Unpopular Opinions

It's only a few lines on a forum post, not that long really.

 

I agree about owners being worse than dogs in general, and these dangerous dogs should be banned ( and yes, those XLs are fugly as hell)
I can only think it's some macho nonsense that drives people to have a dog that scares the crap out of people.
I love my dogs, but that doesn't mean I love all dogs.

 

This. There's simply no need for families to own a dog which, if minded to do so, can tear a toddler in twain and then clamp their jaws on an adult arm and need hydraulic equipment to prize them open.

Every dog that has killed a kid has probably got an owner who thought they were soppy and adorable.

 

That’s the popular opinion, yes.

I disagree though. Tax people less when they’re alive, and allow them to spend the money they’ve earnt on themselves.

Tax people massively when they’re dead, as they can no longer spend it. It then becomes a gift, and gifts are rightly taxable.

The current system incentives people to squirrel money away to gift money to the next generation, who have done nothing to deserve it (and will go out and earn their own money).

Taking the emotion out of it, it makes far more sense to reduce taxes that reward hard work or economic growth (VAT, lower rates of income tax and corporation tax) and set IHT at 75-80% over 300k.

 

Gifts aren't taxable – as long as the person giving the gift survives seven years from the point they gave the gift.

I'd suggest 'hard work' is a myth. What, precisely, is hard work? Because among our hardest workers are supermarket staff or care home staff or someone working 10-hour shifts on a hospital ward.

Our financial system rewards economically valuable work, not hard work, or even essential work.

Some of the biggest companies in the country benefit from the most lenient taxation and yet pay the lowest wages. Other massive companies also have their rock-bottom wages topped up by the taxpayer. Lowering Corporation Tax ain't going to fix a system that's broken on purpose.

 

I’m not convinced by that. Seems to me that the people who own these sorts of dog are themselves aggressive/anti-social and select a breed which reflects that.

 

Agree, as said earlier in the thread it’s like owning a gun, simply no need.

Sadly they don’t just kill kids, had the misfortune of seeing a video on a group chat yesterday of them killing a grown man, horrific stuff.

 

Also we're now seeing dogs bought by people in the pandemic reach adulthood and these on-the-whim owners have no clue how to cope with them.

 

VAT is a ridiculous concept. You pahly taxes on the money you earn and you have to pay more tax on what you've already earned?

The. The company has to pay tax on the profit, and then the next worker tax on the wages!

 

I’m not trying to make the point you’re accusing me of. I obviously don’t think there’s a perfect correlation between work effort and wealth, far from it.

But a child inheriting money has often not worked hard to ‘earn’ that money.

It therefore feels illogical to tax someone being given money, as they’re related to someone who has died, less than someone who is labouring for their money.

To those who argue “you taxed me all my life and then you tax me when I’m dead”, emotions aside, why not prefer the idea of the latter?

 

I generally agree with you on inheritance tax, although the great, great majority of estates are exempt anyway. In 2020-21, just 3.73% of all UK deaths resulted in an inheritance tax charge. (Source: Gov.uk) So it's basically a distraction argument made by the low-tax-is-great brigade. A complete red herring.

Middle and lower earners are taxed more heavily than the wealthiest (in percentage terms – which is the measure that truly counts) but tend to join in calling for lower taxes (which disproportionately benefit the rich).

 

With respect to how much tax the rich pay some good data here:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/

The extremely wealthy are able to afford to plan to legally avoid IHT. The estates that get caught are those that unexepectedly die early or tend to live in the middle ground especially as the price ok property in the south east rises.

Any tax on savings or property is regressive and unfair as it takes no account of how those savings or property were obtained and takes no acount of the liquidity or ability to pay.
Tax income, earned and unearned after a sensible living wage and to a higher amount after hitting an "excessive" threshold without penalising working harder. Tax spending at a flat rate and at higher rates on areas to be discouraged such as tobacco alcohol carbon generating things.

When you excessively tax savings in an era where you're encouraged to save to support your self in retirement and ill health you remove the incentive to save for your retirment and ill health and the burdon falls back on the government.

The issue with our tax system is that it's too complex and hence those that can afford to can pay to get experts to avoid it for them.

 

I've seen you make this point a number of times before but it's simply not true in terms of how people want to use weatlh taxes.

No one is interested in taxing little nest eggs or modest retirement savings.

Wealth taxes are intended to hit the top members of society, and ONLY them. We're talking about people who have ridiculous generational wealth, more money than they could ever spend, the types who just see a steadily increasing personal worth increase every year without any change in their quality of life.

Joe Average off the street wouldn't be touched, although the Haves very much want us to believe otherwise - that's how they build support against the idea.

Meanwhile, the Haves continue to siphon off more of the wealth despite the fact they can't spend what they already have.

 

The basic IHT threshold is £325,000.

Currently a reasonable care home in Meister Manor charges in excess £1500 a week or £78,000 a year. At home care in excess of £550 per week. That's basic care with no extra requirements or equipment and care provided by the council's recommended company. If you have £23K in savings you foot the whole bill yourself.

Given we are encourage to save for retirement care, the current threshold is at the very least far too low. I argue given you're taxed on your earnings, spendings and savings, anything left over in the event that you die early/swiftly should be left alone.

 

The disincentive for saving for retirement / ill health is the fact it costs nearly 80 grand a year to live in a care home. But that's a separate argument to inheritance tax and probably explains why the great majority of people with any assets make arrangements before they reach a point that they need to go into a care home.

However, you have ignored the fact that only 3.73% of UK deaths in 2020-21 (the last year for which there are figures) resulted in any inheritance tax charge. So in 96.27% of cases anything left over after death is left alone.

If you leave everything to your spouse or partner there's no inheritance tax to pay. If you leave your home to your children or grandchildren the tax-free threshold is £500,000. I'd argue that leaving half a mil' to your kids without having to pay anything to the state is probably fair enough. What do they want? A free lunch? Not sure that was the key tenet of the capitalist meritocracy! (tongue firmly in cheek).

https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...mentary/inheritance-tax-statistics-commentary

 

Good use of the thread

See @Moose ? This is how you do it?

 

Man Utd get given fewer favourable big decisions by referees than their rivals.

The difference being when anything goes against United, like Onana’s jump into the Wolves player, it is all the media talks about for a week, and referees are aware of that.

In contrast, when Akanji was clearly offside and interfering with play for City’s winner, it was barely mentioned bar for about ten seconds on MOTD.