raisethe wrote:
> JNugent <[email protected]> wrote:
>>just think of the ridiculous measures to which UK citizens are driven
>>in order to be allowed to leave their possessions to their children.
> Completely OT, but so what. IHT is known as the voluntary tax. It is
> generally pretty easy to avoid.
You shouldn't have to avoid it. You should be at liberty to do what
you want with your hard-earned at any and every stage of life, without
any of it being at risk of going to the Chancellor after you've paid
the income tax (etc) on it.
> Actually, I would like it to be more
> rigorous. I would sooner everyone had as equal as possible a start in
> life, no matter how rich their parents are.
That line would have been a wow in Albania, pre-1989.
Wonder why that sort of thing never worked/works?
>>>It is booming.
>>Our economy is currently inflated on a bubble of credit. It is all
>>going to change direction sooner than the government want to admit.
> Well I agree with you there, the slump, when it comes, is going to
> hurt.
>>The
>>point was that developing and Third World countries know better than
>>to hobble *their* economies with selective 400% taxation on the
>>productive parts of them.
> And my points are:
> (i) that our economy isn't hobbled,
....because it is inflated by gratuitous credit...
> and
> (ii) that given that the government needs to raise tax it is right
> that those who use a lot of finite fossil fuels pay more tax than
> those who use less, and those who pollute more pay more tax than those
> who pollute less.
It's a point of view. It has nothing in particular to commend it
(unless you really mean it across the board and you are advocating a
similar 400% tax on domestic gas and electricity as well as on road
fuel, which could mean we could abolish income tax), but it's a point
of view.
>>>>>It is
>>>>>therefore equitable to charge a tarrif to make up for the fuel duty
>>>>>not applied to the imports.
>>>>What do you mean, "equitable"?
>>>Fairness dictated by reason and conscience.
>>I see. You haven't got a supporting argument so you appeal to "reason"
>>(that being nothing more than a restatement of your preferences).
> No, you don't see. You asked me what equitable meant, and I defined it
> for you
....in a way that is meaningless unless seen from your particular POV.
IOW, it wasn't a definition. It was just the way you wanted your use
of the word to be interpreted.
> It is fair to charge a tariff on an overseas manufacturer who has a
> lower tax burden for producing a particular good that he wishes to
> sell in the UK, because otherwise he has an unfair competitive
> advantage over the UK producer of the same good.
There you go again.
"Unfair", you say. You are using it as though it meant something
widely-agreed. It doesn't.
> There is no point
> having a high tax on fuel in the UK if we import goods that don't
> suffer that tax burden.
There is every point in it (as far as the Chancellor is concerned). He
gets easy tax revenues from something that people here cannot avoid
unless they are prepared to live at less than their optimal living
standards.
> It won't have the intended purpose of the tax,
> which is to reduce demand for fuel.
Ah, you've fallen for the oldest trick in the book.
The purpose of tax is to gain revenue. The Chancellor does not want
people to use (much) less of commodities that are highly-taxed (except
to the very limited extent necessary to be able to "prove" that high
commodity taxes "work"). They are highly-taxed because he knows people
*won't* or *can't* use less of them. Think of tobacco. In the end, it
proved necessary to introduce severe controls on its use in public
places. Why not just use high(er) taxes on it if the purpose of tax is
"to reduce demand for" the highly-taxed commodity? Because it wouldn't
have worked, that's why.
> So if fuel duty is going to be
> applied, it has to be both on all fuel which is used in the UK, and
> all fuel which is used in the production and distribution of any good
> sold in the UK. For those countries that have a lower fuel duty than
> ourselves, a tariff is therefore necessary.
Would you impose a similar tariff on goods or services produced by
labour paid less then the (UK) minimum wage?
If not, why not?
>>TYhank you for at least responding in a way that shows you understand
>>the issues.-
> No Sir. I thank you.
After you, Claude...
