The SNP

[perrykneeham]

Dec 19, 2023 16:16:27 GMT flatandy said:

45% as a marginal top rate doesn't seem particularly onerous. What's your problem?

Also, f**k**g BBC. Why the f**k do they still talk about tax as "pence"? Your tax rate is going up 2 pence in the pound, like it's a f**k**g lame 1980s Chancellor's budget. It's targeted juvenilia, aiming to treat us all as if we're idiot children, keeping us out of the adult conversations who don't understand hard things like percentages.

I don't have a problem with progressive taxation, only that it should actually be paid. The current slight of hand appears to be that anyone actually liable for that kind of tax will have found a way to avoid it by either being paid by dividend or by moving the taxable sum offshore.

[flatandy]

There's actually not a lot of evidence that increasing the top rate increases the flight of cash at all, at least at the levels we're talking about. There's often a lot of bullshit about Laffer Curves - which might be a thing, that there is an inflection point where increasing taxes leads to lower overall revenues. But what evidence there is suggests that the level is up in the 70, 80 or 90% range before you see any drop. The Laffer Curve Obsessives always assume that you have to keep dropping the top tax rate because they actually don't understand maths and inflection points.

[voice]

Enforcement is the thing most needed, closing loopholes is another. It's no coincidence the only actual policy the new GOP speaker has put forward is to gut the IRS and defund, in particular, the enforcement and investigation branch.

As for wealth flight, Musk's much publicized move to low Tax Texas was so much BS, Tesla quietly retuned to California after they realised Texas just couldn't support tech in anywhere near the way California does.

[perrykneeham]

At least the Yanks have the good sense to make the situation clear and tax you on global earnings. I think that's how it works.

[flatandy]

Dec 19, 2023 17:40:06 GMT perrykneeham said:

At least the Yanks have the good sense to make the situation clear and tax you on global earnings. I think that's how it works.

Yes...

US citizens always have to file tax returns wherever they live. You only dodge it by giving up citizenship completely but then you'd never get it back. And if you don't file living abroad you're going to be in for a mountain of fines and (probably) back taxes if you ever do return to US shores.

... but...

The US gives you all kinds of ways of dodging tax, and with double taxation policy you often don't actually pay anything in the US if you live abroad. Provided you spend enough money on a competent person to file your tax return correctly, you'll probably not actually be in much of a hole.

[voice]

Yeah, but on global earnings not stashes of diverted cash sitting in the Cayman islands. They'll go after your average joe if working abroad but leave the mega riches offshored cash well alone

[perrykneeham]

Dec 19, 2023 17:44:34 GMT flatandy said:

Dec 19, 2023 17:40:06 GMT perrykneeham said:

At least the Yanks have the good sense to make the situation clear and tax you on global earnings. I think that's how it works.

Yes...

US citizens always have to file tax returns wherever they live. You only dodge it by giving up citizenship completely but then you'd never get it back. And if you don't file living abroad you're going to be in for a mountain of fines and (probably) back taxes if you ever do return to US shores.

... but...

The US gives you all kinds of ways of dodging tax, and with double taxation policy you often don't actually pay anything in the US if you live abroad. Provided you spend enough money on a competent person to file your tax return correctly, you'll probably not actually be in much of a hole.

Fair enough, but at least you have to demonstrate that you're paying it somewhere and you can't just claim to be domiciled elsewhere.

[Repat Van]

Dec 19, 2023 17:44:34 GMT flatandy said:

Dec 19, 2023 17:40:06 GMT perrykneeham said:

At least the Yanks have the good sense to make the situation clear and tax you on global earnings. I think that's how it works.

Yes...

US citizens always have to file tax returns wherever they live. You only dodge it by giving up citizenship completely but then you'd never get it back. And if you don't file living abroad you're going to be in for a mountain of fines and (probably) back taxes if you ever do return to US shores.

... but...

The US gives you all kinds of ways of dodging tax, and with double taxation policy you often don't actually pay anything in the US if you live abroad. Provided you spend enough money on a competent person to file your tax return correctly, you'll probably not actually be in much of a hole.

Yep. My friend lives in Norway (previously Oz) and while she has to file
US tax returns she has never ended up having to pay anything.

[perrykneeham]

I hadn't realised that Edinburgh had been making such a big deal of Hogmanay.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72yd8pmx0ro

After my time. Probably a good idea, as Hogmanay is bloody tedious once you're out of your early 20s.

[mids]

It used to be a spontaneous thing where people would gather from about 11pm until 1-ish but I think it got too big. It was good fun as a teen or early 20s, like you say but I wouldn't do that sort of thing now.

[voice]

Cant remember the last time I stayed up till midnight on New year's Eve, (I don't count the night shifts where I worked through)

[mids]

Dec 30, 2023 17:32:09 GMT voice said:

Cant remember the last time I stayed up till midnight on New year's Eve, (I don't count the night shifts where I worked through a number of elderly patients, sending them off to their rest.)

[perrykneeham]

I've agreed to go out tomorrow night on the strict understanding that we'll be home before nine o'clock. It would be eight, if Mrs. B had her way.

[flatandy]

One of the good things about the US being in multiple time zones is that I can stay awake for New Year on the east coast and then be done with the whole nonsense and fall asleep.

[voice]

They actually have a NY New Year party in Kamloops for that very reason, it's a popular event by all accounts.

[mids]

Like brother-in-law like brother. Criminal scum.

www.lbc.co.uk/news/humza-yousafs-brother-in-law-arrested-over-mans-fall-from-flat-window/

[unclejunior]

Humza Yousaf not ‘comfortable’ with SNP’s name
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-68017535

National Express Coaches? Offensive and far-right etc etc

[flatandy]

Nationalists are cunts and nationalism is a cunt’s game.

Changing the name doesn’t change the fact that the SNP are nationalists.

[mids]

Yup SNP, Micks or Pals. Cunts, one and all.

[mids]

I see Sturgeon didn't delete her WhatsApp messages, they just "weren't retained". Nicola Sturgeon. Is a cunt.