Europe IV: The Final Hour

[Brad]

What’s standard tax rate these days?

[MartyG]

Basic rate: £12,501 to £50,000 at 20%
Higher rate: £50,001 to £150,000 at 40%
Additional rate: over £150,000 at 45%

So you'd be paying £12,000 in tax on that £30K between £50-80K, essentially it's a £6,000 gift to an already well healed salary (you can live very comfortably on a £50-60K salary unless you fill yourself up with debt).

[Neon Ignition]

It's weird that it's so bracketed in a simplistic manner rather than a sliding scale. If you're on £49k and are offered a £5k pay rise you basically have zero incentive to accept it.

[Asura]

Soooooooo...... The salary for members of parliament is £75k. And Boris Johnson has vowed to bring the cut off for higher rate tax up to £80k.

He'll push next for MPs to earn £90k, and claim this means they'll pay "more tax". People will probably tolerate it because a surprisingly large number of the general public don't get how that works.

[MartyG]

It's weird that it's so bracketed in a simplistic manner rather than a sliding scale. If you're on £49k and are offered a £5k pay rise you basically have zero incentive to accept it.

Eh? You'd get £3K extra a year in your wage packet after tax.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/10/jeremy-corbyn-lambasted-by-labour-mps-in-worst-meeting-as-leader

Corbyn gets savaged at Labour MP meeting as they perhaps come to realise they're led by a self interested moron with a dictatorial nature

[Neon Ignition]

Eh? You'd get £3K extra a year in your wage packet after tax.

You know what, you're absolutely right. You can tell it's early in the day, I applied the rate to the entire salary

[Asura]

EDIT: Never mind

[charlesr]

However, house stamp duty does work on a stupid cutoff, making a whole chunk of house prices void.

[Brad]

Yep I’m about to pay 12 grand in stamp duty. Ffs.

Stupid to raise the tax bracket though, as mentioned people on those salaries have enough money as it is. They should be helping those less fortunate.

[teddymeow]

As Rene Russo once said, "Close is a lingerie shop without a front window". Labour actually increased their majority from 2016.

Lethal Weapon 3. Nice!

"Grab the cat!"

[CMcK]

Stupid to raise the tax bracket though, as mentioned people on those salaries have enough money as it is. They should be helping those less fortunate.

But a lot a Tory party members who will be voting on the new party leader fall into the category that will see the benefit of that tax change. National Insurance contributions will be used to help fund that tax cut. Which again won’t affect a lot of Tory party members who don’t pay NI on their pensions. But even poorly paid working people pay NI so they’ll be helping to fund another tax cut for the well off. Typical Tory policy there.

[MartyG]

It's quite alarming that so many people are able to be hoodwinked by Johnson: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...ction-becomes/ (the full article is paywalled, but the first couple of paragraphs give you the gist).

[Neon Ignition]

I think he's the only candidate they have with the potential to stave off a slim Labour coalition victory but I find the idea that he'd win a 140 seat majority so ludicrous that whoever wrote that has to have invested interests in him. Be it Boris or whoever, they're in for a very nasty shock when they discover that replacing May changes very little and if there's a GE the Tories will lose seats, no question.

[MartyG]

Well it's in the Torygraph, but it's based on the figures from an opinion poll done by ComRes, not just completely made up. But it matters because if conservative MPs want to keep their seats and Johnson is polling massively ahead to secure that, MPs are more likely to back Johnson in the leadership contest.

In fact, based on that polling, they might even be tempted to call a GE if Johnson wins ahead of the Brexit deadline - new parliament, new rules on No Deal Brexit.