Topic: Gordon`s Great Give-away

[Hugh_Jones]

On Thursday Gordon Brown made his pre-election bid for votes with his messages of promise for the future. Since 1997 he has increased the total annual tax take from us all by 50% in the form of stealth taxes, but now he is going to give us a `sweetener`

What does this mean?

Well, for pensioners (like me) he is going to give an extra £50 winter fuel payment - which means that he is going to give me back the last £100 I paid in taxes less his 50% handling charge.
He is also going to increase my pension in April by £2.50 per week - which is considerably less than the rise in my electricity, water and fuel bills, let alone my Council Tax rise.
However for those poorer pensioners who claim the £100 allowance towards Council Tax Bills (not me) he`s going to reduce this to £50.
And after the election he`s going to increase pensioners` personal tax allowances (unless he thinks better of it then)

He is going to `make available` to local authorities an extra £1 billion to reduce council tax rises.  However, in fact the Treasury will only find £125 million of this. The remainder is dependant on £512 million being `re-allocated` from the Department of Health and other departments, £60 million being raised by the local authorities putting up their charges for their own services, and the rest by `releasing` funds already held by local authorities but ringfenced for particular purposes. So it`s out of one pocket and into the other.

For those with young children he`s going to allow employers to offer £50 per week tax free for child care.  But, of course, if you earn less that £9000 a year and really need to take the money he will simply deduct it from your Working Tax Credit.  If you earn more than £9000 you will need a BSc in maths to work out whether you will be better or worse off by receiving it.

But there is some good news.  He`s already collecting so much tax from the high oil prices that he`s not going to put fuel tax up again until after March. And (best of all) he has written to the EU requesting that the duty free limit of £145 on goods (excluding alcohol and tobacco)  brought through Customs can be increased - this won`t, of course stop Customs & Excise impounding your cross-channel purchases of booze and ciggies, together with your car, if they can find the slightest excuse.

And, of course, if Mr. Blunket wins his paternity case he`ll be able to claim his half share of the maternity leave on full pay.

[Muddy_Boots]

Got it a nutshell Hugh!

However, also the government is talking about bannning smoking in public places.  Given the revenue the government gets from the tax on tobacco products, who is going to make up the short fall?  Us, that's who!

We all lose out every which way!

[DolphinGarden]

With the smoking ban, you will live longer to pay for it all...on the never never..............

[Hugh_Jones]

Ah, M_B. Now there`s a subject dear to me. The economics are these:-
The direct tax on tobacco of all types amounts to £8.1 billion per year (Gordon Brown`s own figures).  It is confidently predicted that once the smoking bans fall into place some 15% of smokers will give up.  This will mean a drop in revenue of £1.2 billion, added to which must be the lost VAT on tobacco sales and the loss in tax on manufacturer`s falling profits, which bring the total loss in revenue to an estimated £1.8 billion.

The total cost of treating smoking related diseases in the National Health Service amounts to just under £1.8 billion a year (again Gordon Brown`s own figures), so a drop of 15% in the total number of smokers must at the very best result in a saving of a mere £270 million to the Health Service, but, of course, smoking related diseases don`t just cease when people stop smoking, they go on for years later, so the saving would be considerably less than £270 million for many years.

In all, therefore, the smoking bans will result in a net loss to the Exchequer of over £1.5 billion per year, which, of course, will have to be made up by further stealth tax increases.

[ACE]

I'll have some of that, sorry should have read the thread, I thought Gordons were giving away gin!

[Sarah-b]

What I'd like to know is, over the past few years, what has been the increase in govt revenue due to the rise in house prices and the fact that in our area most houses cost above 250k and therfore are in a higher bracket of stamp duty than they used to be. Because the govt must be making a fortune out of that.
And how come this isn't perceived to be grossly unfair, that we are already financially persecuted for living in an area where house prices are sky-high and then have to pay stamp duty that was originally meant to be a tax on the rich? Why aren't they more brackets for higher cost housing?

sb

[Hugh_Jones]

You may well ask, Sarah.  The yield to the exchequer for Stamp Duty has risen sharply under our Gordon`s careful management, thus:-

1997-8    Total Stamp Duty yield  £830 million
2001-2       "        "      "       "     £2.76 billion
2003-4       "        "      "       "     £3.79 billion

So you will see that during his 7 years in office our Gordon has multiplied the stamp duty yield by 4 ¹/₂ times. Every rise of 1 % in house prices (and there has been a substantial rise this year) brings in a rise of 1.6% in the tax yield.  This is just one of the methods he has used to increase the total tax take from us all by 50% in seven years - a bit here and a bit there, and we`re not supposed to notice.

[Sarah-b]

Thank-you for those figures Hugh - that confirms what I suspected.
How come there isn't more of an outrage about it? But then I suppose the labour party were always big on media manipulation...

[Hugh_Jones]

As my grandmother used to say "There`s none so blind as those who cannot see!"

[CotswoldLass]

Surely Hugh, THAT's another subject entirely!!  ;D

[Hugh_Jones]

Oh, you are naughty - but I like you! (apologies to the late Mr. Emery)

But appropos of THAT subject, I do recall several years ago the then Minister for Sport (a certain Mr. Tony Banks) advocating the installation of contraceptive machines in the House of Commons for the benefit of Conservative  M.P.s.  I`ll bet our beloved leader is now wishing that he had acted on that advice for the benefit of his own party

[tim]

Shouldn't say this, but contraceptive machines sound a bit terminal?? = Tim

[Hugh_Jones]

Bur surely, tim, terminal is where the contents of the machines are supposed to be used?