Wednesday 31 March 2010

Yeah, yeah, meh, meh, facepalm

I read the Tories' tax pledges. Half-assed but generally a step in the right direction.

Right up until the end:

Tax simplification. Conservatives will create an Office of Tax Simplification. It will become an independent and permanent voice on tax law, operating in a similar way to the National Audit Office, which will create a sustained and powerful institutional pressure for the simplification of the tax system.

Yes! The bonfire of the quangos rules!

Way to fucking go, Dave. You fucking simpering moron. We look to the Tories to reduce the size of government. You don't need a fucking quango to "create a sustained and powerful institutional pressure for the simplification of the tax system." Fuck, I'll do it for you now. For free.

Look:
  1. No tax is payable on the first £12,500 of individual earnings (including Citizens Income).
  2. Individual tax is 20% above £12,500. No deductions, no expenses, no shit.
  3. Corporation tax is 1% of income earned in the UK, no exemptions, no allowances, no deductible expenses, no fucking incentives, no shit.
  4. National Insurance is 5% on employers, 5% on employees, also above £12,500.*
  5. There are no personal tax credits. There is no dole. There is no income support.
  6. 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.)
  7. 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.
See, iDave, it fits on a fucking page. Small words. Anyone can understand it.

And if that means we can't afford diversity outreach co-ordinators and massive state advertising campaigns, well, that's tough.

Update: Someone's finally had a proper good idea in CCHQ.

*NI would go down as the ponzi commitment goes down. People who live through the transition are a bit screwed, but frankly, we're so fucking screwed anyway, who's going to notice it? Happy to hear any suggestions for compensation for these unlucky folks. Perhaps an equivalent government contribution to their private pension plans made out of reserves.

If there are any.

16 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Seems fair enough.

JuliaM said...

"And if that means we can't afford diversity outreach co-ordinators and massive state advertising campaigns, well, that's tough."

Nope! That's a feature, not a bug!

thefrollickingmole said...

Just as a suggestion, since you badly named 'national insurance" has been pissed up the wall already by brown and Co, why not just roll the lot together?

Unless of course you are going to use it for what it was meant for.


Love you kids alowance idea as well.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

Moley, yes, NI would be ringfenced to pay for pensions only.

Any surplus would go towards CI. The objective would be to reduce NI rates over time. When pensions reduced to a manageable sum, NI would be dropped altogether and funded out of tax.

Kingbingo said...

A while ago I did some thinking and came up with almost exactly the same system, just no NI. Of course it would mean abolishing around two thirds of the state.

Starting with the fucking BBC obviously. They would be the main voice against any reduction in the state.

JohnRS said...

Brilliant idea - even a politician should be able to understand it!!

I'm not a tax expert (and never, ever want to be) so I've no idea what tax revenue this generates compared to the thieves charter that is our current tax system.

Any idea what sort of numbers we're talking about here?

Vladimir said...

I read the list first, and thought to myself "Is this really Cameron's plan for simplifying tax? Bloody hell, I'd even vote for this."

Ha ha. As if Mr Blue Labour would come up with anything like this if the alternative was employing a few hundred quangocrats.

Atheist Ranter said...

It's so obvious, simple and correct that politicians would not want to use it. They need complications to be able to patronise us prols.

Fidel Cuntstruck said...

So simple it can never be accepted by any of the main three - if you make it so simple and transparent it's just too difficult for the exchequer to steal from - so there you have it.

bayard said...

No 3 - is that a 1% tax on turnover?

All very good, but as the Great British Public has already demonstrated that it is prepared to be taxed many times more than this and there's been no armed insurrection, where's the incentive to reduce it?

Obnoxio The Clown said...

bayard, yes it was, and it is the one area that I feel awkward about. But on the other hand, if a company isn't making more than 1% profit on turnover, is it viable? I accept that it may have to be tuned a little.

Willy said...

"Corporation tax is 1% of income earned"

We have a similar set up for small businesses here (South Africa) with the exception that the first $12,000 p/a is tax free.

Breaker said...

Excel model that allows individuals to act as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and design their own systems of income tax and National Insurance Contributions.

Antisthenes said...

The Conservatives want an Office of Tax Simplification, the ASI want an Office for Fiscal discipline and we have an independent BoE. There could be a benefit here. If one by one each area of government was overseen by similar such institutions perhaps Government could be run by professionals instead of amateur politicians. Just think of the benefits, all decisions based on efficient use of resources and for everyone's economic good not on political ideology. It would be a Conservative government run by proxy with good old fashioned Conservative values.

Umbongo said...

"Someone's finally had a proper good idea in CCHQ."

Obo - that is not a commitment to abolish IR35, it's a commitment to review it. Moreover, it's going to be reviewed by the "independent Office of Tax Simplification" the creation of which you rightly criticise.

Repeat after me 3 times "Cameron is a statist centralising cunt" and don't forget that aperçu each time you have the illusion of perceiving a trace of clear blue water between Labour and the Dave's Conservatives.

John Demetriou said...

Not a bad compromise for an AnCap.

Nice.