50p

i may have mentioned it before - but i would like to reiterate it here: i long for the day when i am paying 50% tax.
that admission is probably the key to way i am never going to be paying the top rate of tax: i am just not driven enough.
lower tax is a particular shibboleth of the conservative party. they believe the lower the tax is on the rich the more the wealth will trickle down. for most of the rest of us we know that this is bollocks (trust me that is a term economists use).
so in a week when there were riots and where, some of, the causes could be laid at the altar of inequality trust a tory chancellor to bring up the subject of the 50-pence rate of tax. george osborne is looking at it in terms of efficiency, because some economists have suggested that tax avoidance and evasion means that the treasury is getting less than expected.
tax avoidance is legal and it just means playing the system to find ways not to pay what you should. strangely when someone on benefits plays the system they are seen as benefit cheats. funny that.
tax evasion is illegal.
so if economists think that tax avoidance and tax evasion is costing the country money then the solution shouldn’t be to drop the rate of tax, because call me a silly billy but if you are prepared to evade and avoid at 50% there is a good chance that you will do the same at 40%, 30% or any amount.
so the solution seems to be: punish those who evade and tighten up the loop holes that allow people to avoid. after all that is what is done with benefit cheats. oh it is just that benefit cheats are not the wealth makers – because as we know all those people who are earning big wedges of dosh in the financial sector are wealth makers. oh hold on didn’t they cause the global financial crisis?
still don’t worry we are all in this together and i am sure that all the hard working people in the country don’t mind seeing those who are earning shed loads earn a lot more, after all they are not the ones who suffer when services are cut.
no matter what george and david say any attempt to lower the 50-pence level of tax has nothing to do with economics – it is just about political ideology.
big society my arse.