Brexit - Part 3? British elections 2017

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Awrrr
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#1799425 13-Jun-2017 14:48

I don't have a good answer to this but one example I can think of is stealing a car and dressing it up with numerous improvements that increase its value. If you get caught, the car is still stolen, you still go to jail, the owner gets the car back and you probably don't get any credit for the improvements you made.

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frankv

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#1799429 13-Jun-2017 14:50

tdgeek:

The more you spend, the more you pay. Individuals and companies, a tax on sales, which is a consumption tax. Get rid of the need to have all the rules and exemptions and tax dodging.

The more you spend inside NZ, the more you pay. The rich will be able to go overseas to buy stuff. Or will it also be an import tax? And refundable when imported goods are exported? Or deductible on imported goods for GST-registered entities? Will the tax be on services, and license fees, and royalties and so on. What about importation of intellectual property (NetFlix, etc)?

I see plenty of fertile ground for tax dodging, and I'm not even an accountant.

tdgeek

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#1799430 13-Jun-2017 14:51

Unless we bought the assets in question with beads and guns?

Geektastic

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#1799548 13-Jun-2017 17:15

frankv:

Geektastic:

It's not actually fair that you should pay more just because you happen to have more. That does not fit with any definition of fairness I would accept.

Sorry for going back to this, but I've been cogitating on it, and want to explore further...

Do you feel that your personal circumstances (and wealth particularly) are something that you have created personally? That you've earned the wealth that you have entirely through your own efforts?

Because, it seems to me that my own fortunate circumstances are as much due to luck as anything else. I think there are many people who are equally talented and intelligent and perhaps even better-looking than me who, simply through lack of opportunity, have not achieved what they could. If I'd been born 10 years earlier or later, or to a different family, or had to pay the price of something stupid I did in my youth.... there, but for the grace of God, go I. So wealth is as much a lottery as an earned thing. And sharing a little of my good fortune with the less fortunate won't make much difference to me, and a great deal of difference to others. I think of it as an insurance scheme shared amongst all the people I could have become.

I also think that society, as much as anything else, created the opportunities that I got. If I hadn't grown up in NZ, things could have been much worse for me. A job for my Dad, health care, cheap food, good housing, education and eventually a job for me. All of these things contributed to my position today, and were paid for by someone else. It seems fair to me to pay my share to keep it this way (for my own benefit), and also to pay it forward; acknowledge the contributions of all those good Kiwis now departed, and be a little like them to keep it this way for the future.

I couldn't say - certainly no one handed me a large bank account and said "away you go, lad".

I do not, however, believe that luck creates a tax liability.

Geektastic

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#1799550 13-Jun-2017 17:18

networkn:

One thing I don't really get.. If "we" illegally obtained the land and then did lots of things that cost "us" money, to significantly improve it's value, then what happens to the improvements and their value if they are "returned" to their "rightful" owners?

Indeed. And should the compensation not reflect the value at the time it was obtained, plus interest, rather than have any reference to today's use?

It's a fair bet that if the land was worth, say, 25 pounds when obtained and that amount had actually been paid, not one penny of that money would have survived down to benefit the people descended from the person who sold it today.

Geektastic

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#1799552 13-Jun-2017 17:22

Rikkitic:

I don't have a good answer to this but one example I can think of is stealing a car and dressing it up with numerous improvements that increase its value. If you get caught, the car is still stolen, you still go to jail, the owner gets the car back and you probably don't get any credit for the improvements you made.

However in the context of the time, nothing was stolen. You cannot apply today's morals to yesterday's actions, otherwise many people in, say, the UK must be owed compensation from the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Scandinavians. People in China are probably owed money in compensation from the Mongolians. How about the poor Hittites, who had their entire nation destroyed?

It all gets a bit silly.

Geektastic

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#1799553 13-Jun-2017 17:22

tdgeek:

Unless we bought the assets in question with beads and guns?

Bartering is still buying and selling.

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tdgeek

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#1799569 13-Jun-2017 17:32

frankv:

tdgeek:

The more you spend, the more you pay. Individuals and companies, a tax on sales, which is a consumption tax. Get rid of the need to have all the rules and exemptions and tax dodging.

The more you spend inside NZ, the more you pay. The rich will be able to go overseas to buy stuff. Or will it also be an import tax? And refundable when imported goods are exported? Or deductible on imported goods for GST-registered entities? Will the tax be on services, and license fees, and royalties and so on. What about importation of intellectual property (NetFlix, etc)?

I see plenty of fertile ground for tax dodging, and I'm not even an accountant.

I am, and off course there wont be a silver bullet. But if your dealing with sales, purchased by consumers, or indeed companies as direct or indirect expenses or assets, raw materials, there is a lot less ability to fudge. You can also vastly exclude certain goods and services much more easily. When GST came in, it nabbed taxed from burglars spending, that was a gain. Taxes on sales is far easier than managing taxes on income. An income is a vast array of revenues and expenses. Sales are sakes invoices, whether that be at Harvey Normal or Fletchers. yes, there will be matters to consider such as imports by consumers instead of them buying locally, etc, but at leat you can work through a 2017 idea with 2017 information. Many issues are based on old laws or rules that have not been updated to today. Income avoidance via trusts etc would largely disappear. You'd need to ensure that the tax regime did not negatively affect the desire to save, and so on. Quite a few issues, but a lot of simplicity. The effect on administering Income and expenses and hiding funds would reduce a lot if Govt cost also

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1799578 13-Jun-2017 18:07

Geektastic:

However in the context of the time, nothing was stolen. You cannot apply today's morals to yesterday's actions, otherwise many people in, say, the UK must be owed compensation from the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Scandinavians. People in China are probably owed money in compensation from the Mongolians. How about the poor Hittites, who had their entire nation destroyed?

It all gets a bit silly.

It is only silly if you insist on playing games with it. Historical injustices are dead and buried because enough time has passed to make them irrelevant to all but historians. What is done is done.

Recent injustices are another matter. There will be people alive today who have heard stories of massacres and land thefts from people who experienced them. That kind of thing stays raw for many generations. There is nothing silly about compensation or apologies in that context.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

mudguard

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#1799684 13-Jun-2017 21:04

I don't think think GST over income tax is 'fairer'. GST is essentially a consumption tax, if you have one person earning $400 per week vs one earning $1000 then the lower income will pay higher percentage in tax. IE they both might spend $75 on groceries per week so the lower earner has 'paid' more.

tdgeek

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#1799721 13-Jun-2017 23:05

mudguard: I don't think think GST over income tax is 'fairer'. GST is essentially a consumption tax, if you have one person earning $400 per week vs one earning $1000 then the lower income will pay higher percentage in tax. IE they both might spend $75 on groceries per week so the lower earner has 'paid' more.

Or, if low income family spends $600 per week, they pay tax on $600.

If high income family spends $2000 per week, they pay a lot higher tax.

If you had the old sales tax, same issue. If you were tax free, the low income family may have a PDI of $75, the high imcimi family has a PDI of $1000 Low income earners will always suffer, thats the way it is.

Maybe you can remove GST and forget a tax on revenue, just tax earnings. Low % for low income, high for high income. We have that now.

Geektastic

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#1799730 14-Jun-2017 00:01

Rikkitic:

Geektastic:

However in the context of the time, nothing was stolen. You cannot apply today's morals to yesterday's actions, otherwise many people in, say, the UK must be owed compensation from the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Scandinavians. People in China are probably owed money in compensation from the Mongolians. How about the poor Hittites, who had their entire nation destroyed?

It all gets a bit silly.

It is only silly if you insist on playing games with it. Historical injustices are dead and buried because enough time has passed to make them irrelevant to all but historians. What is done is done.

Recent injustices are another matter. There will be people alive today who have heard stories of massacres and land thefts from people who experienced them. That kind of thing stays raw for many generations. There is nothing silly about compensation or apologies in that context.

I suppose that depends on your definition of recent.

gzt

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#1800917 14-Jun-2017 13:47

The Manchester thread was turned into some kind of waitangi discussion and this one became taxation and also touched on waitangi.

Both would have been a far better discussion as a new topic and would not have destroyed existing discussion topics.

evilengineer

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#1800930 14-Jun-2017 14:11

FYI:

Emmanuel Macron says the "door is open" if the UK changes it mind before the two year deadline is up.

So it looks like the political will may be there from the EU27 to fudge the question on whether Brexit can be revoked.

And in not totally unrelated news the hard core Tory Brexit Brigade (ie. Michael Gove etc.) seem to be making noises about accepting a "softer" Brexit.

Perhaps they have begun to realise that pushing for a hard Brexit could lead to no Brexit at all.

Particularly if the economy totally tanks in the last six months of the negotiating period once the direction of travel is clear.

Could sanity prevail in the end?

Who knows? There hasn't been much evidence of sanity in UK politics recently.

Geektastic

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#1800934 14-Jun-2017 14:17

evilengineer:

FYI:

Emmanuel Macron says the "door is open" if the UK changes it mind before the two year deadline is up.

So it looks like the political will may be there from the EU27 to fudge the question on whether Brexit can be revoked.

And in not totally unrelated news the hard core Tory Brexit Brigade (ie. Michael Gove etc.) seem to be making noises about accepting a "softer" Brexit.

Perhaps they have begun to realise that pushing for a hard Brexit could lead to no Brexit at all.

Particularly if the economy totally tanks in the last six months of the negotiating period once the direction of travel is clear.

Could sanity prevail in the end?

Who knows? There hasn't been much evidence of sanity in UK politics recently.

The problem is, it is not Macron's decision. He can say what he likes (and knows it) because the Treaty does not say that an Article 50 notice can be rescinded nor does it say that it cannot.

Even if it can, it would require unanimous agreement of all the states of the EU AND would be mired in legal challenges from those who believe that it cannot be rescinded, want to leave and can afford the cost of taking litigation.

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