Tax

My friend, colleague and scary clown Obnoxio posted recently a clear view of the way forward regarding taxation.

Without permission, I reproduce some of it here, because that's what bloggers seem to do:

• No tax is payable on the first £12,500 of individual earnings (including Citizens Income).
• Individual tax is 20% above £12,500. No deductions, no expenses, no shit.
• Corporation tax is 1% of income earned in the UK, no exemptions, no allowances, no deductible expenses, no fucking incentives, no shit.
• National Insurance is 5% on employers, 5% on employees, also above £12,500.*
• There are no personal tax credits. There is no dole. There is no income support.
• Every UK citizen above 16 gets an income of £50 a week. Pensioners get an extra £50 a week per "family" i.e., single pensioners get a total of £100 a week, married pensioners get a total of £150 a week (until they've been rolled off the ponzi scheme, anyway - the state pension scheme will be closed to new entrants.)
• The first child in a family gets the family an allowance of £50 a week until their 16th birthday, when the kid get the money. Subsequent children get fuck all until they are 16.

Sorry, scary clown. I nicked it.

It's quite good, although I see why these chancellors have such a problem. If I was the proper chancellor, I would have a spreadsheet which, when I put into it "20% tax on earnings above £12,500", would spit out a figure showing how much I pocket. I imagine it is quite a lot.

But I conducted an experiment yesterday. And then I asked some other people to conduct it, and I hope that with such a vast sample I can formulate some figures to back up my hypothesis.

Here is my experiment.

As you go through your daily life, take note of what is around you. What you like, what you don't like. Discard anything that is paid for by real people, such as the gardens you walk/cycle/drive past, the rivers, lakes, canals. Include anything that is paid for by the "state", such as roads, schools, hospitals.

Add up what the "state" funded stuff should cost. Not what it does cost, because that's a function of the inefficiency of this rotten government and their hare-brained schemes.

Add to this figure Obo's nominal £50-a-week incentive to get a job payment multiplied by the number of people who can't/won't/prefer not to get a job, plus the very generous pension options Obo suggests.

Now divide into that figure the number of people who have been lucky enough to get a job.

Take the total amount of money over £12,500 pp earned by the lucky jobful people. If this unholy amount of money isn't greater than the total amount required, then we really are in deep shit. However, it won't be. It will be far more. The percentage of the total amount sloshing around represented by the amount required will give you the real tax rate.

That's how much tax should be. Alternatively, abandon this silly idea of income tax and use things like road tax (VEL) to pay for it. Expect people with children to contribute to their education. Stuff the daft idea of everyone going to Uni to get a degree in some old bollocks that they didn't need one for before this band of idiots came to power.

There is the small matter of a huge loan left outstanding. I suggest that, as I was never a party to that loan, and probably nor were you, then we should put the onus on paying that back squarely on the shoulders of the idiots responsible for getting it in the first place. I will do the requisite negotiations, if necessary. It won't take long.

I would dearly love to get my hands on that spreadsheet. Anyone got a copy? Anyone prepared to help make one with the help of data which I believe is available freely from the ONS?

If so, I will make an app for everyone to use, on t'internets, where you can put in your own numbers and see if we can make any sense of what's happening. 

I promise.