| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:West Middx Hospital Parking | |
| Posted by: | Lorne Gifford | |
| Date/Time: | 07/06/18 09:30:00 |
| Sorry Chris, couple more points. Not having a go at you incidentally as all opinions and thoughts are fully justified: - Your suggestion wouldn't be going back to an overall earn and tax profile we had 3 years ago, as we don't live with the same earn or spend profile. Just ask the millions in the squeezed middle that have seen stagnant income combined with rising prices. WMH parking has gone up 33% this year, council tax has gone up 4%, and so on - If you're after a bigger tax take then why not freeze something like the kick-in values for stamp duty rates instead? Or better still, why not make it a blanket 12% stamp duty on every house or flat (which is the rate currently paid by more expensive homes)? You could happily argue that such a thing would raise billions for the exchequer and only take it from those that clearly have surplus income because they have enough money to buy a home. Very persuasive and no doubt something that would be wholeheartedly favoured by anyone not planning on buying their own home or moving from where they are. But what would that do to the housing market? And if the housing market suddenly stagnates or collapses, as it has done several times before, what does that do to stamp-duty revenue? - A 1% income rise in itself probably won't collapse the economy, but bear in mind that right now the UK economy is in a very fragile state. Incomes are not keeping up with price rises, brexit has devalued our currency by around 15% and will add considerably more cost and strain over the next few years, and the massive injection of cash that was quantitative easing is only just beginning to work through to increasing inflation. Overall, my thoughts are that the parking price rise at WMH is very annoying, particularly as I use that car park quite a lot, is inconsistent with surrounding parking charges, and is being pushed onto an almost captive customer base as an easy solution to make some extra cash. |