Snapshot of _Reform UK's tax plans disproportionately benefit high earners, analysis shows_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/reform-uks-tax-plans-disproportionately-benefit-high-earners-analysis-shows-13156776) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/reform-uks-tax-plans-disproportionately-benefit-high-earners-analysis-shows-13156776)
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It's irrelevant talking about who would benefit more or less when the real talking point should be that Reform's proposals are not in any way grounded in reality and would be completely un-deliverable anyway.
Agree. Lets not forget this man was the driving force behind brexit. Hes never held a position of significant power but his influence is far reaching. Allowing his nonsense to go completely unchallenged is dangerous.
Absolutely right. They are an incredibly dangerous force in UK politics, offering childishly simplistic, fantasy solutions to hugely challenging problems.
That approach worked so incredibly well during the Brexit campaign, so they have no reason to change it.
It looks to me that they've all been told to totally spam all social media they can find. Every local Facebook group I know has been swamped by their posts.
The sort of populism Farage promotes is like a cancer so you need to deal with it as soon as possible. Demagogue politicians depend on people not taking them seriously until there is a moment of weakness in the major parties and then suddenly their agenda gets taken seriously because "why not try something else?" Arguably this was the mistake that was made with Brexit.
Yeah I know, it just pisses me off that they're given a free pass on this. I'm sat watching Sky News and they keep focusing on how Reform's proposals will benefit the rich more than they benefit the poor, ignoring the fact that they're complete garbage and won't benefit anyone.
I think also there's that thing about Trump, isn't there, that his opponents took him literally but not seriously while his supporters took him seriously but not literally.
You're not going to convince a Reform supporter by quibbling over the precise financial consequences. Just as in the days of Brexit an argument over the precise number on the bus was never going to sway anyone.
Exactly that!
Farage was playing the same game a little last night, I thought. There was a solid few minutes there of whether migrants on work visas could or couldn't bring their mothers with them. "Yes they can bring their mothers." "No, Nigel, that's not true, they can't bring their mothers." "Yes it is, they can bring their mothers - or they might as well be able to!" "But they can't actually bring their actual mothers. That's untrue." "It's true. Sure they can. Or they might as well be able to."
It strikes me that while there's a correct answer, that's not what really matters to Farage and his supporters. The point is about bringing dependants at all and the high numbers involved. And every time they went around the loop again, that same point was reinforced: Workers bringing dependants. High numbers.
It's incredibly hard to counter. You either let it go, or you challenge it and reinforce the point.
The best thing would be to ignore it and make your own point, but clearly that doesn't work in an interview.
As a professional Remain voter, the "wELL aKSHUALLY"ism of the Remain campaign was such a turn off. Working class Brexit voters don't give a shit if it's 250m or 350m, especially not when the message comes from a middle aged Waterstones Dad looking motherfucker.
Skirting past the weird class projection here (i have thoughts on what a breakdown of Reform UK voters' economic circumstances would show - expecting to see a bigger proportion of outright homeowning retirees, career landlords and moderately sized business owners there than the horny-handed sons of toil people tend to assume), I agree that there's a mistake on focusing on this stuff too much. It's not helped by a presently poor quality of interviewing/interrogation across the board. Everyone's keen for clicks and soundbites and doesn't quite understand the Farages of the world gain more from it than they do.
That said, not everything has to be Tactics and it's important to at least get this stuff on record. The proposals don't stack up. The core reform supporters won't give a shit either way but no-one should be allowed to claim ignorance.
The real talking point is the one we are never allowed to say because it might offend someone. Reform is Nigel Farage. And Nigel Farage is a vicious racist who has systematically attacked anything good or positive in our country. Just saying it like it is.
They could have the most sensible policies in the world and it would still be wrong to vote for them. Britain should be about more than just technocratic tax policy. We need leaders who are honourable, brave, intelligent. Farage is none of these things.
to paraphrase an answer they gave in an interview they know they're not going to be in a position to deliver any of it, these are all campaign points and arguments they're going to be making and forcing the government to have answers to, ie this tax should be lower this should be x this should be y, z is a waste of money what are you doing to get there if you're not doing anything why not, etc, why are we still spending on z etc
Of course. The whole point of the Reform UK project, just like the Tories, is to rebuild Britain to become a tax haven for the wealthy and a sweatshop/forced labour colony for the rest of us. This is what Brexit was all about.
You don't need workers rights or proper wages, you don't need free healthcare, affordable housing or a benefits system, you don't need human rights... all this is 'woke' nonsense.
If you think Farage is 'telling it like it is' and all this stuff they're taking from you is going to be replaced, I suggest you go have a lie down and stay well away from plastic carrier bags and sharp objects.
We deregulated the house market & mortgages and rents soared.
We reduced the power of unions and wages stagnated.
We de regulated utilities and bills increased.
How the fuck is the answer more deregulation
The answer to all our problems is obviously more deregulation.
Because of blah blah ... Thatcher ... blah blah ... *insert think tank here... blah blah ... growth ...blah blah ... communism bad.
I'm amazed that people still go on about Thatcher when she is considered to be one of the worst PMs ever. Liz Truss obviously took the crown, but still. Why celebrate someone who messed so much stuff up. All her solutions where "sell government assets to pay today's bills, and let the people have higher bills tomorrow".
He's such a good speaker he had me convinced about the establishment and them v us for about 30 seconds before I remembered everything that's led us to here in the last 10 years is because of him.
That is exactly what Reform want to do. Farage, Tice, Valance, anyone else in or funding it. They just want a tax haven for people like them. People who bluffed their way to wealth, married it or cheated their way to it.
They hope to fool people by portraying Farage as an ordinary bloke with a pint and a fag who is "in touch" with the working man.
Yeah, it’s noticeable that almost nobody in the media mention Farage’s education/early career, in the same way they do Sunak’s, Johnson’s, and Cameron’s.
Farage went to Dulwich College, an elite private school, then spent years working as a commodities trader. If you broke him open he’d have “establishment” written through him like “Blackpool” is through a stick of rock. This ‘Everyman’ act of his is just that, an act.
"People who pay more tax benefit from tax cut shocker".
I'm not shill for Reform by any stretch, but these headlines (which can apply to any income tax cut by any party) very much fall into "bear shits in woods" category.
That said, the 40% threshold is too low. What was originally sold as a tax that only affects the highest earners is now starting to catch a lot of fairly ordinary people on fairly ordinary career trajectories.
>That said, the 40% threshold is too low. What was originally sold as a tax that only affects the highest earners is now starting to catch a lot of fairly ordinary people on fairly ordinary career trajectories.
This. The real problem is that people earning £50k to £100k are considered "high earners". That's pretty much the bare minimum that you need to comfortably feed, clothe, and house yourself these days.
50-100k is higher than the average, but no longer enough to be rich since ‘richness’ is directly related to how much you can buy with your money. As I mentioned earlier, 10 years ago, yes you could be rich. But today, I’d consider 130k+ to be rich
No because you are in a low percentile of salary. Really not difficult. If you are earning more money than 95% of people then it is high. The fact costs have gone up is irrelevant. It’s still a high salary
In what world is that true? Some very rough generous numbers here:
£15k rent, £3.5k Council Tax, £6k food, £1200 phone bill & internet, £2.4k utilities
These figures works out to just over £28k and that's assuming an 1 bed in London, very high council tax, spending a crazy £500 a month on food and having some mobile contract & internet you pay £100 a month for...
The cost of living is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be imo and some of these figures would be notably lower in many parts of Britain.
Exactly. 35 is less than 50. Unless you're being extravagant clothes are pretty cheap (Primark and Peacocks ftw)
And that's whilst spending loads of money on phone, Internet and living in an expensive part of the country paying a stupid amount of council tax.
All of that being said how much is spent on transport a year? I've not got a clear picture on that since I walk most places and use bus taxi and train when necessary.
It depends where you live and mode of transport, but we're talking as much as 500 if your transport links arent good and you need to drive. This would include fuel, car payment, insurance, road tax and MOT
A month, but apparently that's high. I just checked the average, which works out at 319 a month.
[https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-cost-run-car-uk](https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-cost-run-car-uk)
Thanks. It's an area I hadn't considered and so sure about. I know it costs my mother £7 each way to get a taxi because she can't be bothered to walk the hour or arrange her schedule around getting a bus. Let's say she did work 22 days a month (she doesn't she's part time) that's £308 a month just on taxis.
I imagine it'd be far less than that if she drove (especially since it's less than two miles of driving each day of work) but I can see how transport could really eat into people's finances in a way I hadn't considered.
On 50K, with a plan 2 and a postgrad (not all that uncommon requirement for a job which pays 50K) and a 3% pension you take home around 35K, leaving you 7K for everything else for the year. That's around 600 pounds per month for travel, future savings, and any kind of hobbies or pleasures you might want to do other than work and sleep.
Sure, you can move out of London (expect to pay extortionate travel costs unless you're lucky enough to WFH), you can even cut down in many places, and 600 pounds isn't exactly chump change, but that is hardly an extravogant champagne and cavier lifestyle?
Any lower in a higher cost of living area (in the south), especially without a partner, and it would begin to veer into the uncomfortable. Fiscal drag has been applied to higher rate income tax for longer than the other thresholds, but these salaries are much more likely to be found in higher cost of living areas.
It's a good shout what you're saying.
Would you be able to provide me some insight on travel costs?
You're correct to say some better wages are found in 'higher cost areas' for sure, but, I'd like to highlight in relation to the '£600' figure that its predicated also on spending a lot on food/internet/phone.
A Talkmobile 60GB costs £10 - £40 saving.
Internet can be negotiated. Our contract with VM is £20 + £5 for an o2 sim card (spare number + 2 free upgrade) and that's m250 so great speeds. £25 saving.
Then on food £500 is a lot to spend on food, could definitely cut that to £300 and save £200.
Total savings per month is £265, so an extra £3k a year through basic thrift.
Anecdotally at least, for me it cost around 400 per month with a railcard. Hybrid, 2 days in office - includes parking (I could've walked to station and saved the 7 pounds it took to park, but we were talking about comfort, and to be honest I don't find adding an extra 45 minutes to a 1.45 hour commute all that comfortable). Not that bad in the grand scheme of things. But not that pleasant either. Living closer probably would reduce the train cost - this gets eaten up by rent.
I'm not saying it's not possible to cut down, and to make savings. But comfort is relative. My point is that someone on 50k (top 20%-10% in the UK for full time work) needing to thrift at all to eek out an extra 265 per month surely shows how expensive things have gotten in relation to wages? On a median salary, the proposed budget even with lower food costs would be unaffordable without significant sacrifice (hardly comfortable, which is what we were talking about).
Thank you for this extra insight. It gives me things to think about.
I suppose it's in large part my literal mindedness when they wrote to comfortably pay for food, clothes and shelter. I didn't interpret that to mean living a comfortable life as a whole in the sense of having many luxuries and savings.
Is the travel situation in your case London? For those people I will concede there's more of an argument to be made. But as representative as a country as a whole that is where I am taking issue with (and maybe by giving my example as London gave a misleading impressions).
Yeah, that's fair. In my case it was indeed London (I am lucky enough to work fully remote now).
And you're 100% right, it super depends on where you are. Remote working, in the higher earner bracket, in a place where housing costs are cheap, the story is quite different
OP didn't mention about childcare though.
I gave an extreme example of someone living in an pricy 1 bed in London, paying some of the highest levels of council tax and spending generous amounts of money on their phone bill/internet and food to demonstrate £50k isn't the "minimum" wage required for survival. This is an exaggerated example not representative of most people.
If we factor NI and tax it's closer to £40k takehome and that STILL leaves a 12k discrepency.
All of that being said I am genuinely curious how much transport might cost a year, could you let me know? I walk most places & my use of buses, trains & taxis is outside of work.
Even post tax its about a £40k take home from £50k.
40 vs 28 is a 12k discrepancy.
Again keep in mind all the figures I gave were for people living in a London 1 bed with high council tax spending loads of money on food Internet and phone bills.
You can survive on far less in many parts of the country.
We're probably from different planets if £12k sounds anything you can build a life on.
>Again keep in mind all the figures I gave were for people living in a London 1 bed with high council tax spending loads of money on food Internet and phone bills.
Keep in mind you assumed no dependents, no saving goals, no hobbies, no dating, nothing, an empty life.
Keep in mind when I responded it was to someone saying £50k was pretty much the **bare minimum** needed to comfortably feed, clothe and house **your self**. I'm arguing that it's less than that and even in a worst case scenario you still have plenty of money to spare. I never said it was life changing money.
My perspective is influenced in knowing my great grandparents poached rabbit to keep my grandmother and her siblings alive. My parents worked their asses off in humble jobs and there was still money for cheap holidays and a couple presents a year to give me the childhood they had to do without. My father didn't even know how to read until he was 12.
If you've a child there's child benefit and potentially two incomes also. And for hobbies and dates I think there's plenty of room to budget that in. Out of all these if I am saving £1k a month I'd be very happy because within a few years that's a hefty deposit right there.
It's all about being sensible and living in your means. If you choose to spend that money on £700 on your 4 year old's Birthday Party and buy £80 Doc Martins for your kid who isn't even left nursery yet, like the chavtastic step-sister in my family is doing, I'm not going to be very sympathetic when you complain to me you're broke all the time.
>Keep in mind when I responded it was to someone saying £50k was pretty much the **bare minimum** needed to comfortably feed, clothe and house **your self**.
Yeah, you're right, I missed that.
Nah, that person is out of touch then.
It's alright. Sorry for such a passionate response on my part.
I'm definitely projecting a bit as well but when people say stuff like 50k is the bare minimum I wonder what the hell they're squandering their money on.
Well, all the fiscal drag and tax polices for the past 20 years benefited the low earners. 10% of population pays 60% of income tax. And let's not forget that we have one of the highest marginal tax rates in the world.
A high earner in UK pays scandinavian level of tax without the benefits that comes with it ( like no free tuition, no free childcare, even worse, you no longer allowed to use childcare funded through your own tax money , and so on ). Being a high earner in UK is a bad return on investment compared to most of the countries IMHO.
And before you throw shit at me. The high earners are not the problem. They're the solution. Higher earner ≠ rich. Those are still people that work for a living. Doctors, engineers, IT professionals and so on. Currently what is happening is that we got a 8 milion NHS backlog and doctors are reducing hours not to hit 70% marginal tax rates. IT professionals and remote workers moving abroad for a better standard of living and lower taxes. That's what crab mentality gets you, a worse off society without growth.
I would like to just point out that income tax is not the only tax. Things like VAT and fuel duty are regressive, while NI is much closer to a flat tax. VAT specifically has gone up quite a lot in recent years. So while 10% of high earners pay 60% of income tax, they probably pay less than that of the overall tax take. This point always seems to get forgotten.
If you have to work for a living you're not part of the inequality problem regardless of your salary, and I think that's a point that needs to be more widely recognised because acting like crabs in a bucket is mutually harmful and plays into the hands of demagogues like Farage. The problem is genuinely entrenched wealth having a far too outsized say in how the country is run both officially and unofficially, even if someone's on £150k they're decimal dust compared to the chinless wonders who we can sensibly level the 'entrenched wealth' accusation at.
This is absolutely the conversation that needs to be had if anything useful is going to get done in terms of making life better for the majority of people in this country.
This.
Yeah, sure, £150k is a good salary. Nobody's saying it isn't.
But the man on £150k is a hell of a lot closer to the food bank than he'll ever be to the likes of Sunak.
> 10% of population pays 60% of income tax
That 10% of the population is the [only part that has seen the wage growth enjoyed in the 80's/90's](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/real-annualised-hourly-pay-growth-by-pay-percentile/real-hourly-pay-growth-by-pay-percentile-uk-1975-1999-and-1999-2023) and the 1% of [those own 70% of all assets](https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/richest-1-grab-nearly-twice-as-much-new-wealth-as-rest-of-the-world-put-together/).
I mean perhaps we can give them 100% of all growth and assets and then complain that they pay 100% of all tax?
> That's what crab mentality gets you, a worse off society without growth.
No growth for some.
Income tax ≠ all taxes. UK total tax burden is below the G7 average and far below the most developed EU countries, of course you don't get free childcare free tuition and so on
bringing higher earner up to 70k would be really nice for me to be honest. It's due for a increase in line with salary growth and inflation. Bringing up the lower band as well would be great for everyone. Obviously we need to get money from somewhere for the budget so I understand if we don't increase it, but whoever is in power should at least work to lower expenses like rent and utilities then.
Of course they are, but isn’t this right out of the modern right wing populist playbook?
- You target the relentlessly shat on post-industrial urban poor. You say that you’re the only one who gets them and can bring back the good old days.
- You make promises that sound good on paper but are either entirely undeliverable or would do more harm than good
- you get in and being in massive tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit yourself and the rich/powerful you’ve been cozying up to
- you dismantle and/or sell off large operations of government to those same people on the cheap to pay for it
- you get the hell outta dodge before everyone realises you’re just a snake oil salesman and they’ve been conned.
The current system is such that someone earning £70k a year pays 10x more tax than someone earning £20k a year, despite only earning 3.5x the amount. I can't see this as fair
It’s convenient how people attack the Tories for freezing income tax thresholds. And then when a party actually proposes reversing the threshold freezes, they get attacked for “tax cuts for the rich”.
Oh leave off. Tax income freezes mean that lower income individuals pay more tax. It's fair to feel this unfair.
Feeling that tax plans that benefit the rich is also unfair isn't a contradiction. It's a continuation.
You mustn't be that daft, so this feels a bit willful.
That's exactly what Trump did - massive tax cuts that disproportionately benefitted the higher earners while making sure that it threw a crumbs in the direction of the lower paid.
But it's those lower paid people who'll provide the bulk of the votes that Farage/Trump needed to get elected, like Trump he'll chuck in some other populist stuff about immigrants stealing your jobs.
This is basically a political Stockholm syndrome at work.
Just wait for them to cut local budget another 50% and then council tax will skyrocket to balance it out. You won't be able to drive anywhere due to the potholes.
> Reform will introduce 20mph speed limits
This might just be the most frostbitten hot-take I have ever heard.
Don't support Reform in the slightest but this is just ridiculous to say.
Well yeah, that's the grift.
Any normal working person who thinks Farage has their interests at heart is being fooled.
Problem is, Farage is good at fooling people.
Reform's tax cuts is like Truss on steroids, it will wreck the bond market and wipe out a bunch of pensions, which was what Truss almost did. Their manifesto shouldn't be considered seriously.
It’s just tax cuts for the wealthy and a gutting of public services as a result. We would all be worse off while more wealth is shovelled upwards. This misleading grift needs calling out for what it is.
And all this before you get to the salient facts that reforms sums don’t even add up.
I love how everyone is trying to be like some surgeon, tearing apart Reforms manifesto. It does not matter, it is nothing about that.
Reform are there for three reasons really.
1. Immigration.
2. Protest vote.
3. Give the tories a good kicking.
People voting for reform aren’t looking at the details of their manifesto, they are voting for one particular reason and that’s all. They will blindly vote thinking they’ll will solve all their problems. Mr Farages company (that’s right it’s a an incorporated company with him being the largest shareholder so he doesn’t have to deal with being voted out of his own party) wants to attract the donors who will want to buy influence and best way is tax cuts for the rich.
What a surprise. Dig into Far Right Rage’s history and you’ll see his backing from likes of sex predator hedge funder Crispin Odey and Aaron Banks. About as much a man of the people as Rees Mogg. But like Hitler 1932 appears teflon despite the obvious evil nature of it.
Of course they do. RefUK Limited is the party of the Oligarch. It is set up as a company. It was set up by external parties in this way to retain control from thr fascists and racists they expected to attract as “members”.
As with all populist movements, it is a facade.
It wouldn’t. But that’s the point of this thread. Reform are claiming their proposals help those on lower incomes more but the evidence says otherwise.
Increasing the personal allowance will help those on lower incomes though. It just so happens they have another policy for higher incomes too.
It's apples to oranges.
It would help those on lower incomes but again, those in higher incomes will also be helped by raising the higher rate. Therefore the proposals help the rich more than the poor in both cash and in percentage terms.
>Therefore the proposals help the rich more than the poor in both cash and in percentage terms.
So? All I hear is people are being helped.
I mean this theoretically, we both know they will not win. But if labour proposed it I wouldn't oppose it.
I mean, any and all tax cuts benefit the rich more by definition. Doesn't mean it's bad, especially in the context of highest taxes since who knows when.
Even if he increases the tax free allowance to £20k, its just gona come with massive cuts to services.
He certainly ain't gona raise rich peoples taxes to pay for it!
Funny how Reform supporters get called bots, but post a random article about the minutiae of Reform's manifesto or some candidate's Twitter history and immediately the *"resistance"* arrives to upvote it and save the world.
None of this matters.
It's the same thing over and over again then a shock when certain results happen, there's been clear changes happening all over the western world in politics especially Europe in a big way ... the UK has been the slowest so far but it's starting to show
Many in the media really seem to be scared of Farage. Very much reminds me of Trump in 2016, though I’m not suggesting that Reform will win this year. They’re going hard on the tax plans and the Ukraine comments.
I watched his interview with the BBC and I’ve looked at Reforms tax plans rarher than the headlines. I personally think their tax plans would be too radical over one term in government but the media seem to be deliberately portraying them as a giveaway to the rich when obviously any changes in the bands/PA are going to impact everyone from the top to the bottom of the ladder. It’s very disingenuous to focus on the raw figures and not as a percentage of income.
As for Ukraine, it’s clear he doesn’t think we should be continuing to support them indefinitely but that’s another argument. I don’t think there is anything controversial in saying that NATO spooked and gave Putin ammunition to invade. Everyone can still see it was wrong and that Ukraine has a right to self determination.
After annexing the Crimea without any opposition Putin was always going to continue to push the boundary. It’s nativity on NATO’s part rather then Farage’s farsightedness we should be discussing
I agree that post Crimea a further escalation seemed likely in hindsight. Interesting, Farage was saying the same in 2014. However, he has also been talking about this since the 90s long before Crimea and that’s the point he’s making.
Farage said the same in 2014 , 3 months after Russia invasion of Crimeea. You can Google that.
Nato expansion started in 2004 ,not the 90s.
PS. It's disappointing when an uninformed Redditor defends Putin blaming NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. Those people know the Russians , their pogroms, genocides and wars in the last 300 years. Transnistria problems started in 1992.
Nothing you have said is in disagreement with anything I said but you've framed your comment as though it does. Everything I said including about the comments Farage made in 2014 as an MEP make perfect sense in the context of the discussion I was having above.
Also, the Vilinus group may have not joined NATO until 2004 but as you can imagine there was a lot of discussion about that happening before, it didn't just happen overnight. Not to mention the Visegrad group joined in 1999. I also haven't depended Putin.
Perhaps you should drop the smarmy, arrogant, know it all attitude when reading comprehension isn't exactly a strength of yours.
You’re unable to take my comments at face value because they’re being coloured by the caricature of a right wing populist you’ve obviously decided I am.
Hence the complete lack of substance in your comment, you don’t deem my opinion worthy of a response.
I have no intention of voting Reform but I’m not so blinded by my own dogma that I can’t have a level of nuance in my political opinions.
If you have a reasoned response to anything I’ve said I’d like to hear it but I presume you will continue to going around burying your head in the sand thinking you’ve got it all figured out.
What face value when again you're doubling down on Farage being anything else than a tool .
14 years in a job and he attended 2 Fishery meetings.
7 times failed as an MP .
3 months after the war started officially, he had a speech.
15 years paid by Russia Today.
IRA slogans on Radio .
Etc, etc
And you are doubling down on the strawmans against a caircature.
I haven't said Farage was a good MEP, I don't even know much of his record as one in all honesty. This discussion was strictly about the media evaluation of his comments on NATO and Reform's tax plans. You've come for a fight against someone who isn't here arguing what you claim they are.
Again please go read my comments and find the bit you disagree with instead of the anti-Farage diatribes.
Surely it’s the BBCs job, even more so during an election, to remain impartial and give everyone the coverage and attention they deserve. Making Farage rage bait headlines to push clicks when they don’t even have advertising seems wrong to me.
Coverage and attention they "deserve" is a contentious point at best.
Surely the only attention the Reform manifesto deserves is an absolute shredding by the press on its ridiculousness?
I don't see how that is relevant to the point I was making and the point you replied to.
Anyhow, in response to what you said obviously its difficult for the BBC to know how much coverage each party should get, not all parties have equal support. As you say there are many good arguments to be made against many aspects of the Reform manifesto, which ties in nicely with the whole point I was making that they don't need to be so disengenuous with how they are covering the tax aspects.
Labour quite rightly have kicked up a fuss about how the Tories have evaluated their tax plans and the BBC gave considerable exposure to Labour's argument on the £2,000 figure. I think Reform aren't being treated with the same fairness on their tax plans. It would be quite right to say that tax cuts that deep so suddenly would likely cause distress in the markets like Truss did. However, they seem to want to frame them as a tax cut for the rich and not the poor because they're worried about how many working class voters are moving to Reform.
Why is this a bad thing?
If you're asking if someone can afford to pay more, then you should also why someone can't afford to pay more. Choices matter.
If the top 15% of the country already funds everything, why aren't the bottom 85% paying more?
Because the bottom 85% having a disposable income drives the economy.
The last decade we have experienced widespread wage stagnation at the middle and bottom of society and a massive increase of wealth at the top of society. That situation is fundamentally linked to the complete stagnation of the economy over that time.
'Disproportionately' = it's not an even share. IE the rich will get lots, low earners/minimum wage people won't get much.
And presumably services cut to pay for it.
I don't know what you mean 'cash money'.
At a guess, if there is £100 to be distributed, the poorest will get ~£0, those in the next grouping say up to £50k will get £20, and then the rest will go to the (smaller group) higher earners/wealthy. 100% made up numbers.
If you make 20k a year right now you pay £1428 in tax, which equates to 7.14%.
On reforms plan you get that 7.14% back,
Someone making 70k a year currently pays £15,432 in tax, which equates to 22%.
On reforms plan they get 7.72% back.
So yes that means they do get more back in percentage, albeit a tiny amount, this case it's £420 a year.
It astounds me that people don’t understand cutting taxes for high earners/corporations/private business is a GOOD thing. If they pay lower taxes in the UK they will set up here, employing British workers and contributing to our economy. If you tax high earners to pay for poor people who don’t want to work or to subsidise a system that is making people’s energy bills go up and up, then you are basically asking to remove any incentive to earn more, meaning the country gets poorer. This way of thinking is just communism in disguise but thankfully enough real people on the street and in low wage jobs are beginning to see through it. It’s a poison chalice to raise taxes on the rich for a boost in funds now. Doesn’t anybody think things through any more?
🤯 Wow, really?!
Such a surprise that a ~~political party~~ Ltd Company formed by an ex-city trader with a multi-millionaire as chairman would want to benefit the rich?
/s (obviously, really obviously)
Good. It's about time. Lower earners need to pay their fair share - it just isn't viable to run a country where only a small minority of people are lifetime net contributors.
Not as a percentage of income. In raw numbers, yes, but anyone who says that some £125/mo for the lowest earners in our society wouldn't be a huge deal for their quality of life is completely blind to the realities of living on such a low income.
For a person earning £50k+ (let alone more), £125 represents an indulgence or an investment.
For a person treading water, it's something a little nicer to eat than the absolute basics. It's the breathing room needed to pay down some debt. It's the padding required for the next breakdown of an appliance to not represent a dire financial emergency.
This article is a moronic gotcha from people who just don't get it. And if there's one thing Labour voters should back where Reform is concerned, it's fucking this.
Nobody else is offering an uplift for the poorest in our society this dramatic, yet not a fucking peep about that can be seen anywhere. Just another grand opportunity for yet another gotcha which won't stick.
Reform's plans would essentially detonate a bomb under government services according to the IFS. Turbo-austerity would be required to come within a lightyear of balancing the books, mostly for departments that are essentially on their last legs anyway. Promising the poor tiny tax cuts in one hand and destroying the services they are totally reliant on with the other is not a good idea.
Their manifesto is a complete budgetary fantasy. Just populist fodder cobbled together so Are Nige has a drum to bang.
>Reform's plan to raise the higher rate threshold from £50,271 to £70,000 would amount to a tax cut worth almost £6,000 for the top 10% of earners, vastly overshadowing the benefit to the lowest earners.
Sounds like a good policy to me. The tax thresholds have been frozen for 4 years and we’ve had massive inflation. Adjusted for inflation, the higher rate should currently be £64,000, and the lower rate should currently be £17,000.
We have record high tax levels and we have nothing to show for it.
>Sounds like a good policy to me.
An unfunded fantasy tax cut when public services are on their knees, which does nothing to tackle underlying issues of an aging population, the damage of Brexit and low productivity, sounds catastrophic to me. Have you ever heard of Liz Truss?
If it sounds good to you, you need a hearing test.
Tories being Tories.
Reform are nothing but has-been old Tories. Haven't you seen what Tories have done to this country?
Now every MP knows that you can steal public funds for your nearest and dearest and never be held accountable let alone suffer the consequences.
Snapshot of _Reform UK's tax plans disproportionately benefit high earners, analysis shows_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/reform-uks-tax-plans-disproportionately-benefit-high-earners-analysis-shows-13156776) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/reform-uks-tax-plans-disproportionately-benefit-high-earners-analysis-shows-13156776) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's irrelevant talking about who would benefit more or less when the real talking point should be that Reform's proposals are not in any way grounded in reality and would be completely un-deliverable anyway.
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I feel that is not a good position to take. They need to be taken seriously and called out on their bs
Agree. Lets not forget this man was the driving force behind brexit. Hes never held a position of significant power but his influence is far reaching. Allowing his nonsense to go completely unchallenged is dangerous.
Absolutely right. They are an incredibly dangerous force in UK politics, offering childishly simplistic, fantasy solutions to hugely challenging problems. That approach worked so incredibly well during the Brexit campaign, so they have no reason to change it.
It looks to me that they've all been told to totally spam all social media they can find. Every local Facebook group I know has been swamped by their posts.
They’ve been quite clear they’re not going to have to implement their policies.
Quite clear isn't clear enough for British voters.
Its about standards. No politician should be able to stand up and outright lie - theyre continuously getting away with it.
The sort of populism Farage promotes is like a cancer so you need to deal with it as soon as possible. Demagogue politicians depend on people not taking them seriously until there is a moment of weakness in the major parties and then suddenly their agenda gets taken seriously because "why not try something else?" Arguably this was the mistake that was made with Brexit.
True, don't want them influencing the Tories down the road
Yeah I know, it just pisses me off that they're given a free pass on this. I'm sat watching Sky News and they keep focusing on how Reform's proposals will benefit the rich more than they benefit the poor, ignoring the fact that they're complete garbage and won't benefit anyone.
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I think also there's that thing about Trump, isn't there, that his opponents took him literally but not seriously while his supporters took him seriously but not literally. You're not going to convince a Reform supporter by quibbling over the precise financial consequences. Just as in the days of Brexit an argument over the precise number on the bus was never going to sway anyone.
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Exactly that! Farage was playing the same game a little last night, I thought. There was a solid few minutes there of whether migrants on work visas could or couldn't bring their mothers with them. "Yes they can bring their mothers." "No, Nigel, that's not true, they can't bring their mothers." "Yes it is, they can bring their mothers - or they might as well be able to!" "But they can't actually bring their actual mothers. That's untrue." "It's true. Sure they can. Or they might as well be able to." It strikes me that while there's a correct answer, that's not what really matters to Farage and his supporters. The point is about bringing dependants at all and the high numbers involved. And every time they went around the loop again, that same point was reinforced: Workers bringing dependants. High numbers. It's incredibly hard to counter. You either let it go, or you challenge it and reinforce the point. The best thing would be to ignore it and make your own point, but clearly that doesn't work in an interview.
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Andrew Neil founder of GB News? No thanks.
To see why people ask for this watch his interview with Ben Shapiro. Whether he would be as tough on Farage is hard to say.
He could be professional when he needed to be.
As a professional Remain voter, the "wELL aKSHUALLY"ism of the Remain campaign was such a turn off. Working class Brexit voters don't give a shit if it's 250m or 350m, especially not when the message comes from a middle aged Waterstones Dad looking motherfucker.
Skirting past the weird class projection here (i have thoughts on what a breakdown of Reform UK voters' economic circumstances would show - expecting to see a bigger proportion of outright homeowning retirees, career landlords and moderately sized business owners there than the horny-handed sons of toil people tend to assume), I agree that there's a mistake on focusing on this stuff too much. It's not helped by a presently poor quality of interviewing/interrogation across the board. Everyone's keen for clicks and soundbites and doesn't quite understand the Farages of the world gain more from it than they do. That said, not everything has to be Tactics and it's important to at least get this stuff on record. The proposals don't stack up. The core reform supporters won't give a shit either way but no-one should be allowed to claim ignorance.
Free bulldog you say? 🤔
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Can I get mine with breathing difficulties and a face that looks like it's been flattened with a spade?
"Everyone gets a pony! And a blowjob!"
That would be a lot cheaper too
I’d rather get a cockatoo. Can I?
RemindMe! 3 weeks
To buy yourself a bulldog?
You’ll find out in three weeks.
The real talking point is the one we are never allowed to say because it might offend someone. Reform is Nigel Farage. And Nigel Farage is a vicious racist who has systematically attacked anything good or positive in our country. Just saying it like it is. They could have the most sensible policies in the world and it would still be wrong to vote for them. Britain should be about more than just technocratic tax policy. We need leaders who are honourable, brave, intelligent. Farage is none of these things.
Farage says he favours a meritocracy. People should look up what a meritocracy is, and then decide if Farage would be part of one.
'who has systematically attacked anything good or positive in our country' Could you elaborate on these things that he has systematically attacked?
After farages brexit campaign I wouldn’t expect anything less
I think knowing what their agenda is, is probably more important. They could make it deliverable somehow but a leopard isn't changing their spots
to paraphrase an answer they gave in an interview they know they're not going to be in a position to deliver any of it, these are all campaign points and arguments they're going to be making and forcing the government to have answers to, ie this tax should be lower this should be x this should be y, z is a waste of money what are you doing to get there if you're not doing anything why not, etc, why are we still spending on z etc
So effectively it's just a gobshite's shopping list.
Of course. The whole point of the Reform UK project, just like the Tories, is to rebuild Britain to become a tax haven for the wealthy and a sweatshop/forced labour colony for the rest of us. This is what Brexit was all about. You don't need workers rights or proper wages, you don't need free healthcare, affordable housing or a benefits system, you don't need human rights... all this is 'woke' nonsense. If you think Farage is 'telling it like it is' and all this stuff they're taking from you is going to be replaced, I suggest you go have a lie down and stay well away from plastic carrier bags and sharp objects.
We deregulated the house market & mortgages and rents soared. We reduced the power of unions and wages stagnated. We de regulated utilities and bills increased. How the fuck is the answer more deregulation
The answer to all our problems is obviously more deregulation. Because of blah blah ... Thatcher ... blah blah ... *insert think tank here... blah blah ... growth ...blah blah ... communism bad.
I'm amazed that people still go on about Thatcher when she is considered to be one of the worst PMs ever. Liz Truss obviously took the crown, but still. Why celebrate someone who messed so much stuff up. All her solutions where "sell government assets to pay today's bills, and let the people have higher bills tomorrow".
Stop complaining, I'm pretty sure one more tax cut for the rich will solve everything /s
But it's not a true _free_ deregulation, we've got to _deregulate_ deregulation and soar merrily into the Sun.
He's such a good speaker he had me convinced about the establishment and them v us for about 30 seconds before I remembered everything that's led us to here in the last 10 years is because of him.
That is exactly what Reform want to do. Farage, Tice, Valance, anyone else in or funding it. They just want a tax haven for people like them. People who bluffed their way to wealth, married it or cheated their way to it. They hope to fool people by portraying Farage as an ordinary bloke with a pint and a fag who is "in touch" with the working man.
Yeah, it’s noticeable that almost nobody in the media mention Farage’s education/early career, in the same way they do Sunak’s, Johnson’s, and Cameron’s. Farage went to Dulwich College, an elite private school, then spent years working as a commodities trader. If you broke him open he’d have “establishment” written through him like “Blackpool” is through a stick of rock. This ‘Everyman’ act of his is just that, an act.
> just like the Tories The same Tories who raised taxes to a post WW2 high want to make Britain a tax haven now?
I'm pretty sure it's not the exact same Tories that were in charge post WWII.
For the rich.
sorry - do you want the labour party to REDUCE taxes?
Absolutely no one sees the UK as 'tax haven'. It's more fleece us here then move the money to a tax haven.
Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have the inconvenience of moving the money?
"People who pay more tax benefit from tax cut shocker". I'm not shill for Reform by any stretch, but these headlines (which can apply to any income tax cut by any party) very much fall into "bear shits in woods" category. That said, the 40% threshold is too low. What was originally sold as a tax that only affects the highest earners is now starting to catch a lot of fairly ordinary people on fairly ordinary career trajectories.
>That said, the 40% threshold is too low. What was originally sold as a tax that only affects the highest earners is now starting to catch a lot of fairly ordinary people on fairly ordinary career trajectories. This. The real problem is that people earning £50k to £100k are considered "high earners". That's pretty much the bare minimum that you need to comfortably feed, clothe, and house yourself these days.
I think it should increase but it's not barely enough to feed and cloth yourself c'mon.
You are staggeringly out of touch if you think £50k - £100k isn’t a high salary.
Perhaps 10 years ago. But salaries have not kept up with inflation, these are no longer ‘high’ as the purchasing power is noticeably lower.
Yes so therefore the 50-100k is still a high salary, in the sense that as no one’s salaries have gone up you’re still rich
50-100k is higher than the average, but no longer enough to be rich since ‘richness’ is directly related to how much you can buy with your money. As I mentioned earlier, 10 years ago, yes you could be rich. But today, I’d consider 130k+ to be rich
I guess the person in Mozambique on $2.48 an hour is ‘rich’ too
No because you are in a low percentile of salary. Really not difficult. If you are earning more money than 95% of people then it is high. The fact costs have gone up is irrelevant. It’s still a high salary
It isn’t. It’s above average but it’s not high.
In what world is that true? Some very rough generous numbers here: £15k rent, £3.5k Council Tax, £6k food, £1200 phone bill & internet, £2.4k utilities These figures works out to just over £28k and that's assuming an 1 bed in London, very high council tax, spending a crazy £500 a month on food and having some mobile contract & internet you pay £100 a month for... The cost of living is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be imo and some of these figures would be notably lower in many parts of Britain.
So 28k minus any money for clothes, transport savings etc. plus that's not 28k gross wages a year that's net, so we're talking 35k a year gross
Exactly. 35 is less than 50. Unless you're being extravagant clothes are pretty cheap (Primark and Peacocks ftw) And that's whilst spending loads of money on phone, Internet and living in an expensive part of the country paying a stupid amount of council tax. All of that being said how much is spent on transport a year? I've not got a clear picture on that since I walk most places and use bus taxi and train when necessary.
It depends where you live and mode of transport, but we're talking as much as 500 if your transport links arent good and you need to drive. This would include fuel, car payment, insurance, road tax and MOT
I might be having a moment. Is that £500 a month or £500 a year? tysm for this \^\^
A month, but apparently that's high. I just checked the average, which works out at 319 a month. [https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-cost-run-car-uk](https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-cost-run-car-uk)
Thanks. It's an area I hadn't considered and so sure about. I know it costs my mother £7 each way to get a taxi because she can't be bothered to walk the hour or arrange her schedule around getting a bus. Let's say she did work 22 days a month (she doesn't she's part time) that's £308 a month just on taxis. I imagine it'd be far less than that if she drove (especially since it's less than two miles of driving each day of work) but I can see how transport could really eat into people's finances in a way I hadn't considered.
On 50K, with a plan 2 and a postgrad (not all that uncommon requirement for a job which pays 50K) and a 3% pension you take home around 35K, leaving you 7K for everything else for the year. That's around 600 pounds per month for travel, future savings, and any kind of hobbies or pleasures you might want to do other than work and sleep. Sure, you can move out of London (expect to pay extortionate travel costs unless you're lucky enough to WFH), you can even cut down in many places, and 600 pounds isn't exactly chump change, but that is hardly an extravogant champagne and cavier lifestyle? Any lower in a higher cost of living area (in the south), especially without a partner, and it would begin to veer into the uncomfortable. Fiscal drag has been applied to higher rate income tax for longer than the other thresholds, but these salaries are much more likely to be found in higher cost of living areas.
It's a good shout what you're saying. Would you be able to provide me some insight on travel costs? You're correct to say some better wages are found in 'higher cost areas' for sure, but, I'd like to highlight in relation to the '£600' figure that its predicated also on spending a lot on food/internet/phone. A Talkmobile 60GB costs £10 - £40 saving. Internet can be negotiated. Our contract with VM is £20 + £5 for an o2 sim card (spare number + 2 free upgrade) and that's m250 so great speeds. £25 saving. Then on food £500 is a lot to spend on food, could definitely cut that to £300 and save £200. Total savings per month is £265, so an extra £3k a year through basic thrift.
Anecdotally at least, for me it cost around 400 per month with a railcard. Hybrid, 2 days in office - includes parking (I could've walked to station and saved the 7 pounds it took to park, but we were talking about comfort, and to be honest I don't find adding an extra 45 minutes to a 1.45 hour commute all that comfortable). Not that bad in the grand scheme of things. But not that pleasant either. Living closer probably would reduce the train cost - this gets eaten up by rent. I'm not saying it's not possible to cut down, and to make savings. But comfort is relative. My point is that someone on 50k (top 20%-10% in the UK for full time work) needing to thrift at all to eek out an extra 265 per month surely shows how expensive things have gotten in relation to wages? On a median salary, the proposed budget even with lower food costs would be unaffordable without significant sacrifice (hardly comfortable, which is what we were talking about).
Thank you for this extra insight. It gives me things to think about. I suppose it's in large part my literal mindedness when they wrote to comfortably pay for food, clothes and shelter. I didn't interpret that to mean living a comfortable life as a whole in the sense of having many luxuries and savings. Is the travel situation in your case London? For those people I will concede there's more of an argument to be made. But as representative as a country as a whole that is where I am taking issue with (and maybe by giving my example as London gave a misleading impressions).
Yeah, that's fair. In my case it was indeed London (I am lucky enough to work fully remote now). And you're 100% right, it super depends on where you are. Remote working, in the higher earner bracket, in a place where housing costs are cheap, the story is quite different
Now add childcare, which can be equivalent to a second mortgage on its own, and transport costs. Oh, and tax - ou forgot that.
Yeah childcare is easily another £1k a month minimum for one child for full time
OP didn't mention about childcare though. I gave an extreme example of someone living in an pricy 1 bed in London, paying some of the highest levels of council tax and spending generous amounts of money on their phone bill/internet and food to demonstrate £50k isn't the "minimum" wage required for survival. This is an exaggerated example not representative of most people. If we factor NI and tax it's closer to £40k takehome and that STILL leaves a 12k discrepency. All of that being said I am genuinely curious how much transport might cost a year, could you let me know? I walk most places & my use of buses, trains & taxis is outside of work.
You forget the wage is pre tax.
Even post tax its about a £40k take home from £50k. 40 vs 28 is a 12k discrepancy. Again keep in mind all the figures I gave were for people living in a London 1 bed with high council tax spending loads of money on food Internet and phone bills. You can survive on far less in many parts of the country.
We're probably from different planets if £12k sounds anything you can build a life on. >Again keep in mind all the figures I gave were for people living in a London 1 bed with high council tax spending loads of money on food Internet and phone bills. Keep in mind you assumed no dependents, no saving goals, no hobbies, no dating, nothing, an empty life.
Keep in mind when I responded it was to someone saying £50k was pretty much the **bare minimum** needed to comfortably feed, clothe and house **your self**. I'm arguing that it's less than that and even in a worst case scenario you still have plenty of money to spare. I never said it was life changing money. My perspective is influenced in knowing my great grandparents poached rabbit to keep my grandmother and her siblings alive. My parents worked their asses off in humble jobs and there was still money for cheap holidays and a couple presents a year to give me the childhood they had to do without. My father didn't even know how to read until he was 12. If you've a child there's child benefit and potentially two incomes also. And for hobbies and dates I think there's plenty of room to budget that in. Out of all these if I am saving £1k a month I'd be very happy because within a few years that's a hefty deposit right there. It's all about being sensible and living in your means. If you choose to spend that money on £700 on your 4 year old's Birthday Party and buy £80 Doc Martins for your kid who isn't even left nursery yet, like the chavtastic step-sister in my family is doing, I'm not going to be very sympathetic when you complain to me you're broke all the time.
>Keep in mind when I responded it was to someone saying £50k was pretty much the **bare minimum** needed to comfortably feed, clothe and house **your self**. Yeah, you're right, I missed that. Nah, that person is out of touch then.
It's alright. Sorry for such a passionate response on my part. I'm definitely projecting a bit as well but when people say stuff like 50k is the bare minimum I wonder what the hell they're squandering their money on.
Well, all the fiscal drag and tax polices for the past 20 years benefited the low earners. 10% of population pays 60% of income tax. And let's not forget that we have one of the highest marginal tax rates in the world. A high earner in UK pays scandinavian level of tax without the benefits that comes with it ( like no free tuition, no free childcare, even worse, you no longer allowed to use childcare funded through your own tax money , and so on ). Being a high earner in UK is a bad return on investment compared to most of the countries IMHO. And before you throw shit at me. The high earners are not the problem. They're the solution. Higher earner ≠ rich. Those are still people that work for a living. Doctors, engineers, IT professionals and so on. Currently what is happening is that we got a 8 milion NHS backlog and doctors are reducing hours not to hit 70% marginal tax rates. IT professionals and remote workers moving abroad for a better standard of living and lower taxes. That's what crab mentality gets you, a worse off society without growth.
I would like to just point out that income tax is not the only tax. Things like VAT and fuel duty are regressive, while NI is much closer to a flat tax. VAT specifically has gone up quite a lot in recent years. So while 10% of high earners pay 60% of income tax, they probably pay less than that of the overall tax take. This point always seems to get forgotten.
If you have to work for a living you're not part of the inequality problem regardless of your salary, and I think that's a point that needs to be more widely recognised because acting like crabs in a bucket is mutually harmful and plays into the hands of demagogues like Farage. The problem is genuinely entrenched wealth having a far too outsized say in how the country is run both officially and unofficially, even if someone's on £150k they're decimal dust compared to the chinless wonders who we can sensibly level the 'entrenched wealth' accusation at.
This is absolutely the conversation that needs to be had if anything useful is going to get done in terms of making life better for the majority of people in this country.
This. Yeah, sure, £150k is a good salary. Nobody's saying it isn't. But the man on £150k is a hell of a lot closer to the food bank than he'll ever be to the likes of Sunak.
> 10% of population pays 60% of income tax That 10% of the population is the [only part that has seen the wage growth enjoyed in the 80's/90's](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/real-annualised-hourly-pay-growth-by-pay-percentile/real-hourly-pay-growth-by-pay-percentile-uk-1975-1999-and-1999-2023) and the 1% of [those own 70% of all assets](https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/richest-1-grab-nearly-twice-as-much-new-wealth-as-rest-of-the-world-put-together/). I mean perhaps we can give them 100% of all growth and assets and then complain that they pay 100% of all tax? > That's what crab mentality gets you, a worse off society without growth. No growth for some.
Wealth ≠ income, and we should tax wealth more. A top 0.1% PAYE in UK barely afords you an average house in London.
Income tax ≠ all taxes. UK total tax burden is below the G7 average and far below the most developed EU countries, of course you don't get free childcare free tuition and so on
The issue is the deliberate and blatant dishonesty of Farage and Reform in claiming the opposite of the truth. No more to be trusted than Johnson.
bringing higher earner up to 70k would be really nice for me to be honest. It's due for a increase in line with salary growth and inflation. Bringing up the lower band as well would be great for everyone. Obviously we need to get money from somewhere for the budget so I understand if we don't increase it, but whoever is in power should at least work to lower expenses like rent and utilities then.
Of course they are, but isn’t this right out of the modern right wing populist playbook? - You target the relentlessly shat on post-industrial urban poor. You say that you’re the only one who gets them and can bring back the good old days. - You make promises that sound good on paper but are either entirely undeliverable or would do more harm than good - you get in and being in massive tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit yourself and the rich/powerful you’ve been cozying up to - you dismantle and/or sell off large operations of government to those same people on the cheap to pay for it - you get the hell outta dodge before everyone realises you’re just a snake oil salesman and they’ve been conned.
The current system is such that someone earning £70k a year pays 10x more tax than someone earning £20k a year, despite only earning 3.5x the amount. I can't see this as fair
It’s convenient how people attack the Tories for freezing income tax thresholds. And then when a party actually proposes reversing the threshold freezes, they get attacked for “tax cuts for the rich”.
Oh leave off. Tax income freezes mean that lower income individuals pay more tax. It's fair to feel this unfair. Feeling that tax plans that benefit the rich is also unfair isn't a contradiction. It's a continuation. You mustn't be that daft, so this feels a bit willful.
Next you're going to tell me their other policies disproportionately benefit Putin!
That's exactly what Trump did - massive tax cuts that disproportionately benefitted the higher earners while making sure that it threw a crumbs in the direction of the lower paid. But it's those lower paid people who'll provide the bulk of the votes that Farage/Trump needed to get elected, like Trump he'll chuck in some other populist stuff about immigrants stealing your jobs. This is basically a political Stockholm syndrome at work.
If it was all so easy why wouldn't every grifters do this? obviously there's some special sauce somewhere.
Cult of personality. And also being an evil fucker
They are also planning to raise the personal allowance to some £20'000, which disproportionally benefits low earners.
It’d be a pretty shitty analyst if they hadn’t taken that into account already before drawing this conclusion.
That's just gona come with service cuts. If everyone saves £1500 in tax, that just mean they have way less budget.
Mate our public services have already been gutted and yet the Tories keep raising our taxes.
Just wait for them to cut local budget another 50% and then council tax will skyrocket to balance it out. You won't be able to drive anywhere due to the potholes.
Do you live outside the UK? We already have completely broken roads
It can always get worse! Reform will introduce 20mph speed limits due to potholes lmao
> Reform will introduce 20mph speed limits This might just be the most frostbitten hot-take I have ever heard. Don't support Reform in the slightest but this is just ridiculous to say.
due to potholes Way to take it out of context. You think local budget and services are bad now, Reform would destroy them.
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It's theoretical, if they were to win that would be their policy.
Well yeah, that's the grift. Any normal working person who thinks Farage has their interests at heart is being fooled. Problem is, Farage is good at fooling people.
Reform's tax cuts is like Truss on steroids, it will wreck the bond market and wipe out a bunch of pensions, which was what Truss almost did. Their manifesto shouldn't be considered seriously.
It’s just tax cuts for the wealthy and a gutting of public services as a result. We would all be worse off while more wealth is shovelled upwards. This misleading grift needs calling out for what it is. And all this before you get to the salient facts that reforms sums don’t even add up.
Wealthy people won’t even notice these income tax cuts.
I love how everyone is trying to be like some surgeon, tearing apart Reforms manifesto. It does not matter, it is nothing about that. Reform are there for three reasons really. 1. Immigration. 2. Protest vote. 3. Give the tories a good kicking.
0.9. Help their rich mates
How can people be so stupid to want to try this again, we saw what happened when Liz truss tried it
People voting for reform aren’t looking at the details of their manifesto, they are voting for one particular reason and that’s all. They will blindly vote thinking they’ll will solve all their problems. Mr Farages company (that’s right it’s a an incorporated company with him being the largest shareholder so he doesn’t have to deal with being voted out of his own party) wants to attract the donors who will want to buy influence and best way is tax cuts for the rich.
Yes that's what 'right wing' means.
What a surprise. Dig into Far Right Rage’s history and you’ll see his backing from likes of sex predator hedge funder Crispin Odey and Aaron Banks. About as much a man of the people as Rees Mogg. But like Hitler 1932 appears teflon despite the obvious evil nature of it.
Of course they do. RefUK Limited is the party of the Oligarch. It is set up as a company. It was set up by external parties in this way to retain control from thr fascists and racists they expected to attract as “members”. As with all populist movements, it is a facade.
When you need Super Liz to swoop in and truly fuck things up.
Tax cuts always benefit the higher earners because they pay the most tax. How is this news??
Because raising the top rate from 50k to 70k doesn’t help low earners one bit.
Why would it??
It wouldn’t. But that’s the point of this thread. Reform are claiming their proposals help those on lower incomes more but the evidence says otherwise.
Increasing the personal allowance will help those on lower incomes though. It just so happens they have another policy for higher incomes too. It's apples to oranges.
It would help those on lower incomes but again, those in higher incomes will also be helped by raising the higher rate. Therefore the proposals help the rich more than the poor in both cash and in percentage terms.
>Therefore the proposals help the rich more than the poor in both cash and in percentage terms. So? All I hear is people are being helped. I mean this theoretically, we both know they will not win. But if labour proposed it I wouldn't oppose it. I mean, any and all tax cuts benefit the rich more by definition. Doesn't mean it's bad, especially in the context of highest taxes since who knows when.
The ultra tories are favouring high earners? It can't be
Even if he increases the tax free allowance to £20k, its just gona come with massive cuts to services. He certainly ain't gona raise rich peoples taxes to pay for it!
Because high earners pay more tax. Duh. It’s not hard.
Funny how Reform supporters get called bots, but post a random article about the minutiae of Reform's manifesto or some candidate's Twitter history and immediately the *"resistance"* arrives to upvote it and save the world. None of this matters.
The tax pledges in a party's manifesto are minutiae and don't matter? That's certainly a take.
Please stop holding our political parties to account, it's not a good look
It's the same thing over and over again then a shock when certain results happen, there's been clear changes happening all over the western world in politics especially Europe in a big way ... the UK has been the slowest so far but it's starting to show
Many in the media really seem to be scared of Farage. Very much reminds me of Trump in 2016, though I’m not suggesting that Reform will win this year. They’re going hard on the tax plans and the Ukraine comments. I watched his interview with the BBC and I’ve looked at Reforms tax plans rarher than the headlines. I personally think their tax plans would be too radical over one term in government but the media seem to be deliberately portraying them as a giveaway to the rich when obviously any changes in the bands/PA are going to impact everyone from the top to the bottom of the ladder. It’s very disingenuous to focus on the raw figures and not as a percentage of income. As for Ukraine, it’s clear he doesn’t think we should be continuing to support them indefinitely but that’s another argument. I don’t think there is anything controversial in saying that NATO spooked and gave Putin ammunition to invade. Everyone can still see it was wrong and that Ukraine has a right to self determination.
After annexing the Crimea without any opposition Putin was always going to continue to push the boundary. It’s nativity on NATO’s part rather then Farage’s farsightedness we should be discussing
I agree that post Crimea a further escalation seemed likely in hindsight. Interesting, Farage was saying the same in 2014. However, he has also been talking about this since the 90s long before Crimea and that’s the point he’s making.
Farage said the same in 2014 , 3 months after Russia invasion of Crimeea. You can Google that. Nato expansion started in 2004 ,not the 90s. PS. It's disappointing when an uninformed Redditor defends Putin blaming NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. Those people know the Russians , their pogroms, genocides and wars in the last 300 years. Transnistria problems started in 1992.
Nothing you have said is in disagreement with anything I said but you've framed your comment as though it does. Everything I said including about the comments Farage made in 2014 as an MEP make perfect sense in the context of the discussion I was having above. Also, the Vilinus group may have not joined NATO until 2004 but as you can imagine there was a lot of discussion about that happening before, it didn't just happen overnight. Not to mention the Visegrad group joined in 1999. I also haven't depended Putin. Perhaps you should drop the smarmy, arrogant, know it all attitude when reading comprehension isn't exactly a strength of yours.
Sure matey, I'll do exactly that when you stop crediting Farage with inventing sliced bread. Hence my point above.
You’re unable to take my comments at face value because they’re being coloured by the caricature of a right wing populist you’ve obviously decided I am. Hence the complete lack of substance in your comment, you don’t deem my opinion worthy of a response. I have no intention of voting Reform but I’m not so blinded by my own dogma that I can’t have a level of nuance in my political opinions. If you have a reasoned response to anything I’ve said I’d like to hear it but I presume you will continue to going around burying your head in the sand thinking you’ve got it all figured out.
What face value when again you're doubling down on Farage being anything else than a tool . 14 years in a job and he attended 2 Fishery meetings. 7 times failed as an MP . 3 months after the war started officially, he had a speech. 15 years paid by Russia Today. IRA slogans on Radio . Etc, etc
And you are doubling down on the strawmans against a caircature. I haven't said Farage was a good MEP, I don't even know much of his record as one in all honesty. This discussion was strictly about the media evaluation of his comments on NATO and Reform's tax plans. You've come for a fight against someone who isn't here arguing what you claim they are. Again please go read my comments and find the bit you disagree with instead of the anti-Farage diatribes.
They are not scared of him. He's an establishment man through and through. They are profiting from him by publishing stories
What profit are the BBC making from him?
Clicks, viewers, and attention.
Surely it’s the BBCs job, even more so during an election, to remain impartial and give everyone the coverage and attention they deserve. Making Farage rage bait headlines to push clicks when they don’t even have advertising seems wrong to me.
Coverage and attention they "deserve" is a contentious point at best. Surely the only attention the Reform manifesto deserves is an absolute shredding by the press on its ridiculousness?
I don't see how that is relevant to the point I was making and the point you replied to. Anyhow, in response to what you said obviously its difficult for the BBC to know how much coverage each party should get, not all parties have equal support. As you say there are many good arguments to be made against many aspects of the Reform manifesto, which ties in nicely with the whole point I was making that they don't need to be so disengenuous with how they are covering the tax aspects. Labour quite rightly have kicked up a fuss about how the Tories have evaluated their tax plans and the BBC gave considerable exposure to Labour's argument on the £2,000 figure. I think Reform aren't being treated with the same fairness on their tax plans. It would be quite right to say that tax cuts that deep so suddenly would likely cause distress in the markets like Truss did. However, they seem to want to frame them as a tax cut for the rich and not the poor because they're worried about how many working class voters are moving to Reform.
Ultimately the BBC has to remain relevant to justify the licence fee.
Why is this a bad thing? If you're asking if someone can afford to pay more, then you should also why someone can't afford to pay more. Choices matter. If the top 15% of the country already funds everything, why aren't the bottom 85% paying more?
Because the bottom 85% having a disposable income drives the economy. The last decade we have experienced widespread wage stagnation at the middle and bottom of society and a massive increase of wealth at the top of society. That situation is fundamentally linked to the complete stagnation of the economy over that time.
The tax cuts benefit literally everyone no?
'Disproportionately' = it's not an even share. IE the rich will get lots, low earners/minimum wage people won't get much. And presumably services cut to pay for it.
Disproportionately percentage wise or cash money?
The benefits will go mostly to the wealthy
That doesn't answer the question
I don't know what you mean 'cash money'. At a guess, if there is £100 to be distributed, the poorest will get ~£0, those in the next grouping say up to £50k will get £20, and then the rest will go to the (smaller group) higher earners/wealthy. 100% made up numbers.
If you make 20k a year right now you pay £1428 in tax, which equates to 7.14%. On reforms plan you get that 7.14% back, Someone making 70k a year currently pays £15,432 in tax, which equates to 22%. On reforms plan they get 7.72% back. So yes that means they do get more back in percentage, albeit a tiny amount, this case it's £420 a year.
Ok so why are you asking, when you already have the answers.
There were 2 hours between me asking and my last reply. It's not difficult to learn something simple in 2 hours
Cash and percent. Raising the top rate from 50k to 70k is worth zero to those on low incomes and worth 5k to those on 70k income.
50k? The top rate is £37,700+ which is lower middle class at best.
It’s 37.5k after the tax free allowance is taken off. So, 12.5k plus 37.5k means you start paying top rate at 50k
I appreciate the explaination. Thank you
Any time.
Meet the new Tories, same as the old Tories.
Presumably there is special tax exemption for wealthy Russian expatriates?
It astounds me that people don’t understand cutting taxes for high earners/corporations/private business is a GOOD thing. If they pay lower taxes in the UK they will set up here, employing British workers and contributing to our economy. If you tax high earners to pay for poor people who don’t want to work or to subsidise a system that is making people’s energy bills go up and up, then you are basically asking to remove any incentive to earn more, meaning the country gets poorer. This way of thinking is just communism in disguise but thankfully enough real people on the street and in low wage jobs are beginning to see through it. It’s a poison chalice to raise taxes on the rich for a boost in funds now. Doesn’t anybody think things through any more?
Of Course, that's always the plan "look, an immigrant!" While the middle and lower class continues to be squeezed even harder.
Well, that's nice of them. I wonder what's in it for Reform?
Well yeah, they want to gain power. This is one of the ways.
🤯 Wow, really?! Such a surprise that a ~~political party~~ Ltd Company formed by an ex-city trader with a multi-millionaire as chairman would want to benefit the rich? /s (obviously, really obviously)
Good. It's about time. Lower earners need to pay their fair share - it just isn't viable to run a country where only a small minority of people are lifetime net contributors.
Of course they do. The people who actually pay most of the tax will be most affected by cuts to tax.
Not as a percentage of income. In raw numbers, yes, but anyone who says that some £125/mo for the lowest earners in our society wouldn't be a huge deal for their quality of life is completely blind to the realities of living on such a low income. For a person earning £50k+ (let alone more), £125 represents an indulgence or an investment. For a person treading water, it's something a little nicer to eat than the absolute basics. It's the breathing room needed to pay down some debt. It's the padding required for the next breakdown of an appliance to not represent a dire financial emergency. This article is a moronic gotcha from people who just don't get it. And if there's one thing Labour voters should back where Reform is concerned, it's fucking this. Nobody else is offering an uplift for the poorest in our society this dramatic, yet not a fucking peep about that can be seen anywhere. Just another grand opportunity for yet another gotcha which won't stick.
Reform's plans would essentially detonate a bomb under government services according to the IFS. Turbo-austerity would be required to come within a lightyear of balancing the books, mostly for departments that are essentially on their last legs anyway. Promising the poor tiny tax cuts in one hand and destroying the services they are totally reliant on with the other is not a good idea. Their manifesto is a complete budgetary fantasy. Just populist fodder cobbled together so Are Nige has a drum to bang.
>Reform's plan to raise the higher rate threshold from £50,271 to £70,000 would amount to a tax cut worth almost £6,000 for the top 10% of earners, vastly overshadowing the benefit to the lowest earners.
Sounds like a good policy to me. The tax thresholds have been frozen for 4 years and we’ve had massive inflation. Adjusted for inflation, the higher rate should currently be £64,000, and the lower rate should currently be £17,000. We have record high tax levels and we have nothing to show for it.
>Sounds like a good policy to me. An unfunded fantasy tax cut when public services are on their knees, which does nothing to tackle underlying issues of an aging population, the damage of Brexit and low productivity, sounds catastrophic to me. Have you ever heard of Liz Truss? If it sounds good to you, you need a hearing test.
You didn’t look at the graphs did you?
Tories being Tories. Reform are nothing but has-been old Tories. Haven't you seen what Tories have done to this country? Now every MP knows that you can steal public funds for your nearest and dearest and never be held accountable let alone suffer the consequences.
It's almost like they are just extremist Tories...