5 years following 07/08). The Tories finally got the annual defecit down from £150bn to £30bn. But any further reduction needs more taxes - which until Corbyn, even Labour governments, let alone Tory ones have been scared to advocate, or less spending - which triggers howls all round. So you can see how the easy, gutless option is just to pile the total debt on to our children's generation

Edited November 22, 2019 by Pet Jeden

[Cheese]

[Malky3]

1 hour ago, Pet Jeden said:

The guy is bound to be in, or close to, the top 5% - for Income Tax. But he might not be as comfortable as you think if the job is insecure or fixed term ( I know, I know. What job is secure?) But. The biggest part of personal wealth these days is pensions and houses. Any long-serving public sector middle/senior manager with a pension of £25-30k pa (index linked and with a widows provision) has something that would cost £1m to buy. Anyone middle aged down south with their mortgage paid off has an asset worth at least £0.5m. And lets not forget successful skilled tradesmen getting paid cash or through their company, or "self-employed" IT contractors, (not to mention mediocre footballers) and  you can see what he is getting at. He's maybe not in the top% wealthy people. But he will be for income tax.

Interesting adverse the reaction this guy will get (although he was a wee bit unhinged) compared to the near silence that is meeting the GPs who are effectively working to rule because they don't like the higher tax rates that their £1m pension pots are tipping them into. But I suppose they are NHS and therefore nobody - particularly during an election campaign -  is allowed to criticise them. 

I had to Google it last night when he claimed he wasn't iin the top 5% for income tax and I was quite surprised to discover he was. 

To my mind he had a point though. The headlines are all about taxing the rich and the examples that get cited are the Abramovichs of this world when the reality is they are going after construction contractors, engineers, head teachers, and GPs. Whilst the bar is set just above that of your average MP and it won't touch the wealthy business owners because they won't pay themselves enough in the UK through PAYE. 

[Paco]

 

This is a marvellous chart and really puts into context that Labour’s plans aren’t some sort of communist conspiracy - it’s middle of the road European.

[Cheese]

Folk on £80k + pleading poverty.

The same folk who think £15 quid an hour is too much for the working poor.

What a country.

[dirty dingus]

5 hours ago, Paco said:

 

 

This is both amazing and horrifying in equal measure. Angry man who claims to earn over £80k a year claims he isn’t in the top 50% of earners.

The guy has been getting pelters all over the usual social media sources. He's a TT racing driver and has a job in IT.

[Kejan]

28 minutes ago, dirty dingus said:

The guy has been getting pelters all over the usual social media sources. He's a TT racing driver and has a job in IT.

Just an even shitter Jude Apatow 

[Sergeant Wilson]

53 minutes ago, dirty dingus said:

He's a TT racing driver 

You need to be daft to do that.

[Pet Jeden]

2 hours ago, Paco said:

 

This is a marvellous chart and really puts into context that Labour’s plans aren’t some sort of communist conspiracy - it’s middle of the road European.

Yes but .......unlike the Germans and the Nordics, we are borrowing like idiots to meet even this level of spend.

[gaz5]

Folk on £80k + pleading poverty.
The same folk who think £15 quid an hour is too much for the working poor.
What a country.

Anyone earning that amount and pleading poverty deserves to be laughed at, but anyone claiming someone earning that much is "rich" is spouting the same nonsense.

Despite the guy coming across as a bit of a clown and definitely your standard "I'm alright Jack" type, he did have a point in there somewhere.

The proper "rich", who these kinds of policies claim to target, won't pay a single penny more in tax as s result because they're not daft enough to allow themselves to hit that level of PAYE in the first place. This isn't a tax on the rich, it's a tax on well paid middle class workers in certain fields.

Working in IT for 20 years I've known many contractors, fit example, who if you looked at them in tax terms would be paying tax on less than the average national wage while taking home the equivalent of 6 figures. HMRC are trying to stop that through IR35, but there's just one example of how people, for decades, have got around these things.

For someone employed and earning £80k through PAYE they are already paying the higher tax rate on ~50% of their earning, more if they are in Scotland and if you were unlucky enough to start that job after about 2003 in the private sector don't have that cushy final salary pension racking up either.

Personally, I wouldn't mind paying a little bit extra if lucky enough to be talking about those sorts of figures, but my issue is that it's an arbitrary number and doesn't take into account any individuals actual wealth while claiming to be a tax on the rich because that language wins votes.

The point that someone paying tax on a salary of £25k a year can be significantly "richer" then someone paying tax on a salary of £80k+ a year is 100% a valid one and I would wager far more common than a lot of people think.

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

The guy earns a 5 figure salary, so he's obviously minted.

[pandarilla]

He in the top 5% of earners but he doesn't feel like he's one of the super-rich because he's not.

It's not easy to get their fair share off them though, as they're hiring a team of accountants to avoid it (although I'm sure Corbyn and McDonnell will be trying their best).

The Labour panelist should've explained it better, and worked out what the guy was on about much sooner.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, dirty dingus said:

The guy has been getting pelters all over the usual social media sources. He's a TT racing driver and has a job in IT.

 

1 hour ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

You need to be daft to do that.

Are you suggesting @KnightswoodBear is loaded but daft?

If so, carry on. 

[welshbairn]

17 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

He in the top 5% of earners but he doesn't feel like he's one of the super-rich because he's not.

It's not easy to get their fair share off them though, as they're hiring a team of accountants to avoid it (although I'm sure Corbyn and McDonnell will be trying their best).

The Labour panelist should've explained it better, and worked out what the guy was on about much sooner.

Didn't watch it, but the panellists never get a chance to explain anything, just get shouted down by the audience or interrupted by Bruce. I'm assuming his tax will stay the same for everything he earns under £80,000, but rise from 40 to 45% for what he earns above? Hardly killing off incentive.

Edited November 22, 2019 by welshbairn