a tax on compass

As a springboard for this morning's reading the Guardian had an article about a pamphlet released by Compass (pdf) that suggests changes to the taxation system. Left wing think tank Compass suggest that the solution to some of the financial woes of the country is to increase taxation on people earning over £100,000 pa, increase the number of council tax bands and increase the range and scope of NI on the highest earners to raise income and balance the tax burden across the income range. Among other things the report says

It was not big government that got us into this economic mess but free markets beyond democratic and social control. Overall public spending does not need to be cut; this would only make matters worse.

Sorry what? When anyone is spending way above their income then they need to rein that in or face going bankrupt. The report also says

the 10% spending cuts proposed by the Tories would directly lead to 500,000 extra jobless, cutting £10.5bn from the wage costs of government but saving the government only a net £800m due to loss of tax and the payment of benefits.

So we're back to the 'Labour investment - Tory cuts' narrative again are we? Even though the fucking budget shows that the Labour Party plan 10% spending cuts as well?

I find the specific tax proposals in this pamphlet scary. What they are proposing with is to increase the tax burden on someone with an income of £94524 pa by nearly £20kpa!!



I can't imagine very many people who bought a house in the last 5 years with an income over £94,000 being in favour of that proposal, can you?