GeorgeDay

🇬🇧🇵🇹 UK/Portugal based, into politics and digital stuff

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

@an0n_Nic It’s the way he didn’t even get to the point as well. So much waffle for what it actually is.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

@NeilDotObrien The bit you got wrong is that Labour never use “working people” when it comes to raising taxes. The phrase you’re looking for, which covers just about anybody on more than average earnings, is “those with the broadest shoulders”. And those shoulders are getting quite the workout!

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

With all respect, you don’t actually know what I earn. You are implying that once you attain a certain level of income that you have yet to define, you no longer have the right to challenge fairness in the tax system without being subjected to insults. I don’t think that’s reasonable. The original point is that £100k salaries do not define “wealth”. Salaries are usually a product of aspiration, career growth, ambition, not of inherited or passively earned income. If we want a high-growth successful economy, we need to encourage people to aim higher and not penalise their success when they do. Fairness should exist across the entire tax system and currently fiscal drag is making everybody poorer at all levels.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

You've just called me a "fucking privileged crank" for believing that *anybody* in this country should have the ability to work hard and build wealth, not just people who are already immensely wealthy. Clearly that went way over your head and you've instead resorted to personal insults.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

The thresholds *must* rise by CPI every year and that’s actually embedded into UK law. It is only frozen because the govt have chosen to disapply that law. That is why it expires automatically in 2031 and keeps being extended. They basically *know* what they’re doing is morally wrong and they actively choose to do it anyway.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

Exactly. If the average person knew the reality of what fiscal drag has done to their disposable incomes (especially those on £50k+), they would be stunned. It’s funny how when they freeze the threshold they do it very quietly and avoid calling it a tax rise. When they talk about unfreezing it, suddenly it’s an unfunded “tax cut”.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

You might have missed this but I was actually validating the exact point you’ve just made. You used the term “it’s all relative” and I completely agree. You can have somebody earning £40k with £200k in the bank, and somebody earning £100k with £10k in the bank. You can’t just use blanket terms to describe people as rich or poor based on incomplete information.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

You’ve contradicted yourself by saying it’s all relative. You cannot possibly know the position of everybody who earns £100k, how many children they have, how much their mortgage costs, what other debts they’ve accrued and so on. You’re making assumptions based on your own feeling about what £100k represents, because it feels like a huge amount. Is it a high income? Of course it is. That doesn’t mean that somebody is “rich” though and that should be obvious.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

@Steven_Swinford Cowards.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

@Steven_Swinford The Australian data demonstrates how ineffective this policy is. For the UK to look at that data and then actually double down on its implementation, is really quite disturbing. This rather proves that it is a data gathering exercise under the guise of protecting children.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

Where does £95/month come from? On the £35k example, roughly £96 from you puts £191/month into your pension, including relief and employer contributions.

Assume contributions rise with inflation and investments average 3% a year after inflation and fees. Over 40 years, that builds roughly £176k in today’s money.

Taking 25% tax-free and paying your assumed 20% on the rest leaves about £150k. Spread over 20 years, that’s £623/month in today’s money, assuming zero further real growth during retirement.

Returns aren’t guaranteed but your calculation leaves out the accumulated pot and investment growth. It’s precisely this strategy that protects your net worth from inflation.

I am willing to entertain your point that you are sacrificing money now for wealth later. Life is uncertain, but auto enrolment is not set at a level that will adversely impact most people in the short term. Your alternative is to invest the £95 in a stocks and shares ISA instead but that does come at a significant long term cost.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

I’m afraid your arithmetic is off. £100 becomes £125 with tax relief. Taking 25% tax free and taxing the rest at 20% would leave you with £106.25, not £80. You tax your tax free amount first (£125 x 25% =£31.25). You are then taxed on the rest of it (£93.75 x 0.2 =£18.75). That leaves you with £125 - £18.75.

That aside, you’ve left out the fact that opting out of an employer pension would also lose you the employer contribution (which depending on the generosity of the scheme is sometimes matched up to X%). You’ve also got decades of compounded market growth. Of course inflation matters but pension investments can (and often do) outpace it over a long time horizon.

If you take the £35k example and consider minimum auto enrolment from you and your employer, you’d end up with £191 per month invested into the pension at a cost to you of £96 per month.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

I didn’t ask who decides what the tax rate is. I asked at what level of tax burden are you suggesting somebody can no longer express a view. You’re obviously entitled to your opinion and I think it’s fair enough for you to express it however you want. If you believe that high earners shouldn’t be allowed to talk about how much tax they pay without being vilified and insulted, that seems unreasonable to me. But each to their own.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

@CountBiffa @londonHenryGB Is there a certain level of pay where you lose the right to question your tax burden? Who decides what that level is? You can argue that his contribution is fair but calling him “disgusting” and telling him to fuck off doesn’t really add anything to your argument.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

Fiscal drag is an insidious tax. The government has willingly chosen to disapply the law that would otherwise force them to raise thresholds by CPI every year. We are all poorer for it. The freeze will automatically expire in 2031 but given how addicted govt are to it, who knows when it will end.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

You’re answering a point nobody made. We’re not debating how pensions are funded. It’s irrelevant. Ben compared the State Pension with a policy specifically designed to push unemployed people who can work back into employment. It’s not a policy I personally agree with but the comparison is daft.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

Except purpose obviously does come into it. The proposal specifically targets people able to work after 6 months of unemployment. It’s literally called a “Back to Work” card. I don’t actually agree with what the Tories are proposing but it has nothing to do with SP. Comparing it with the State Pension completely misses the point. My original scope may have been too broad but the substantive point remains.

[GeorgeDay @GeorgeyDays]

Fair enough, welfare benefits was broad shorthand on my part. In the context of the original tweet I’m talking about unemployment support. JSA is conditional and exists to support someone while they look for work. There’s no equivalent policy objective of getting people “off” state pension.