Keir Starmer will tell us we'll be finding things getting worse before they get better & that Labour is going to have to make some 'unpopular decisions'.
I have no doubt that the Tories have left a toxic legacy, but why is it that once again the poor & vulnerable are having to suffer the pain for things to be 'fixed'?
Why aren't the unpopular decisions about taxing the better off, or using a different economic rationale?
We know why....
I am sure a lot of it is more about winning votes before elections, Labour has said it won't raise income taxe, it could have said it won't raise taxes for lower income earners, freeing them up to raise taxes for higher income earners. They have not said anything about income tax thresholds, so a huge numnber of NHS and rail workers are about to get an inflation busting pay rise, so unless the tax thresholds are adjusted they may find they pay more tax on that upper slice of income.
Details on current tax bands are here
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/tax-rates/
If I get those income tax bands, the highest is something like 125k a year, but the average football player earns far more than that a week.
We really need tax thresholds somewhere around 128 k per week, so even things up perhaps. Or several million a year, same goes for NI thresholds too.
Yes, the bands certainly need to move upwards but then also have (as we have had in the past) a higher rated top band to capture exactly the sort of wages that footballers 'command'
@ChrisMayLA6 @zleap the other obvious tax gaps is that National Insurance is capped at 2% above £50,270/year whereas most of us in employment pay 8% (0% under £12,570/year).
Also the tapered withdrawal of the basic tax allowance between £100,000/year and £125,140/year is entirely anomalous and would be better replaced by adjustment to the thresholds and rates.
And of course the tapered withdrawal of child benefits if one of their parents earns between £60,000/year and £80,000/year.
Indeed, they will still play here even if you doubled their tax. Of course, many do undertake charity work and this should be factored in to the tax bill perhaps
@zleap
yes, fiscal drag was utilised by the Tories as a stealth tax on normal workers (when they did manage to get pay rises), and there's little indication Reeves will be any different