Bye bye Theresa

[Rich B]

Unemployed for a fortnight and suddenly he’s Jeremy Corbyn fighting for the oppressed!

[JLv3.0]

'Help, help - I'm being oppressed!'

[NotoriousREV]

Yeah, I had a financial choice. I can choose not to work for a considerable period of time if I don't want to. Some people don't have the luxury of ditching work. I'm incredibly privileged to be in this position and I hopefully won't forget it. I grew up living on a council estate, in a deprived area, so I've seen real struggling first hand. I doubt you or GG have ever had to tear the house apart to pull enough loose change together to stick a couple of quid in the electric or gas meters.

Anyway, here's a more balanced view: https://www.citymetric.com/politics/yes ... thers-2976

[duncs500]

Back on topic, who's the best of the bad bunch? Javid perhaps?

Rev I need you to spend tomorrow doing extensive research and tell us who to hope for.

[NotoriousREV]

Back on topic, who's the best of the bad bunch? Javid perhaps?

Rev I need you to spend tomorrow doing extensive research and tell us who to hope for.

I'm backing BoJo. There's no way he can deliver Brexit. Possibly Raab who would fall apart spectacularly in a matter of weeks. I may be in this for the lolz, though.

[Rich B]

Pull your own head out of your arse Rev, you don’t know about anyone else’s past.

But yes, that article sums it up far more succinctly than any argument about a theoretical woman and her imaginary kids will do on a forum.

[NotoriousREV]

Was your past struggling on £75k?

[Simon]

For what it's worth I don't think there should be a tax cut for anyone. 40%'ers, 20%'ers or whatever. Public services need it more, simple as that.

And I also think we've done 'enough' for the minimum wage lot too, from a taxation perspective/personal allowance perspective.

I'll explain that comment - the O/H and I represent both ends of this. If this tax cut came to fruition I'd be £500 a month better off. My O/H works in a shop on minimum wage. But paying the small amount of tax that she does gives her a stake in the society she lives in. She doesn't begrudge it - she knows that things need to be paid for and her paying a small amount helps to pay for them, even if I pay more in tax alone every month than she earns gross.

One think I will say is that I think there needs to be an overhaul of the personal allowance. We should move to a system of a 'household allowance' rather than a personal one. And that should be calculated based on how many people are supported by the wages in that household. Single person? HA=x. 2 adults? HA=2x. 2 adults and 2 kids? HA=3x. And you can allocate that household allowance to whomever you like in your household. It's silly that 1 partners PA is wasted if they stay home to look after children whereas the other partner is paying the same tax as a single person and supporting his partner and children.

[Zonda_]

Fuck I wish I was struggling on £75k!


No one is by the way.

[Swervin_Mervin]

The fact that she has a choice to even consider spending £2k per month is a luxury most people would rather enjoy.

the choice between working and being unemployed. Great!

Swerve, for higher rate tax payers? The scheme I was on was £124 a month for higher rate, and nurseries in the south are £60+ per day (ours is £75).

Yep. Higher rate payers are actually marginally better off on the new system. Both parents have to be working though as far as I can tell, which is the twat in the ointment for many.

[Swervin_Mervin]

if we’re talking about “need” after 11 years of austerity, this is not the tax band that should come first.

DIC

Are we forgetting the fairly sharp rise in the Personal Allowance that's taken place over the best part of the last decade? So there have effectively been tax cuts for those at the lower end of the earnings scale

[Swervin_Mervin]

For what it's worth I don't think there should be a tax cut for anyone. 40%'ers, 20%'ers or whatever. Public services need it more, simple as that.

And I also think we've done 'enough' for the minimum wage lot too, from a taxation perspective/personal allowance perspective.

I'll explain that comment - the O/H and I represent both ends of this. If this tax cut came to fruition I'd be £500 a month better off. My O/H works in a shop on minimum wage. But paying the small amount of tax that she does gives her a stake in the society she lives in. She doesn't begrudge it - she knows that things need to be paid for and her paying a small amount helps to pay for them, even if I pay more in tax alone every month than she earns gross.

One think I will say is that I think there needs to be an overhaul of the personal allowance. We should move to a system of a 'household allowance' rather than a personal one. And that should be calculated based on how many people are supported by the wages in that household. Single person? HA=x. 2 adults? HA=2x. 2 adults and 2 kids? HA=3x. And you can allocate that household allowance to whomever you like in your household. It's silly that 1 partners PA is wasted if they stay home to look after children whereas the other partner is paying the same tax as a single person and supporting his partner and children.

I wouldn't disagree with your last point. However, I'm far less than convinced about public sector needing more cash to burn. They're grossly inefficient, that's the number one problem for them. Throwing more money at them isn't much of a solution.

[GG.]

One think I will say is that I think there needs to be an overhaul of the personal allowance. We should move to a system of a 'household allowance' rather than a personal one. And that should be calculated based on how many people are supported by the wages in that household. Single person? HA=x. 2 adults? HA=2x. 2 adults and 2 kids? HA=3x. And you can allocate that household allowance to whomever you like in your household. It's silly that 1 partners PA is wasted if they stay home to look after children whereas the other partner is paying the same tax as a single person and supporting his partner and children.

Agree with all this - would be a very sensible (and equitable) revision to the current system.

[DeskJockey]

Lots of countries subsidise childcare because it's better than losing productive people who can't afford it. Our eldest did a couple of months of nursery in NZ and it was under half the cost of here.

Friends at home have two children in full-time day care and pay about £400/month. Rest is government subsidy. We pay more for just the little one three days a week.

[Jobbo]

The single mum on £75k a year wasn’t an example of the floating voter who might decide the next election... surely? If more than a handful of them exist, they’ll be voting in London and the south-east constituencies which are not key marginals. They are absolutely not the modern equivalent of Blair’s Mondeo Man

Perhaps Mondeo Man is now earning between £50k and £80k, and this is a clever policy to appeal to him again? In reality the people Boris, or any Tory leader, needs to win back are the Brexit Party voters. That’s an unappealing prospect but only Boris is capable of doing it by outright lying to their faces. So he’s the right choice. Only because the alternatives (Corbyn or some bizarre Farage coalition) are so unpalatable.

[duncs500]

I wouldn't disagree with your last point. However, I'm far less than convinced about public sector needing more cash to burn. They're grossly inefficient, that's the number one problem for them. Throwing more money at them isn't much of a solution.

Ah, so speaketh a man who has no doubt had plenty of dealings with the public sector. Painfully correct.

With my every year I seem to find a new shambles of a government department, burning cash for fun.

[V8Granite]

I think this highlights just how crazy childcare costs are more than anything

Ours now go to a place linked to the school. It has a TV on when we pick the kids up, is a bit too frantic and we’ve noticed some odd behaviour from our youngest since he joined. It’s half the cost of where they used to go but you need to be at least 3.

We are now returning the youngest to the previous nursery, before the 30 hours kicked in we were paying nearly exactly 2k a month for 3 days a week for both kids for a time. Before the 30 hours kicked in we only had £250 a month Pre-tax childcare allowance which saved us £600 ish a year. We were not able to receive anything else due to my income, which was based on my pre-tax earnings.

Now, we were not struggling at all but I do well and the wife worked from home, she worked about 30 hours a week over 3 days but was still 400 ish short at the end of each month in just childcare alone.

I can see how hard it must be to cover childcare on even 75K, we know the cost of commuting on the lower end of the London wage but commuting still meant we were better off compared to the same job in Peterborough.

A conscious decision about children needs to be made, if you have a good salary but would struggle with kids where you live, you need to factor that in before having them.

So, I get why people want the tax break but I don’t think it’s the area the cuts need to be made. Helping with childcare would be a better one but that’s not fair on the childless either.

Dave!

[ZedLeg]

Missed some fun last night, didn’t I .

TBF to GG , that one woman he’s talking about sounds like she’s had a hard life. She could do with a break.

My opinion on income taxation is that personal allowance should go up in line with minimum wage. You shouldn’t pay tax if you’re only getting paid what the government is forcing your employer to pay you.

[V8Granite]

Lots of countries subsidise childcare because it's better than losing productive people who can't afford it. Our eldest did a couple of months of nursery in NZ and it was under half the cost of here.

Friends at home have two children in full-time day care and pay about £400/month. Rest is government subsidy. We pay more for just the little one three days a week.

In Norway it’s about £250 a month per child, that’s a 10 hour day for some as well. Plus the facilities they have are fantastic.

In Norway I can get a 1% or so tax deduction if I have a mortgage, other titbits if I have children etc. That seems like a fair system but it’s world renowned for being hellishly complex as well.

Dave!

[JLv3.0]

As soon as I saw Dave! had posted my first thought was 'he's going to reference Norway, isn't he'.

Two words in