General News Discussion

[eFestivals]

Well that may all may be true but I just laugh at Tonys thinking that we are a low tax country. We are certainly not.

All levels of society pay relatively high levels of tax compared to other countries. We are also have a large number of secondary taxes on things like beer, fuel etc. we are also have a relatively high level of VAT compared to some countries,

I am just interested to see who Tony thinks pays more than us, he must be thinking labour a relatively small number of countries, or just believing bullshit spun by a stranger who doesn't live here.

The total paid in taxes with everything included is (supposedly) easy enough to figure out - there's tables out there which claim to have done just that, and where the total tax burden in the UK is far lower than many other countries.

From those tables (from the various times I've seen them), the total tax burden is lower in the UK than it is in most other EU countries.

[Guest]

we pay less than France and the Scandinavian countries. Don't know about Germany

all countries with good pre-school care

and transport, and health care

[Guest]

Best link I can find....

http://www.contracteye.co.uk/tax-burden-uk-2012.shtml

Hardly miles behind top eu countries and much higher than other developed nations.

This is the sum of all tax taken I believe against GDP. You need to consider how fucked some countries are at the moment as wells hitch would bloat some of the numbers.

Britain low tax,., Bollocks

[eFestivals]

Prove it. I want to see them.

Out of 27 countries you are saying most have higher taxes overall for its people. Bollocks I say.

But my point is that we are not a low tax country. I am pretty sure we will be around about the same as most of the big EU countries and miles ahead of the poor ones,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

[eFestivals]

Useless.... That's just income tax.... As well you know you need to include national insurance for a true picture.

7 years old as well....

And also doesn't tackle the secondary tax issue either...

Wow Neil, that was poor effort from you.

it was, I actually posdted the wrong link from the three pages I'd opened from google. Soz.

These will do you....

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/international.cfm

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?QueryId=21699

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_tot_tax_as_of_gdp-taxation-total-as-of-gdp

Two of them don't seem to be dated, but one gives data up to 2011 for many countries. The data in all of them is claimed as OECD data.

[eFestivals]

So go on then which one of the. Sows we are a low tax country...

Maybe the one which puts us level with Germany and not far behind the others

I didn't use the words "low tax country", I said "the total tax burden is lower in the UK than it is in most other EU countries".

I think you'll find that those tables bear out what I've said.

[eFestivals]

Why don't some of you move to Denmark?

Likewise, why don't you move to America?

[eFestivals]

Well we are arguing different points.

The concept that the UK is a low tax country is laughable and as your data shows we bat close to other EU countries.

and yet the common perception is that the UK is a high tax country with taxes significantly higher than the rest of Europe. It's not true!

The reality is that we have one of the lower tax burdens in Europe.

You only need to compare the UK with other major powers to see that. USA being the most obvious.

it's not a like for like comparison.

And anyway, add in healthcare and pensions, etc, and the USA is costing more.

[eFestivals]

I have no issue paying more tax if there is something to show for it...

and there is. Bigger bonuses for the already-stinking-rich guys.

What's not to like?

[eFestivals]

But people like you would see me pay more tax and not get anything for it.

No, I'd like you to pay more tax so that you were contributing a fair share from what the country gives you.

Nothing of what you have could you have without the country!

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

I find it worrying that Radio 4 refer to the 'enemy' as Islamists - as opposed to rebels, or terrorists, or extremists

It's a small change in emphasis but one I would have thought Radio4 news writers would ensure - unless of course the fight is now being taken to the whole of Islam.

[eFestivals]

I pay the share asked of me... And it puts my family in the top 10% of contributors... What more do you want from us...

"I pay the share asked of me" - said like that's a reason for why it couldn't ever possibly be fair to ask for you to pay more.

What I want is a more equal society, that includes recognition for the fact that any position you might choose to raise yourself into have been done by treading over the backs of others (meant in a metophorical sense).

It takes everything about society for you to get to where you have. If there's no bin man to take away your shite then you'd be living in shite with everyone else.

The simple facts are that the rich have been getting proportionally richer while the poor have been getting proportionally poorer, and that we have one of the most unequal societies in Europe and it's getting worse.

That does not mean that I wish you shipped to some Siberian salt mine. It means that I'm challenging the prevailing rhetoric.

we fund the feckless and work shy quiet heavily...

while at the same time complaining that the EU stops you working longer hours which will ensure that there's always those you'll consider feckless for you to look down on.

[eFestivals]

You sound like that c**t Cameron when you use the word fair....

No, I'm using it with it's true meaning and not as a lie to hide behind.

Or do you think that the poor are getting poorer only because they're getting ever-more feckless and workshy?

[lost]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

Edited January 30, 2013 by lost

[eFestivals]

The EU does not stop me working longer hours... I can work as long as I choose and rightly so.

As for the rest zzzzzzzzz. Bored of hearing about you communist utopia. I go to work, I got promotion, and the another, and another etc etc... It's the story a thousand times over. Nothing evil or nasty in it and your fucking boring banging on.

The successful get more, simples. Granted some people have levels of wealth which fuck us all over but to look at the sub £100k earners as villains is laughable. Your a little bit loss in your own dogma to smell the coffee sometimes.

How is a society that has narrower gaps than what we have currently anything about "a communist utopia"? Is France a communist utopia? Is Germany a communist utopia? Etc, etc?

You're mental!!

[eFestivals]

because it's not only the mega-wealthy who have been taking a bigger slice of the cake than previously.

All that aside, you got on and that's a good thing. But did you do it for the financial reward only? And most of all did you do all of your getting on without any assistance - no teachers, and no schools, no roads to walk on and no car to drive in, etc, etc, etc, etc. Anything you've achieved has also been the achievements of everyone around you.

And the feckless and workshy as you call them have been just as much a part of that as anyone else, because they've created the need for the houses that the builder has built and has needed bricks for, etc, etc, to start the money-go-round to get to you.

Meanwhile, you've not been able to magic the job out of the air for those feckless and workshy to be anything else, have you, because you've been too busy telling everyone how much you deserve your three holidays a year by working hard and ensuring that others cannot work. You say they should get a job but you can't give them one - who's the failure, them or you?

You blame it all in the wrong place, because one day you want to be running away with as much money as those you're today prepared to mildly criticise. You ain't fooling me.

[eFestivals]

Germany is not a million miles in anything it does from the UK.... And the French are fucking delusion self serving c**ts! Milking the EU for everything it's worth at the expense of the rest,

and Britain raped most of the world for two hundred years and you're living the benefit of it now - and not the benefit of your hard work.

What of it? Or is that an irrelevance in your world too? Just as long as Barry has his three big holidays a year then the world must be a fair and reasonable place.

[lost]

French are fucking delusion self serving c**ts! Milking the EU for everything it's worth at the expense of the rest,

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Hahahahaha fucking losers

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/blackberry/p.html?id=2581607

[abdoujaparov]

The chickens have come home and the mad men won't listen to them.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Hahahahaha fucking losers

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/blackberry/p.html?id=2581607

[eFestivals]

The reality is you haven't a clue.

says the man who just cannot get the simple fact that as the rich have got richer it's *EVERYONE* earning over the average that have gained and *everyone* under the average who have lost.

That gets to mean that a fairer society requires you to either pay more taxes or to take a pay cut.

You are that far gone no one agrees with you.

stating a truth doesn't require everyone to recognise that truth.

I know very few agree with me, and that's the very reason why we're fucked. Carrying on down the same fucked path will not see things come right no matter how much you might think it should.

One day what I say will happen, because people will wake up to that truth. But if it doesn't then you'll be able to be murdered in your bed via the resulting social breakdown with a smile on your face knowing that you were right.

None of what you say adds up.

says the man who's adding up is so poor that he believes the cost of childcare will not change when the costs imposed by govt regulations change.

You want a society that rewards lazy bastards as much as people who get of their arses

No you thick twat.

I want a society that FAIRLY rewards everyone for their efforts.

You have three expensive holidays a year, which we know because you've taken great joy of boasting about it. Do you think that the millions of working people who cannot afford even one weekend away are in that position because they're lazy fuckers - when I guarantee they work harder than you do - and that everything you acquire you're deserving of?

Yes you do. Which only proves you as a thick twat or an uncaring twat. Take your pick.

And anyone who dares to do well is automatically a c**t uness the are happy to see nothing from their success.

keep showing just how deathly stupid you are.

You couldn't convince no one you are right here. Not the ultra left even. Even they would say you are barmy.

yeah, because I'm saying something wildly different to just about every respected economic thinktank or study, ever.

The problems caused by an unequal society are staring you in the face each time you open your front door - in fact each time you open your mouth to state that everyone who earns less than you is feckless and workshy. That is one of the causes of the unequal society you adore - your own gross stupidity and selfishness.

But I know too few agree with me thru the point of action, because they're too busy being selfish, thinking only about what they'll see taken from them and seeing nothing of what they'll gain. Like sense in their own heads.

[eFestivals]

Your as big as c**t as me on this one. I don't see you opting to leave.... And you often boast about the high paying jobs you creamed in the past Mr Champaign communist

I walked into those jobs without thinking, same as you're not thinking now. I've never once boasted of them, just stated the fact of me doing them

And then I realised what I was doing. Will you ever realise what you're doing? Nope, you're too stupid to see anything beyond your own front door.

You now seemingly can't work In Those high paid jobs anymore because you found your soul, Whatever, so you sit back and offer up ideas about other people's money.

Unlike c**tychops selfish you, I never had a problem with paying my taxes or paying hoigher taxes if I was asked to. And I still don'[t have a problem with over-paying my taxes now when earning about 75% ofg average wage.

You have a problem paying taxes no matter how much you earn. You truly believe you and only you deserve every penny you get.

Which of us is the unthinking selfish c**t?

I suggest you go get a proper job, earn some decent money and give that away. Real wealth redistribution. Instead of spending other people's.

what you're too stupid to get is that I could do that and it would make no difference to anything at all. I would simply be taking an opportunity from someone else.

It's the taking of opportunities from others which is the heart of the problem. It is your belief that you deserve everything which makes those you call feckless and workshy. They are that by your choices, not by theirs.

[hot_ice]

Unlike c**tychops selfish you, I never had a problem with paying my taxes or paying hoigher taxes if I was asked to. And I still don't have a problem with over-paying my taxes now when earning about 75% of average wage.

[eFestivals]

More for you..... but in my view why should people over pay on tax? (not talking about the very very top, just people on average or just above average incomes)

I 'overpay' because how I work my company accounts gets to mean that I'm otherwise paying less than I would do if all of my income was done as PAYE.

I wouldn't approve of that for anyone else so I'm not going to benefit by that myself.

(for a variety of good reasons, it's not practical for all my income to be paid to me as a straightforwards wage - which is the only reason it's not being done that way).

why wouldnt it make a difference?,

because if I'm in that 'good job' someone else is being denied that good job. So nothing changes overall if it's me or someone else that does it.

We all have to take the opportunities either given or self made, thats not the problem

We don't have to take them.

I used to have countless 'good' opportunities and still get a few each year - that would see my income increase four-fold or more. While the extra money would be nice (after all, extra money is always nice) it doesn't come for free.

If I took one of those jobs I'd work less hard (yes, really! For 4 times the money! Which gets to show that those who get more don't work more), but I'd also have to be a c**t or have to work for c**ts - neither of which I'm prepared to do (been there, done that). I would far rather, as much as practically possible, act to my conscience.

But the problems for society are outside of those personal issues for me....

It turns people like Barry into selfish unthinking c**ts on a different basis, via a belief that they're deserving of every extra penny they get, that no one has the right to take it as tax on any basis at all, ever, and that anyone who for whatever reason earns less than him is either feckless or workshy or both - all of which you can see in his own words in the last few pages.