Labours Magic Money Tree

Magic Money TreeThis alleged proof of Labours sense just convinces me they are actually as mad as a box of frogs.
Ignoring that a “fat cat” tax is to my mind immoral, and that reducing inheritance tax isn’t a give away it’s letting people do what they like with their own money – unless you think that everything you own belongs to the state at the moment of your death.
Charging VAT on private schools is also daft as people going to private schools are still paying in taxation for state schools they’re not using, the more people that pay for private education the more funds for state education we should be encouraging it as people opting out of state education will always save more than VAT on that opt out.

Tax avoidance isn’t illegal it’s following the law, they possibly meant tax evasion – but in either case either simplify the tax code or face the fact that governments are always trying to cut down on tax evasion and it rarely improves. Ditto with closing tax loopholes – I don’t believe that Labour are promising to simplify the tax code so this is the same Sisyphean task that every government says they’ll tackle.

So that leaves increasing corporation tax, increasing income tax, taxing offshore property and a robin hood tax .Which are far smaller targets.
Corporation tax is eventually paid by customers or shareholders (such as pensioners and investment funds) – so it might bring in more money for the state (which is arguable) but it’ll make us all worse off in the meantime.
Increasing income tax on the top 5% will probably see a shift in behavior and so not raise as much as is hoped and also again I’d question the morality of it, the top 5% already pay a high proportion of the taxes and bringing them ever closer to paying more in tax than in earnings again isn’t going to encourage anyone to have an income in the UK.
Tax on off shore property – the people most likely to be hit by this are those with holiday homes, people with serious property holdings will move them around and they’re likely paying local taxes on those properties already – how is it moral to tax something which costs this country nothing?
As to the robin hood tax far more informed people than I have already demolished this idea and it’s really a sure-fire way to destroy the UK’s financial industry especially when it’s allegedly already on the ropes due to Brexit.

So in summary Labours money tree is either impractical, immoral or ineffective.

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2 Responses to Labours Magic Money Tree

  1. Dan says:

    You’re preaching to the converted with me, but May has got herself in a pickle by her attempts to talk about the funding of old age care and the abolition of the winter fuel payment for the better off. Far better to just promise free stuff for everybody… paid for by somebody else.
    I’ll be voting for the candidate who supports either: 1/ The partial repeal of the smoking ban in pubs or 2/ The encouragement of privatising large parts of the NHS. Looks like another spoilt ballot paper. Having said that, if I lived in a marginal and not a solid Labour seat, I’d hold my nose and vote Tory. The consequences of Corbyn don’t bear thinking about.

    • Giolla says:

      I suspect I’ll be going down the spoilt ballot route but I’m in a safe Tory seat and I really couldn’t bring myself to vote for our sitting MP. It really is a piss poor choice this election and the Tories decisions are utterly baffling as really the election is theirs for the losing.