Questions Over Tax Aren’t Going Away Angela
58 minutes ago
An increase in wages for everyone in the private sector to the level of theDizzy had an interesting take on it yesterday morning re welfare reform. Note the calculation involves 'everyone in the private sector' including SME's paying a lot less in corporation tax (21%) than larger enterprises (28%), with little consequent scope for tax reductions. But this is just the type of initiative the treasury needs to be looking at.
"living wage" (£7.85 in London and £7.60 in the rest of the UK) would lead to an increase in gross earnings of between £11.4 billion and £12.0 billion, of which about £4.5 to £4.9billion would accrue to the Government through higher income tax and employee national insurance payments and lower spending on benefits and tax credits. Employers would also pay about £1.4 to £1.5 billion more in Employers’ National Insurance. In total, the Treasury would gain between £5.9 billion to £6.3 billion.
'Sorting welfare comes at a political cost – and for what? Helping a bunch of people who tend not to vote. Far easier to shovel money at the poor, and leave them in decaying council estates.'
And that's exactly what they did. But as we all know, it's how you look after those you do not need that defines you. The piece ends 'how serious is he (Cameron) about fixing this broken society? In the next few months, we’ll see.'
Iain Duncan Smith and welfare reform is fast becoming the totemic issue for this coalition. And not before time.