Red Rose Forum

Special Announcement

We want your Views

Dear L.I. Member,
We are trying to stimulate a number of debates in LI on topics of greatest political interest to our members. The main objective is to establish a consituency-based political agenda. The debates will be conducted through the LI's own Red Rose forum where members can exchange views easily and promptly and be automatically notified when new responses / issues are posted on the forum. Ultimately, if there is enough interest in a topic it might be feasible to form a Constituency based submission to the NPF, or a resolution. It is important for the LI to make itself heard; to act as a full Labour constituency, despite having no elected representation in Parliament.

The political issues perhaps should not be only of particular interest to LI members, e.g. voting rights. Rather,we should be attempting to gauge which matters are of the greatest importance to the full LI membership, If LI members are like other Labour members we would hope topics would extend over a wide range of current political matters in which the country, government and the party are involved.

Jeremy Millard, LICC Secretary attended a fringe meeting at Conference on taxation - always a highly charged issue for all parts of the political spectrum. Here is what he had to say in a recent exchange of emails with me....

'Dear John

At Conference, I attended a Guardian fringe chaired by Polly Toynbee on "Fourth term or bust" with Ed Miliband, Tessa Jowell and John Crudus. (You can guess who had the most "values"). Thinking of Labour values on greater social justice, I asked a question on whether we should tax the super rich (i.e. with incomes over £100k or £150k) up to 50%, comparing UK to Denmark where the Danes do this and it is accepted by everybody, even the current rightwing gov, as part of the price for social cohesion and good services. And, Denmark is probably the most
competitive economy in the world. The super rich (apart from a few oddballs) aren't frightened away. As long as overall taxes aren't extreme, and other conditions are right (such as good employee skills and low crime because of high social cohesion), taxes aren't that important even to the super rich! Needless to say, Ed and Tessa were very evasive. Polly put it to the vote and 99% of attenders voted for doing this (there were at least 200 in the hall). Just shows where members' values lie!

Jeremy'


John MacKay, LI Web Manager

Which way would you have voted?

http://www.labourint.org.uk

Just testing

How much money do you make? You communists always seem to have the answers, don't you? Problem is it doesn't work anywhere it has been tried. And from what is happening in Europe, socialism isn't working out to well either. Sarkosy has CRUSHED the transport union and begun the trek back towards a capitalistic i.e fair way of governing and providing of services.

I would worry more about the Muslim hordes separating your heads from your socialist bodies then I would about taxing the super rich.

BTW, your claim that $140,000 is super rich wages is a joke. Do you live in a cardboard box?

Thanks for the provoctive response. I make about £80,000 a year, but living in Denmark I pay over half in tax. I would be prepared to pay more if is would be used effectively on social democratic policies (like social services, education, science & technology, business development, environment, foreign assistance, etc.) Note, I said £100k or £150k, not $140k which is considerably less.

I disagree that 'socialism' isn't working out too well. (Though I use the term social democratic, progressive or left of centre -- 'socialism' smacks too much of Marxist and authoritarian policies which I abhor.) Are you a social democrat or progressive ?!. The Danish and Scandinavian success (both economic efficiency and social justice together) was built on left of centre policies.

The bit about Muslim hordes is another discussion which we can certainly take up in the context of the Western hordes and armies in many Muslim countries (both fighting and permanently stationed -- though I do support the Afghanistan action), the Jewish illegal settlemnets in Palestine, etc. I would also be the first to condemn any cutting off of heads or any unprovoked violence or terrorism, whoever commits it.

Don't fall into the same extremist fundamentalist trap which you otherwise purport to condemn.

Should redistribution be the objective, I do not see the simple raising of the top rate of tax as the real solution. A higher tax rate serves mainly to impact upon the tax compliant middle classes. Perhaps the real issue at hand is why the UK does not go further in tackling the ridiculously widespread tax avoidance industry. The super rich can well afford to protect their millions in offshore accounts and complex trust schemes. The complicated rules for the taxation of foreign residents in the UK can only be understood by those with the money enough to pay for specialist advice. I would rather push for greater compliance then raise the rates of tax further for those who actually do pay their dues.

I do agree with Amanda's point. I would argue for both taxing the super-rich somewhat more (not out of vindictiveness but because they should be taxed more in a progressive society), but also close the tax loop holes and, above all, tackle tax avoidance.

In addition, there was a very recent report in the Guardian which revealed that a sizeable reduction in the number of households in "poverty" could be made if these households actually claimed the tax relief they were entitled to. (I think the figure ran into several billions pounds sterling annually). The main reason they don't claim is because of the very complicated tax rules. Many of these rules, arguably, do need to be complicated in order to precisely target those most in need. So, in my view it's not the fact that they are complicated that is really the problem, it's that households have to claim the rebate. Surely, government should and can know enough about people to automatically give them the tax rebates they qualify for, without them having to claim them. Much better for all concerned, also in reducing the government bureacracy of the claims process. (This is what happens in Denmark). You can see where I am heading..?! It means that government departments need to share more data with each other, and obtain (strictly defined) data from banks, etc., on individuals' income and svaings. It also means that people have to trust governments a little more, and what with the recent debacles of lost data, that is difficult! A great shame. We could all be better off. We want government to do so much, and yet we complain when we don't give them the tools. Or am I being näive?

I have moved Amanda's reply to a start a new thread on the topic of unclaimed benefits
Richard 26 March 2008