Another 3 pence in august what gives?
Discussion
I actually don't care about this. Here is why:
Years ago, Tony Blair was talking about 'Joined up Policy / Thinking'. We couldn't get our Daughter in a decent school as the Local Education Authority, deemed the local (very bad and officially 'failing') school as good enough. We had to drive her accross the county to a decent school, she did well and subsequently left University with a First Class Degree in a Science subject. I didn't want my family hurt in an accident with an unlicensed pondlife drunk and uninsured driver, so we used a Gas Guzzling 4 x 4 for the trip, rather than a 'City Car'. So our carbon footprint was bigger than it needed to be as the Government weren't dealing with shambolic schools our daughter could have walked to and folk on the roads who seem to survive outside of the law and get away with it.
I drive an LS 400 (4 litre petrol) for, amongst other reasons, the soft ride over our poorly maintained roads and because I don't like to drive over speed bumps, actually take a longer route to my house, through the neighborhood, where there are no speed bumps but boy racers and dizzy Mums speed. I don't take the shorter, quiet road that has about 3 houses on it because I don't like the speed bumps. Most luxury cars have a soft ride, and coincidentally a large engine. So my carbon footprint is bigger than it needs to be as the Government won't deal with folk who seem to survive outside of the law and get away with it by speeding through the neighborhood.
So I burn much more fuel than I need to and have done in the past because it makes my life easier, if the Government want me to have a lower carbon footprint maybe they should deal with the true reasons. I can actually afford to emit more CO2 and no amount of tax will make a difference. Most folk don't budget tightly enough to work out what 3 pence per litre means, they will always do whats easiest for them.
...and the comment about 'There are council houses to be bought for open legged crackhead single mothers.' is correct.
Years ago, Tony Blair was talking about 'Joined up Policy / Thinking'. We couldn't get our Daughter in a decent school as the Local Education Authority, deemed the local (very bad and officially 'failing') school as good enough. We had to drive her accross the county to a decent school, she did well and subsequently left University with a First Class Degree in a Science subject. I didn't want my family hurt in an accident with an unlicensed pondlife drunk and uninsured driver, so we used a Gas Guzzling 4 x 4 for the trip, rather than a 'City Car'. So our carbon footprint was bigger than it needed to be as the Government weren't dealing with shambolic schools our daughter could have walked to and folk on the roads who seem to survive outside of the law and get away with it.
I drive an LS 400 (4 litre petrol) for, amongst other reasons, the soft ride over our poorly maintained roads and because I don't like to drive over speed bumps, actually take a longer route to my house, through the neighborhood, where there are no speed bumps but boy racers and dizzy Mums speed. I don't take the shorter, quiet road that has about 3 houses on it because I don't like the speed bumps. Most luxury cars have a soft ride, and coincidentally a large engine. So my carbon footprint is bigger than it needs to be as the Government won't deal with folk who seem to survive outside of the law and get away with it by speeding through the neighborhood.
So I burn much more fuel than I need to and have done in the past because it makes my life easier, if the Government want me to have a lower carbon footprint maybe they should deal with the true reasons. I can actually afford to emit more CO2 and no amount of tax will make a difference. Most folk don't budget tightly enough to work out what 3 pence per litre means, they will always do whats easiest for them.
...and the comment about 'There are council houses to be bought for open legged crackhead single mothers.' is correct.
crofty1984 said:
Has anyone pointed out that the tax take from smoking more than covers their "burden" to the NHS?
Don't have the figures to hand, but it's by approximately a metric s
tload.
Sorry, but you're wrong on this one. Don't have the figures to hand, but it's by approximately a metric s
tload.The s
tload is an Imperial unit. You are thinking of the fkton, it's Metric (rough) equivalent 
Fittster said:
Marf said:
We pay more in welfare than is taken in income tax. If you think that is "OK" then you're in fantasy land.
Why are you linking income tax to welfare spending(fking grasping pensioners robbing us of £104 a week)? It's not a ring fenced tax.Granted income tax is not the only way we bring in money but does it really not register with you as strange that we pay out more in benefits(all types of benefits) than we take in income tax?
Marf said:
We pay more in welfare than is taken in income tax. If you think that is "OK" then you're in fantasy land.
A) Thats not what Gaz said. He said Welfare was our biggest expense. Its not.B) You're wrong. The Government raises about £150billion from income tax and is set to spend £110billion on Welfare next year.
C) Even if you were right, why is it not ok? Why do you focus on income tax specifically? Why not VAT, Corperation Tax, Fuel Duty etc? Why specifically would it be especially bad for Welfare payments to outweigh Income Tax receipts?
You're not only ignorant to the figures but are making an argument such as 'We pay more in welfare than is taken in income tax. If you think that is "OK" then you're in fantasy land.' which seems to be based on nothing other than your personal opinion.
Its said time and time again on this forum when the 'road tax' argument arises that we do not have hypothecated taxes in the UK, so therefore there is no link between income tax and welfare payments. You're making a non-argument.
Krikkit said:
iphonedyou said:
MissChief said:
IMO drop tax on petrol by 10p a litre, put a pound on fags and 50p on booze. Sorted.
And for that reason I'm very glad it's only your opinion.I'll not bother stating where you can stick it.
p.s. Aggressive much?
The smokers quit, the more nosmokers have to pay in other taxes
to recouple lost tax on fags :scratchch:
So
the anti smoking pricks and pay less duty on petrol and vat 
Marf said:
Fittster said:
Marf said:
We pay more in welfare than is taken in income tax. If you think that is "OK" then you're in fantasy land.
Why are you linking income tax to welfare spending(fking grasping pensioners robbing us of £104 a week)? It's not a ring fenced tax.Granted income tax is not the only way we bring in money but does it really not register with you as strange that we pay out more in benefits(all types of benefits) than we take in income tax?
I don't see why welfare spending must be directly linked to the amount that's collected via income tax.
If the government was any good at collecting tax there would be another £40-50 billion to spend as they wish.
Marf said:
Why not make the comparison?
Because it's not relevent. We do not hypothecate tax in the UK so the relation between one singe tax receipt and one single expendature doesn't matter.Marf said:
Granted income tax is not the only way we bring in money
Correct. About 30% of revenue is from income tax. First thing you've got right.Marf said:
but does it really not register with you as strange that we pay out more in benefits(all types of benefits) than we take in income tax?
Not particularly. I thought the issue was more the fact we spend about £130billion more than we gain from all taxation?martin84 said:
How does kicking the poor and handing tax breaks to the rich aid the economy? If you think the rich tax avoiders will all of a sudden rock up at the HMRC to pay all their tax now the 50p rate is gone you're sadly mistaken. If you think they've purposely been holding their businesses back to avoid paying tax you're sadly mistaken - big business people always want a growing business.
Total top band tax revenue has gone down since the increase to 50p/£1 tax. The big tax revenue in the 50% bracket doesn't come from the £150-£200k earners, it comes from the very small percentage of very high earners.Unfortunately for the government (whoever it is) those big earners are also the people who have the greatest ability to move (or move finances) to a financially more attractive place.
I'd prefer to have 50 billionaires paying 40% tax and spending their money in UK shops/on UK property/investing in UK businesses than have 10 paying 50% tax.
martin84 said:
Gaz. said:
Yet you prove him right with every post.
Our biggest single expense as a nation is welfare.
Even thats not true. Please get your facts right. Welfare is the nations third biggest expense. Pensions are the Treasuries biggest expense - although the news channels often lump pensions and benefits in together to make it look like the unemployed are taking more than they are - and the NHS is our second biggest expense.Our biggest single expense as a nation is welfare.
What idiot told you welfare was the biggest expense?
Social Protection (i.e. welfare) £207bn
Health £130bn
Education £91bn
Debt Interest £46bn
Defence £39bn
Personal social services £33 bn
Public order & safety (i.e. police, prisons etc) £32bn
Transport £22bn
Housing & Environment £21bn
Industry, agriculture and employment £19bn
Other £43bn
Source: Chart 1, page 7, Budget 2012 available on the HM Treasury website.
martin84 said:
Marf said:
We pay more in welfare than is taken in income tax. If you think that is "OK" then you're in fantasy land.
A) Thats not what Gaz said. He said Welfare was our biggest expense. Its not.martin84 said:
B) You're wrong. The Government raises about £150billion from income tax and is set to spend £110billion on Welfare next year.
How are we going from £209bn this year to £110bn next year?http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/48249
ralphrj said:
Government spending 2012-13
Social Protection (i.e. welfare) £207bn
Oh no you dont. You're lumping pensions in with Welfare. Thats not benefits. Stop skewing numbers to suit your pathetic argument.Social Protection (i.e. welfare) £207bn
Marf said:
Again, you're including pensions which is not Welfare. Do you class Pensions as a benefit? I dont. Stop lumping unrelated things into one bracket purely to make your irrelevent argument sound valid.martin84 said:
Yell_M3 said:
Another with no grasp of economics ...
Oh here we go. Another rich Tory who believes anybody who disagrees with this pathetic budget is either thick, uneducated or 'doesnt understand.'Because 'not understanding' is the only possible reason anybody could disagree with you isnt it? Because you're always right.
Unless of course you were referring to the Chancellor as he's doing such a terrible job a 7 year old with a calculator could do better.
Economy's grow through vitality in business, giving it a shot in the arm is no bad thing. What is wrong with also rewarding those who bear the risk?
martin84 said:
Again, you're including pensions which is not Welfare. Do you class Pensions as a benefit? I dont. Stop lumping unrelated things into one bracket purely to make your irrelevent argument sound valid.
Yes, a state pension is a benefit of living in the UK. We're not going to agree so let's not waste any more of each others time.
martin84 said:
ralphrj said:
Government spending 2012-13
Social Protection (i.e. welfare) £207bn
Oh no you dont. You're lumping pensions in with Welfare. Thats not benefits. Stop skewing numbers to suit your pathetic argument.Social Protection (i.e. welfare) £207bn
Marf said:
Again, you're including pensions which is not Welfare. Do you class Pensions as a benefit? I dont. Stop lumping unrelated things into one bracket purely to make your irrelevent argument sound valid.The Treasury include the state pension as part of the welfare state (always have).
You are the one changing the numbers to suit your arguement.
bga said:
Give me (a small business owner) more money back and I will be able to hire more people and buy more goods/services. Which part of any of that is a bad outcome for the economy.
The fact you probably wont do that and even if you did intend to its not that simple, as im sure you know. For that to work you also need to sell more goods/services, which relies on more people having money and demand for whatever you sell, that wont be changed by giving you some tax back so how could you justify another employee if you're not predicted to sell more? I dont think you're going to spend that tax rebate on another employee if your business takings remain unchanged.bga said:
Economy's grow through vitality in business, giving it a shot in the arm is no bad thing. What is wrong with also rewarding those who bear the risk?
We tried that with bankers. Consensus is it did not go well.Having read most of the thread, I'm feeling a bit pessemistic about my return to England. I'm currently in canada where I buy fuel for about 90 pence, and I bum around in my uncles V8 ford F250 all day, or like the other day I rent an American Muscle car for sts and giggles. Sure, food costs a lot here, but at least I can spend a quality day in some decent cars and it doesn't feel like I'm being raped on every front.
I would mention that the reason the government is hiking the taxes is probably something to do with a certain extended war in afghanistan. I'm currently in the process of becoming a member of the armed forces so I have no qualms with our country being there, but I am of the opinion that if you are ruining your own, in the failing attempt of marginally helping another, something is going wrong.
ts and giggles. Sure, food costs a lot here, but at least I can spend a quality day in some decent cars and it doesn't feel like I'm being raped on every front.I would mention that the reason the government is hiking the taxes is probably something to do with a certain extended war in afghanistan. I'm currently in the process of becoming a member of the armed forces so I have no qualms with our country being there, but I am of the opinion that if you are ruining your own, in the failing attempt of marginally helping another, something is going wrong.
martin84 said:
Mr Gear said:
Maybe they should actually give less to the poor? You know, just give them food stamps or something instead of cash?
They obviously can't be trusted with the stuff. Give an unemployed person actual real money and they will only spend it on fuel, Sky TV and fags anyway. Benefits. Damned right they benefit.
I'm a mug for going out and earning my £££.
And by the way, since when could an unemployed person afford to have a car, put petrol in it and buy Sky TV?They obviously can't be trusted with the stuff. Give an unemployed person actual real money and they will only spend it on fuel, Sky TV and fags anyway. Benefits. Damned right they benefit.
I'm a mug for going out and earning my £££.
Roo said:
This one comes up a lot.
No it wouldn't. If everyone stopped smoking the NHS would be fubared.
Whilst this may be true, for a majority of smokers who 'enjoy' the habit (when they really just enjoy satisfying their addiction) i get the impression they'd still smoke even if fags were £10 a packet.No it wouldn't. If everyone stopped smoking the NHS would be fubared.
50p on a pint of beer might be harder to swallow
but will it really make much of a difference?Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff