Wondered why you are increasingly feeling skint

...at the same time as Gordon Brown spouts about how well you are all doing?

Well the OECD has found the answer. Took a lot of research of course but they came up with much the the same conclusion as every pub conversation in the country:

.....single-earner married couples with two children have had what the OECD calls the "tax wedge" taken from their earnings increase over the past five years from 25.1 per cent to 27.8 per cent. (By contrast, the figure in the United States is 11.7 per cent.) And this, of course, is only the increase in direct taxation: it does not take into account Mr Brown's stealth taxes, such as fuel duties and stamp duty on property, or the huge increases in council tax (which has nearly doubled on average in 10 years) that have been a direct result of his deliberate foisting of more and more expenditure on to local government.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=V01TXLNFH4J1RQFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/opinion/2007/03/02/dl0201.xml


Why?

Because huge public spending requires equally huge taxation.

Governments tend to run things badly.

Control freak "big" socialist Governments the world over always run things really badly especially if they try their hand at social engineering via taxation and welfare policy. Ultimately they always fail.

Politicians, special advisers and the new breed of civil servants are useless managers because they do not know how to run real things. They mostly have no practical experience of them. Their key skill is talk about such things and raise their own profile within "big" government by trying to create positive headlines for their ultimate political masters.

The extra taxes raised are largely wasted on politically inspired projects & quick fixes and increasingly misdirected into the running of an ever growing "big" Government.

Big, self interested and self serving bureacracies always gets in the way of the provision of the basic front line services the taxpayer thinks they are paying for.

Sound familiar?

 

We all know the government WASTE public money on grand adventures and projects which are crap.

I have worked for local government and witnessed millions being spent on useless projects.

We all know this, but what can we do.

I want all those old cronies who are gonna croak soon out of the office, stick young 'normal' people (who do actually want to change our country) in. Get rid of the people we dont want in the country. If we withdraw benefit money from people who were not born in this country and who should not be here, drug dependants, bring back the rope - no longer pay for their food, new pants, books etc etc and ffreeing up jail space - won't need money for more). I have so many RIGHT ideas. I could change this country, but I can't be bothered to listening to people whining.

By using my RIGHT approach there will be more money in the pot for pay increases, ability to climb the property ladder, the less fortunate, better infrastructure.

You can't please everyone, but you have to please the majority!

 

ill vote for you..

 

One vote, we're getting closer to luxury - can you feel it.

 

and here was me putting it down to the wife and two rugrats...

 

Your mixing up stealth tax with sex tax!!!!!

 

Vote for Marker now!!

 

Nah, its a chav tax. Most of our money goes into the welfare state, i've got no problem with the country looking after people but it seems the workshy long term unemployed and people off sick for no reason are sucking us dry.

also as we have to jail more and more of the chavs and criminals we pay for it costs money to fund the criminal justice system which is about as efficient as a chocolate tea pot.

We have to pay for the NHS which wastes money on druggies and alchoholics. Not to mention the people who don't look after themselves.

But, they vote for liebour as it keeps them in fags and Orangeboom lager, hence the record spending to fight child, i mean chav poverty.

 

The comparison between the UK and the USA is unfair - given we provide totally different public services compared to the US (healthcare, educaton differences etc)
The gap between rich and poor is far higher in the USA than the UK. Having said that the "assault" on the working (note working, not lower) classes and middle classes of this country is well documented and has to stop.
These "stealth" taxes are typical telegraph material; they were put in place by the Tory Goverment, and you'll find that in the 10 years Labour have been in power they have actually frozen the fuel escalator and despite recent rises in VED they are still below inflation.
My missus wasn't born here - she's currently temping - if the work dried up would you kick her out despite the contribution she's made to this country?
May i also remind you that some of the policies you discuss saw 3 million unemployed, privatisation (monopoly) of the water companies, privatisation of the energy industry, deregulation of the bus companies (costing councils and the public more than ever before) and the farce that was privatising the railways.

The public sector has many inadequacies and privatisation helped raise money to pay off the huge national debt; and why shouldn't the telephone service have been privatised?

Also, do you disagree that everyone in this country has the same basic right to a health service? I would not deny someone less fortunate than myself healthcare, because who knows, in 20 years it may be their taxes paying for my problem? There is no doubt in my mind, having experienced the NHS under both governments, that while the NHS is not effecient with the money it is given, that it has caused many problems with regards to staffing levels etc - that the NHS has lower waiting times and a better quality of service now under Labour, and that matters to me

 

If you actually add up all the taxes you pay; direct tax, national insurance, road tax, VAT, fuel duty, alcohol duty, tobacco duty, stamp duty, death duty, travel tax, corporation tax (passed on to the individual), council tax, parking meters, business rates, speeding fines, parking fines, TV licence, tax on interest and all the other taxes, you will find that your actual annual outgoings on taxes is between 70% and 90% over the spread of your life (and death).

What I would like to see is the OECD calculate the total figure figure for your average joe and break it down.

 

Are we classing fines as a tax?? I object to the classing of speeding fines and parking fines as a tax - as they are avoidable and only issued in the case of breaking the law! Parking meters... fair enough in a way, but many car parks are private owned.
You reckoned 70-90%, well, in France top rate income tax is 74%, and they have a "wealth tax". Other taxes are lower yes, but I think it shows that we're in the right kind of area for other governments that provide a service for their citizens; just they do it better in many ways

 

No, she can stay. If you weren't getting any you'd be really 'Crabby'.

 

You sound like you think it is reasonable for the people of a country to pay 74% of their hard earned income on god-knows-what. Junior doctors have got no jobs, hospitals are closing, roads are in a terrible state, crime is almost out of contol, the forces are completely under-funded, government computer systems years overdue, over budget and don't work, loads of VAT is given away to Brussels for precisely f-all, there are less parking spaces in towns than ever before so they can increase the 'take', more stupid laws, millions of immigrants, no border controls, devolution, millions spent on extra parliaments and 'assemblies' for f-all, completely over-paid and corrupt politicians . . .

Can someone please tell me if there is anything our taxes are paying for that is actually effective and efficient, because I'm at a loss to see it. Apart from the Parking Warden schemes of course, we all know that they run like a well oiled machine that, had it been a military force, would be the envy of the world.

 

Before I start, let me assure you that I am no fan of Blair or Browne; and am very very wary indeed of Brown.

However; yes I do think it's acceptable for 74% to go on such things. The money goes to providing a service. We could contribute say 44%, but then would have to contribute to private pension funds, private hospital insurance etc etc (which people do do - because they can afford to, it's a luxury item). If we were paying privately for all the services the government provides it'd be about the same amount wouldn't it?

Hospitals have more money than they ever did; but they are badly managed and for that reason there are many junior doctors, physios and nurses out there who expected jobs and are now unemployed. Bad management right through - but a private company may be no different.

Crime out of control? I disagree. Statistics can be misleading in showing crime falling - but quite honestly I feel as safe now as I ever have. The type and location of crime flucuates; but the Daily Hate would have us believing we're all drowning in a sea of crime.

Parking in town/city centres; purely to reduce traffic congestion and improve the environment. I fully support it - I want my town/city centre back, clean air, streets for people to walk on. If people want to drive they can park on the outside of the city (as in, edge of the business district) in a car park and walk in. Pedestrianisation has been a nightmare in some areas (Oxford anyone?) but in others it's really imrpoved quality of life. Think of the number of people getting into a town/city centre, if there was spaces available in the centre everyone would go for those (just like spaces on the ground floor/nearest the exit) as people don't want to walk far. This isn't some mass consipiracy you know!

Problem with devolution is?

Millions of illegal immigrants - do you actually get all your news from the Daily Hate?

VAT does not go to Brussels. However, we do give money to Brussels, and in a fit of ineffeciency they give most of it back. However, the EU is instrumental in improving living standards across the EU - helping poorer regions (like cornwall and the orkneys) and having the power to prosecute those that would cause massive environmental damage (by that you can include human health).

66% pay increase for politicians - overpaid. Corrupt, some probably. Arrses, some, definitely. There are good politicians other there. I wouldn't vote for you though

Our forces are poorly treated and underfunded and it should be to the eternal shame of our Government AND our public that this has come about.

Finally though "The people get the Government they deserve". Our Government is just a reflection of today's society, not the power that moulded it. If our society is a reflection of any government then it would be the government in power when today's youths' parents were being brought up - that saw a decline in value and respect that has come out so forcefully in their children. I work with children and I am truely shocked at their behaviour, it makes absolutely no sense. In part I think they are spoilt.

 

Oddly enough, the official rate of inflation has stayed at roughly 3% all this time...

Could it be that Joe Public's cost of living wage increases are tied to the official rate of inflation? This would go a long way to explain why I'm feeling increasingly skint.

Perhaps a senior member of the CBI or Chief Executive (annual salary averaging £600k, http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/facts/UK/index41.aspx?ComponentId=12619&SourcePageId=18129) would like to explain how this works?

'Politics of Envy' or 'Visceral Hatred of Hypocrisy'? Cast your votes now...