{"id":343,"date":"2010-05-12T19:48:09","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T17:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/cgi-bin\/weblog_basic\/index.php?p=343"},"modified":"2010-05-12T19:48:09","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T17:48:09","slug":"tax-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"Tax Policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The brief on Tax Policies prepared by Michael Webster and discussed during our study group session last night can be found under Pages\/Study Groups\/Tax Policies<\/strong> in the right hand column index. Michael Barker who participated has added the following comments:
\nI thought the evening?s discussion went well though one thing we did not really explore was recouping public money thrown at banks to bale out their naked speculative greed and incompetence nor a possible taxation vis.\u00e0.vis joint-stock banks, investment banks, hedge funds and the like, and the huge quantity of daily transactions. I feel sure that there is scope for a small % take on such transactions, small % enough not to cause too much of a fuss from the money-makers but when the public see how huge profits are again being made by Goldman Sachs and the like, it would be popular with the electorate and seem like a move to make capitalism generally more fair for the common good and contribute to the pot. Given my ignorance of economics, I am probably the least useful member of the group to contribute to the debate, it is mostly my gut reaction.
\nI do think that there is a case for raising the lowest band of income tax to encourage people either on low incomes or on welfare support to move on to self reliance, small entrepreneurship and so on, and it would have a beneficial knock-on effect enabling them to climb up the ladder AND there should be made available a system of small ?seeding? loans which conventional banks avoid. Sadly it is too often not the indigenous British ? feather-bedded by the long-standing system of too-freely-handed-out benefits – but the immigrants, seeking to better themselves, who seem to have taken the initiative (though of course there also the free-loaders who take advantage of lax systems ? much in need of tightening up). If the ingrained British distaste latterly for being servants can be overcome (odd really, we all serve some master or other), the idea of giving tax breaks to not only well-off employers – but also the comfortably off – to seek staff, that seemed to me a good idea BUT given that many retired people who would probably be available but are on pensions though active and healthy (and probably a bit bored) – they would need to be not unduly penalized by the tax system, otherwise the incentives to resume working would be completely lost.
\nClearly the Conservatives will have to bite the bullet at an early date – making it absolutely clear – without fudging the issues as the Socialists have ? and spell out the depth of the problem of debt in which Britain is mired and encourage a back-to-the-wall spirit ? the will to pull together and make some sacrifices ? promoting a new mood of freeing the people from state interference and nannying. It worked in the last war, this time the enemy is not Nazi aggression but a financial mess which affects us all and needs to be resolved with firmness. Not an easy task, there will be lots of backlash and whining. One can only hope that Cameron has the backbone to weather the forthcoming storms.
\nI am also convinced that the income tax system should be much more evenly graded (like the French system) to be put into a much higher bracket which reduces the incentive to succeed. As for inheritance tax, I rather agree with Michael Webster that the threshold should be raised substantially. It does not bring in that much revenue and is seemingly expensive to manage; philosophically it is perhaps a socialist-envy issue and I dare say rather outdated.
\nWhat does seem to me important is that there should be a sort of National Plan (albeit it sounds rather like Socialism) ? clearly laid out:- this is the problem we all face, these are the proposed solutions. Put to the people ? probably best in a Referendum ? they will respond positively I think to the need for belt-tightening. If not there will have to be another election and another mess. What does need to happen in my view is that systems should be made simpler and bureaucracy reduced.
\nVoil\u00e0 – my thoughts for whatever they are worth.
\nBest wishes,
\nMichael<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The brief on Tax Policies prepared by Michael Webster and discussed during our study group session last night can be found under Pages\/Study Groups\/Tax Policies in the right hand column index. Michael Barker who participated has added the following comments: I thought the evening?s discussion went well though one thing we did not really explore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-study-groups"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conservatives-paris.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}