Balance: Jeremy Corbyn's tax return

ICBM

capo4th said:

I have bought and sold a couple of properties they all went up in value over time. 

Houses do generate wealth.

No they don't - except when they are being built.

They create *money* when they go up in price (not the same as value) afterwards, which is not the same thing as generating *wealth* at all.

Ignoring the difference between generating wealth and creating money is largely responsible for the mess our modern Western economies have got into. A large amount of our "wealth" is essentially fictional and based on increasing the price of something which has not changed at all.

Wealth can only be created by industry in some form or another, either directly or by investing in someone else's.

chrispy108

quarky;1038122" said:

Read the links, read the book. To me, if you think that you are paying tax on something just because you own it, you are still missing the point by a mile, but with all respect, I am not going to go into further.

Your link says things like: the tax is utopian and impossible to implement yearly, but is already done with capital gains and inheritance tax.

All you seem to want to do is create a lot of new accountants. Paying tax on the difference between my mortgage and what my rent would be? Mental! Who decides the rent level? No room for fiddling and unfairness there....


I'm really interested to see how Finland's basic income goes, because it is such a logical idea. The simpler a system is, the less loopholes, the "fairer" it is.

Fretwired

@digitalscream .. we are wasting our time ....

quarky

Fretwired said:

@digitalscream .. we are wasting our time ....

) If I had written that, I would have been called condescending. As I said, read some of the links, read the book, or don't. I think there would be some value there, you don't, fine. But yes, if you are trying to convince me that a tax on wealth growth is the same as a tax on assets, yes, you are wasting your time.

CabbageCat

quarky said:

Fretwired said:

@digitalscream .. we are wasting our time ....

) If I had written that, I would have been called condescending. As I said, read some of the links, read the book, or don't. I think there would be some value there, you don't, fine. But yes, if you are trying to convince me that a tax on wealth growth is the same as a tax on assets, yes, you are wasting your time.

They might not be trying to change your mind, they might simply be explaining to those of us who haven't already entrenched themselves why it doesn't make any sense.

Snap

anyway, in other news, Jeremy Corbyn has made a dick of himself yet again with his ludicrously wrong facts about Brits living abroad.

Is there no end to this div?

Drew_TNBD

Snap said:

anyway, in other news, Jeremy Corbyn has made a dick of himself yet again with his ludicrously wrong facts about Brits living abroad.

Is there no end to this div?

LOL'd for the word div. Good stuff.

Snap

ha ha, cheers.

See, I find words like div, pillock, spanner, prannock, melon, blert, plank, etc much more effective than simply swearing.

Drew_TNBD

Snap said:

ha ha, cheers.

See, I find words like div, pillock, spanner, prannock, melon, blert, plank, etc much more effective than simply swearing.

Cunt is a bit of a sledgehammer, I grant you.

Fretwired

quarky said:

Fretwired said:

@digitalscream .. we are wasting our time ....

) If I had written that, I would have been called condescending. As I said, read some of the links, read the book, or don't. I think there would be some value there, you don't, fine. But yes, if you are trying to convince me that a tax on wealth growth is the same as a tax on assets, yes, you are wasting your time.

So take a pensioner living on a modest pension who bought his house in 1960 for £15,000 and now finds it could be worth £1 million pounds. How much tax would he pay? What would you do if he were unable to pay? Who would actually value the property because under your scheme we will need millions of property experts.

quarky

None. As I said several times, it would be on people with (say) £5m or more. And no, you don't need millions of property experts (bangs head against wall).

What would happen if he did some work on the side through his own company couldn't pay his corporation tax? I know, let's get rid of corporation tax then.

chrispy108

He could pay the corporation tax - because he's just earned some cash!

He can't pay your property tax (whatever you want to call it), because he can't sell 1% of his house to pay it.

And why £5m? Guess what, awful lot of people are going to have £4.9m of 'wealth'.

How are you going to value all these houses without more experts? Just going to use estate agents? I'm not paying a tax based on a guess from a 12 year old in a shiny suit.

quarky

So no one ever has problems paying corporation tax? Phew. Glad we got that sorted.

He wouldn't need to sell his house, or to pay 1% of the value of it.

You don't need an expert to value a house.

digitalscream

quarky said:

You don't need an expert to value a house.

You'd better tell all those mortgage brokers that. They've been doing it wrong all these years.

Drew_TNBD

You need an accredited valuation broker to value your flat just to repay a chunk of help to buy loan, I can tell you that. They wont accept your uncle Steve who just rocks up and yells twelvty.

quarky

digitalscream said:

You'd better tell all those mortgage brokers that. They've been doing it wrong all these years.

Sigh.I don't think the rich keep a huge, large, or even substantial amount of their wealth tied up in the value of their home. Sorry, I know it doesn't help with your strawman, but as far as I know, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, that is the way it is.

chrispy108

So in your world "the rich" just have millions kicking around in a current account?

I'm not sure what you can't see:

I earn £1,000, I pay 10% tax, so I end up with £900 in my account.

I 'have wealth' of £1,000, I pay 10% tax, so I need to take £100 out of my account to pay it.

Surely you can see the difference in ability to pay in those two situations?

Of course you need an expert to value a house. Again, would you take the word of Dave the estate agent?

You go around accusing people of not reading things and using a strawman, when you're doing both those things

quarky said:

digitalscream said:

You'd better tell all those mortgage brokers that. They've been doing it wrong all these years.

Sigh.

Have you forgotten that global recession caused by mortgages being incorrectly valued?

quarky

So you can't see any other options besides having money tied up in your home and "kicking around in a current account"?

chrispy108 said:

I 'have wealth' of £1,000, I pay 10% tax, so I need to take £100 out of my account to pay it.

Again, you have completely misunderstood it. Go back and re-read, or read the articles, or even the book.

chrispy108

It's you who has misunderstood it. Go read your article. Explain how I pay your tax on an asset that has appreciated without generating cashflow.

From your article:

On equity and efficiency grounds, it makes sense to tax wealth. The practicalities, though, are daunting. Flight to low-tax jurisdictions -- the rationale for making a wealth tax global -- is only one of many difficulties. To levy a tax each year, you'd need an annual accounting of wealth, which isn't easy to do, and you'd have to contend with the fact that wealth doesn't always produce a flow of income that can be used to pay what's owed.

More complexity just makes more issues. It doesn't create a "fairer" system.

quarky

And not everyone can pay their corporation tax, or (insert other tax here). So should abolish those? Of course not.