Let me then suggest a better tax, if we do want a progressive consumption tax, which I happen to think might be desirable.
I’ve described this alternative on a number of occasions. It is a financial transactions tax on all financial flows through UK-based bank accounts,
A financial transactions tax is not a consumption tax. For it’s a tax on financial transactions, not on consumption. Obviously.
Anyway, institute that and gaze in wonder as cash usage soars.
gaze in wonder as cash usage soars.
What makes you think so? How many commentators on this blog bitch about government interference & surveillance of their commerce? And how many opt for cash rather than convenient electronic money transfer.
It’s something I come up against regularly. “Bizum me the money, please” “No” “Oh well use ……. then.” “No’ The only electronic transfers I do in my name are in/out of my international bank account. There’s some legacy Pay Pal direct debits. I have a debit card from a Spanish bank lets me pay road tolls & gas up at unmanned service stations & withdraw cash at machines. And that’s it. No credit cards. I don’t bitch about it, I do it.
I use cash a fair bit for the reasons outlined, but I hate modern fucking British notes because they’re so fucking slippy.
I walked to the pub with my mate the other day and his wife and mine were bringing up the rear chatting, and when they caught up with me his missus said ‘Is this your fifty quid?’
Two twenties and a ten had fallen out of my pocket just through the motion of walking.
Give me your social media addresses so I can follow you.
It doesn’t fall out of my pockets on social media
I’ve got some Brit notes. They are effin ‘orible as well. The Canadian ones are just as bad. It’s good to see $100 US are still paper. So’s COP & Mangos. The EU’s been trying to get the €500s out of circulation. Unsuccessfully.
More fool you lot for accepting the transition.
They copied the design from the Canadian notes, but luckily after the Canucks had discovered that the original notes, if left in direct sunlight, would melt together.
Mangos? You have Peruvian currency?
Street brasilian for reais (Eng Reals)
Ah, also street Limeño for Peruvian soles, as distinct from US greenbacks (for obvious reasons).
Back in the 1970’s, my mates Dad Pete, a London Cabby, showed me how to fold my notes so that you would never lose ‘a wad’. Have done it ever since.
Doesn’t work with a pocket full of this shiny modern plastic shit, at least in my experience. The creases don’t stay, and they don’t adhere to each other or the lining of a pocket the way that the old paper ones used to. Normally I use a wallet but on this particular occasion I did not.
Nice. Mine showed me how to fold a note to reveal a picture of the Queens bum
I only use cash at my local money launderer (Turkish barber) as legitimate cash is the last thing they need as it makes their cash income even more ludicrous.
Credit cards? Marvellous things – permit Stoozing. Free money!
I’ve never used credit cards. Why would I? I’ve never been that poor.
Not a question of poverty: when Lloyds introduced its own credit card it wrote to me as a valued customer to offer me one and I turned it down, as I did the next two times they wrote to me. However after the popularity of cards spread I found that there were a number of firms that would accept neither cash nor cheques so eventually I told Lloyds that I should like one. I still prefer cash but it is usually more convenient to use a card.
I wouldn’t bother.
bis has arrived at the singularity of his own perfection.
That would be Access. Your flexible friend.
It was until last week – Lloyds has now switched to using a Visa credit card.
I wouldn’t say I was perfect. Far from it. But I do know how to live within a budget. If you need. a month’s free credit you really are getting near the ragged edge
I’ve something else to add to this comment. When you use a credit card, the credit card company charges the merchant for this service. Who do you think’s paying for this? WE ARE Using credit cards makes what we buy dearer for everyone. It’s a rip off I do not want to participate in & I don’t like people who use cards ripping me off.
BiS – interestingly the cab drivers in my neck of the woods will always drop the fare for cash – almost without fail!
“If you need. a month’s free credit you really are getting near the ragged edge”
As andyf said below, it leaves money in your account so it’s free interest. Not worth a great deal at the moment, but who knows.
Plus they usually give kickbacks.
I see your point that we’re paying for them as consumers, but if it is then I’m paying for it anyway (Tesco don’t give cash discounts), and it’s now so common that me joining in isn’t going to make any difference.
And actually for a large business that banks its cash, cards are probably cheaper. Credit cards typically charge 1% to 2%, but cash costs something like 7.5% (including staff time to count & reconcile, pilferage, security, bank charges). So we’re probably subsidising you rather than the other way around (but we’re being paid for doing so – isn’t market efficiency great!)
I use one for large purchases even though I intend to pay it straight off. They carry the risk of there being problems.
I also use it on the web if I’ve never used the site before for the same reason, although that’s becoming less of a problem.
Good point – they guarantee a refund if the item delivered is not the same as the one purchased on Amazon or eBay.
I think I’ve done that once in dozens of years.
Wow. You give up free money? I put everything I can on the credit card leaving my money in an account paying decent interest till the bill needs paying. I get cash (electronic) back too.
The only place I use old school money is the barbers.
Why do we have to have a “consumption” tax?
Since an actual consumption would affect lower income people more, there’s much more opportunity to lobby for exceptions, and much more of a regulatory maze to make.
More government employees to hire, and more quangos to lobby and sue the government.
The financial transaction tax bruited here may be a negotiating tactic, for the serious people calling for it. The Potato of course is not one of those, he’s a parrot repeating what he’s heard somewhere.
Because it doesn’t *appear* to breach the manifesto pledge not to increase taxes on workers.
It is a financial transactions tax on all financial flows through UK-based bank accounts
“Go ahead. Make my day.” – Inspector Callahan
Finance business in UK is a huge part of your economy. Slap a tax on it and see what happens. FAFO.
Commie mayors in New York City and Seattle are finding out. They have moved ahead with promised “tax the rich” plans. The rich are leaving. To Miami, Nashville, and Dallas. Which have no such taxes.
Spud has idle thoughts on how he would run things. The world doesn’t care. The world doesn’t need his help.
It’s being made increasingly hard to use cash and they’ll keep ratcheting it up.
They won’t ratchet it up if you use cash. Businesses want to sell stuff. If people don’t use electronic money systems they’ve only the one option.
I make sure that I use cash and card randomly, so they don’t know what I’m spending my money on.
You may be out of touch with the Yookay dystopia. Lots of shops already refuse to take cash. Banks are closing down and the ones still open are limiting cash deposits.
Some rural pubs in East Anglia won’t take cash because keeping cash on their premises increases their insurance premiums…
Understandable
It’s also a pain in the arse keeping a float of the lower denomination notes and coins.
Our pub tried it after COVID but there was too much resistance in the village.
I go to Tesco and split a £20 note if I am short of change before I go to the market.
I am thoroughly out of touch with the Yookay dystopia, thank God.. Why do you think I left before it got any worse? It’d had got to the point where it was trying my temper. For about 110 reasons.
I’ve now bought a house in the roughest part of roughest city in Brasil. Because it’s safer.
First potato per week is VAT free, thereafter the full rate applies.
A friend gives language lessons – most students pay electronically because it’s easier.
If this came in it would all go to cash.
The fvckwit makes clear this is to be a levy on
“Any payment. Full stop. That is it”
So, when I pay my income tax bill by bank account transfer, I’m to pay a tax on that transaction?
And:
“Some will argue that this tax could be easily avoided by using cash, alternative currencies, Bitcoin and offshore accounts. As a result, I have proposed mechanisms to deal with all these issues, including the option of permitting HMRC to raise estimated assessments on those individuals and companies who appear to underpay in proportion to their obvious economic activities, with the burden of proof resting on the taxpayer to suggest that the assessment raised was wrong.”
Now, where’s my baseball bat. There’s a thieving spiteful cvnt that needs a good beating.
Under English Law the burden of proof is on the accuser (“prosecutor”). Murphy is not an Englishman.
I make payments to Charities from my bank account so that they can be verified for Gift Aid reclaim purposes if anyone queries it. Murphy want to tax that as “consumption”. So he is either illiterate or a liar.
Actually he’s just ramping up the principle and practice of Unexplained Wealth Orders.
For which we can thank the Tories.
Unexplained wealth orders just ask you to explain how you got the money: I can see how this could permit minor harassment by a left-wing government but only to the extent that you have to tell someone, who should be required not to divulge it, the source of your income. Drug smugglers and people traffickers deserve to be caught and imprisoned.
“Any payment. Full stop. That is it”
Wow. That’s one hell of a statement. I’ve just come back from my local where I bought two rounds of drinks and bar snacks for myself and the missus. Card both times because they don’t charge for that. I could go back to cash I suppose, but
including the option of permitting HMRC to raise estimated assessments on those individuals and companies who appear to underpay in proportion to their obvious economic activities
He does say individuals, and a fair bit of my money does disappear into cash tills. Good luck with estimating my booze and smokes budget though.
I get points on my local member card when I spend money there, when I use those would he tax them too? After all, it’s a payment.
in the olden days transaction costs were high. entire departments worked out how to minimse transactions by offsetting debts across a whole bunch of companies.
hence spending a month in my degree working out multi national multi cureency cash netting.
dont bother anymore, its cheaper to send the money that fiddle about netting it.
anyhow, might dust off the old handbook…
Consumption Tax, as in VAT? In 1974 it was progressive with standard rate at 8%, higher rate at 25% and the zero rate for “essentials” like cake.
So Spud wants a ridiculous tax on all financial transactions. Because clearly the answer is to let them loose on your bank account.
You sell a rental property, some CGT is due and you actually want to pay the bloody thing.
Simple? Not remotely.
The money arrives in your account on completion (so in Spud World it gets taxed). I theory you then notify HMRC within the deadline and pay the CGT you owe.
Except the reality is you go online, navigate around the shitshow known as the HMRC website 20 times only to find m, yes you are using the correct link but your HMRC account still has you down as self-employed from 20 years ago, so for CGT it thinks you’re a company and won’t let you pay.
So you phone HMRC.
You get some 16-year-old girl working from her bedroom who doesn’t know what CGT is, in fact she barely knows who she ‘works’ for. After wasting an hour, she passes you to the CGT “expert”.
The CGT expert turns out to be a Welsh berk working from home in Wales who hasn’t got the foggiest either, he tells you where to navigate to on the website and ‘oh dear, I don’t know why it’s doing that?’.
Can he send you a form? Well no, because by the time that arrives you’ll have missed the stupidly short deadline and end up getting fined!
So you spend another five hours reading internet forums until you find someone else who had a similar problem (but not exactly the same) and fixed it themselves by creating a brand new HMRC account.
It’s a risk. It might cock everything up completely. But what choice do you have?
Bloody hell, it works.
Enter the details. Find out you owe about £3,000. Pay it. Oh, that’s a financial transaction on my bank account, so in Spud World, tax is due on it.
You literally have to beg these incompetent buggers to let you give them money.
And then Spud’s solution is: give them access to your bank account so they can tax every transaction as it happens.
A single bit of money could be taxed five times before it’s finally yours.
Income tax payment, tax it. National Insurance payment, tax it. VAT… Council tax… CGT… water rates…gas and electric…food. Brilliant, just brilliant Spud. Another Meisterstroke tovards zee final solution.
What I want to know is where do I send my invoice for the time I wasted trying to pay HMRC to?
But please do me a favour, tax it at 20% at source rather than me having to pay tax on receipt, then income tax, then tax on paying the income tax. In fact, no, just send cash please….
Here’s a question. Anyone know if HMRC are obliged to accept cash?
Send it all in 1p coins
They’ve limited the amount anyone has to accept in coins, but I don’t think there’s a limit on banknotes.
I haven’t checked, but they probably do have to accept cash. But good luck finding somewhere that you can hand it over to them.
They’re obliged to accept a cheque written on the side of a cow.
You forget to mention that you are not allowed to offset the loss that you have incurred by renting out the rental property against the *nominal* profit on sale.
There is a notional profit on sale because “inflation” (the debasement of the currency) records that you have “made a profit” in sale even though the money you get back is worth less than the money you paid to buy it.
Send your invoice to your Labour MP (who will not reply unlike his Conservative predecessor).
How is a financial transactions tax progressive? Surely it’s proportionate (or slightly regressive, since the rich will use offshore accounts). Unless he’s planning on a financial transactions tax where the rate increases as you spend more; is that remotely feasible?
Of course it is remotely feasible – the Nomenklatura will demand that you supply details of all your bank/building society/ISA accounts. This will tax all transfers from your current account to your ISA and all transfers from your ISA to your current account *in addition to* any money that you spend.