Posts Tagged taxation
How Big was Gordon Brown’s Raid on Pensions?
Posted by Nigel Williams in Economics, Tax and Spend on 03/10/2011
When people mention personal pensions, Gordon Brown and the Dividend Tax Credit get mentioned soon afterwards. This note takes a look at how big an effect that change in taxation had on individual pensions.
Why the Laffer curve should not be laffed at
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, Politics, Tax and Spend on 28/03/2011
Last week saw George Osborne announce his second budget. Some applauded it as being pro-growth and supportive of the private sector. This assessment is debateable, and in the important area of tax there were few significant decisions taken, other than the reduction of corporation tax by 2% with a proposal to reduce it eventually to 23%. Tax is a contentious issue, however some figures published by the Harvard Economist Greg Mankiw indicate that the chancellor could go a good deal further in simplifying the British tax system and reducing tax rates.
A taxing problem
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, Politics, Tax and Spend on 04/01/2011
Today the top-rate of VAT has risen from 17.5% to 20%. The Government argues that the move is necessary to increase tax revenues and tackle the deficit, suggesting that once economic conditions improve the rate may be reduced. However, the increase has attracted criticism from an array of different sources, Ed Miliband has stated that it is the ‘wrong tax at the wrong time’ hitting the average family hardest, and business groups have warned that the tax may depress economic growth by decreasing consumer spending.
The public’s tax priority: stability
Posted by Nick Cowen in Tax and Spend on 28/05/2008
After Brown’s £2.7 billion bailout over the 10p tax debacle, the multiple taxes on motorists are now coming under greater scrutiny. In the early years, the majority of attacks directed against the Labour Government were the introduction of stealth taxes. That criticism no longer applies. A doubling in vehicle excise duty on ordinary family cars fails to achieve what any ‘decent’ stealth tax would do: creep into the family budget, bite a little chunk out of it and sneak it back to the Treasury, preferably without the public noticing. The ruse will probably be discovered months later but by then is relegated to a mere bullet point in a Tax Payers Alliance briefing. They are not meant to generate newspaper campaigns against them. So the Government’s tax strategy appears to have de-cloaked and, although it has taken on a green mantle, it does not appear any less ugly for it.
Big Brother’s beady eyes
Posted by Nick Cowen in Civil Liberty, European Union, Health, Tax and Spend on 14/05/2008
Is summer now the season for publications pushing increased government intrusion into private conduct? The warm air has been accompanied by the somewhat chillier sensation of the release of two reports with some joyously Orwellian titles: The Politics of Public Behaviour from Demos and Creatures of Habit? The Art of Behavioural Change from the Social Market Foundation. From the mechanisms discussed in both these titles, it seems that the aspiration to get the state more involved in people’s lives remains as strong as ever among many policymakers, but combined (perhaps dangerously) with fresh research into behavioural economics.
Blair’s legacy, Brown’s economy?
Posted by Nick Cowen in Tax and Spend on 06/06/2007
Via Daniel J. Mitchell at Cato, we learn that the last seven years has seen a climb in total taxation the equivalent of ten pence in every pound:
‘What developed nation has taken the biggest steps in the wrong direction since the turn of the century? The answer is not France, Germany, or Sweden. The United Kingdom has that dubious honor. Government spending has jumped from less than 38 percent of GDP in 2000 to more than 45 percent of economic output today. That is the largest increase among OECD nations, and the United Kingdom now has a bigger burden of government than Germany.’