Inheritance Tax

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nomadologist

Guest
O Vimothy, come to America some time and witness the wonders that your way of thinking has perpetrated on the world.

Come see our ghettoes some time. Please. You really need to.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
as the price rises the demand goes down.

This is so not necessarily true about commodities. I spent all morning watching Boone Pickens (oil billionaire and capitalist extraordinaire) talk about the price of oil on CNBC. He predicts that in this quarter, [crude] oil prices (per barrel, of course) will rise to a level HIGHER than prices during the ENERGY CRISIS of the late 70s and early 80s. (comparison adjusted for inflation, of course)

An investment analyst came on to answer the question: how far can prices climb before the consumer effectively 'chokes' and refuses to keep buying? Well, historically, with oil, the answer has been 6-7% beyond "average." In the past year or so, the price of oil pb has gone up from less than $80 to $87, a record high. No one has choked. People are still buying hummers.

Boone Pickens hopes it will go up to $100, and predicts that consumers will have no choice as they watch this price rise (but yes THEY "might" CHOKE, but then, how will americans get to work?)

If demand stays steady and supply goes flat, prices can rise indefinitely.

PS He is very scared of Putin and Amenidijad or however his name is spelled. Russia and Iran own the abundance of natural gas. Russia and Saudi Arabia the abundance of oil.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
The point is that the government only gets a share when it leaves your hands. There is no sense in which you're double-taxed, it's the receiver who gets taxed on an unearned windfall.

I wonder what Vim would think of our fucking lottery tax over here. It's close to 40% steep. Maybe more.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
It's really important to tax that money, so the impoverished people who tend win it get penalized and lose their incentive to get out of the ghetto/trailer park, thereby decreasing their likelihood to steal capital from other harder working citizens.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
my dad just sat a jury where they took disability benefits from someone because he won $200 in a car derby and didn't report it.

the biggest outrage, of course, were the tax dollars we wasted even trying this nonsense!
 

RobJC

Check your weapon
This is so not necessarily true about commodities. I spent all morning watching Boone Pickens (oil billionaire and capitalist extraordinaire) talk about the price of oil on CNBC. He predicts that in this quarter, [crude] oil prices (per barrel, of course) will rise to a level HIGHER than prices during the ENERGY CRISIS of the late 70s and early 80s. (comparison adjusted for inflation, of course)

An investment analyst came on to answer the question: how far can prices climb before the consumer effectively 'chokes' and refuses to keep buying? Well, historically, with oil, the answer has been 6-7% beyond "average." In the past year or so, the price of oil pb has gone up from less than $80 to $87, a record high. No one has choked. People are still buying hummers.

Boone Pickens hopes it will go up to $100, and predicts that consumers will have no choice as they watch this price rise (but yes THEY "might" CHOKE, but then, how will americans get to work?)

If demand stays steady and supply goes flat, prices can rise indefinitely.

PS He is very scared of Putin and Amenidijad or however his name is spelled. Russia and Iran own the abundance of natural gas. Russia and Saudi Arabia the abundance of oil.

It depends on how much of your profit you want to sacrafice to keep demand high - if you buy at a rising price, keep the same percentage of profit to cover that cost by keeping the resale price (after refinedment in this case) high, then eventually you will choke your market, and be undercut by someone with a either the balls to reduce their profit, or have a smarter model in the first place. The complication in the UK is the punitive tax the government puts on fuel to keep the price artificially high on the forecourt - this approach is historically not done or tolerated in the US as I understand.

I think the inheritance tax thing has been done to death (s'cuse the pun) so what do people think about pay as you go driving replacing the standard roadtax fund?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Not sure, and I don't drive so it doesn't affect me, but what Britain is crying out for is an affordable rail network. I mean, petrol is rapidly approaching a quid a litre - that's about $8 per gallon, anyone care to compare that to US prices for me? - and the government is happy to up duty just a little with every budget, because it's a "green" tax, and therefore acceptable, just like increasing duty on booze and fags. If our rail network was getting noticeably better and/or cheaper, I could see the fairness of it, but that's the trouble with this government, it's all stick and no carrot.

Blimey, that was a sentence and a half, wasn't it? Edit: oh, it's actually two sentences. How disappointing.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
"what do people think about pay as you go driving replacing the standard roadtax fund?"
But that's effectively what tax on petrol is already isn't it? Of course you can lower it by driving a more efficient car but the more miles you go the more tax you pay. I guess if you have road pricing then you can encourage people to take less congested routes or drive at different times - in theory at least.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
Not sure, and I don't drive so it doesn't affect me, but what Britain is crying out for is an affordable rail network. I mean, petrol is rapidly approaching a quid a litre - that's about $8 per gallon, anyone care to compare that to US prices for me? - and the government is happy to up duty just a little with every budget, because it's a "green" tax, and therefore acceptable, just like increasing duty on booze and fags. If our rail network was getting noticeably better and/or cheaper, I could see the fairness of it, but that's the trouble with this government, it's all stick and no carrot.

Blimey, that was a sentence and a half, wasn't it?

WHOA. Gas here is around $3.50 a gallon (i think, i don't have a car), and people are weeping and wailing.

I can remember when gas was $.89/gallon. I was probably 10-12.
 
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nomadologist

Guest
i wish i'd been alive in the 50s so i could go buy an oil rig in dallas. or find "texas tea" on my property.
 

RobJC

Check your weapon
But that's effectively what tax on petrol is already isn't it? Of course you can lower it by driving a more efficient car but the more miles you go the more tax you pay. I guess if you have road pricing then you can encourage people to take less congested routes or drive at different times - in theory at least.

Once again its all about transparency - how much of the road tax, MOT, fuel tax goes on maintaining and moderninsing the roads? Very little on actual tarmac on the ground as far as I can see, but thats the current illness within government sponsered construction projects in this country - I'm taking a month off in 2012 and renting my house out.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Once again its all about transparency - how much of the road tax, MOT, fuel tax goes on maintaining and moderninsing the roads? Very little on actual tarmac on the ground as far as I can see"
Oh ok, you want the road tax to pay for the roads. Well, seems reasonable that people who drive more should pay more, so road (and congestion) pricing seems fairer than a flat rate I guess. You would still have the petrol tax though presumably so people would be paying tax twice for each mile they travelled, once for the fuel and once for the road. That's not to say I'm against it though.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Petrol tax should be the way to go, as it discourages gas-guzzlers while effectively charging for road use. Unfortunately it's become politically inexpedient to go too far down this route.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
As much as I like the idea of taxing the shite out of motorists, it's a bit of an issue that in the absence of affordable public transport this works out as a rather regressive tax.

I don't see why car tax / petrol tax should entirely be spent on roads, though - you're not just taxing people for the wear and tear on the tarmac, you're taxing them for the pollution, for the noise and inconvenience to the rest of the population, for the extra work for the emergency services and for all the other negative side effects of driving that the driver doesn't have to pay.
 

RobJC

Check your weapon
As much as I like the idea of taxing the shite out of motorists, it's a bit of an issue that in the absence of affordable public transport this works out as a rather regressive tax.

I don't see why car tax / petrol tax should entirely be spent on roads, though - you're not just taxing people for the wear and tear on the tarmac, you're taxing them for the pollution, for the noise and inconvenience to the rest of the population, for the extra work for the emergency services and for all the other negative side effects of driving that the driver doesn't have to pay.

Scuse me if I'm wrong for thinking that you don't drive or own a car and don't feel the need to either....

Car usage is not something that most people can give up without totally changing their routines and lifestyle. I don't use the car much in the week, but my wife (with 2 small kids) would be totally lost without it unless there was a cohesive and comprehensive transport system that could accomodate all the convienence and flexibility your own car has - and I fail to see how she or anyone else is "inconvenience(ing) to the rest of the population". The majority have a car and to some extent is in the same boat. The government know this therefore the motorist (as in, to be frank you and me in general) is a soft target because succesive policies making has made the car central to people lives - changing this by punitive taxing is not the way to achieve a reduction in car use (as the congestion charge has proven in London) and anyone who this so id living in cloud cockoo land.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
That's exactly what I meant about a) me personally quite liking the idea of taxing the shite out of motorists and b) it being a regressive tax and thus actually a Bad Thing - you can stick a great deal of tax on petrol and in the absence of a good affordable alternative people will have little choice but to pay it. And I'm guessing that driving is a fairly constant thing across society, so proportionally it'll hit the poor (particularly the rural poor) worst.

Re "inconveniencing the general population", though, every extra car on the road makes other people's journeys (whether by car or bus) a bit slower, increases the risks of cycling, requires more of the country to be given over to roads and car parks and so on.

I agree that some kind of change in people's lifestyle is neccessary to get people out of cars on a big scale, but I don't think we're anywhere near the American situation of having a society more or less based around the car - I know a lot of people who live and work in cities who barely ever drive. More carrot is needed - rewarding companies who get more people cycling / car sharing / using public transport, improving public transport - and maybe less stick, but I don't think that that lifestyle change is as hard to achieve as a lot of people think. And it tends to be a positive feedback thing - the more people there are on the buses, the more buses there will tend to be.

And fwiw, traffic in central london is down 26% since congestion charging was introduced.
 
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