Suresh

Deep,

I lived in the UK for a year in 99-00, doing a full-time MBA (own cost of course). Had a wonderful year under New Labour! Don't ask me about the campus 'gentleman's club' because I can't tell you! NL would not have approved that's for sure.

My marginal income tax rate is 52%. My net rate is happily about 25% and I am working to reduce that further. VAT (BTW) is 19.5%. Car tax is 30%. We bought 2 new cars last year and that hurt! NI payments to the government are not significent as such (<5% I think), as I am responsible for my own pension and health insurance provisions. My occupational pension is benefits-based and non-contributory . Stamp duty is 6% and CGT counts as taxable income (box3 they call it). My accountant takes care of my tax returns because they are pretty much unfathomable otherwise.

Suresh

warrenm2

Suresh, Had a nice big reply typed up for you, but then the server went off for some maintainance and I lost it all, and I cant be bothered to retype it However just for you (as you mentioned tax credits)...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4523804.stm

Leslie

Suresh,

Why has NL not returned index linking of pensions to earnings?

With all this economic growth you are telling us about, why has Brown got a deficit of billions which he will have to recover from more taxes and/or Govrnment borrowing which is already at a parlous level?

Les