Slashdot Mirror

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/it.htm The big controversy recently was dropping the 10% rate, which meant that the really low earners took a hit, so that the rest of the country could have a couple of extra pounds in their wallet. Definitely one of the more idiotic decisions I've seen made...

Would you support higher taxes on luxury goods, and little to no tax on necessities? Probably 95% of Americans would. Great. But there's a problem with that. How much of a tax rate do you put on a head of lettuce? A can of mushrooms? Fresh button mushrooms? Fresh portabella mushrooms? Shiitakes? Truffles? Essentially every item would have to be analyzed for how much of a "luxury" it is; it'd never work out.

That's how VAT works in the UK (and I think the rest of the EU), but with only three levels of luxury.

Necessities, like most food, children's clothes, bread, books etc have no VAT.
Some things have 'reduced rate' VAT, at 5%. Examples are electricity, gas, energy saving materials, children's car seats
Most stuff has the standard rate of 17.5%, including adult clothes and sweets, crisps (potato chips)

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/rates-goods.htm

There are other taxes and duties, e.g. all cars have the 17.5% rate, but larger-engined cars (actually, worse-polluting cars) have a much higher rate of road tax (required for driving on public roads). Petrol/diesel has the 17.5%, and a 55p/litre-ish duty, but users like farmers and (I think) railways are exempt from the duty (and the VAT, as all businesses don't pay VAT on purchases so long as they charge it on their products/services, if applicable. That's what the 'Value Added' bit means.)

Income tax is progressive too -- everyone is entitled to earn £6000/year tax free. The next ~£30000 is taxed at 22%, any more than that is taxed at 40%.
Average income is about £18000. Until this coming year there was a lower rate, 10%, for the next £2000 after the tax-free bit, but the "Labour" government abolished that (and got a huge amount of bad press, and will likely lose the next election because of it).

It's given to everyone with children under 19 whose children live with them. Full info here:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefit/introduction.htm

The GGP poster was whinging about NHS dentists, which is the moan a la mode at the moment. This particular problem was caused by the present government (in for 11 years) looking across the water and deciding that the US was a paragon of healthcare goodness and deciding to emulate it by letting all the dentists go private. Of course they all realised that if they did that simultaneously they could quadruple their fees and still have customers, as there was no free alternative. So that's what they did. A great example of the invisible hand of the free market at work, making things better for all.

The UK is no shangri-la but it's nice to know that when you fall ill you won't have to rely on some health insurance guy's bonus sheet to find out whether you get fixed or not.

There are these things called embassies and consulates. If you are traveling to the UK you ask the British Embassy - probably at same time you check if their are visa requirements. So for what you can't bring, 30 seconds of looking at a UK consular web site gives: http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/downloadFile?contentID=HMCE_CL_001734

For what the laws you'd either ask the consulate or whatever arm of your own government gives advice on travel - both of those will know the differences which is what you really care about.

As for Spain, their website is spectacularly uninformative so I'd call the local consulate/embassy and ask about restricted items. There's no need to ask about whether they can search my laptop - the US can I'd be entering/leaving there anyway. My assumption would be that they can search anything they want to, and throw me in jail for not jumping when asked - unless I was told otherwise when I asked.

I'm not going to call the consulate and waste their time and mine to answer your question though...

Spoof emails and phone calls "There are renewed scams requesting personal information."

" Fraudsters are sending out high volumes of emails, some examples can be found on our existing fraud attempts page. Please be aware that although these fraudulent emails may contain the HMRC logo and other details, they are fake and you should never respond to an email which asks for personal information. While we may send you emails from time to time, we would never do so requesting login, bank and credit cards details. If you suspect you have received a fraudulent email please do not follow any links within the email, disclose any details or respond to it. Forward it to us at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk. We cannot reply on each email we receive, but the information will be used to help reduce online fraud."

Spoof emails and phone calls "There are renewed scams requesting personal information."

" Fraudsters are sending out high volumes of emails, some examples can be found on our existing fraud attempts page. Please be aware that although these fraudulent emails may contain the HMRC logo and other details, they are fake and you should never respond to an email which asks for personal information. While we may send you emails from time to time, we would never do so requesting login, bank and credit cards details. If you suspect you have received a fraudulent email please do not follow any links within the email, disclose any details or respond to it. Forward it to us at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk. We cannot reply on each email we receive, but the information will be used to help reduce online fraud."

Child benefit is given to *everyone* - my sister in law takes home £40k and still gets it. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefit/index.htm so some peoples accounts will be ripe for plucking if there is enough data.

Currently, people making and using their own biofuels in the UK have to register and pay fuel tax, but this is about to change. The government has agreed a new limit of 2500 litres per annum below which there will be no need to register or pay tax.

As always, one is amazed to see a sensible suggestion from government!

Wow, that's expensive. I'm using uFile in Canada, and it's $16 to fill in your return, and submit it electronically. All inclusive.

Help me on this one folks. Old European here. The slashdot intro says that 55 miles per gallon makes the Prius "one of the most fuel efficient cars on the road". But over here in Old Europe, a quick look up suggest that's more like about what you'd expect from your typical little runabout hatchback. Millions of them on the road, it's your typical student/ low budget / cheap and cheerful commute to work - down to the shops - off to the parents in another town at the weekend car. Does 70mph happily on the motorway all day with a couple of folk and all their stuff for a camping holiday.

I had a check at a UK govt. site - purely random, it was for driving instructors (!) and it suggested my girlfriend's hatchback, a Peugeot 106 should be happy doing 40mpg in urban areas and 55 in cross country runs (56mph best fuel consumption) - check http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/bens/ben23.htm Appendix 2. Diesel cars get even better mileage, all the folk I know who are in 'trades' (like plumbers, carpenters, etc) that have to do lots of miles for their business drive these for better mileage.

So why is over 25 miles per gallon (or so) such a big deal in the US? Is it just the fact that petrol is so cheap that you buy bigger cars that do poor mpg? (Here in the UK petrol is about 6 dollars per gallon, how much is it there?)

A passport is a very important document and it is sensible that people should have to provide documentation to help provide proof of who they are. Having an interview for adults wanting to apply for their first passport is a sensible step in providing that proof. The form of this interview is not an interrogation but is actually more like a chat to make sure the person who is physically sitting there is the person the documentation says they are. For example questions may be asked about their parents, place of birth, their salary, where they work, how long they've had their bank account and what bank, what car they own etc. All of these bits of information are potentially easy to find but for an impostor to learn all of the possible correct responses especially when the nature of the questions is randomised takes a lot of effort. I can certainly imagine that there are many question I could be asked that I find easy to know but an impostor would find it harder to remember all of them correctly.

The identification processes involved in researching a passport will already have noted these bits of information as part of the normal process of their background checks. For example the national insurance card number ( http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nic/ynino.htm#b ) links a lot of information about tax from employment, where people live, pension contributions, what social security benefits they have. The driver's license will tell the passport office what cars people own and what cars they are insured to drive. The birth certificate says who their parents are, obviously. :)

The article doesn't make sense because it links a whole load of unrelated points and tries to link them together by providing unfounded comments. Someone getting a passport should have to prove their identity however it doesn't have much to do with bank records and tax records in the negative way the article implies with all of its hand waving about "People who refuse to give up...". It's actually more of a rant against the government rather than a coherent argument.

The UK owns the bleeding edge of stupid shit that wastes taxpayer money.

One could class the US military in that category.

One could class the UK military in the same category as well. After all, there are UK troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Much more to the point, if the US government is wasting money badly, why are the US income tax rates and US sales tax rates lower than the UK income tax rates and UK VAT rates? And I don't mean just a little lower: if you don't want to follow those links, UK income tax is 10-40% vs. 10-35% in the US (depending on bracket/band), and VAT in the UK is 17.5% in most cases, whereas sales tax in the US usually falls between 5% and 8%, depending on state and local laws.

Basically what I'm saying is, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, and if the UK is not better at wasting money, why are the taxes higher?

For something that can never ever work it is doing remarkably well in the UK, see the Income Tax. I don't know the US system but I would be surprised if there wasn't at least some form of redistribution tax in place, be it direct or indirect.

What a load of ignorant nonsense.

VAT is 17.5%. If a business is VAT registered it does not pay VAT on the materials and services which it buys, specifically so that consumers don't get charged twice. A small business may choose not to be VAT registered, (although there's a maximum turnover, above which they don't get a choice). In that case, their customers are effectively paying VAT twice, but the company saves the effort of dealing with HMC&E. The threshold is quite low, I believe.

Some categories of goods have a reduced rate, e.g. domestic fuel. Some goods are zero-rated, e.g. food, (although that doesn't include snack foods, restuarants and a few other things). The full details are available on the Customs and Excise site, here: http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/

Your knowledge of our income tax is also clearly quite flawed. Everyone gets a tax-free allowance of about £5k - more for married people and the elderly, plus there are other allowances available for various things. Starting rate on income above this is 10%, on the next couple of thousand income. Basic rate is 22%. Then you pay 40% on income above about £40k. You don't pay income tax on pension contributions, and a bunch of other stuff paid directly from your sallary. Nor do you pay income tax on the returns from certain types of investments, (ISAs).

There's National Insurance, too, which is not paid by the lowest earners, (effectively those on less than the £5k income tax allowance), then at 11% on upto £645 per week, and 1% on anything above that. This is specifically to cover the state pension and other social benefits, so once you reach the state retirement age you stop paying it - even if you're still working.

Tax is complicated stuff - perhaps needlessly so - but I'm prety sure those details are correct, since I just looked them up on http://www.direct.gov.uk/. (And I must remember to complete my tax return soon.)

Your comments on illegal immigrants are just as ludicrous: the sort of misleading garbasge spewed out by the most reactionary tabloids.

For a start, you're probably confusing illegal immigrants with assylum applicants - or more likely don't understand the difference. Illegal immigrants won't be getting any handouts because they're not known to the system! Assylum applicants don't have an easy time of it and certainly don't get "dole", if by that you mean job-seeker's allowance, (what used to be Unemployment Benefit). They do get some social security payments, because we're not the sort of country that would let them starve to death whilst their application is considered - nothing to do with being racist or not. Some will be accepted, some will be kicked out, (the majority). Being a bureaucratic process it takes a while.

There are quite a lot of perfectly legitimate workers coming in from outside the UK, but at the moment most of those are from Eastern Europe - new members of the EU like Poland - and they're providing valuable services to the UK economy, and paying UK taxes. Plenty of good Polish builders around at the moment, which is great for us homeowners who need roofs fixing and the like.

I'm glad you're happy in the USA, and I don't care too much what you think of the UK, but please, if you're going to slag us off take the trouble to make your claims at least vaguely resemble reality.

One simple reason: Savings would no longer be taxed.

Ah, the sweet innocence of youth.

Here in the UK my savings are taxed as if they were any other form of income - and I pay 17.5% VAT on most things (food, books, children's clothing are exempt, fuel is taxed at a lower rate). However, my income tax is staggered:

First £4895 ("personal allowance"): Tax free
Starting rate 10%: £0 - 2020
Basic rate 22%: £2,021 - 31,400
Higher rate 40%: Over £31,400

Source: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/index.htm

The biggest drawback to this system is if my income goes above £31,400, any subsequent payrises need to be pretty damn big to make the remotest difference.

In the UK there is an excise duty to pay, of 25.82p/litre. Source

The figure of 80% for employers national insurance contribution is a complete fabrication.

The employers NI rate for the UK is between 11% and 12.8% and that is without any allowances which typically reduce this by more than half.

US federal Income tax:
Rate: 25%
Income Band: $29,051 - $70,350

UK income tax:
Rate: 22% + (1-3% for National Insurance)
Income Band: £2,091 - £32,400 ($4k - 60k)

Sources:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/2004taxrates.asp
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/n6w/index/life/tax/i ncome_tax_rates/index/life/tax/income_tax_rates.ht m
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/nic.htm

Mandatory, expensive and mediocre health care.
That comes out of of the 1-3% mentioned above. What does your government do with that 1-3%? Invade countries? Build space weapons systems? Subsidise cotton farmers? I think I'd rather have my free health service, ta.

Cameras everywhere
Not sure what you mean by that.

A sensationalistic press that makes Fox look bi-partisan.
Umm... not really. Having read both US and UK papers, I've seen nothing in the US to compare to the Guardian or the Independent. People take as much notice of the Sun and Mirror as they do of the National Inquirer.

Out of control, bureaucratic utilities
BT is the last one, but yes.

Television licenses along with warrant-less searches of homes suspected of running an unlicensed television.
TV licenses pay for the largest (ad free) news site on the web, plus a whole bunch of programs that wouldn't get made otherwise (The Office, HHGTTG, Little Britain, The League of Gentlemen, etc). Warrantless searches is bollocks. The TV License people have no more right to enter my house than you do, or the police do, for that matter.

Speed traps everywhere, set to excessively low limits and with giant fines.
Speed traps yes, they are a fucking pain in the arse, but not in their self a reason not to live here. "Excessivly low speed limits" is a bit rich coming from a yank. What's the interstate limit? 55mph? jebus!

Cameras monitoring every meaningful inch of public space.
I guess that's a repeat of No. 2 above. Don't know where you got that from. Don't believe everything you read on slashdot.

wtf does libertarian mean in the US?! I can't believe you put up with the possibility of being shot by the police after being stopped for traffic incidents; a transparently corrupt political system; unrestricted development on a beautiful countryside; blatant society-wide racism; a massively powerful religious right-wing movement; advertising on every inch of spare space;

Now THAT is taking up the arse.