(I’d axe Trident, halve other military project spend, and take 10% off total NHS spending focused on end-of-life care: “no, you can’t have that £10,000 per dose drug which’ll keep you alive, bedridden & in pain for six months, but here’s a bed in a friendly hospice with an unlimited supply of self-administered morphine”)

(I’d axe Trident, halve other military project spend, and take 10% off total NHS spending focused on last-year-of-life care: “no, you can’t have that £10,000 per dose drug which’ll keep you alive, bedridden & in pain for six months, but here’s as much morphine as yo

The standard leftist response, which is to find new things tax, is just wasteful profligacy.

As a start, measuring services in terms of cash spent is utterly wrong. New computers aren’t rubbish because they cost less than they did ten years ago, and the NHS certainly hasn’t improved in line with expenditure.

Regarding the laffer curve, this is all irrelevant. Let’s assume some money is actually raised by this tax: all this means is that another transfer will have taken place from the productive side to the non-productive side of the economy. Labour has done tax increases to death, and to no avail. We simply can’t afford more of it.

The MOD accounts say “amounts spent on research are not capitalised, and certain development expenditure is expensed” (page 243). It is not easy to follow this in the accounts. As an example the F-35 aircraft carrier planes have £1.9 billion R&D spending before we order the first plane which provides a tangible capital asset, and it is not clear to me which budget covers this large amount of R&D.

It’s a fair question, but the answer lies in your assumption that the 4 billion spent by DFID actually ended up in the pockets of the worlds poorest people.

Instead I’d argue that historically the function of ‘aid’ spent by the UK government was largely about supporting corrupt governments that were strategic assets, providing a hidden subsidy to the likes of BAE systems and influencing the policies of receipient countries. I’ve no doubt that there are lots of well intentioned people in DFID, and that some of the aid projects achieved some good. But in a situation where cuts are needed I wouldn’t lose any sleep over losing the department if it meant some health and education services were saved.

Whatever you think of the Tories, if they manage, (however unlikely that is), to provide efficient services, this would be a good thing. Spending just to increase the size of the public sector is idiotic.

See page 5:

* “Huge uncertainty about how much people will reduce their taxable
income in response … Work less, retire earlier, emigrate, contribute more to pension or charity,
convert income to capital gains, incorporate, invest in tax avoidance…”
* “£2.4bn also ignores any effect on consumer spending … indirect tax revenues could fall by up to £1.5 billion”
* “This reform alone could actually cost money” (demonstrated on page 7)

Admittedly only about a few percent of taxpayers are up at these levels – and we obviously don’t care about these successful entrepreneurs, professionals, authors, sportsmen, etc – but there is also the iniquity of the 60% marginal tax rate from £100,000 to £112,950 (more if you include national insurance contributions). But the current government clearly doesn’t seem to mind tax rates at these levels – see the similar ridiculous marginal tax rates that apply as tax credits are withdrawn from millions of lower and middle earners – see the 70%+ and 90%+ effective rates on slide 11 from the presentation at http://www.ifs.org.uk/conferences/presentations/brewer_nzae_july08.ppt

“Cracking down” on tax havens, assuming that is even successful, would surely just add to the problem as it would just raise the real income tax for higher earners even further and more suddenly, creating more of a jolt in marginal income loss. All it takes is a few of these higher earners to leave or not work as much as they otherwise would have and you have cancelled out the benefits of the tax rise.

As JohnB has pointed out other taxes such as VAT and petrol/alcohol duty are paid out of income which has already been taxed. Also, a major part of many estates will comprise of a property on which there has been a substantial capital gain, and this will not have been taxed previously.

That needs unpacking.

What percentage of Estates are entirely exempt due to being passed e.g., from husband to wife?

Is it proposed to increase the tax to a point where partners of those who die will be forced to sell their houses in most circumstances?

“What else can we tax” is barking up the wrong tree.

M.

I don’t think history supports that statement, but I’d agree on the Command and Control point – which I would apply across the board. One of the places to start will be with the NHS, which means everything from GP salaries to looking at a more European model.

One problem was that once Mr Brown shugged off the “follow the Conservative” straighjacket he started measuring how much money he was throwing at things, not whether it was working.

If top rate tax increases will reduce tax take, then once again ideology is prioritised over reality.

I see no real reason to believe the budget figures on future tax take, since most of the forecast deficit and borrowing figures are likely to be fairy tales. I think they are simply inventing a basis to justify trying to avoid public service cuts this side of an election.

Politically I think that winning the next election would be more devastating for Lab than losing it – they may recover from the latter in a decade or so.

Did you read Dillow’s post?
Brown has left us with a 5.5% of GDP *structural* deficit, with debt/GDP forecast (optimistically) to rise to 80% of GDP.
Genius.

Read Willem Buiters pithy and devastating analysis:

http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/04/darling-is-doing-his-best-to-clean-up-browns-mess/

Also, I’m sure we could get some of this £12.7bn back if we cancelled CfH as well:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2008-07-08a.623.0

Here’s another £5bn we definitely shouldn’t spend:
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/media/press_releases/may_2008/m25

There’s plenty more roads schemes we could sensibly scrap, and save at least hundreds of millions by abolishing PFI, especially now we’re often double-underwriting it (RBS, Treasury).

A billion here, a billion there, it soon adds up to real money..

It isn’t that hard, really. I reckon it would take about an hour to find the best way to save that £118bn (although the tax ideas are interesting too, and should be deployed so we can spend more on useful stuff: anti-poverty measures, affordable housing, grid upgrades, public transport, etc).

“Politics of the surplus” – what?
Brown has never run a surplus has he?
That’s part of the problem.
He is a fool who really believed he had abolished bust.

I’m afraid I can’t see what the Fabians have to contribute to this debate whatsoever.
Your mindset simply cannot countenance the scale of cuts which will need to be made.

It’s clever politics but at best useless and maybe harmful – but that’s Gordon Brown all over.

You have a very strange idea of how people behave. The very rich – earning millions – may well employ expensive advisers, but most people earning around or just above the new 50% band (including me if you want me to declare an interest) do not. I don’t even maximise the simple breaks such as pension contributions. One reason is a bit of laziness, but another is a view that 40% is not unreasonable.

But you can be sure of one thing now, while I am unlikely to leave the country, I will take every step to minimise my tax bill from now on. I’m pretty sure that I can get my bill lower than it is now, even with the 50% rate, and I have been given a big incentive to do so. Not through “loopholes” – just through doing some obvious things.

So of course Dillow is right: there simply aren’t enough rich to soak, and the more you try to soak the fewer there will eventually be.

In addition to the obvious – ID cards, NHS computer (if it’s not too late), slash quangos – I would cut public sector pay across the board in some tiered way: above 100k 15% cut, above 50k 10% cut, below 50k 5% cut or something along those lines. We see employees in private firms taking cuts to maintain employment – the same needs to apply to the public sector. Hell, public sector employment has risen over the past year – how on earth is that justified, let alone afforded??

Anything else is just tinkering.

Brown has got us here – in a way I want him to stay to fix his own mess.
But I would rather see him at the bottom of the sea.

Because people have already paid taxes on them before, and getting taxed twice for the same money is extremely unsavoury?

@5, exactly how does taking gbp4bn per year away from the world’s poorest people meet leftist objectives?

Yes, let’s shut down Switzerland. And companies that relocate abroad, taking jobs with them, should be forced to stay here. We can chain them to their desks. Grrr.

Also from ‘The Prince’:

“Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.”

Perhaps not exactly a textbook we wish our leaders to follow. Although we can probably name a few who’ve done just this.