You're far too kind to this wholly mendacious exercise, Adam: calling it not entirely transparent is like referring to bank robbers as naughty boys, and to claim as you do it's not a deliberate attempt to deceive beggars belief. The breakdown in the stuff sent out suggests that a quarter of all government spending goes on welfare, purely to imply that we are wasting vast sums on the workshy; the truth is very different. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has produced a breakdown that is much more accurate (http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7424). They show that included in the figures lumped together in the government's definition of welfare are billions on personal social services (things like expenditure on looked after children), government pensions other than the statutory state pension (not just government employees but military and NHS pensions - and ex-Prime Ministers' and MPs' pensions) and other spending on older people (see their paper for the full details). When these figure are taken out, the proportion of all spending on "welfare" reduces from around 25 per cent to 13.6 per cent: very different than the impression given. The IFS has produced a slightly different analysis (all such figures rely on assumptions about where to put spending) which suggests that the proportions genuinely spent on welfare are 5 per cent on families with children, 6 per cent on the unemployed or people on low incomes, and 6 per cent on the sick and disabled. Again, a very different picture. You raise a big issue that there's no space adequately to cover here in suggesting that the argument that austerity is wrong, so I'll just make one point: just imagine how much more we could spend on services and on investment if we were able to raise more money in taxation because people were paid more in proper jobs. Finally, you are right to point out that there are many other areas of taxation than income tax. The IFS has produced another very useful guide, this time breaking down the sources of taxation (http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn09.pdf). They show that, for 2012-13, the main sources of government income were forecast to be: income tax (26 per cent), NI contributions (17.9 per cent), VAT (17.2 per cent); none of the others raised more than 7.4 per cent.

Entire Thread

Topic	Date Posted	Posted By
Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 13:38:00	Bunny Payne
Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 16:16:00	Simon Knight
Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 16:38:00	Bunny Payne
Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 16:49:00	Simon Knight
Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 17:16:00	Maggie Forbes
Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 17:34:00	Alan Sherman
Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	21/05/24 17:24:00	sam
Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 19:37:00	Bunny Payne
Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 19:39:00	Adam Gray
Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	19/11/14 23:24:00	Richard Carter
Re:Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	20/11/14 04:55:00	Adam Gray
Re:Annual Tax Summary	20/11/14 08:43:00	Maggie Forbes
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	20/11/14 10:28:00	Richard Carter
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	20/11/14 15:17:00	Adam Gray
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	21/11/14 00:28:00	Richard Carter
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	23/11/14 20:10:00	Richard Carter
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Annual Tax Summary	21/05/24 20:48:00	Ed Robinson
Re:Annual Tax Summary	20/11/14 12:35:00	Alison Fraser

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