The dreadful thing about SET (which I can just about remember) was that it was a sop to the Labour Party cloth cap brigade, which believed that manufacturing (SET-exempt) was inherently morally superior to the service sector (SET-slaughtered).
Since the UK's future was in the service sector, that particular prejudice probably set back the current UK economy a good couple of years.
Payroll tax has other unfortunate implications -- an almost inherent bias against part-time workers is one.
I'm not defending NI here, which I agree is a joke.
But the major problem for all governments these days is how to raise revenue effectively as well as 'fairly'. And when it's a choice of one or the other, then fairness goes out of the window.
At the moment the NI system works even more against the under-65s -- surely an artificial age-divide these days when people who reach that age can expect to live another 23 years or so. Scrap NI, lump much of it onto Income Tax, a bit of it onto Corporation Tax, and give a sop to the elderly by gradually increasing the age allowance before income tax is paid. Something like a grand a year, perhaps.
Re: IR35
Since the UK's future was in the service sector, that particular prejudice probably set back the current UK economy a good couple of years.
Payroll tax has other unfortunate implications -- an almost inherent bias against part-time workers is one.
I'm not defending NI here, which I agree is a joke.
But the major problem for all governments these days is how to raise revenue effectively as well as 'fairly'. And when it's a choice of one or the other, then fairness goes out of the window.
At the moment the NI system works even more against the under-65s -- surely an artificial age-divide these days when people who reach that age can expect to live another 23 years or so. Scrap NI, lump much of it onto Income Tax, a bit of it onto Corporation Tax, and give a sop to the elderly by gradually increasing the age allowance before income tax is paid. Something like a grand a year, perhaps.
PJ