Let’s Abolish All Taxes Except One
This article in The Times by Kit Malthouse will get massive hoots of derision. But I think the principle behind it is right.
These are two early paragraphs.
So if all taxes, including VAT, form part of the price of the stuff we buy, why do we bother to charge and collect them separately? What would happen if we were to lump everything together, phase out all taxes and just charge higher VAT? Well, several things.
First, everyone would receive their income gross. No more PAYE or self-assessment and, of course, no further need for the Inland Revenue. All that money and all those people currently wasted on arguing about the dozens of different taxes would be redeployed. Billions of pounds and thousands of people, tax collectors (£5 billion) and accountants (at least another £5 billion) liberated for investment and production. Tax would be collected painlessly in small increments if and when you buy stuff.
Years ago, my accountant at the time was a Labour supporter. But he applauded Mrs. Thatcher in the way she stopped tax loopholes on the one hand and reduced rates on the other. The result was more tax collected and lots of out-of-work accountants, who then went on to develop more productive skills in areas like budgeting and planning, which created jobs.
The trouble too with our current taxation system, is that it creates anomalies. The honest get penalised by those who cheat, so good companies and individuals cease trading. They also give up because of the fact they spend too much time on working out tax.
I have a personal interest in tax anomalies. They ruined my father’s business. In the 1950s the purchase tax on print and stationery was about 40%, whereas that on plain paper was zero. Brochures and other things you didn’t write on were also zero-rated. So as this was at a time when the new offset litho technology was being introduced, companies who needed printing done setup departments to do their own. A lot of printers went bust, but if VAT had been in operation then, it would have been a level playing field and the best would have survived.
This would apply with the proposals in the article.
So I’d give a couple of cheers for Kit Malthouse.
In addition, I would of course raise the taxes on energy, so that we reduced our carbon footprint.
After a dinner of some very nice pasta, I’ve had more thoughts about this.
Supposing that it was linked to a system similar to I proposed in Cutting Unemployment. All you’d need to do was deduct the VAT on your services and that was it. It gets simpler and simpler.
But there is the problem about how you would account for those who didn’t charge VAT on their services. I’m sure that one of the accountants made redundant by abolishing all of those taxes would know the solution.
A Tax on Coeliacs – 2
It’s funny, but all the budget forums I’ve read so far have got coeliacs in them moaning about the tax on cider. There are three in this article in the Guardian for a start.
If nothing else, Darling has at least got coeliacs talking about their condition on the Internet.
As they make up one percent of the population, could they have an effect on the election? Probably not, but it does show how stupid Darling is. Surely, he needed to bring in a flat tax rate for drinks like cider, so that cheap crap was taxed heavily and the good expensive stuff wasn’t.
But then in most cases you have to be stupid to be a politician!
The Cider Revolt
The BBC has just had a full hour on the tax on cider.
But perhaps the most extraordinary feature is the number of protests on Facebook in a Group called, “Leave Our Cider Alone”. It has got over 13,000 members in well under a day.
A Tax on Coeliacs
Darling has put the tax on cider up significantly.
It may be alright for those who can drink beer! But I can’t!
A New Tax on Death
I’ve just found out that the cost of extra Death Certificates not ordered when you report a death, is going up from £3.50 or £7 from April 5th.
What was it they said about two things you can’t avoid; death and taxes? It is certainly and and not and/or.
The Budget
Today we have the budget.
It is very much a waste of time, as the election is not even around the corner, but here in a few weeks.
But I have a more fundamental problem with budgets. If you run a business, you take financial decisions on a day-to-day basis and not at one fixed point in the year.
So is the system we have rather outdated in a modern world were a crisis can hit you overnight?
I don’t think we want to have budgets every month, but we need to have a system that on the one hand is more responsive to events and on the other takes the variations out of such things as fuel prices.
What would I do?
- I’d tax all energy heavily and use the money saved to take millions out of the tax system. It couldn’t be done overnight, but increased yearly it would have profound and positive effect on everybody’s lives.
- I’d also abolish Vehicle Excise Duty and replace it with a car transfer tax of say £30 or so to make sure all vehicles were very traceable.
- I’d also tax aircraft fuel. It is ridiculous that it is tax-free.
- I’d have a top tax rate of 50%, but anybody you employ for whatever purpose would be allowable against that tax. So if you have an idea, you could perhaps employ a student to do the leg work on it for say six months and then claim that against your tax. Childcare, gardening and all those other things would also be allowed.
- I’d abolish Inheritance Tax. I’ve had letters published in the Financial Times on that one. Two pence on Income Tax would raise the same and rich never pay Inheritance Tax anyway.
- I’d increase the tax on tobacco. Although, I doubt it would raise much money.
- I’d subsidise patents and IPR. The costs at present strangle innovation by individuals.
- But the biggest savings will come from getting rid of projects that no-one actually wants, like aircraft carriers, Joint Strike Fighter, Trident replacement, identity cards, bureacracy, extravagant pensions for civil servants etc. It is a long list!
I’ll add to this as the day goes on.
The aim though is to be tax neutral and perhaps even raise a bit more.
If you take high energy taxes, then this would raise more tax than you think, as there are large numbers of people who don’t pay tax and always seem to have large 4x4s. We’d be taxing the Black Economy which is a lot bigger than anybody thinks.
We should aim to have taxes that you can’t avoid or taxes that by avoiding them you create jobs and commercial activity.
Prudence’s Death Tax
According to The Times Prudence and his few supporters in Nulabor are possibly proposing a 10% death tax on all estates. Read some of the comments to the article
Now, I’m someone who has a bob or two and when I die I will pay substantial death duties. On the other hand, I would hopefully have sufficient money to make sure that I had enough nubile nurses to keep me happy in my last days. So just because I have saved, why should I pay for those who have not saved for their last days?
To actually suggest it is a crass idea and a vote loser. After all probably ninety percent of the population want to make enough money before they retire to really enjoy it.
But then what do you expect from a man who was a Chancellor, who had the same idea of taxes as the Sherriff of Nottingham?
It just shows how out of touch Nulabor is with everything.
Let’s take a couple of examples.
Suppose someone was dying in their thirties from some awful cancer. Because they have been ill for some time, they would probably not have any estate at all. Or perhaps just a small one. So the widow, who would be up shit-street anyway gets even more of her money taken away by a grasping government.
I also have two friends, who have very disabled children. Their care is expensive, so is it right that if the parents die, that disabled children are taxed, when they need the money. I suppose that their disabilities mean that they can’t vote, so it’s all right then!
Now we need to raise money for care of the elderly, but it would be better if we raised it say on energy taxes or VAT. Raising VAT to 20% would raise about £13billion, but I think that this may be a better alternative as Prudence’s lowering and raising of VAT didn’t seem to make much effect one way or the other.
We could also get rid of two unwanted aircraft carriers, the Joint Strike Fighter, Trident, tanks, identity cards and many other pet projects of Prudence and his cronies.
HMRC Fraud
There has been talk on the radio this morning and in the papers about various phishing attacks purporting to be tax refunds from HRMC.
Note that HMRC do not do refunds by e-mail, so any e-mails you get from them about refunds are fake and are designed to empty your bank account, after you have given them your bank details.
Here’s one I got earlier.
HMRC Spam E-Mail
These points should be noted.
- It is obviously spam, not least because my ISP has actually marked it as possible spam in the header.
- Bear in mind the fact too, that my accountant does my tax return and I think that HMRC don’t know my e-mail address.
- It is a good idea to learn how to read the Message Headers using your e-mail program. I use Outlook and this page in About.com tells you how to do it. In the headers for this e-mail, you can see there are lots of .br’s, which mean that at some point the e-mail has visited Brazil. Not the quickest route to Suffolk from the HMRC.
- They do show that the e-mail came to my standard e-mail address. Which means it wasn’t a genuine e-mail, as I use a special e-mail address for all financial transactions. Always use a different e-mail address for normal communications and financial transactions.
- The To: address in the e-mail is securemail@hmrc.gov.uk. Nearly all companies send important e-mails to the e-mail address you have given them.
- The value of the refund is shown as 988.50 GBP. I’m always suspicious of this, as the £ sign needed to show the value properly is not available on non-UK keyboards. About half of my genuine on line purchases use the £ sign and others use GBP. But phishing attacks nearly always use GBP.
- Click Here to submit you tax refund request. Note you instead of your. I know the HMRC can be stupid at times, but they don’t make spelling mistakes like this, as if they did, they would be a laughing stock in the tabloids.
- There are other grammatical errors and I don’t think the HMRC would use Best Regards.
You should always read these spam e-mails. That way, you will understand more and more what they look like and you won’t get caught out.
Reporting instructions for these sort of e-mails are on the HMRC web site.
Paying for the Care of the Elderly
I’m getting there fast and hopefully, I’ll have enough money to keep me in my old age, but others will not.
There is an article in today’s Times, which lays out whether the state or families should pay. It is a difficult question and judging by some of the comments, a large number of people find it unfair that they should pay extra, after they have contributed all their life.
In my view we have to radically change several things.
The first is that we will all have to work later. I have no intention of giving up on work at 65, as my father did and it killed him. But seriously many of us do jobs that we can continue to do on a full or part-time basis for a few more years. If I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, I would give a tax advantage to older workers, as the longer they work the greater the savings will be to the government’s coffers.
I would also abolish Inheritance Tax. I’ve had letters published about this in the Financial Times and know that it can be funded by perhaps two pence on Income Tax. This would give those who wanted to pass on their wealth much greater flexibility and many would move into much smaller well-equipped homes, that would allow them to stay self-sufficient for longer. I’ve been told that some stay in run-down large houses to minimise tax Inheritance Tax liabilities. That is wrong on many fronts.
Inheritance Tax will never be abolished though, because of the politics of envy. Unless of course someone does it in the EU, like Spain or Italy, and everybody rushes to the sun to avoid paying the tax.
We must also find some way to reward those who have looked after their finances. Many others have been profligate and have no assets when they can no longer cope. How this will be done is the difficult part, but perhaps we should give extra tax relief for pensions and savings. This could actually be paid for by making the systems a lot simpler, so that you didn’t have to use one of the armies of pointless intermediaries.
But it is not all gloom!
All of these elderly will be a big market for new products and services. Just take the StairSteady, which is an invention to help the elderly and infirm climb stairs. There are loads of things that need inventing.
In a few years time, a large proportion of the retired will be Internet-savvy. This in itself will enable local self-help groups to be created. New hand-help devices will also make things better.
We often tend to say that it will all get bad and even worse. But often we realise that the doom-mongers are wrong. As an example what happened to the Millennium Bug?
The Anonymous Widower 