Excellent article from the Morning Star
 

Let's maybe have a thread to do with Britain that doesn't start on a reactionary note.

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/...pposed-to-them

Good Heavens! It's ages since I saw a copy of The Morning Star. For young things who've never heard of it. it used to be called The Daily Worker. And I wouldn't scoff. It must sell more print copies than The Grauniad (nearly nil) and the Independent (absolutely nil) put together.
They give them away.

And the message is - write that left wing poetry. But hell, you're all writing it already. And getting it printed. So the article's kind of redundant.

Thanks Quincy, all the same. See you at West Chester. With your child no doubt.

Who's an ickle-pickle poo, then?

It's actually about left-liberal hypocrisy, John, but whatevs.

Clarificatory questions: Is it a particular strike being referenced? Is it an elaborate metaphor? What is a "picket-line gig"?

Everything Quincy writes is about left-liberal hypocrisy, John. Keep that in mind - and pretend it's 1930 or so - and let it go at that.

Ah Michael, you are, as ever, too intellectual for me. But I take it you are writing that left-liberal poetry.

A picket line gig is presumably a poetry reading given to a picket line. The mind boggles. I suppose you could read 'em Percy Bysshe. Those workers who like poetry (and there are some) tend to like it to rhyme and scan, in my experience.

But all left-wingers who enjoy nice salaries are hypocrites unless they give most of it away, aren't they? Of necessity. Being a right-winger, I keep what I get, such as it is.

John, that's one of the silliest things you've ever said. Since when is it the bedrock principle of being a liberal that one must give away most one's money? It's true, of course, that liberals tend to favor policies that call for higher taxes in order to pay for things that benefit everyone, but so do you to a certain extent. I know that you are quite the fan of the universal healthcare in your own country and have no compunction accepting the outsized contribution richer people make through their taxes to buy you and your family the medical care you deserve. And I suspect that you don't mind that a portion of the taxes you pay are being used for it. Does that mean you are a liberal hypocrite because you don't give most of your money away?

Most left-leaning people I know are also capitalists. You can be a capitalist and still believe in taxes to fund a government that helps people.

Roger, you don't know how our tax system works and you don't know how our NHS works. Doesn't stop you pontificating though.

This is our Income |Tax system It is fairly simple.

If you earn less than £11,500 (poor) then you pay nothing.
If you earn up to £45,000, then you pay 20% on yor income over £11,500.
If you earn more than that then you pay an additional 5%.

So the system of income tax is not punitive (as it would be under Jeremy Corbyn; as it was in 1947 under the first Labour government).

I am quite poor so I don't pay much tax. My wife is richer so she pays more.

As for the NHS, of course it is paid for out of taxation. How else would it be paid? Everybody gets the same doctors and the same basic care, which is very good. I got the best man there was to operate on my heart. If you are rich you can buy things like a private ward, and you can queue-jump, but you can't buy better doctors.

Our drugs are much cheaper than yours. I pay nothing at all because I am old. Children pay nothing at all because they are young. People in between pay £8.50 per prescription and grumble about it a lot.

Our drugs are much cheaper because the NHS is very big and therefore has considerable bargaining power with the rapacious drug companies.

Is our system better than yours? Yes, much better. Is it better then the French system? Debatable.

Do you want to know about Value Addd Tax? No.I thought you might not

To get it right: in the UK, from 45,001 to £150, 000 your marginal tax rate is 40%. Thereafter it's 45%.
I don't really see the logic. For everything else, if you buy in bulk you get a discount.

I hope you're joking, David, but I'm not sure.

Isn't that what I said, David? It ought to be since I copied it from the government figure. You put it more succinctly.

The point I was making is that our present taxes are not punitive. Under the ridiculous Corbyn they would be and all the rich would bugger off to France. How fortunate he has not a snowball's chance in Hell of being elected. Even his own Labour MPs are urging people not to vote for him. Is it the death of the Labour Party? Quite possibly. It is less then a hundred years old as a party with parliamentary seats. The Liberals died, after all. The Lib Dems are another, inferior thing altogether.

What will May's majority be? A lot, maybe an awful lot.

I visited Estonia recently, which is a model of prosperity in its region and economically the best performing post-Communist state after Slovenia.

Their personal tax system involves a series of allowances and exemptions, then a flat-rate tax of 20% regardless of income.

Estonians I spoke to were happy with this, thought it fair and believed it played a big part in promoting employment and prosperity.

However, I only spoke to a few Estonians.

And the Estonians you spoke to David - were they factory workers, farmers, or bankers? If there was a graduated tax system, where individuals with higher incomes paid a higher tax rate, would the people you spoke to pay more tax or less tax under that system?

And those allowances and exceptions. Are many of them basically the same for everybody, so that they represent a far higher portion of total income for a factory worker than for a banker? Assuming I'm correct - you're a numbers guy and you know where I'm going - the less you earn, the higher percentage of your income goes for taxes.

(I cheated, and checked out the Estonian individual tax code, and it was what I expected. Standard deduction, regardless of income, which means the lowest earners pay more as a percentage. Housing loans are deductible, and since wealthier people are more likely to buy than poorer people, it again drives down the percentage of income that the wealthy pay. And so forth.)

Nailed it, Michael.

I don't understand your logic, Michael.
Everybody gets the same personal allowances, which means the poorest pay no tax and the 20% tax rate is progressive thereafter. You can claim mortgage interest and other expenses, but only up to a maximum of about 3,200 Euros, which is not a lot.
I spoke to two people, one of whom was a professional tourist guide and the other a student working part-time as a guide. Interesting though the conversation was, I didn't get to ask them about their personal tax affairs.
I was just responding, really, to John's comment that the UK's 40/45% tax rates are not excessive, by pointing to a prosperous and successful country which taxes its citizens far less.

Nigel, do you agree?