This would make sense to a Socialist:
The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.
The proposal by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.
Currently employers withhold tax and pay the government, providing information at the end of the year, a system know as Pay as You Earn (PAYE). There is no option for those employees to refuse withholding and individually file a tax return at the end of the year.
If the real-time information plan works, it further proposes that employers hand over employee salaries to the government first.
“The next step could be to use (real-time) information as the basis for centralizing the calculation and deduction of tax,” HMRC said in a July discussion paper.
HMRC described the plan as “radical” as it would be a huge change from the current system that has been largely unchanged for 66 years.Even though the centralized deductions proposal would provide much-needed oversight, there are some major concerns, George Bull, head of Tax at Baker Tilly, told CNBC.com.
“If HMRC has direct access to employees’ bank accounts and makes a mistake, people are going to feel very exposed and vulnerable,” Bull said.
And the chance of widespread mistakes could be high, according to Bull. HMRC does not have a good track record of handling large computer systems and has suffered high-profile errors with data, he said.
Yup, a Socialist would believe that the government deserves to have ultimate control over your income and can confiscate what it wants when it wants. The government knows better don’t ya see? It owns all and is responsible for redistributing wealth as it see’s fit.
Tyranny plain and simple.
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I, for one, am waiting on Greg to proclaim this as a great idea.
If one believes that government should do as above, then they either believe that we are born and bred to serve the government, or they stupidly turn a blind eye to the other side of the coin described in the above and that is that a government big enough to give one what they want, is also big enough to take it all away at a whim as well.
The above, if enacted in the UK, would be another step towards the removal of private property rights amongst citizens of that country.
I think I posted a link to this story from a different source yesterday.
Awful, isn’t it?
Next thing you know we’ll be back to ration books.
I only have a vague recollection of those.
But we kept a few of the book covers after the war ended and one of my older brothers has them in his scrap books.
When the food stamp program first started in CA you used to get a big box of food.
It had corn meal and a big bag of sugar in it along with a pound of real butter, a huge block of American cheese, powdered whole milk, powdered eggs, bleached wheat flour, a big jar of peanut butter, tinned beef in many smaller cans, tuna in smaller cans, a big package of macaroni noodles, and more.
I know, our family gave an elderly aunt cash in exchange for the stuff she couldn’t stomach at her age.
Not bad food, but not useful unless you cooked from scratch and could eat anything without regard cholesterol or blood pressure issues.
I can see us going toward a food-box-of-the-day system.
You might get almost as many options as a hospitalized person gets…..LOL!
It would be more along the lines of TV dinners than those boxes of old.
People don’t know how to cook anymore, for the most part.
Cash?
Who’d need cash?
A bus card, food boxes, a rental ticket, and so on.
There’s a verse in the book of Revelations that reminds us that when times are really tough for the poor (a day’s wage for cheap food for the day) the rich can still get their hands on the wine and the olive oil. (Rev: 6:6)
Appears the British govt is driving their people toward another revolution. What happened to the Magna Carta? The population will only put up with bullshit for so long. They can handle their muslim problem while they’re at it.
And make no mistake, leftists in DC would LOVE nothing more than to institute this same disgraceful plan here. But the HOWLS of outrage would be greater than even our Marxist, would-be dictators could withstand. After all, their “civilian army” is not yet in place to ensure the quiet compliance of trouble-making freedom seekers.
This is of course disgusting. But to me, the US system that grabs a chunk of each paycheck and sends it to the central government without the citizen seeing it is not much better. The sheeple have grown accustomed to this system and, as a result, don’t even think of that money as theirs. That is also by design, of course. The icing on the cake is the sheeple anxiously awaiting the return of a small portion of their own money, without interest, every April 15th. Those who remain asleep deserve what they get.
A friend and I were discussing this a couple of days ago. At first he was thinking it was a corporate payroll tax. That didn’t make sense if they were talking about an individual’s payroll checks.
Altho I didn’t know how the UK tax system worked at that conversation, logic would dictate the size the UK government would have to grow immensely to handle what is, in essence, “payroll” accounting for the entire Kingdom. But while nosing around to figure out what was going on, apparently, the PAYE system (around since the mid 1940s, BTW) underwent some computer software upgrades in the past few years, and the wrong amounts have been calculated for what the individuals were supposed to pay in.
They discovered the error back in late spring/early summer, but thought erroneously that some had paid too much. But more investigation revealed the government had been underpaid by about £2 billion, while the overpayments were about £1.8 billion. It’s an average of average, £1,428 per household. ouch…
Now the British dry humour arises when they suggest that the entity responsible for the computer systems errors to begin with – the government – should be entrusted to do correct calculations and deduct it *before* the taxpayer gets his hard earned cash.
Right… Gee, that’s like giving the government control of the health care system when they’ve run Medicare into the red over decades. Oh wait! 😯 er… ahem
The way our system works, if the IRS thinks there’s an error, they send you a bill after the fact, which you can challenge (if you’re a bold one…). In this case, any challenge to the UK withholding too much has the taxpayer, attempting to collect from government.
Yeah… that’ll happen.
The Daily Mail’s certainly been on the case, stating the IRS/US tax system is far more flexible for filing, and determining accuracy, saying “We have much to learn from our international friends and neighbours.” Hard to believe anyone is holding our IRS up as the superior agency, eh? Mind boggling…
Now the Brits aren’t really known for their effective grassroots protests being effective, let alone large in movement size. Their protest against implementing Shariah arbitration courts was pretty much a small blip on the world’s radar. But now they’re (UK govt) attacking them in their wallets. They not only send them a bill by their own misdoin’s, but then telling them they’re mulling over the idea that paychecks should come to them first, and they’ll dole out the rest after accounting. That oughta wake ’em up.
Dang, this is like Social Security withholding for decades, and “hopefully” getting some back in your 60s or 70s… but done every dang week.
It may be that the Brits actually gain a backbone over this one. Here? It’d never fly. Even if Congress salivated at the prospect, the goverment agency expansion it’d take to handle payroll for a nation this size is cost prohibitive.
Wait! What am I saying??? “Cost prohibitive” doesn’t exist in the Congressional dictionary! doh!
@ minuteman26, Amazingly enough, I have a new neighbor about 12 miles down the road that are
Brit “Ex-Pats” as they call it that bought approx. a 60 acre place, cashed it their whole stack of chips and liquidated their assets, quit their jobs and took a leap of faith. They prefer to take their chances here as opposed to watching the UK “be transformed” by Socialism, Taxation beyond their desires, deal with the uncertainties there and the Lord of the Manor is a retired SAS Trooper that wanted to break free of convention. His Spouse is a former Health Service Nurse and as they are in their early 50s they wanted more.
A “Leap of Faith”, jumping from the UK to the US under the impression that a move to the now independent “Colony” would make a difference. Depending on the election results in November and in 2012 it might.
James B. is delighted that he can own firearms here, Judith B. has her credentials recognized and is a welcome addition to our neck of the woods. I met them a month ago and they have a Residency Green Card but desire citizenship so I signed on as their sponsor.
How much taxation is acceptable? That is up to the individual. What taxes are coming down the pike for US? Quote Squeaker Pelosi, “You have to vote for it…”
before it really sinks in.
Taxation is all about watching the money and how it gets spent. 😉
@MataHarley: The Daily Mail’s certainly been on the case, stating the IRS/US tax system is far more flexible for filing, and determining accuracy, saying “We have much to learn from our international friends and neighbours.” Hard to believe anyone is holding our IRS up as the superior agency, eh? Mind boggling…
I have worked in IT for many years, the IRS is the poster child for how not to do things. The IRS systems are so archaic that most other systems can not communicate with them.
Therein lies the irony, PB. That such a flawed system could be held up as superior indicates how far down “the Tube” they have gone.
OT2 -Tell your Brit neighbors I wish them well. At least they have a fighting chance here. Tell them a good rule of thumb is at least 1000 rds per weapon. By the way I have a friend that runs some cattle in your state. Initials S.P. Flew with the 1st Cav and 101st. Retired 05. In my opinion if the govt taxes more than 10% they’re stealing.
It’s a nutty idea and a proposal that will never happen under the UK current government which is a conservative-liberal coalition.
@Nan G: #2 I don’t know what hospitals you have been in, but the two that I spent a few days in many years ago and recently had good food. Some of them even let you say how much you want.
Russia has been doing something similar to farmers for many years. The farmer has to pay all expenses to raise, harvest, and take the crop to the collection point. The farmer doesn’t know how much he will get until the payment comes.
I made a Tea Party protest sigh that says:
OBAMA’S SPREAD THE WEALTH PLAN
Your employer sends your paycheck to the Income Redistribution Service, they send it to congress, they spend it on themselves and their political friends. You keep Obama’s change.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
This is how King Obama wants it to be.