Lib Dem's plans to tax motorists 641

On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:08:59 +0100, Steve Firth was popularly supposed to have said:

Some of the slightly more radical tax plans I have seen have the right sort of idea.

At the moment, everybody gets taxed then the shirking clbuttes get to claim back money via leaky, inefficient and frankly laughable means.

The tax reforms I've seen propose the following: Firstly, increase the basic tax allowance up to around 3-4 of what someone on minimum wage full time earns per year. Then set the tax rate on ALL other income to a flat rate of around 40%.

That means that the ultra-poor never get taxed, which saves the taxpayers money since grabbing peanuts off these people takes as much time as grabbing more money off middle clbuttes.

Abolish tax credits. They are not needed, and exist only to balance over-taxation of the poor. Better not to tax the poor in the first place. In any case, tax credits seem impossible for the civil service to work out properly, waste millions and encourage fraud.

Pay child benefit for a maximum of two children only (or however many are present in a multiple birth). After that, no benefits for further children. If the mother cannot cope, send the kids for adoption.

Do not give out council properties to mothers under the age of, say, 21. If they get pregnant before that, then they can stay where they were living before, which should be a fairly miserable experience for all concerned. This is intentional; teens are not all that stupid and if they see that a teenage pregnancy lands the mother in a world of hurt, they won't themselves bother.

All in all try to reduce what the civil service does to as low a level as possible. Civil servants are poor at what they do and costly, so try to reduce the number of civil servants to reduce the bill.

-- By caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, By the beans of Java do thoughts acquire speed, hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning, By caffeine alone do I set my mind in motion