Tendring Topics………on line
Keeping things ‘in proportion’
I
am not one of Lord Mendelson’s greatest admirers. He was one of the creators of New Labour which, to win elections,
surrendered the Labour Party’s soul and converted British politics into a pale
imitation of the politics of the USA . There is precious little
difference between the objectives of the two main parties. They
only differ in how best to achieve them.
In office Tony Blair, Lord Mendelson’s friend and political colleague, continued the process begun by Mrs
Thatcher of turning the UK
into a Prime Ministerial dictatorship.
However,
I am inclined to be on Lord Mendelson’s side in his current disagreement with
Ed Miliband and his shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. It is, I think, shameful that multi-millionaires
in this country are likely to pay a much smaller proportion of their income in
taxation than those whose income is so low that they pay no income tax at all,
but do have to pay the government every time they buy an object or service that
is subject to VAT or purchase something that is subject to customs duty, like a
packet of cigarettes or a pint at a pub.
Multi-millionaires also, of course, pay a much smaller proportion of
their income in taxation than do those mythical beings who David Cameron always
claims he is eager to help – average hardworking wage earners who pay income
tax and, of course, the indirect taxes and custom duties that this government
prefers
Ed Miliband’s
mansion tax may not be intended to be a one-off tax to help the NHS – or any
other good cause – out of its current crisis, by taking a few hundred thousand
pounds from the bank accounts of the super-wealthy, but that’s how it
sounds. I think that the government
should be fair to both the wealthy and the poor by claiming an equal percentage
of the gross income of all of us to fund public services. The obvious way to do this is by means of
the income tax system, the only tax that is linked to ability to pay. I think we should consider it not as an
imposition but as a privilege to pay our annual subscription towards the
not-inconsiderable benefits of being a British Citizen, or towards our
permission to live and work within the UK .
We would then all have an equal stake in the prosperity or economic
failure of our country. We really would
be all in this together!
Income tax is the
obvious means that a government could use to level the economic playing field
but another way that would help to do this would be – as Lord Mendelson suggests – adding additional tax bands to the Council Tax system.
Blog
readers past the first flush of youth will recall the ‘bad old days’ in which
local authorities, County, Borough and District Councils raised part of their
income by means of ‘the domestic rates’.
These were an annual charge on each dwelling within the district. Nobody enjoyed paying them but they were
based on the estimated rental value of the property. They therefore had at
least a rough relationship to the income of the occupier of the occupier or
occupiers
Mrs Thatcher’s
government changed all that. Instead of
the rates we were to have a ‘community charge’ (almost instantly rebranded ‘the
poll tax’) which taxed each individual equally regardless of whether that
individual was a millionaire or a refuse collector. It took no account whatsoever of ability to
pay. The rating system may have been disliked but the poll tax was actually
hated. It was just such a tax that had provoked
the medieval ‘peasants revolt’. In the
late twentieth century it produced wide-spread demonstrations, riots and the
eventual fall of the Thatcher government.
The Poll Tax
was replaced by the ‘Council Tax’. This is based on the estimated purchase
value of the property and therefore makes a pretence of bearing some
relationship to the income or wealth of the householder. Properties are classified as being in one of
eight ‘tax bands’, the lowest of which is under £40,000 and the highest
£320,000 and above. A glance will make
it clear that those bands are hopelessly out of date. I suppose for £40,000 you might, just
possibly, get some kind of a shack in an area like the Brooklands Estate,
Jaywick just a couple of miles from my
home – but that estate has been declared to be the most deprived area in the
UK!
At the other
end of the tax bands the situation is even more ridiculous. The highest tax band for Council Tax is
£320,000 and above. I agree that in the Clacton area you would get a very nice
property for £320,000 – but not in many other parts of the UK
Do you ever
watch ‘Escape to the Country’ on BBC
tv. Briefly it’s about very fortunate
(and often very hard working and gifted) folk who have made a fortune in London , or Manchester or Sheffield or wherever and are now seeking a residence ‘in
the country’. A BBC presenter introduces
them to three or four ‘desirable residences’ in the area of their choice. It’s not a programme I like to watch. I have spent too much of my professional
life trying to help people who are homeless, or overcrowded or living in
squalid conditions, to enjoy seeing well-heeled folk looking over a luxurious
home and complaining that ‘the view isn’t
quite what we’d hoped for’ or ‘the paddock isn’t really big enough for Rosalie (their
spoilt brat!) to exercise the pony we’ve
given her for her birthday’.
It’s very
unusual for one of those very comfortable and very desirable homes ‘in the
country’ to change hands for as little as £320,000. That sum would probably buy a roomy three
bedroom home in one of London ’s
more pleasant suburbs. That means that
an executive officer of a biggish enterprise or a middle-grade civil servant,
living in a comfortable but hardly palatial home in Cheam or Twickenham would
pay exactly the same Council Tax as the owner of a ‘Downton Abbey’ or similar
stately home or family mansion.
There should
be at least three higher tax bands, ending at homes valued at £2 million pounds
or more, to bring something like fairness to the Council Tax system. The
Council Tax bands, like the income tax system, need urgent reconstruction to
make sure that those who have done best from our market economy should pay at
least as big a proportion of their wealth in tax as those who have been less
fortunate.
A trusted ally – or a ‘pariah state’?
In recent
months I have been quite proud of the fact that I am a member of the Church of
England as well as of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). I welcomed the Church’s decision to ordain
women as Bishops as well as Priests. I
have applauded the Archbishop of Canterbury’s campaign to replace ‘pay day
lenders’ with local ‘credit unions’ and his criticism of economic policies that
have led to the proliferation of Food Banks throughout the UK .
That
enthusiasm suffered a severe blow this (23rd January) afternoon when
I learned that, to comply with government guidelines, the authorities of
Westminster Abbey would be flying our national flag at half-mast in mourning
for the King of Saudi Arabia. It
suffered a further blow with the news that the Prince of Wales (a future
‘Defender of the Faith’) together with our Prime Minister were to fly to Saudi Arabia to
express their condolences. I suppose
that the Prince is aware that any expression of the Faith that he will pledge
himself to defend is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia and that any Muslim in
that country who converts to Christianity is likely to be executed!
Most of those
involved in the 9/11 outrages in New
York were Saudis.
Saudi Arabia is the
home of the noxious fundamentalist Islamic faith that IS (the Islamic State) is
trying to impose in Syria
and Iraq and that Boko Haram
is imposing, even more blood-thirstily, in sub-Saharan Africa .
Donations from oil-rich Saudi millionaires financed IS during its early days.
They possibly still do so.
Do we really
need oil (and arms sales) so badly that we are prepared to befriend a state
whose philosophy is the exact opposite of the British values that David Cameron
and his colleagues are so eager to propagate?
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