Comment on UK households face tax rise of £3,500 a year by next election, finds IFS
Syldon@feddit.uk 1 year agoExcept it’s not. It’s £0 per household, because corporations and fossil fuel companies aren’t households. If I instituted a wealth tax on billionaires and raised £282 billion with it, that’s not costing households £10,000 each is it?
This is after taking corporation tax and windfall away from the total £100b (100b-21.6=78.4b). Read it again.
Blake@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Yeah, misread your comment, sorry!
Your numbers are a wee bit off, but close enough - my calcs give £27bn corp tax rather than £21.6 (remember they’re increasing it this tax year to 25% from 19%).
It’s irrelevant anyways. The windfall tax is all just propaganda to mitigate criticism of the fossil fuel industry. I don’t want to defend the Tories at all, I agree with you that they’re taxing the working class greater for the benefit of the wealthy. But that isn’t what the article is saying, and that’s why I’m annoyed at the article. The article is bullshit not because it criticises the Tories, the article is bullshit because it’s complaining about the wrong things! They mention three conservative government policies which they claim are causing harm to us, and of those three policies, two and a half of them are things we should be pushing for MORE of. (Higher corporation tax, taxes on the fossil fuel industry, higher income tax for people with high incomes). Those policies are bad because they don’t go far enough.
Syldon@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Hands up, you are correct. I edited the post with correct figures.
I think you are reading an interpretation that is not there. They do not claim any policy is harming us. They state the facts of where the largest tax rises are coming from which is very near the wording of the report. The actual IFS report is here.
The guardian states the report is damaging because of the conference next week. It is trying to stir up anxiety among Tory party members, but it does not cast aspersions over which tax increases are good or bad.
I agree the windfall tax is just a sham. I would be very surprised if we see any receipts at all. They built huge cop out options into the bill. Shell have declared a reduction in investment because of the windfall tax while only paying £134m to the government from a worldwide £40b profit. The whole process is nothing more than a façade.
Blake@feddit.uk 1 year ago
“Causing harm to us” was my short-hand interpretation - I’m just a guy writing internet comments, they don’t have to be perfect - but I don’t think it’s an unfair reading of the article.
Acting like their analysis is unfeeling and unpolitical is classic IFS bullshit. Raising corporation tax, energy profit levy and top rate income tax are all good things and you want me to complain about it just because the Tories are doing it? Is tribalism more important than policy?
I’d call out this crap regardless of who’s in power because it’s just typical neoliberal “taxes are always bad” bullshit. Tax the shit out of corporations and the wealthy, please.
Syldon@feddit.uk 1 year ago
I don’t think they are saying the taxes are bad. Every media report will have a bias. The best place to recognise that bias is to follow the money trail. And if you look to the bottom of the report, it was commissioned by ESRC and the Nuffield foundation. The ESRC are independent and rarely get involved in the subject of reports. Nuffield are an independent body usually recognised for reporting on the NHS. The IFS only create the report, they have not chosen the subject matter.
The timing and content of the report is clearly aimed at the Tory conference with the intent of highlighting just how badly the country is performing.