General Election - 4th July 2024

Who will you be voting for in the General Election?

  • Labour

    Votes: 196 58.9%

  • Conservative

    Votes: 9 2.7%

  • Liberal Democrat

    Votes: 27 8.1%

  • Reform

    Votes: 45 13.5%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 21 6.3%

  • Other

    Votes: 35 10.5%
  • Total voters
    333
SkyBlueFlux said:
There's been a lot of talk about the UK's tax burden - i.e. its tax revenues as a % of GDP. Specifically, the fact that it is the highest it's been since the 60s. While it's great that the Tories are getting a kicking over it, this narrative worries me a bit, because it seems to suggest that high tax burden is inherently a bad thing and it should be used as a stick to beat anybody who increases it. But this is a vast oversimplification (as usual), it's not just that the tax burden is high that is the problem - it's the compounding nature of this when you pair it with wage stagnation, high inflation, and tepid growth over two decades. Ultimately, it's not about the value of the tax burden, but upon whom that tax burden ends up falling.

I found this useful article from the IFS that demonstrates the point with some charts. Our tax burden is now circa 35% - high for us, no doubt. But the EU average is more like 40%, in France it is close to 45%. In the US it is drastically lower (and the quality of their public services probably reflects that).

When you look into the differences between us and other EU nations, we are pretty close to the average for most forms of taxation. The big difference seems to be social security contributions on median earners (in our case NI), and it's not the employee contributions that are a lot different, it's employer contributions. In Sweden an employer would contribute about 3x more on an average earner's salary into their social security compared to our NI system. Combine this with the fact corporate tax contributions are actually also often slightly lower. The word of warning here is that social security systems differ greatly from country to country, and what people get for that will vary.

So in sum, this narrative that we are a high tax country is actually not a correct assessment. It would be more correct to say, we are a country that places a similar tax burden on individuals as most developed nations, but because of lower taxes and contributions from businesses, the services we get for our individual contributions are comparatively lacking. This is compounded by problems around things like planning laws, project/change management, and inefficiencies in public services, which also don't help.

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally
Click to expand...
If you add US tax and medical insurance you get a better comparison
 
SkyBlueFlux said:
There's been a lot of talk about the UK's tax burden - i.e. its tax revenues as a % of GDP. Specifically, the fact that it is the highest it's been since the 60s. While it's great that the Tories are getting a kicking over it, this narrative worries me a bit, because it seems to suggest that high tax burden is inherently a bad thing and it should be used as a stick to beat anybody who increases it. But this is a vast oversimplification (as usual), it's not just that the tax burden is high that is the problem - it's the compounding nature of this when you pair it with wage stagnation, high inflation, and tepid growth over two decades. Ultimately, it's not about the value of the tax burden, but upon whom that tax burden ends up falling.

I found this useful article from the IFS that demonstrates the point with some charts. Our tax burden is now circa 35% - high for us, no doubt. But the EU average is more like 40%, in France it is close to 45%. In the US it is drastically lower (and the quality of their public services probably reflects that).

When you look into the differences between us and other EU nations, we are pretty close to the average for most forms of taxation. The big difference seems to be social security contributions on median earners (in our case NI), and it's not the employee contributions that are a lot different, it's employer contributions. In Sweden an employer would contribute about 3x more on an average earner's salary into their social security compared to our NI system. Combine this with the fact corporate tax contributions are actually also often slightly lower. The word of warning here is that social security systems differ greatly from country to country, and what people get for that will vary.

So in sum, this narrative that we are a high tax country is actually not a correct assessment. It would be more correct to say, we are a country that places a similar tax burden on individuals as most developed nations, but because of lower taxes and contributions from businesses, the services we get for our individual contributions are comparatively lacking. This is compounded by problems around things like planning laws, project/change management, and inefficiencies in public services, which also don't help.

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally
Click to expand...
It’s also how a government spends the taxes it collects.
 
The Future’s Blue! said:
It’s also how a government spends the taxes it collects.
Click to expand...

Naturally - and how much of that is distributed to local governments versus held centrally.

There's a lot of factors which dictate the quality of public services, I'm just making a point that bluntly saying taxes are too high is perhaps unhelpful. There's a lot more nuance to it than that.
 
I had three weeks booked off as I was going to Bulgaria from 8th June to 26th June, when the election was called, I changed my plans and went to work yesterday so I can have Friday off, sofa bed in the spare room will be in play, and upstairs drinks fridge well stocked, maybe get some coffee, sugar, milk and nibbles in for the morning inquest
 
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