What policies should we propose to maintain a competitive economy that provides sufficient employment?
The personal income tax allowance will be set at the level of a full time living wage (currently £14,458.50 based on 252 working days of 7.5 hours per day at £7.65) and will rise inline with the living wage.
The personal income tax allowance will be set at the level of a full time living wage (currently £14,458.50 based on 252 working days of 7.5 hours per day at £7.65) and will rise inline with the living wage.
VAT should only apply to luxury goods and services. It should be possible for the poorest households to fully equip themselves without ever being subject to paying VAT. Most basic household items or clothing, even a two-piece lounge suit, can be purchased for less than £100. It is therefore proposed levying the standard rate of VAT on any single item that retails at £100 or greater. This would mean packaged food, basic restaurant food, simple items of adult clothing, basic electrical goods, that all currently attract the standard rate of VAT, would become much cheaper and available to all.
Should this be set based on some average-price stat? Many things are now wrong because a fixed threshold was set, not linked to real prices. Stamp duty, for instance. Retail price index, perhaps?
@philipjohn - over 10 years ago
"It should be possible for the poorest households to fully equip themselves without ever being subject to paying VAT." I've long thought the best way to do this is actually to completely eradicate VAT and switch to income Tax with a living wage threshold. That way, only those who can afford to, pay tax including VAT. I.e. the central aim would be to ensure that you never pay any tax (within reason) before you've earned a living wage. Anything less is a contradiction - adopting the living wage but then taking away from it.
@PaulJRobinson - over 10 years ago
The levying of VAT on goods and services is a compulsory requirement of our membership of the EU - just one of many reasons why I back the 'better-off-out' campaign. We couldn't abolish VAT even if we wanted to.
@PaulJRobinson - over 10 years ago
But I do agree with @philipjohnon the principle that no-one should pay any tax on anything earned below the living wage. Although there is an argument for suggesting that everyone should feel that they have a 'stake' in the system by having contributed at least something towards it, I don't believe it overrides the argument for taking the poorest entirely out of the tax system.
Maybe we can put in a middle ground then; say we can adjust VAT to make it less regressive, but also campaign for it to be removed from our EU requirements. I agree that a pure income tax would be much more sensible.
There's nothing wrong with policy saying where we want to go, even if it's currently impossible, as long as we acknowledge the changes required to get there.
@PaulJRobinson do you reckon you can make a few adjustments to this PR, or does prose.io make that too complex? If prose doesn't make it simple, you can just hit edit on https://github.com/PaulJRobinson/manifesto/blob/prose-patch-10/economy.md and do it there instead, and it will automatically appear in here.
@PaulJRobinson - over 10 years ago
Happy to. But if I go back to the site to edit it using prose.io I am presented with the existing Master to edit, not my first draft. How/Where would I find my first draft in order to edit that? And are we agreed that my edit should be "Investigate possible reforms to the way VAT is applied to goods and services with a view to making it less regressive and, ultimately, to remove the poorest from having to pay entirely - even if this requires renegotiating our obligations to the EU."
@PaulJRobinson - over 10 years ago
Forget that. If you're happy with the quotation above, I'll just add it using prose.io the way I did before and lose my first draft.
Yeah, fairly happy with that. If you follow the github link in the comment up above, you can edit your draft without having to open a new PR.
What policies should we propose to maintain a competitive economy that provides sufficient employment?
The personal income tax allowance will be set at the level of a full time living wage (currently £14,458.50 based on 252 working days of 7.5 hours per day at £7.65) and will rise inline with the living wage.
The personal income tax allowance will be set at the level of a full time living wage (currently £14,458.50 based on 252 working days of 7.5 hours per day at £7.65) and will rise inline with the living wage.
Investigate possible reforms to the way VAT is applied to goods and services with a view to making it less regressive and, ultimately, to remove the poorest from having to pay entirely - even if this requires renegotiating our obligations to the EU.
The OpenPolitics Manifesto
@PaulJRobinson - over 10 years ago
This pull request has been automatically generated by prose.io.