Axe personal allowance and pay everyone £48 a week, says thinktank
theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/11/scrap-ta...
theguardian.comPosted Mar 11, 2019, 12:15 PM UTC
1449
theguardian.comSo this is the start of the Universal Basic Income ideas eh? I like the idea of UBI, I just don't know how well it will work.
The idea is to eventually just give everyone enough money to live on, then tax the workers and scrap the benefits, saving money on all this work eligibility bullshit and the tax office. It would mean everyone has the means to live, working would be a choice instead of a necessity, and you wouldn't have to work as many hours since you get a kickback.
Sounds a bit shit now like, but when everyone is losing their jobs to robots and AI in the near future it will look a lot better, since being able to buy food is better than dying.
Taxis, busses, delivery drivers, haulage firms, replaced by automated driving.
Phone jobs replaced by computers (already happening, you've had the calls).
Hell, they have AI news anchors in China.
Basically the idea is to redistribute wealth equally when robots take over the work instead of having the owners of said robots take all the money while everyone who has been put out of work by the robots starves to death.
Like I say, Sounds a bit shit now but something needs to be thought of before we end up in The Matrix or some such shit.
I'm sure there's more to it than this, but I'm not an expert so I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers. I do know that robots are already doing half my job for me and it won't be long before AI does the rest. Then I'll be in Asda bins to feed my family. Or maybe I should Learn To Code?
3
It does seem that way, yes. We would need to increase the amount given and taxed to make it useful though.
2
Like I say, simplification of the tax system (20% of everything, under £X and 40% over £X) would save money in working out tax , so less money spent there. Scrap benefits and just give that money to everyone, making that easier to work out and cheaper too.
This would increase the amounts given. Not sure it would be enough though. Add business taxes to it and make them less easily loopholed?
1
We would need to tax businesses more and people less. But people would get lower salaries (but roughly the same take home pay).
1
Agreed since that's where the majority of the wealth will be.
We're trying to socialise capitalism for a robot utopian future. What fun Reddit brings.
1
So your worse off if you earn more than 25k and even more so if you earn say just below the current higher tax bracket. Not entirely sure I'm a fan of that.
2
*you’re
1
Someone on £25k* would pay £2370 more tax, and receive £2504 from this new scheme. So they'd actually be £134/year better off.
* - Any basic rate taxpayer, in fact.
1
Problem is your also lowering the higher right by nearly ten grand making more basic rate payers higher rate payers.
2
Yeah, that's nuts. The higher rate threshold should stay where it is, so this change would be broadly tax-neutral.
1
How did you work that out? You won't be worse off unless you're earning over £40k
-1
The article itself states the tax free allowance is worth 2500 if you earn 25k you'll receive 2496 so already your down 4 quid there so any monies earned over that you'll be worse off. Then they talk about dropping the higher tax bracket down to 37500 so you'll be paying 40% a lot earlier.
1
They have a rounding error. It's £48.08 a week or £2500.16 a year. You're 16p better off. No idea why that quote used the wrong value.
1
So your wrong then you'll be worse off after 26k then not 40k. Then your losing 10 grand of 20% tax before your paying the higher bracket.
-1
And you won't gain anything unless you earn less than £12k. What's the point of this scheme again?
1
To benefit low earners....
4
Very few people make less than minimum wage.
1
Cant say i’d be ecstatic about the 40% tax band being lowered to 37k...
1
Unless you're earning some way over that, you won't lose out because you would be receiving an additional 2,500 a year that would offset the extra tax that you'd pay.
0†
Why would you need to be earning ‘some way’ over 37k to lose out? Everything you earn over 37k will be taxed at 40% instead of 20%.
4
You do know that left leaning people aren't very good with numbers, right? And money.
-5
No, you will lose out. If you earn over the 12.5k personal allowance, but less than 37.5k (the new threshold for higher tax rate when they introduce this) then it will be zero net tax change, as you'll be paying tax on the first 12.5k, but will also be given the £48 / week which cancels it out.
If you earn over 37.5k you will be worse off, because you will now be paying an additonal 20% extra tax on everything between 37.5-50k which is currently taxed at 20% but will under the proposals be taxed at 40%.
If you earn less than 12.5k you will be better off, since you will be taxed only on your earnings, but will receive the flat weekly payment which will amount to more than your income tax.
1
What is this? Robin Hood economics? Steal from the rich to give to the 'poor'?
Talk about killing people's ambitions to do better for themselves and their family.
Thank God this kind of Corbynomics will never happen. David Miliband (heck, even his brother!) would never do this. You would get destroyed at the ballot box.
1
Increase it to £70 a week and we can scrap JSA and the unemployment part of UC. Along with Carer's allowance and anything else that's less money.
Wouldn't that be a good idea?
Then, when it's proven to work, we can slowly increase it and hopefully kill off other expensive and admin heavy welfare systems.
1
[deleted]
0
So, basically a tax on people in the South East while favouring the leeches outside of it.
I would support this plan if they also somehow came up with a plan to eaualize the cost of living, includimg housing, the same everywhere.
Edit: Forget Scotland. The South East should secede.
-2†
how about no, that just means they get to take an extra 10 grand a year off me. they can fuck right off
-4†
You must be a high earner. Or illiterate. Which one is it?
would mean that as many as 88% of all adults would see their post-tax income rise or stay the same
5
if I earn 30k I'm taxed 6k rather than 3.5k so nothing changes.
you're right this won't effect me.
what it is though is lowering tax for higher earners with extra steps. in the next year ill more than likely be one of those higher earners so you you've changed my mind I like this plan
2
It doesnt lower tax for higher earners it increases it because they want to drop when the 40% rate kicks on to sooner
2
Innumerate. £48x52= £2496. Personal allowance= £11580 so at 40% is worth £4632.
40% only kicks in after the first 46K, or 33.5K(ish) under this proposal.
Given the average salary in the UK is somewhere between 26 and 29K, probably a good majority would be unaffected.
They're proposing £37.5K for the 40% rate.
Well yeah but they say under the current rate its 50K but its actually 46K currently, so I've adjusted it to current rates.
That proposed rate is based off the 2019/2020 rate that only starts in in April.
Ah, fair enough. Makes sense.
My comment was to the user who said they’d be over 10k worse off. My point was that even a higher rate tax payer would suffer far less than that, and the 45% band probably doesn’t apply to them.