[Yossarian]

I honestly don't think he's going to last that long. Partly because he is in an impossible position, being pulled in various directions because of all the warring in the party - he blew his honeymoon in a matter of hours by bringing in Suella Braverman on the basis of a deal with her to get the ERG support at the weekend.

But ignoring all the most serious stuff, he's a hopeless performer. He gets incredibly tetchy when asked questions under pressure. He once walked out of a Sky News interview which gives such a great insight into his personality - an irritable control freak who doesn't like being scrutinised. His leadership contest debate stuff with Truss (admittedly it's tricky trying to debate with a robotic zealot) were so 6th form debating team it was embarrassing. That speech he gave on Monday was equally shocking. And there's already so much ammunition about his complete lack of awareness re how to pay for something with a debit card / pretending to fill up some supermarket employee's car / donating hundreds of thousand pounds to Winchester, etc. Not to mention that weird unleashing of Rishi-branded content that looked like a diffusion range at Ann Summers.

Once he starts fucking things up I think he'll get so much negative press that (hopefully) he'll finally realise that not would've been a far better idea to take advantage of that green card and disappear off to California never to be seen again.

[Nigel]

He (Gove) has been doing some decent work around building cladding I believe...

He introduced the Building Safety Act 2022 which, in the government website's own words, means that:

Many leaseholders will for the first time be legally protected from unfair bills to make their homes safe as measures in the Building Safety Act 2022 come into force today (28 June 2022).

Those responsible for historical safety defects, and those who own buildings, will instead be required to fund essential repairs.

So a mere 5 years after the Grenfell Tower fire the government makes a legal commitment to residents of similar fire hazard high rise blocks that for the first time (!) they won't have to pay tens / hundreds of thousands of pounds to make safely habitable the worthless and unsaleable flats they are now trapped in through no fault of their own.

Gove is appreciated for doing this by cladding campaign groups that is true, so we'll give him that. Of course the other way of looking at it is that the above is the absolute bare minimum required. In fact it should have been the case pre-Grenfell that leaseholders should not be paying for developer's corner cutting. He was simply doing the right thing after the previous epic failure to lift a finger by government. Its a very low bar to clear to be classed as "effective" these days isn't it?

Also....that low bar was set there by his immediate predecessor as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Robert Jenrick. He did absolutely fuck all about cladding, cladding action groups hated him. Developers didn't. He notably admitted unlawful behaviour in assistance of a property developer while actually in post as SofS. Thank goodness someone with such an unblemished track record of impartially doing the right thing is now immigration minister eh???

We're into desperate cap doffing territory if we're meant to be pleased about Gove and Sunak because the alternatives that have been tried are worse. They are all in the same government!

[Will Hunt]

That's an exasperating post, Nigel. All Toby has done is recognise that Gove did some good on cladding (and caveated it with "I have no particular liking for [Gove]" and later with "I'm not cheerleading for the Conservative part"). You accuse him of cap doffing. It's hard to see how he's any more doffed his cap than you when you said "Gove is appreciated for doing this by cladding campaign groups that is true, so we'll give him that."

[Bradders]

New cabinet has solid experience

...
Honourable mention too to Michael Gove - he doesn't fit this list, but he is a colossal dick and should never be near government at all. I'll stop there though, before my list of honourable mentions stretches to the entire cabinet.

What did you expect? You clearly don't like Gove- I have no particular liking for him either- but there's no doubt hes extremely experienced,  effective in government.  He has been doing some decent work around building cladding I believe,  and politically,  a wise choice as hes obviously someone who might be dangerous to have on the back benches.  People like Mel Stride and Andrew Mitchell have the potential to be decent ministers and have experience.  I didn't vote for them, and I'd rather the Labour front bench were there, but its better than Truss or Johnson.

This was very much my thought; who else should he have appointed?

I honestly don't think he's going to last that long. Partly because he is in an impossible position, being pulled in various directions because of all the warring in the party - he blew his honeymoon in a matter of hours by bringing in Suella Braverman on the basis of a deal with her to get the ERG support at the weekend.

It's clear from everything he's said so far that his line of attack will be to stick to the 2019 manifesto. This is the obvious approach to attempt to avoid an early general election, as he can therefore continue to claim they have a mandate which neuters Labour's ability to ask, rightly, who voted for what they're doing. The problem he'll have though is most of those commitments just aren't possible anymore, or maintaining them involves such enormous cuts in other areas it can't be done, or the way out involves compromising hardline conservative principles like controlling immigration. How can you put more money into the NHS if you're committed to freezing national insurance? How can you maintain the pensions triple lock if it means you can't keep recruiting more NHS staff?

Apparently Labour are looking to force votes on each issue, meaning Tory MPs will have to vote specifically on any cuts to services.

The 2019 manifesto is a populist approach which simply isn't going to work in the current economic climate, Sunak will find it impossible to stick to, and hopefully this means a GE next year.

[Paul B]

Gove is appreciated for doing this by cladding campaign groups that is true, so we'll give him that. Of course the other way of looking at it is that the above is the absolute bare minimum required. In fact it should have been the case pre-Grenfell that leaseholders should not be paying for developer's corner cutting. He was simply doing the right thing after the previous epic failure to lift a finger by government. Its a very low bar to clear to be classed as "effective" these days isn't it?

Indeed it's a low bar but when Boris 'fell' I was reading plenty of opinions on Gove regarding his work in this area and levelling up where the consensus seemed to be he did more than most.

Sunak's choice with Braverman pretty much epitomises the current state of the Tory party. You can't keep your hands even vaguely clean and come out on top as you need the support of the lunatics.

[SA Chris]

The Braverman one bends my brain. In any company in the world, where someone resigns to avoid being sacked after a breach of rules, would the CEO then employ that same person again?

[Will Hunt]

The problemm (ha! as if there's one problem) is that the party has got itself into a huge mess in the past 7 years. By forcing through such a divisive issue as Brexit, which if I remember correctly most of their MPs weren't in favour of during the campaign, they've forced out a load of moderates when they wouldn't be loyal to the new party line, or when they questioned the sense in what was happening. They further hollowed themselves out under Johnson, a populist who racked up scandal after scandal and anybody who spoke up against him was turfed out or cast off to the back benches.

The result is a party where political skill and competency in managing a department is extremely thin on the ground. Just remember that the last line of defence for Johnson's supporters was that there wasn't anybody else fit to lead the party. Just imagine how bad things have become if you're promoting your party as a political entity in which Boris Johnson is the brightest and best. It's a shambling mess of a party, drunk on its own hubris, staggering from crisis to crisis, unable to deal with those that are forced upon them and unable to prevent those that they initiate themselves.

Fuck them.

[TobyD]

I partly agree with some of the above posts, the Conservative party is deeply divided into multiple factions at the moment; probably more than Labour. Labour are also looking better disciplined and probably have a much better depth of talent on their front bench.
But, it's no use pretending that any party wouldn't have to make so horrible choices on spending at the moment. I'd love to have public services that were even adequate, especially transport, healthcare and continuing education. I'd also prefer foreign aid spending to be higher. But something has to give. The price of borrowing would have increased without the Truss budget, just not quite as much. Defence of Ukraine I'd say is essential as well. I think Sunak hasn't done anything terrible yet, I'd prefer to give him half a chance, despite the fact I'm extremely unlikely to vote Conservative.

[spidermonkey09]

I partly agree with some of the above posts, the Conservative party is deeply divided into multiple factions at the moment; probably more than Labour. Labour are also looking better disciplined and probably have a much better depth of talent on their front bench.
But, it's no use pretending that any party wouldn't have to make so horrible choices on spending at the moment. I'd love to have public services that were even adequate, especially transport, healthcare and continuing education. I'd also prefer foreign aid spending to be higher. But something has to give. The price of borrowing would have increased without the Truss budget, just not quite as much. Defence of Ukraine I'd say is essential as well. I think Sunak hasn't done anything terrible yet, I'd prefer to give him half a chance, despite the fact I'm extremely unlikely to vote Conservative.

There's no probably about it, it's far more divided than labour. Saying that Labour is divided at the moment is rehashing old tabloid headlines rather than looking at the reality. Sure, there have been periods when it's been hugely divided, this isn't one of them.

Re adequate public services, I find it interesting you say "something has to give" like there is nothing to be done. In the absence of Brutus (so far!) ill say it; we could raise taxes to fund this! The vast majority of the population should be paying more in income tax. This is not a far left view, the NS podcast last week had a contributor saying that the basic rate should be 21%. I agree. We have the most generous tax regime in Europe I think, its no surprise everything is shit.

[Bradders]

The Braverman one bends my brain. In any company in the world, where someone resigns to avoid being sacked after a breach of rules, would the CEO then employ that same person again?

As if she resigned over the rule breach, if you read her resignation letter it's plainly obvious it was all part of forcing Truss out. The rule breach itself was ridiculously minor and in no way a resignation/sacking offense.

I partly agree with some of the above posts, the Conservative party is deeply divided into multiple factions at the moment; probably more than Labour. Labour are also looking better disciplined and probably have a much better depth of talent on their front bench.
But, it's no use pretending that any party wouldn't have to make so horrible choices on spending at the moment. I'd love to have public services that were even adequate, especially transport, healthcare and continuing education. I'd also prefer foreign aid spending to be higher. But something has to give. The price of borrowing would have increased without the Truss budget, just not quite as much. Defence of Ukraine I'd say is essential as well. I think Sunak hasn't done anything terrible yet, I'd prefer to give him half a chance, despite the fact I'm extremely unlikely to vote Conservative.

There's no probably about it, it's far more divided than labour. Saying that Labour is divided at the moment is rehashing old tabloid headlines rather than looking at the reality. Sure, there have been periods when it's been hugely divided, this isn't one of them.

Re adequate public services, I find it interesting you say "something has to give" like there is nothing to be done. In the absence of Brutus (so far!) ill say it; we could raise taxes to fund this! The vast majority of the population should be paying more in income tax. This is not a far left view, the NS podcast last week had a contributor saying that the basic rate should be 21%. I agree. We have the most generous tax regime in Europe I think, its no surprise everything is shit.

Not sure where you've got that from; according to a quick Google and Wikipedia only Romania and Denmark have a higher "lowest marginal rate" of income tax. Only Belgium, Finland and Portugal have higher "highest marginal rates"...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

The current rate of corporation tax is relatively low but as we know, that's on the way up.

The overall tax burden in the UK as a percentage of GDP is at by far its highest level in the last 70 years already, and things like fiscal drag due to the freezing of tax thresholds, despite the highest rate of inflation in 50 years, are only going to make it even higher. And you want to raise rates even further?!

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/mini-budget-response

[teestub]

As if she resigned over the rule breach, if you read her resignation letter it's plainly obvious it was all part of forcing Truss out. The rule breach itself was ridiculously minor and in no way a resignation/sacking offense.

Hmmm didn’t she use her private email to share govt docs with another MP (I assume to say things she didn’t want on record) and accidentally cc’ed the wrong person? Hopefully we will have a standards commissioner again at some point who can decide how minor her activity is, but the last one quit because they couldn’t deal with the Tory shit show!

[ali k]

Hopefully we will have a standards commissioner again at some point who can decide how minor her activity is

Alas they’ve already ruled out this being investigated because it happened “under the previous administration”. What a crock of shit.

[Will Hunt]

I can't get excited about Braverman's breaking of the rules. She sent a draft document that was due for public release the next day and she probably did it as the most minor offence she could imagine to give herself an excuse to resign and write a scathing resignation speech.

I'd much rather slag her off because she gets a moisty thinking about sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.

[spidermonkey09]

https://taxfoundation.org/top-personal-income-tax-rates-europe-2022/

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-do-uk-tax-revenues-compare-internationally

While UK taxes are higher than in most other English-speaking developed economies (such as Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United States), they are considerably lower than in most other western European countries (average tax revenue amongst the EU14
 was 39% GDP.

I am no tax expert by any means, will have a look at your links, but the top rate seems. Higher in other European countries no?

Appreciate now may not be the time to raise basic rate to 21% but I stand by the view that middling incomes should be taxed more as well as those on megabucks, definitely an unpopular view though!

[Nigel]

Not sure where you've got that from; according to a quick Google and Wikipedia only Romania and Denmark have a higher "lowest marginal rate" of income tax. Only Belgium, Finland and Portugal have higher "highest marginal rates"...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

The current rate of corporation tax is relatively low but as we know, that's on the way up.

The overall tax burden in the UK as a percentage of GDP is at by far its highest level in the last 70 years already, and things like fiscal drag due to the freezing of tax thresholds, despite the highest rate of inflation in 50 years, are only going to make it even higher. And you want to raise rates even further?!

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/mini-budget-response

This is all over the place I'm afraid.

Taking the "overall tax burden in the UK as a percentage of GDP is at by far its highest level in the last 70 years already" bit first - no it isn't, not yet. Its about 33%, and it has been around 33% fairly consistently since 2000. The nugget of truth in this line from Tory HQ is that the UK tax revenue to GDP ratio is forecast to reach 35% by 2025/6, which would indeed be the highest since 1951. If it happens. And apart from in 1969 when it was 35.1%. Info here https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/how-have-government-revenues-changed-over-time

Tax to GDP ratio is a decent way to compare overall tax regimes of different countries. The UK at 33% is  at about the OECD average, and lower than an awful lot of OECD countries. In fact I make it the lowest in Europe except for Switzerland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ireland. You can check very easily here https://www.compareyourcountry.org/tax-revenues by clicking the arrows to filter each column. So to your question "And you want to raise rates even further?!" - in terms of overall tax take in the whole UK economy - yes. For comparison with countries people usually use, France is 45.3%, Germany 37.9%.

Now, I think you conflated this question with personal income tax rates. These are devilishly difficult to compare across countries due to different bands and allowances. The quick google you did to the wikipedia page is *incredibly* misleading in having the UK so high for lowest marginal tax rate, which it gives as 32% (20% basic rate + 12% NI). The crucial bit is in brackets where it says "0% income tax on the first £12,500". This is pretty generous relative to other European countries. For e.g. France and Germany have personal allowances of about £8700ish. On the wiki page France gets 0% compared to our 32%! On that basis we should also be 0% - this would definitely shoot us down the rankings! In addition other European countries often have much higher social security taxes which might not class as "income". For e.g. Germany has 10% pension contribution, 8% health, and 2.5% care and unemployment insurance, which sends them way over our 12% NI.

Similarly with the higher tax rate we are placed artificially high. Don't have the energy to continue but high earners are taxed more in France and Germany when you add in social security.

[teestub]

I'd much rather slag her off because she gets a moisty thinking about sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Unfortuntely the big thing you mention (having horrible policy ideas) isn't against the code, whilst the minor thing is, so I will take what I can get! Also think it just seems way less minor than it might have done before the clusterfuck of the past few years, and the talk is that this was one of many offences.

[petejh]

Now, I think you conflated this question with personal income tax rates. These are devilishly difficult to compare across countries due to different bands and allowances. The quick google you did to the wikipedia page is *incredibly* misleading in having the UK so high for lowest marginal tax rate, which it gives as 32% (20% basic rate + 12% NI). The crucial bit is in brackets where it says "0% income tax on the first £12,500". This is pretty generous relative to other European countries. For e.g. France and Germany have personal allowances of about £8700ish. On the wiki page France gets 0% compared to our 32%! On that basis we should also be 0% - this would definitely shoot us down the rankings! In addition other European countries often have much higher social security taxes which might not class as "income". For e.g. Germany has 10% pension contribution, 8% health, and 2.5% care and unemployment insurance, which sends them way over our 12% NI.

Similarly with the higher tax rate we are placed artificially high. Don't have the energy to continue but high earners are taxed more in France and Germany when you add in social security.

I think that you should find the energy and you should continue, and let us know the data for high earners proportional tax take versus comparator nations. Because the data for the high earners is absolutely central to your (your being 'the left wing') views on redistribution.

That isn't an attack of your viewpoint btw and I genuinely don't know the data. Just pointing out that it's always the high earners that the left targets. So it would be good if you posted with the same energy and level of research the same data for the higher tax bands that you just posted for the lower tax bands.   

For instance, I've often heard the top 1% to 20% of earners in the UK pay a huge proportion of the total tax take, but also the wealthiest tend to take 'income' from various sources outside of paid work - capital gains and dividends for e.g. which makes it harder to calculate. I have personal experience of this having paid more in capital gains tax in one year last year then I paid in cumulative income tax over the last 10 years of full-time paid work in a relatively high-paying job. I feel like I've paid more than my share of tax for one lifetime, much more than a typical citizen. And as a typical low-maintenance climber I have an extremely low footprint on society in terms of services used.

This for e.g. from the LSE:
In one respect, the UK tax system already looks top heavy. The top one per cent pay 30 per cent of all income tax revenues: a higher share than at any time in past twenty years. In other words, three in every ten pounds that the government receives in income tax is paid by just over 300,000 individuals. Not surprisingly, this statistic is often quoted by those who argue that the rich cannot be asked to pay more. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Our recent research shows there’s a lot of variation in the taxes paid by the rich. Most of the revenue from the top one per cent comes from a cohort of high-earning employees, who pay the often-quoted top rate of 45 per cent income tax plus two per cent national insurance contributions, with minimal deductions or reliefs. But a substantial minority pay much lower rates, especially taking into account capital gains, which offer an alternative way of taking rewards, mainly for the richest.

Where you get your money from (or at least how you package it) matters, because investment income and capital gains are taxed at lower rates than income from work.

Using anonymised data from personal tax returns, we show that in 2015-16 the average rate of tax paid by people who received one million pounds in taxable income and gains was just 35 per cent: the same as someone earning £100,000. But one in four of these paid 45 per cent – close to the top rate – whilst another quarter paid less than 30 per cent overall. One in ten paid just 11 per cent—the same as someone earning £15,000. The rich, it seems, are not all in it together.

These low rates are not driven by complex tax avoidance schemes; they’re part of how our system is designed. Where you get your money from (or at least how you package it) matters, because investment income and capital gains are taxed at lower rates than income from work. What’s more, as the National Audit Office recently highlighted, the government offers tax reliefs claimed to incentivise activities like entrepreneurship, without actually checking whether they achieve these aims.

[Bradders]

This is all over the place I'm afraid.

Taking the "overall tax burden in the UK as a percentage of GDP is at by far its highest level in the last 70 years already" bit first - no it isn't, not yet.

I perhaps should have added the simple qualifier "under existing government plans" to that sentence. In which case it's completely correct no? Especially since it was Sunak who drew up those plans.

Tax to GDP ratio is a decent way to compare overall tax regimes of different countries. The UK at 33% is  at about the OECD average, and lower than an awful lot of OECD countries. In fact I make it the lowest in Europe except for Switzerland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ireland. You can check very easily here https://www.compareyourcountry.org/tax-revenues by clicking the arrows to filter each column. So to your question "And you want to raise rates even further?!" - in terms of overall tax take in the whole UK economy - yes. For comparison with countries people usually use, France is 45.3%, Germany 37.9%.

Helpful, thanks.

Now, I think you conflated this question with personal income tax rates. These are devilishly difficult to compare across countries due to different bands and allowances. The quick google you did to the wikipedia page is *incredibly* misleading in having the UK so high for lowest marginal tax rate, which it gives as 32% (20% basic rate + 12% NI). The crucial bit is in brackets where it says "0% income tax on the first £12,500". This is pretty generous relative to other European countries. For e.g. France and Germany have personal allowances of about £8700ish. On the wiki page France gets 0% compared to our 32%! On that basis we should also be 0% - this would definitely shoot us down the rankings! In addition other European countries often have much higher social security taxes which might not class as "income". For e.g. Germany has 10% pension contribution, 8% health, and 2.5% care and unemployment insurance, which sends them way over our 12% NI.

Similarly with the higher tax rate we are placed artificially high. Don't have the energy to continue but high earners are taxed more in France and Germany when you add in social security.

Fair enough on the comparison to France and Germany but SM's point was that "we have the most generous tax regime in Europe", which is clearly nonsense (sorry Jim  ). I'm well aware of the impact of variations in allowances, which is why I made the point about fiscal drag in the face of very high inflation. I also don't think it's unfair to "conflate" it with personal taxation, since after all personal taxes are what we all have to pay. The idea of increasing taxes on average earners whilst staring down >10% inflation and a significant recession seems like total madness to me.

I can't get excited about Braverman's breaking of the rules. She sent a draft document that was due for public release the next day and she probably did it as the most minor offence she could imagine to give herself an excuse to resign and write a scathing resignation speech.

I'd much rather slag her off because she gets a moisty thinking about sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Precisely.

[Fultonius]

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/10/26/austerity-is-something-we-simply-cant-afford/  but it's something that will be imposed, again.

[TobyD]

I'd much rather slag her off because she gets a moisty thinking about sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Unfortuntely the big thing you mention (having horrible policy ideas) isn't against the code, whilst the minor thing is, so I will take what I can get! Also think it just seems way less minor than it might have done before the clusterfuck of the past few years, and the talk is that this was one of many offences.

The Rwanda policy may not be against the ministerial code,  but it may well be against international law,  and its definitely a big waste of money and time.  I agree with Will, her minor code breach  is not very significant compared with almost anything Johnson did,  or indeed Priti Patel bullying her staff, and while that doesn't make her better, the fact she seems incompetent concerns me more. 

[Nigel]

Pete, I would love to but it would have to wait a day or two if so, I do have a good excuse currently! Not that I need one of course. RE the top 1% paying a very large proportion of all income tax - that is my understanding as well. Suffice to say that I take the leftist view that all this demonstrates is the ridiculous inequality across the income scale in the UK i.e. its an argument for redistribution, not against. You no doubt expected that    Although actually I would ultimately prefer to rebalance income so that redistribution was not needed as much, wage differentials were reduced and tax take was more widely distributed. You could call it Levelling Up! But one step at a time.....

Bradders, if you add that qualifier and also remove "already" then yes its correct. After a fashion, its still a forecast. Although I'm still not convinced by the weird rhetoric of comparing our total tax take to the UK of 70 years ago - what good is that comparison? It seems like an obvious rightwing diversionary tactic to keep our state really quite small. As the figures show going from 33% to 35% is a) not that big a change and b) brings us in line with other European countries. I find it hard to get worked up about. Where the taxes fall across the whole economy is the (very!) difficult question, as you identify.

[IanP]

I think that you should find the energy and you should continue, and let us know the data for high earners proportional tax take versus comparator nations. Because the data for the high earners is absolutely central to your (your being 'the left wing') views on redistribution.

That isn't an attack of your viewpoint btw and I genuinely don't know the data. Just pointing out that it's always the high earners that the left targets. So it would be good if you posted with the same energy and level of research the same data for the higher tax bands that you just posted for the lower tax bands.   

For instance, I've often heard the top 1% to 20% of earners in the UK pay a huge proportion of the total tax take, but also the wealthiest tend to take 'income' from various sources outside of paid work - capital gains and dividends for e.g. which makes it harder to calculate. I have personal experience of this having paid more in capital gains tax in one year last year then I paid in cumulative income tax over the last 10 years of full-time paid work in a relatively high-paying job. I feel like I've paid more than my share of tax for one lifetime, much more than a typical citizen. And as a typical low-maintenance climber I have an extremely low footprint on society in terms of services used.

This for e.g. from the LSE:
In one respect, the UK tax system already looks top heavy. The top one per cent pay 30 per cent of all income tax revenues: a higher share than at any time in past twenty years. In other words, three in every ten pounds that the government receives in income tax is paid by just over 300,000 individuals. Not surprisingly, this statistic is often quoted by those who argue that the rich cannot be asked to pay more. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

The top 1% paying 30% of income tax appears to be true but seems a fairly disingenuous figure to concentrate on since income tax is only one part of direct taxation, surely a more sensible figure would be the total of income tax and NI (particularly since NI payment is much more concentrated on lower/middle earners). 

Some useful charts here:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/

- Income tax is nearly 10% of GDP, NI nearly 7% so not including NI on the tax analysis is very significant.
- Top 1% earn 12.5% of total income so already the 30% doesn't look quite so outlandish particularly since NI isn't included in that 30% figure.

Possibly more important is the total tax (direct and indirect) paid as percentage of income - two charts towards the end show that while direct taxes increase from approx 15% on bottom quintile to 30% on the top quintile indirect taxes go in the opposite direction , approx 23% for bottom quintile to just over 10% on the top.

This, https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/expertcomment/who-really-pays-for-national-insurance-contributions/, summarises some of this.  The overall UK tax system is not particularly redistributive with the bottom 20% paying the highest proportion of tax (though I guess that the effect of benefits should be considered on this) and then from the 2nd to 5th quintile the overall tax percentage only increasing very slightly from around 30%.

[petejh]

Thanks. Without having looked, does that data also include non-income and non-NI tax take? The most wealthy also the most likely to pay additional taxes related to capital gains tax, dividends tax, tax on interest on savings etc.

Slightly related, I see Shell paid 65% in corporation/windfall taxes on its UK profits this quarter. That's a pretty hefty tax band.

[petejh]

Have now looked at the links, good source. Your point about about NI is covered in this chart.

Total tax take including NI and most indirect taxes, as a proportion of household income is shown by the purple line. The top 10% pay 30% of all tax. The top 50% pay 80% of all tax. I say 'all', it says it actually covers around 75% of all taxes. Presumably the actual total tax take will be even more skewed to the wealthiest deciles because, as noted above, the most wealthy will be paying capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, tax on interest etc. not covered by the chart.



I'm not seeing a case for wealthier people paying too little tax in the UK tbh. I can see an issue with the lowest 20% paying too much council tax and indirect taxes as a proportion of their household income. That lowest 20% also pays a lot of VAT proportional to their income, this seems difficult to change as it applies evenly on bought goods and services and presumably they're spending their money wisely.

[Oldmanmatt]

Thanks. Without having looked, does that data also include non-income and non-NI tax take? The most wealthy also the most likely to pay additional taxes related to capital gains tax, dividends tax, tax on interest on savings etc.

Slightly related, I see Shell paid 65% in corporation/windfall taxes on its UK profits this quarter. That's a pretty hefty tax band.

I caught a glimpse of the headline this morning, didn’t they post £10B in profit in the Third Quarter? Pretty sure that’s after taxation…