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Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty' (Read 30,431 times)
NGMsGhost
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #15 - Dec 12th, 2009 at 9:53pm
 
If this new tax comes in I will be giving very serious consideration to moving to a mobile broadband provider if I can find one that actually provides any kind of fast, stable or reliable service with a decent download limit.

A landline is already the most outrageously over-priced utility in the home in terms of fixed standing charge by far and now the bloated BT expects even more of our hard earned money to keep their grotesquely inefficient empire in business. Shocked Angry Angry Angry
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sherbert
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #16 - Dec 12th, 2009 at 10:16pm
 
NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 12th, 2009 at 9:53pm:
If this new tax comes in I will be giving very serious consideration to moving to a mobile broadband provider if I can find one that actually provides any kind of fast, stable or reliable service with a decent download limit.

A landline is already the most outrageously over-priced utility in the home in terms of fixed standing charge by far and now the bloated BT expects even more of our hard earned money to keep their grotesquely inefficient empire in business. Shocked Angry Angry Angry



The full article from the FT is here. The governement looks to be closing some loop holes.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b133383a-e650-11de-bcbe-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check...


Homes that have two landlines face paying the broadband tax twice. The levy is also due to attract value-added tax.
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Barbara
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #17 - Dec 13th, 2009 at 10:36am
 
Without getting involved in the detail of this debate too deeply, particularly where there seems to be some convoluted attempt to justify the never justifiable use of 084X nos by the public sector, I would make the following comments.

Firstly, I think this 50p tax is very unfair, as the original post said, there are many people who cannot have, would not benefit from or just do not want broadband, eg the very elderly (who will be dead before superfast broadband is a reality!), those suffering from certain disabilities etc, those who can't afford a computer.  As someone said, you don't pay road tax is you don't have a car, also you don't pay a TV licence is you don't have a television.  It would be far fairer to levy the tax on the broadband connection, as for the argument about people benefitting in future from payments now, well, doesn't that apply to everything provided eg roads, we all benefit from roads that may have been built before we were born, same with hospitals and schools?

Finally, the point about not paying tax towards education and child benefit if you don't have children - this arguments really bugs me (sorry guys!) because, if people don't have children, where are the doctors, nurses, carers, plumbers, electricians etc etc etc going to come from in the future to look after teh childless???!!!

As another poster said, this is just another tax and it won't be used for its declared purpose.
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derrick
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #18 - Dec 13th, 2009 at 11:02am
 
Barbara wrote on Dec 13th, 2009 at 10:36am:
because, if people don't have children, where are the doctors, nurses, carers, plumbers, electricians etc etc etc going to come from in the future to look after teh childless???!!!



They won't be needed because if we don't have children the human race will die out  Grin
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irrelevant
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #19 - Dec 13th, 2009 at 11:16am
 
I think a lot of you forget that taxes do not pay for the things they appear to.  All taxation goes into one big central pot, from which the spending is allocated.

Barbara wrote on Dec 13th, 2009 at 10:36am:
As someone said, you don't pay road tax is you don't have a car


With regard to Road Taxes,and the NHS, from a post in another forum:  "According to Transport Statistics Great Britain, central government in the UK collects £30 billion in motoring taxes, of which £25 billion is fuel tax while £5 billion is VED, and of this amount about £8 billion is spent on roads in England (add a further £2 billion to cover expenditures in Scotland, Wales, and NI). This means there is around £20 billion in motoring-related tax revenues available for other uses, including defraying the NHS."

So, yes, non-drivers don't pay road taxes - instead all of us drivers are already supporting other government activities, including the NHS, that are used by them..

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sherbert
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #20 - Dec 13th, 2009 at 11:22am
 
Barbara wrote on Dec 13th, 2009 at 10:36am:
 It would be far fairer to levy the tax on the broadband connection


So, if that happened, people could terminate  their B/B connection and take their lap top to the nearest Starbucks or local 'hot spot' and get free connection and not pay the tax  Grin

Like all taxes, I bet the 50p levy will be increased before the superfast boadband is completed Wink
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #21 - Dec 13th, 2009 at 11:26am
 
Barbara wrote on Dec 13th, 2009 at 10:36am:
Finally, the point about not paying tax towards education and child benefit if you don't have children - this arguments really bugs me (sorry guys!) because, if people don't have children, where are the doctors, nurses, carers, plumbers, electricians etc etc etc going to come from in the future to look after teh childless???!!!




If people had to pay for their children's education and not receive handouts for having children the human race would indeed die out. Grin
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Barbara
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #22 - Dec 13th, 2009 at 11:49am
 
If the human race died out, there would be no need for broadband....................
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #23 - Dec 13th, 2009 at 7:57pm
 
Having delivered the answer to life the universe and everything (the human race only exists because of state funded education!), there are a number of separate questions to be addressed in considering this issue.

- Should the state spend money to ensure delivery of "NGA" to the portion of the population which the industry has said that it cannot afford to serve?

- Should additional taxation be introduced to provide revenue essentially equivalent to that spending?

- Should the longstanding refusal to engage in formal hypothecation of taxation revenue be reversed?

The government has said Yes, Yes and No. Posted comments have suggested No, No and Yes.


What nobody has addressed is the relevance of the broader themes of Carter. Delivery of public services is to be increasingly moved onto the internet as this is much more efficient and could therefore be a way of saving a lot of overhead cost, thereby helping the attack on the deficit. The government is set on this course and is therefore concerned about the fact that a significant proportion of the population, other than the wealthy, could be excluded from the best access to public services unless broadband is more widely available.

I share the concern that there will always be some who remain excluded, and something effective must be done to address this (other than euthanasia for a large part of the pre-computer generation). I also have other reasons for opposing this approach, however I cannot deny the fact that it will most likely help with cost efficiency and I acknowledge the priority that must be given to this issue at present.

One could foresee the situation where, with services being delivered over the internet, those who wish to use the far more costly means of accessing services by telephone could be made subject to a charge. Use of a premium rate telephone number could provide a most effective means of recovering the fee and encouraging use of the online service. Those who are be content for taxation to rise can feel free to oppose such a move, as may those who can identify sufficient spending cuts or are content for the deficit to remain.


All politicians are very keen to advance the principle behind hypothecation and governments are often happy to show the link between specific items of revenue and spending. In this case the connection is strongly promoted and would be very clear to see, so it is hard to imagine effective evasion of a challenge to show it in effect.

There are many arguments against hypothecation being applied formally through statue. Some of this is to do with issues of timing, as actual revenues may not be known until long after spending has to be committed. There is also the fact that it may tie the hands of Ministers and Departments in exercising discretion over specific detailed spending decisions, as their capacity to do so would be limited by statue and thereby subject to legal challenge. HM Treasury stands firmly opposed to the idea, so practical minded people know that it is therefore not worth bothering to think of trying to bring it in. Political pressure to show a connection can withstand the need to deal with revenues being less or greater than necessary and to be seen to have spent as wisely as possible. A purely statutory imperative could lead to highly undesirable consequence in the event of revenue falling short, or unnecessary waste in the event of excess, furthermore it would provide a bulwark against political criticism.

On balance, I am content for the status quo to remain, given that expectations are not set wrongly. The link between National Insurance contributions and the supposedly related benefits was knowingly broken not long after its introduction. All the other cases (e.g. VED) provide a good basis for political knockabout, but I hope that nobody is actually confused.


It is somewhat distressing to read how far Thatcherism is alive and well in this forum, as in most political discourse. If public education needs to be defended by reference to personal benefit for the individuals who pay for it, then there is no such thing as society and I feel that my attempts to campaign for the principles of the NHS have no place in this forum.

Perhaps someone would like to explain how the principle of using revenue sharing numbers for public services is incompatible with the idea that each of us pays for what we get. To remove the inevitable consumerist argument ("I have already paid my taxes") please consider the case of a school leaver who has been brought up in a local authority children's home, earning less than the individual personal allowance and NI threshold, who has therefore never paid a penny of tax, other than the VAT which we can disregard as being a subscription fee for the EU.
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Barbara
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #24 - Dec 14th, 2009 at 9:53am
 
Re the last paragraph in the previous post (I found the rest somewhat obscure), I feel that taxation SHOULD fund public services, that those who can afford to pay more due to income should do so as public services should be funded for the good of all members of society (& yes, Thatcherism DID drive me out of the Tory Party as I have far more time for the benevolent paternalism which preceded it & which I wish to see return!).  I also feel that very many things are best provided by the state/public sector funded via taxation paid for by each according to his means (income) & used by each according to his needs, I believe that utilities are best provided by being publicly owned (can anyone tell me how we have benefitted from privatisation that couldn't have been achieved by greater efficiency?)   As for providing savings to reduce the deficit, try talking and listening to those in the public sector at front line service level, rather than politicians & top ranking public servants & remember that local authorities have virtually zero control over things on which they have to spend their money, if they don't spend it as the govt dictates, the govt takes it back again! - I think you'd be surprised at the multitude of savings which could be identified with no harm whatsoever to the public!!

But yes, we are off topic, something deplored by SCV, so I will end.
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #25 - Dec 14th, 2009 at 10:43am
 
Here is one saving that could be made, from today's Daily Mail

Single mother receives more than £90,000 a year in housing allowance to meet the rent on the five-bedroom villa, plus other payouts of £15,000.

I wonder how much tax she has ever paid.

Anyway as Barbara rightly says we are going off topic, so like her I will end.

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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #26 - Dec 14th, 2009 at 3:53pm
 
I will try to keep this brief and hope to avoid creating the impression that I am being obscure (whether fair or not).

All bar the final part of my previous posting was attempting to address the specific topic of this thread: public funding of the roll out of what is called "NGA" and the extent to which this should be paid for by a specific tax. I do not deplore departure from a topic, however I am inclined to pick up on wider issues myself and try to respect the proper requirement that we should not allow this to cause us to disregard the stated topic entirely.

In rejecting Thatcherite dogma (including privatisation and castration of local government), one has to be careful of the assumptions on which it was based and the core ideas that remain fully in place. The assumption that inevitable failures in the management of public services (as hinted at by the quoted Daily Mail article) can be easily and cheaply dealt with without undermining them totally, or that a particular case proves total breakdown, is a good example. As we have adopted the meritocratic ideology that came from the American wing of what we know as Thatchercherism and is a key element of the perversion of socialism within New Labour, we can present questions such as "how much tax has she ever paid?" without appearing to be ridiculous.

As we are discussing telecoms, it may be fair to point out that of all the privatised utilities BT is probably the most successful (in all terms). That is not however to deny the fully justified criticisms of it, and the way it is handled by Ofcom, which are found from myself and others in the forum.

As a campaigner, I make no apology for engaging with Jim Knight and some of his senior officials, as it is only they who can bring about the change that we seek in DWP policy. Likewise with other departments, members of the opposition front benches and officials with cross departmental responsibility. I also have had the benefit, in my professional life and also in some campaigning activities, of close engagement with those engaged in front line delivery of public services through central government agencies and local authorities. In relation to the NHS, this has extended to many GP practices. Whilst one must focus on the points where change can be effected, this must never be with disregard to ground level reality.

I would love to develop thoughts on my strong opposition to performance league tables, talk of "the postcode lottery" and alleged "devolution" to non-accountable local bodies such as PCTs and RDAs, not to mention opposition to the aims and objectives of the EU. These all represent the continuing expression of the Thatcherite desire to retain all justifiable exercise of power in Westminster. That would however be to go beyond the scope this forum, let alone this thread. I will simply end my OT comments by saying that if this is where the power is being exercised, this is where we should focus our campaigning efforts if we seek to instigate change, rather than simply moaning.


I would be interested to know how contributors to this thread feel about the idea of access to public services becoming focused on the internet, whilst broadband access remains limited or expensive in some parts of the country. Should public money be used to correct this imbalance? If so, how should it be raised? It is easy to attack any public spending that does not benefit us personally and any tax that we have to pay. For those who reject the Thachterite view of the world (whereby public spending should be limited to vital matters such as defence and perhaps the relief of extreme poverty for those who are "deserving") and wish to engage in serious discussion on issues of public policy, questions such as this need to be addressed.
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NGMsGhost
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #27 - Dec 14th, 2009 at 4:26pm
 
SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 14th, 2009 at 3:53pm:
I will try to keep this brief


Sadly you appear to have failed dismally. Roll Eyes
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #28 - Dec 14th, 2009 at 4:54pm
 
In trying to continue to keep this on-topic, I would like to ask that once all households can benefit from broadband by BT/Virgin or another ADSL provider due to the governments landline duty in however long it takes, will the gov then remove the tax or will it continue even though everyone will have access to broadband?

We all know that the tax will continue forever and once everyone has access to broadband then the money will not be used for broadband and diverted elsewhere and to be honest I cant see the government allocating ALL the money earned from the tax to help develop broadband before it's developed.  As mentioned earlier by another poster, we all know that the money goes into a big pot and then the gov issue a proportion to its intended cause and puts the rest elsewhere.

And before it's mentioned, yes I would like the government to cut the deficit but the deficit was made a lot worse by bank bail-outs for which, from what I understand, they dont appear to have to pay it back hence why it means more cuts/moneysaving to cut the deficit.

I didn't want to mention this but just how much money has the gov spent on MPs expenses for which it seems that for a long time they could practically claim for anything/everything without being questioned?  Yes, some expenses were justified but some where, in my opinion, not justified and was only claimed because they werent really questioned over it and thus mostly got away with it.  I specifically mention this because Barbara had a good point about cuts can be made in other areas and this is obviously one area which I realise they will now.

So basically who wins from this tax?

* Those that don't have access to broadband due to where they live (fair point, no argument from me here)
* BT, etc because once everyone has bb then BT, etc will have more customers and so higher profits and without having to invest as much in getting all homes connected to broadband.
* The gov because it will use the money it claims is for landline duty and divert it to help reduce, what presumably is the biggest single tax burden, and that is the banks bail-out

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SilentCallsVictim
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Re: Gov to introduce 50pcm tax - 'landline duty'
Reply #29 - Dec 14th, 2009 at 6:11pm
 
NGMsGhost wrote on Dec 14th, 2009 at 4:26pm:
SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 14th, 2009 at 3:53pm:
I will try to keep this brief

Sadly you appear to have failed dismally. Roll Eyes

Fair point, lets see if I can do better this time.

bbb_uk wrote on Dec 14th, 2009 at 4:54pm:
will the gov then remove the tax?

No. My guess is that it will use it initially for some further investment in "Digital Britain", but in time hope that everyone will have forgotten how it was first justified.

bbb_uk wrote on Dec 14th, 2009 at 4:54pm:
the deficit was made a lot worse by bank bail-outs for which, from what I understand, they dont appear to have to pay it back hence why it means more cuts/moneysaving to cut the deficit.

The "money" used in the bail out will be returned, however the question is when, and what value will the shares in the banks have when they are sold. For the time being the money loaned forms part of the national debt (along with the historic and continuing annual deficits), the level of which could threaten credit ratings. Furthermore the debt has to be financed by selling bonds on which interest has to be paid, thereby adding to the deficit.

bbb_uk wrote on Dec 14th, 2009 at 4:54pm:
MPs ... could practically claim for anything/everything without being questioned?
The high court of parliament cannot answer to any higher authority, other than through the ballot box. Its members are deemed "honourable" and therefore able to exercise judgement about many matters, the amount of money due to them in expenses being relatively trivial. When it was thought inexpedient for them to receive a salary rise they were encouraged to set aside their honour and grab whatever they thought they could get away with in expenses. Nobody in a position to do so took the trouble to correct this disgraceful mistake until it was exposed as a scandal. Like the banker's bonuses, the amounts of money involved are not actually significant, however the principle is of sufficient public concern to require action.

bbb_uk wrote on Dec 14th, 2009 at 4:54pm:
who wins from this tax?

It is fair to make the point that those who will provide the NGA could well have exploited the government's desire to see it rolled out universally by perhaps falsely claiming to be unable to finish the job without financial support. I am not sure if the government has effectively got its own back by forcing them to risk losing business through increased cost by imposing the tax on their landline operations. I suggested previously that this could be a roundabout way of forcing companies to raise the money for investment themselves. This will probably be from their existing customers, although they are free to pay the tax in any way they wish.
Will enforced price increases damage landline providers?
Are those who will actually pay the tax (covered by increasing their prices) the same companies as will benefit from the funding?
Perhaps someone who understands the industry better than I could let us know.


I am not sure if anyone has pointed out that this tax will come into effect in November 2010, by which time we will have a new parliament from which a new government will have been formed. It is generally assumed that taxes will have been reviewed by that new government (of whatever composition) so there can be no assurance that this measure will remain in its present form up to implementation. Those with an expressed preference for lower levels of borrowing and less interference in business may well be inclined to double the rate and withdraw the offer of government funding for NGA roll out. Anything could happen!
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