Quote:
Originally Posted by Millennium3
Not only costings, a recognition that a flat rate of tax of 33% will essentially benefit those on the highest rates of pay with the shortfall in tax revenue being met by a reduction in government services - which are generally for the benefit of the worse off.
Whereas I can accept that many taxpayers on earnings above £36,000 would support such a move, these will not make up a sufficiently large proportion of the voters and would not provide UKIP with enough votes to win a single seat at any GE [vital if our relationship with the EU is to change].
Most of the discussions on the result of the C&N election recognised that if UKIP want to get MP's, they must offer policies which appeal to a broad section of the electorate. This single policy will ensure that UKIP cannot progress. To put it into context, in the tax year 2004/05 the mean income in the UK was £22,800 - with around 25/26m earning less than £36,000 and less than 5m earning more.
It strikes me that once again UKIP are offering policies which appeal to the traditional Tory voter with the aim of pressuring the Tory leadership into policy changes rather than an honest attempt to build a party for government. Instead they will continue to create a honey trap for those vehemently anti EU in order to get members to give their precious time, energy and money to a cause the leadership knows cannot be won, whilst they enjoy an income of, probably, in excess of 10 times this mean income.
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You are either completely ignorant of the details of the UKIP flat tax proposal or you are choosing to ignore key components of it. The personal exemption would be raised to £9000 which of course would remove many low paid workers from the tax rolls entirely, or nearly so. And even people earning say, 25,000 would benefit because the 33% rate is calculated on income over the personal exemption, and includes NI.
As for paying for it. I'm sure that in a £600 billion + budget and between 600+ Quangos there's a little fat can be trimmed.
I think this policy could have enormous appeal for people on lower incomes. For example - someone earning £12,000 per year would pay £2032.40 in tax and NI (£39.08 per week). Under UKIPs proposals that person would pay £990 in tax, saving them £1042.40 in the course of the year or £20.05 per week. Are you suggesting that the poor wouldn't support that policy. According to my calculations someone earning about £25,000 per year would save about 782.40 in tax and NI payments. Again, that is a fairly significant amount of money in a taxpayers pocket.
But of course, you know better, and you know that in a time of price inflation noone but the rich would be attracted to a policy that lets them keep more of their money to spend on food, petrol, and utilities.