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View Full Version : Godfrey Bloom MEP: How UKIP could cut income tax to a flat rate of 25%



-:Undertaker:-
11-06-2013, 04:36 PM
http://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/analysis/godfrey-bloom-mep-how-ukip-could-cut-income-tax-to-a-flat-rate-25/1072281.article

Godfrey Bloom MEP: How Ukip could cut income tax to a flat rate 25%


http://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/pictures/120xAny/P/web/s/g/m/godfrey-bloom-ms-cutout-250x25_185.jpg
Godfrey Bloom, UKIPs would-be Chancellor


The country needs a radical reappraisal of how the economy is run and I believe Ukip could save billions and pay for exciting tax cuts.

The plan includes a flat rate income tax of 25 per cent, an end to all employer and employee national insurance contributions and a personal allowance of £13,000 that could be transferred between spouses.

For pensioners the personal allowance would be £15,000 and transferable between spouses.

How then would we do it?

Firstly, what are the must haves? Armed services, police and infrastructure. The things that make the nation state. So dire are our finances as a country it may already be too late.

Moody’s got it wrong in my view on debt to GDP peaking at circa 85 per cent in 2016. Public sector pensions and private funding initiatives have swollen our debt ratios of 200 per cent, we are in Greek territory already.

Our only way out is growth. Growth with expert housekeeping. None of which we have yet had.

Let us start a ‘little list’ in the estimable words of WS Gilbert. In no particular order, away with £1bn per month on overseas aid, £1bn per month on EU membership, £1bn a month on fake charities, £4bn per month on quangos - yes £4bn.

The Tax Payer’s Alliance has flagged up £1.5bn per month in savings with mergers and abolitions. Some of the most expensive quangos are no more than EU regulatory enforcement agencies.

Without the necessity for these I believe £3bn per month could be saved. Notice I have already saved £36bn per year. But let me go further still.

Ring fencing the sacred cow of the NHS is absurd, an organisation of 1.3 million people less than half of whom have any sort of medical qualification.

A £200bn organisation - can we really save no money? Of course we can.

Divide the number of school children into the education budget - £10,000 per child, can we really make no savings? Of course we can.

Does the head of the County Council really need a salary of £200,000? Does the head of an NHS Trust need £250,000?

Does the head of social services in Rotherham need £120,000 per annum? Does Barnsley Council need over nine people on £90,000?

Has anyone any idea what these salaries mean in South Yorkshire? You could live like a film star.

Does the head of BBC TV planning need £400,000 per annum to run 21 repeats out of 23 programmes on BBC 2 on Christmas Eve? Even her Majesty was cheesed off!

Yet with all this public spending there is still a shortage of midwives, closure of A&E wings in hospitals and roads are a pot-holed nightmare worthy of the third world.

Have you noticed I have not suggested sacking a single soldier, policeman, doctor, nurse, teacher, road sweeper or dustman. The people who actually do something for a community.

We have a crazed, insane energy policy with both direct and indirect subsidies. Wood chips shipped in from Canada to burn inefficiently at Drax Power Station. Absurd windmills which are more than useless.

Solar panels which won’t boil a kettle backed up by a whole Government department of self-interested ‘renewable’ energy shareholders. The MOD procurement process is run by monkeys.

I believe Ukip could save £80bn per year on spending to fund significant exciting tax cuts.

Moreover when people ask me if the tax cuts have been ‘funded’, it always flags us a potential economic illiterate.

It is the school of thought who believe if 15 per cent VAT raises £10bn then a 25 per cent increase will raise a further £2.5bn. But when income tax and national insurance contributions reach 50 per cent of income people run for their tax planner.

Confiscatory tax raises no money as President Francois Hollande is finding out in France. People won’t pay. They disappear or set up offshore trusts and companies.

It is my belief low flat tax with high thresholds will either flat line or increase revenue. It worked for the Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge administrations in the 1920s, Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Astonishingly when introduced recently by the Czech Republic it raised more in the first six months than the entire previous year.

The internationally wealthy would see England as a place to stay, to set up shop. Not squeeze the so-called rich on the basis of envy not economic common sense.

Notice I have not yet even mentioned social and corporate welfare. Several billion pounds per month there too I fancy for a political party with the balls to front it.

To those who criticise Ukip, always anonymous for some reason, for “back of an envelope numbers” - let me argue they work better on the back of an envelope than reams of Government statistics which never add up.

He hasn't yet convinced the party to go for a full flat tax in its next manifesto, but the policy will either be a flat tax or a two-tier flat tax rather than the complicated and ridiculous system we have now where success is punished and taxation is a mess with layers and layers of taxation making our system one of the most complicated in the world - something that doesn't help business and doesn't save the state any money.

A lot is often said that with tax cuts you need to 'fund' them - history proves this to be false. Often, if a govermment charges the rich less in taxation the revenue that said government recieves is bumped up higher for the reasons Bloom mentioned above.

So generally or including this policy proposal, what do you think should be done to cut the debt and get the economy growing again? do you agree with Bloom or totally disagree with him? thoughts?

AgnesIO
13-06-2013, 12:31 PM
Only thing I would say is if the Conservatives did this they would be absolutely slammed for "looking out for their own"... :L

Obviously a flat rate income tax would benefit me, so I would happily see it - I do feel this guy is making it sound far easier than it is though, and these sort of cuts simply are not something you can just role out over night - in fact it would take many years, and far more expertise than the party CURRENTLY has.

Chippiewill
14-06-2013, 03:23 PM
To be quite frank, its a load of ********. The only places he specifies proportionally relevant cuts he doesn't go into any kind of detail.

-:Undertaker:-
14-06-2013, 10:36 PM
Only thing I would say is if the Conservatives did this they would be absolutely slammed for "looking out for their own"... :L

Obviously a flat rate income tax would benefit me, so I would happily see it - I do feel this guy is making it sound far easier than it is though, and these sort of cuts simply are not something you can just role out over night - in fact it would take many years, and far more expertise than the party CURRENTLY has.

Yes you can, the likes of the foreign aid budget and the International Development Department can literally be closed overnight. A government can respond to a war incident like the Falklands within hours and days, it can and should respond to a national emergency like the debt within weeks at the very least.

All you need is a minister/ministers who believe in something (which discounts the Conservative Party) and the politicial will to force it through the Civil Service who are the ones who carry out the order. Think Mrs. Thatcher.


To be quite frank, its a load of ********. The only places he specifies proportionally relevant cuts he doesn't go into any kind of detail.

Because it's not a policy document. But he has pointed out savings on salaries to cite just one example of how millions could instantly be saved at the stroke of a pen - even just by cutting the foreign aid budgets and EU/quangos etc, we instantly save tens of billions which are proportionally relevant considering the decifit is at the £120bn mark.

£80bn odd off £120bn is a massive amount, and as he says - thats before you even start to looking into NHS and Education waste.

Chippiewill
16-06-2013, 12:10 AM
Because it's not a policy document. But he has pointed out savings on salaries to cite just one example of how millions could instantly be saved at the stroke of a pen.
Cut salaries then those people will get different jobs, higher pay attracts higher calibre applicants. Simply logic there. Not sure why you'd put up £3m savings next to billion pound issues anyway other than ridiculous attempt to make it seem like you have some kind of plan if you did happen to come into power.


even just by cutting the foreign aid budgets and EU/quangos etc, we instantly save tens of billions which are proportionally relevant considering the decifit is at the £120bn mark.
It's not like the EU is just a sink, its also a faucet. Similarly with foreign aid, by painting ourselves with a pretty picture we net ourselves points in say for example trade negotiations.

I also noticed he didn't mention one defense cut, which is suprising really as UKIP didn't strike me as a warmongering party although I suppose their manifesto does support it..

-:Undertaker:-
16-06-2013, 12:44 PM
Cut salaries then those people will get different jobs, higher pay attracts higher calibre applicants. Simply logic there. Not sure why you'd put up £3m savings next to billion pound issues anyway other than ridiculous attempt to make it seem like you have some kind of plan if you did happen to come into power.

While that is true, whats also true is that the private sector has had to make cut backs in wages and salaries and so should the public sector - we've heard them all before, countless council jobs such as 'diversity officer' or 'local climate change officer' on ridiculous amounts each year. Not only do those sorts of wages need to be cut, a great deal of the jobs need to be dropped too - the job of a council should be to empty the bins and clean the streets, pretty simple really.

As for £3m 'being nothing' - that's £3m saved, £3m off the debt and £3m of the taxpayers money no longer wasted.


It's not like the EU is just a sink, its also a faucet. Similarly with foreign aid, by painting ourselves with a pretty picture we net ourselves points in say for example trade negotiations.

This is always said by supporters of foreign aid and i've never seen any evidence that it helps the UK in trade deals. Infact I remember many on the comment boards laughing as to how India had signed a defence contract with France over Britain despite our politicians bending over backwards (with praise, silly historical apologies and foreign aid) in an attempt to woo India.

In the end, the countries who get the contracts will be those who can offer the better deal. And also, any wooing of other countries in trade deals using taxpayers money (aka subsidisation) simply distorts the market and you essentially have a situation where the public are subsidising large defence companies - something I find unacceptable.


I also noticed he didn't mention one defense cut, which is suprising really as UKIP didn't strike me as a warmongering party although I suppose their manifesto does support it..

Bloom is actually working on the defence paper with massive savings to be found in the MoD. Here's video link of him discussing it if you want.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oaaaR0YJdA

Chippiewill
16-06-2013, 05:41 PM
While that is true, whats also true is that the private sector has had to make cut backs in wages and salaries and so should the public sector - we've heard them all before, countless council jobs such as 'diversity officer' or 'local climate change officer' on ridiculous amounts each year. Not only do those sorts of wages need to be cut, a great deal of the jobs need to be dropped too - the job of a council should be to empty the bins and clean the streets, pretty simple really.

As for £3m 'being nothing' - that's £3m saved, £3m off the debt and £3m of the taxpayers money no longer wasted.
I'm just saying it shouldn't be even considered on a national level, its a sign of a pretty weak party if all they can do is nitpick financial mishandling to the order of £3m next to a billions in the NHS, defence etc.

-:Undertaker:-
18-06-2013, 01:59 AM
I'm just saying it shouldn't be even considered on a national level, its a sign of a pretty weak party if all they can do is nitpick financial mishandling to the order of £3m next to a billions in the NHS, defence etc.

Millions make up the billlions.

Chippiewill
18-06-2013, 01:20 PM
Millions make up the billlions.

Sorry but that still doesn't address my point. The Chancellor should not be spending his time debating wages for council staff when that time is better spent sorting out bigger savings, Godfrey Bloom discussing it just goes to show that UKIP has a bunch of great ideas but doesn't have a full workable manifesto.

-:Undertaker:-
22-06-2013, 01:37 PM
Sorry but that still doesn't address my point. The Chancellor should not be spending his time debating wages for council staff when that time is better spent sorting out bigger savings, Godfrey Bloom discussing it just goes to show that UKIP has a bunch of great ideas but doesn't have a full workable manifesto.

Yes, but to make bigger savings you need to find smaller savings to make up those savings. And of course this Chancellor doesn't sit there looking at executive pay in the public sector - because, although he should do, he's more or less fully signed up to the concept of a bloated public sector.

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