VAT rise

[crowsashes]

i agree that figure - in theory anyway - should take into account all the other hidden costs like wages , fuel for delivery etc.

im dreading this year , if the buses put the prices up anymore ill be struggling to get in to college. i have to do a 6 bus round trip 3 days a week and already it costs £3.30 for a day ticket... any more and i cant afford that, ill have to cut back else where. they put the prices up only in september to subsidize the family tickets . i hate it as im penalised for choosing to have just one child not 3 plus . much like water rates here. if you have a large family you get a discount ... im not looking forward to those prices increasing either... im one person plus child paying the same rates as a family of five kids up the road
ooo i hate it! hate it! hate it!

sorry ... end of that mini rant.

what i dont see is how can they say they are saving money buy doing these cuts and tax increases? there actually going to be spending MORE money than the last government ... makes you think doesn't it

[gregorach]

The rise in personal allowance in April means that everyone paying tax will be at least £200 a year better off.

Aye, fair enough - but there's a pretty heft chunk of people who already don't earn enough to pay any income tax, so there's no upside for them.

[greenorelse]

In case you are interested here's a look at VAT charges around the world (it's not entirely up-to-date, but it should give you can idea).
http://www.worldtaxpayers.org/stat_vat.htm

I note from that how the (mostly) high-standard-of-living countries (those in Scandinavia jump out) have high levels of VAT.

[greenorelse]

The rise in personal allowance in April means that everyone paying tax will be at least £200 a year better off.

Aye, fair enough - but there's a pretty heft chunk of people who already don't earn enough to pay any income tax, so there's no upside for them.

This has long been a cause of irritation for me, when politicians cut tax rates but ignore the fact that they do nothing to help the worst paid among us. A fixed and fair earnings ratio of highest-to-lowest earners within organisations would be a small part in overcoming this.

[boboff]

The rise in personal allowance in April means that everyone paying tax will be at least £200 a year better off.

Aye, fair enough - but there's a pretty heft chunk of people who already don't earn enough to pay any income tax, so there's no upside for them.

The upside is, they could get a job.

[gregorach]

The rise in personal allowance in April means that everyone paying tax will be at least £200 a year better off.

Aye, fair enough - but there's a pretty heft chunk of people who already don't earn enough to pay any income tax, so there's no upside for them.

The upside is, they could get a job.

1: A lot of them already have jobs - just really badly paid ones with not enough hours.
2. A lot of the rest of them are pensioners.
3. You might not have noticed, but jobs aren't exactly thick on the ground at the moment, especially not decent-paying ones with enough hours (see point 1).

[oldjerry]

The rise in personal allowance in April means that everyone paying tax will be at least £200 a year better off.

Aye, fair enough - but there's a pretty heft chunk of people who already don't earn enough to pay any income tax, so there's no upside for them.

The upside is, they could get a job.

Most of them HAVE jobs,or perhaps they are full-time carers,or pensioners,or chronically ill,or self employed and earning buggerrall cos no ones got any money or (like me)both of the last 2.

[Rosendula]

Experts predict the rise will cost the average family (whatever that may be) £520 a year. That is £10 per week. I don;t know how they arrive at these figures at 2.5p in the pound, on VAT rated goods only. that means the average family needs to spend £400 per week to pay an extra £10.

I don't know many average families that spend this much a week on VAT rated goods.

People will undoudtedly have less money to spend and I can only see more unemployment as a result

Working it out pretty roughly (now I know VAT isn't going to rise on gas and electric), our household, which is 3 adults and one child is going to be £3 per week worse off because of the VAT increase (not taking into account the tax allowances or anything). How on earth does the 'average' family manage to spend enough to be £10 worse off? What do they buy?

[Odsox]

There you are Rosey ... http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=284
Interestingly, food is fourth on the list ... after (sky) TV.

[TheGoodEarth]

You have to remember regional variations. If you are a train driver in the south east you can earn £35k pa and if your wife is a bus driver she can earn the same. That's £1,000pw after tax for the household.

[Thomzo]

VAT benefits those with the most money and penalizes those with least.

I'm probably being hugely thick here but I can't see it. Surely those with least money will spend a much higher proportion of their total income on essentials such as food (of which some at least doesn't have VAT on it) and home fuel bills which didn't go up?

The one good thing about VAT is that it is, to a certain extent, voluntary. You can chose to buy less, or buy cheaper goods or to buy from second hand or charity shops which may not have to charge VAT. For services you can chose to use a self employed plumber/electrician/etc who doesn't need to be VAT registered.

Petrol/diesel of course has to be excluded from all the points above.

Zoe

[Archanejil]

The rise in personal allowance in April means that everyone paying tax will be at least £200 a year better off.

Aye, fair enough - but there's a pretty heft chunk of people who already don't earn enough to pay any income tax, so there's no upside for them.

The upside is, they could get a job.

I fall into this category. I have a job. And I'm grateful for having it because otherwise, I'd be in deep cacky. I've been looking for a better job since July. I have an HND, a BSc, and an MSc, 10 years experience in industry, 5 years experience lecturing. I also hold current software certs and chemical spraying certificates and am not scared of hard work. When folks like myself are struggling, it's rough. And those qualifications are in areas that have, until now, had shortages (E.G. web-design, computing, GIS, programming, and biological conservation). I have considered doing other work additionally (and do occasionally, when I find work). But I digress -- no hard feeling meant, but I will admit to a nerve being hit (probably doesn't help that I spent two and a half hours looking for jobs this evening).

On the other hand, back on topic. I noticed my railfare to work this morning had gone up 50p. I make that to be a just under 8% rise. Is some of that VAT or is it blatant highway robbery? If it keeps up, I'm going to have serious trouble getting into work. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that I work part-time, I'd be shafted.

[oldjerry]

VAT benefits those with the most money and penalizes those with least.

I'm probably being hugely thick here but I can't see it. Surely those with least money will spend a much higher proportion of their total income on essentials such as food (of which some at least doesn't have VAT on it) and home fuel bills which didn't go up?

The one good thing about VAT is that it is, to a certain extent, voluntary. You can chose to buy less, or buy cheaper goods or to buy from second hand or charity shops which may not have to charge VAT. For services you can chose to use a self employed plumber/electrician/etc who doesn't need to be VAT registered.

Petrol/diesel of course has to be excluded from all the points above.

Zoe

Well I'm not too sure,about the choice thing.you COULD do without the washing machine,you COULD do without a motor,bloody hard here,etc.etc.But ,above all, if you dont accept that those with the ability to pay more should pay more than those,who do not,then thewhole basis of the system that has largely created the situation where one person has a great deal more wealth than another,breaks down.

[Milims]

I wonder where we can find a difinitive list of what carries vat and what doesn't.
It also crosses my mind that it is curious that large food manufacturers like Birdseye etc have offered vouchers on "healthy" versions of convenience foods (do they carry vat?) so is it possible that they have a double whammy of "niceness"? i.e. "Look how nice we are offering people healthy versions (so they will buy them) with money off (so they will buy them) so that they don't cost as much (be we are still cashing in and losing nothing!)" Or am I just being cynical?
It also strikes me that if we buy the basics to make our meals from (you know real ingredients! lol!) rather than conveneince foods, freecycle, buy second hand, grow our own etc - in fact continue as we do already - the increase will have only a very small impact on our lives.

[citizentwiglet]

Bet the price of flour, yeast and eggs doesn't actually go down after the 'big thaw', though........some of the products the supermarkets have put in price are long shelf-life products that have been sitting in their warehouses for months, most likely. Tinned goods, dried beans and lentils etc. All they are doing is watching the current trends for 'going back to basics', and becoming opportunistic.......jam sugar ALWAYS goes up during late summer, early autumn; and I noticed this year that suet and dried fruit went up around Christmas time (mincemeat and Christmas cake?), and has now been 'rolled back' - whooopeeee, rolled back to 5p more than it was before they artificially inflated the price. So those of us who have gone back to basics are STILL getting the brunt of it, whilst the shops don't add the extra 2.5% on the big-ticket purchases they have to make that money back somewhere. If supermarkets hadn't become the mecca of 'get everything you could possibly want, from potatoes to sofas' we wouldn't be in this situation. They HAVE to offset the big-ticket VAT increases somehow, so it's going on the stuff they know we NEED to buy - the eggs, the milk, the flour, the rice, the dried beans etc etc. Now England are pushing another 'healthy eating' campaign, you can guarantee that fruit prices will soar dramatically. Yes, I know some of it was caused by the weather, but do you honestly think we'll ever get 6 medium free range eggs for £1.46 again? I very, very much doubt it. It happened with flour - there was a crisis in Russia, if I remember correctly, last year or the year before, and bread prices soared. Crisis over, and wheat cheaper than ever - did the price of a loaf go down? Did it f%ck.

I'd like to see a HUGE amount of tax on crap food (never understood how cakes are a 'necessity' but biscuits a 'luxury'; why crisps are VAT'd but tortilla chips are not....); with the extra money reinvested in British agriculture and the spin-off manufacturing industries in as people realise it is more fun and more healthy to cook from scratch. Of course, that'll never happen....