From the transcript of today's interview on The Andrew Marr Show:
DAVID CAMERON: I think people … the Conservatives are coming here to Birmingham with spirits high because they can see a government that is delivering for the Conservative Party. We have put in place you know the referendum lock, so we can't pass more powers to Brussels (1); we will have the immigration cap (2); we got rid of Labour's jobs tax. (3)
1) Is a downright lie, as any seasoned EU/Tory observer can tell you (see e.g. hedge funds and banking directives and regulations), but this is not my specialist topic.
2) There are signs that they will actually do this, I just hope they stop the wrong people coming in and still let the right people come in.
3) Is a downright lie and I'd like to highlight this one as tax is my specialist topic. Back in 2008, Labour announced that 'the tax on jobs' i.e. National Insurance, would go up by 1%, i,e, Employee's NIC would go up by 0.5% and Employer's NIC would go up by 0.5%. Before the general election in May 2010, Labour said that if they stayed in government they would increase National Insurance by 2%, i.e. both types of NIC by 1% each. There's a reasonable summary of the history to this on the BBC website.
An article in The Guardian from shortly before the election (and this is an article supporting the increase) reported thusly:
Last night's first televised election debate thrust the debate between Labour and the Conservatives over public spending cuts and Labour's planned 1% increase in national insurance contributions (NICs) right back into the spotlight. In the debate, David Cameron claimed that the NICs increase is a "tax on jobs" and that the Conservatives can save enough to avoid having to raise NICs by making further efficiency savings in the public sector.
I had vaguely assumed that the Lib-Cons would, at worst, stick to the old plan to 'only' increase National Insurance by 1%, but when I attended a proper professional tax course recently, the lecturer pointed out that the Lib-Cons were in fact going to do exactly what Labour would have done and which the Tories opposed at the time, and increase National Insurance by 2%.
So now you know.
Nothing subtle about it
2 hours ago
6 comments:
"2) There are signs that they will actually do this, I just hope they stop the wrong people coming in and still let the right people come in."
Can anyone say WORK PERMITS!! I mean I know its the daily mail that runs the stories but there must be some truth in them or they'd be up in court on a daily basis. Why are all these migrants getting child benefits & housing benefits and never working from day 1 of entering the country. Wouldn't a proper work permit system solve this?
"3) Is a downright lie and I'd like to highlight this one as tax is my specialist topic. Back in 2008, Labour announced that 'the tax on jobs' i.e. National Insurance, would go up by 1%, i,e, Employee's NIC would go up by 0.5% and Employer's NIC would go up by 0.5%. Before the general election in May 2010, Labour said that if they stayed in government they would increase National Insurance by 2%, i.e. both types of NIC by 1% each. There's a reasonable summary of the history to this on the BBC website."
Did they not do some jiggery pokery with the thresholds though so that the employer's contribution didn't impact as highly?
Of course its one of the worst taxes of all (2nd worst?) and should be scrapped entirely.
SW, it is true the Tories did some jiggery pokery with lifting the Employer threshold, but it is the RATE that does the economic damage and not the TOTAL revenue.
So e.g. having flat 8% Er's NI on all wages and salaries with no exemptions is better than 13.8% on all wages and salaries above £100 a week (or whatever, assuming both raise same total revenue).
Agreed, it is the second worst tax after VAT.
So e.g. having flat 8% Er's NI on all wages and salaries with no exemptions is better than 13.8% on all wages and salaries above £100 a week (or whatever, assuming both raise same total revenue).
The thing that gets me is that NI is also not cumulative, 2 part time jobs at £5,715 a piece netting you an extra £628 over 1 job on £11,430 (with the same tax credits entitlement) The system stinks. Although I must confess to having 2 sources of income to take advantage of the very same loophole.
SW, yeah but they have to do all this to maintain the pretence that 'National Insurance' is somehow different to income tax.
For example, for income tax it's called 'personal allowance' and for NI it's called 'lower earnings threshold'. Income tax is calculated on a yearly basis but NI is calculated on a weekly or monthly basis.
Yeah, mostly I see there being little to no NI and plenty of dividend income, i've heard of some staggering examples of mass dividends taken on 5-April-2010 in order to beat the 50% it sure as shit ain't gonna bring in a lot of additional tax revenue BUT what it will do (is doing) of course is driving those with easily transferable skills out of the country.
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