For a load of shit ideas dreamed up by a long list of quangos, see here.
Or, from the MW manifesto:
1. Scrap VAT on domestic fuel* (and possibly reduce other taxes thereon). That gets the cost down by 5% at a stroke.
2. Encourage/enable pensioners and welfare claimants to set up a low-cost, basic bank account (any bank that refuses to offer such accounts gets its banking licence withdrawn). Encourage them (i.e. tell them how much cheaper it is) to pay by DD rather than pre-payment meter. That gets the cost down by a further 16%. DD payments can be made weekly or monthly.
3. Replace Council Tax/SDLT etc. with a Property Bubble Tax, and replace means-tested old-age benefits with a Citizen's Pension, which would encourage** the one million pensioners below the poverty line who still live in a three-bedroom house to trade down into a smaller home.
* Actually, phase out VAT on everything, but this would go first.
** Or at least not discourage which is what means-tested benefits do - if you swap big house for small house-plus-pile of cash, you lose so much in Pensions Credit and Council Tax Benefit that it often isn't worth the hassle. And SDLT of course disourages mobility.
I Guess She Just Couldn't Be The Bigger Person About It..?
41 minutes ago
6 comments:
I've been arguing for years that the banks should have a Universal Service Obligation (USO) similar to that operated in telecoms by BT. It shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to devise one where are licenced banks pay in proportion to their size. As part of this I would insist in a free cashpoint in every community over, say, 1000 households.
VAT is an EU tax so it can't be cut until Britain leaves it...
What snafu said.
Can we leave yet?
Maybe you haven't read line one, page one of the MW manifesto?
Why, if you argue that lower business rates will simply result in higher rents, would the same not happen if VAT was removed on fuel?
HH, well spotted, it almost certainly would. But the increased rents -> higher property values, and the increase in property values gets caught by 'Property Bubble Tax' (my new name for 'Land Value Tax').
But welfare claimants are (or should be) in social housing, so they don't pay market rent anyway.
And pensioners are either in social housing (same applies) or in owner-occupied (in which case they can defer, as previously explained).
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