As a comfortably-off codger, my winter fuel payment was always welcome but always undeserved.
We boomers have had it too good.
Generational rebalancing is long overdue.
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Edward Troup
254 posts
Edward Troup retweetledi
Tax trap for parents unwittingly using non-qualifying scheme. Problem of poor underlying policy. Not clear why tax relief given in way resulting in horizontal inequity. HMRC clamps down on abuse of tax-saving workplace childcare scheme via @FT
on.ft.com/3LrWL1v
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I am shocked to learn that intermediaries are making a killing from a tax relief and that the relief may not be working as intended.
There is no market force in tax raising other than tax avoidance.
on.ft.com/3LrWL1v
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HMRC’s decision to suspend their helpline will have involved much thought and some tricky trade-offs.
For HMT to reverse that decision today is not the way to run a tax administration.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/…
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Halving the threshold would have been a better way to remove a barrier to growth.
Paul Johnson@PJTheEconomist
VAT registration threshold up from £85k to £90k. First increase in a long while. Already high by international standards. Small firms/self employed do cluster at turnover just under the threshold.
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@neiljeffares Fair point, Neil, but I’d classify the treatment of private equity as a “relief” which needs reforming.
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@edwardtroup Yes in broad terms; but there is political and moral sense in stopping bankers in private equity teams being taxed on standard remuneration disguised as carried interests as cap gain when everyone knows it's their pay for employment. We've all known it is wrong
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Hard to argue with this. CGT is a mess.
But half a century shows there is no right answer. CGT will always be a minority sport with fluctuating revenues.
Keep it simple, push up the rates, remove some reliefs. But devote real energy to the big taxes - IT, NICs, VAT.
Dan Neidle@DanNeidle
How did we end up with a rate of tax on capital gains so much lower than the rate of tax on employment income? The very silly history of UK CGT, in five charts.
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Reintroducing indexation on CGT would certainly give a revived OTS some work to do. Some of the most complex and, ultimately ineffective, set of rules ever devised.
Judith Freedman@JudithFreedman
As @DanNeidle points out in his article, the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) made recommendations in 2020 around aligning rates of cgt and income tax. The report was shelved. In 2022 the OTS was abolished.
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Edward Troup retweetledi
TaxAid and Tax Help for Older People are the only charities providing specialist tax help for people across the UK and we need your support to continue to provide this unique service.
Please donate to our joint fundraising campaign at buff.ly/47CoiXH.
Thank you.
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Good sense from Nick Macpherson.
As Lord Salisbury reputedly said, the best time to tax people is when they’re dead.
Nick Macpherson@nickmacpherson2
A short thread about Inheritance Tax, a tax which few estates pay and raises little revenue (c£7 billion). But many mistakenly think they will pay it. Hence the political return from cutting it is higher than the cost. 1/
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@IanDunt Much like blockchain c.2015 except with blockchain the caveat was anarchy not death.
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Just sent out more and will try to so some later. I do apologize to people who dont get them. When I have 100 to give out, I get far more than 1000 requests. Im so sorry. Im prioritizing named accounts. Also, some people asking for codes still cant be DM'd, No DM, no code, sorry!
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About to do another round of 💙 sky code donations. Write below if you’re interested. You must promise to then donate the codes you get when you sign up. Cheers All!
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Great @FT piece today by @EmmaAgyemang and @ChrisGiles_ on how to manage public debt.
ft.com/content/b7b7a3…
Whatever your views on the overall level of tax, I argue that the tax burden must shift from younger to older generations.
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GDP is 2% higher. So this year’s tax take is will be nearer 36% than 37% of GDP.
Good news: more scope for increasing taxes to fill the fiscal hole.
Bad news: tax collection is (even) less efficient than we’d thought.
Take your pick.
Chris Giles@ChrisGiles_
Everyone is having such a jolly time arguing about UK GDP statistics following @ONS revisions, I’ve had to spend my time giving more details Eg. Brexit and farming. Old stats show agriculture expanding; new ones show contraction on.ft.com/44znmRl
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@JudithFreedman The Committee falls into a familiar trap: calls for simplification are no more than calls for better taxes.
We need a better tax system. But this will be delivered by politicians not a quango.
As I say in this report
instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/office…
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“Disbanding the office established to champion tax simplification risks signalling the Government is not serious about the task at hand. Action needs to be taken, and public scrutiny of Government efforts are vital." The OTS needs to be strengthened, not abolition.
Treasury Committee@CommonsTreasury
🚨 Published today 🚨 We’ve just published our report on Tax Simplification, calling for enhanced accountability of Government efforts to simplify the UK’s overcomplicated and burdensome tax system. 📗 Learn more and read the report in full 👇 committees.parliament.uk/committee/158/…
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A payment due on all SPS consignments based on customs declarations.
Customs duty or user charge?
Any views, @ONS ?
Edwin Hayward@edwinhayward
Hey, did you know that the Tories plan to monetise incoming border checks by charging up to £43 on every SPS consignment, whether or not it ultimately gets checked? All the gory details in this consultation document, which they snuck out VERY quietly. consult.defra.gov.uk/government-bcp…
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@DavidGauke @NewStatesman You read it so we didn’t have to. I thank you for your service.
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My review for @newstatesman of an account of Boris Johnson’s time as Prime Minister which exposes how ill-equipped he was to do the job.
newstatesman.com/culture/books/…
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@JudithFreedman The argument that anything done with taxed income should be absolved from further tax is somewhat quaint, but remarkably persistent.
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Once again a basic knowledge failure from this account. The whole point of much (currently legitimate) tax planning is to turn income from labour into capital gains and to invest in very low risk assets to make capital gains, all taxed at lower rate than income tax.
Cut My Tax@CutMyTaxUK
It would be good to eliminate the supposed "gap" by bringing income tax rates down to CGT levels, but of course there is no intellectual basis for claiming that capital gains resemble income. Gains result from taxed income put at risk, whereas income is payment for work.
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What matters is not tax simplification but good policy and good administration.
Tax policy is for ministers. But an external body could help improve tax administration.
instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/office…
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