Liz Truss and Finances

Now I admit, I'm no fiscal genius.

People are furious at Liz Truss for giving rich people more money. How dare she? The rich should pay MORE taxes.

Ok. Who are the rich people? Can we put a number on it? How much do you have to earn before you get called "rich"? £150,000? £300,000? £1,000,000? There's a staggering difference between these numbers. 

But it's hard to put a finger on this. Because it doesn't say how hard someone has worked to get to that position, or how many savings someone has got to comfortably live off. It doesn't state how much money those people give to charity, or how altruistic they are. And perhaps we shouldn't assume. Those in the £150,000ish bracket, would appear to me to be people like the small business owners. And why do we think they're getting a tax refund? They're already paying 45%, 25% more(ish) than "a poor person". 

Give me a 1% tax reduction, I bring home £11 a month extra, which is barely enough in this day and age to have a couple of pints, never mind lighting and heating the house.

Give a rich person a 1% tax reduction, and what can they do with that? I can't do anything with £11 a month apart from spend it. And we're told this is a good thing, it is the poor who drives the economy. Yes. I would probably tend to agree, but, mostly, us poor aren't going to boutique independent shops buying our food, our clothes, and supporting the small business owners. We're the people going to Amazon, Asda, Tesco, Aldi, Sainsburys, Lidl et al, throwing our money into the coffers of a huge business, or sinking our cash into paying off loans and credit cards with some big multinational bank.

So I and everybody else go and buy a few extra groceries a month, and dilute that across all of the shops, all of the chains, it's not really going to make a dent in my opinion. 

Target the relief at the small business owners, you know, those people you think shbould be paying more, and, well, they will have quite a bit more residual income which they may be able to use for actually, well, maybe cutting costs, or employing someone else.

We all know rich people don't pay taxes anyhow, they just put it into the Seychells. In which case what did it matter if the tax rate was lowered to 40%? It still wouldn't be paid. I would rather my employer pay me an extra £1-£2k per year because he can afford to, than take benefits from the government that have to be paid by everybody else. I would rather know that because that business has lower costs, they can now cut their costs, which then become more affordable to everybody. I would rather the cost of living was brought down rather than artificially inflating pay rates through minimum wage.

Yes, I'm a conservative. I want the government to keep out of our lives. It should provide a safety net for the vulnerable paid for by general taxation, and let those who have more altruistic tendencies share their wealth as they see fit. I've known selfish socialists and generous conservatives, so I hate the mantra that there are no good Tories. It's the old age debate, but I often see the two political divides as opposite sides of the same coin. Both are trying to help in the long run, but one believes in handing cash out, the other believes in driving the free market economy as a means to generate wealth and prosperity, totally unshackled from the burden of governmental control and bureaucracy.