Taxation
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Can anyone provide me with statistics, graphs or an article about how the burden of taxation falls more on the Capitalist class than the producing class? Cheers Ray
“In the long run taxes are a burden on the capitalist class only. Wages and salaries (not some theoretical gross, but what is actually received, what the employer invests as ‘variable capital’) corresponds more or less to the cost of maintaining and reproducing the working skills which employees sell to employers. During their time in employment employees perform surplus labour, they create surplus value which belongs to the employer. The upkeep of the state and its machinery of government ultimately fall on surplus value, or incomes derived from surplus value, through taxation. Moreover, it is in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the state apparatus because it maintains their dominant social position – though of course that doesn’t stop them complaining about the cost and demanding cuts in its running charges. Rises in tax (direct and indirect), by increasing the cost of maintaining employees and their skills, are generally passed on, through the operation of market forces, to employers in the form of increased money wages and salaries. However, this process is not automatic or inevitable: workers have to struggle for higher wages and salaries.”http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/z-marxism/thttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/state/taxation-mythMore where they came from – our amazing website……….
Daily Telegraph has a related article.The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the proportion of working-age adults who do not pay income tax has risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 30million people. Over the same period the amount of income tax paid by the richest 1 per cent has risen from 24.4 per cent to 27.5 per cent, meaning that 300,000 people pay more than a quarter of the nation's income tax.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/26/nearly-half-of-britons-pay-no-income-tax-as-burden-on-rich-incre/
alanjjohnstone wrote:The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the proportion of working-age adults who do not pay income tax has risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 30million people.I hadn't realised it was as high a percentage as that. That's a lot, who are not even formally affected by promises of a penny off (or on) and are not "taxpayers"so-called paying for scroungers, tax-dodging corporations, etc A very quotable statistic.
Well, that's been part of a deliberate policy to 'take peopel out of taxation', I suppose over the last few years. An ideological spin off is that Tories like to quote that percentage of income tax from higher earners to try and portray the idea that the rich do pay their 'fair share' or more (leaving aside that excise duty and VAT and council are paid by everyone and are deeply regressive*). *pay ≠ burden
It is better and more sensible I suspect to look at variable capital, real wages just as the cash consumption living fund of the working class what they actually get paid. Actually the workers get quite a chunk of that taken away from them again, circa 25%?; when the spend as they inevitably do. So, or whatever, a worker produces 60 hours worth of product. The capitalist state, for the sake of argument take 10 hours as ‘income tax’. Their direct employer takes 10 hours, as the more obvious profit. The workers get paid in cash 40 hours equivalent, with which they can buy back 30 hours of stuff. Eg. Value added taxb110.717.1 % Other indirect taxes Fuel duties26.84.1 %Tobacco duties9.91.5 %Alcohol duties10.41.6 %Betting and gaming duties2.30.4 % www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn09.pdf Ignoring the smoke and mirrors. I think the formal, Marx’s, theoretical position is that taxes, in as much as that they are only used to fund and administer the state running of capitalism eg the judiciary, police armed forces and any general paraphernalia for the circulation of capital etc has to come out of surplus value. And wages, formally and theoretically, fund the reproduction and maintenance of the workers labour power. The ‘problem’ is that ‘taxes’ fund the state and the state has taken on in part as well the role of ‘the reproduction and maintenance of the workers labour power’ through national healthcare systems and in some places the ‘public education’ in others. There was a bit of a wobbly idea in the early part of 19thKapital from which Karl moved swiftly on. That it was the economic self perpetuating ‘responsibility’ to ‘the system’ for skilled and educated workers to hive [fund] off a proportion of their higher wages to reproduce the next generation of skilled more productive workers. Skilled more productive workers produce more stuff than actually they need to reproduce their own personal labour power. As is quite obvious, in errant irresponsible feckless males, who despite Calvinistic Ideology, abandon their economic responsibilities to their progeny and the fruit of their loins etc. Say. I think the ‘problem’ for the capitalists was initially institutionalised with the education/ skilling or reproduction of the labour power hive [fund] being taken out of control of the independent [skilled] working class. Tapped out in taxation for ‘free’ meritocratic education. Which was a much ‘better’ system, for them, because skilled workers can like to spend more time in the pub playing the horses; and potential real talent in the less well off work force can be left untapped and unexploited. It was the genius of the ‘English’ comprehensive education system. Now 18 year old’s, or whatever, are offered as a 50K loan, of someone else’s capital, for a education, as an investment; as with a machine and new more potential productive technology . [ As a digression what hurts? –we get creamed again with rent, interest payments on mortgages, student loans etc; which gobbles up well over 50% of many workers ‘nominal’ wages. ]
I've always struggled with the notion that the working class as a whole don't have a significant tax burden. It's a very hard idea to sell. The amount workers pay may be insignificant compared to the capitalists, but there again so is what they receive.Payslips show a deduction for tax. There's council tax to pay, water rates, and heaps of indirect taxes. The self-employed don't get tax deducted at source but have to put money aside to pay it later on.And council tax isn't deducted by employers but comes out of net wages. Ok, you can budget for it, but you still have to pay it, or apply for relief.
rodshaw wrote:Payslips show a deduction for tax. There's council tax to pay, water rates, and heaps of indirect taxes. The self-employed don't get tax deducted at source but have to put money aside to pay it later on.And council tax isn't deducted by employers but comes out of net wages. Ok, you can budget for it, but you still have to pay it, or apply for relief.Payments for council tax, water rates, TV licences etc are not strictly taxes, they are payments for services. OK, they are generally a flat rate, so some workers may benefit more than others. They are no more taxes than flat fares for transport are.Taxes on booze, fags and geegees are taxes, but they don't affect those not into these pastimes. Betting is one service for which the working class, on average, gain no benefit, rather the reverse, unless you consider "the thrill of the chase" a benefit.
My problem with our position is that it is determinate upon a working class strong enough to claw back those taxes via its class struggle. Often there is the time-lag between this when it succeeds and when taxes are imposed and so we do have a position where the burden of taxation can be upon our shoulders. Our position i believe is a long-term one where the pendulum will swing towards the employer "paying" the taxes through the obligation to pay higher wagesEven with the certain taxes as particular prices as RodmanLewis explains, when inflation arises, it is again incumbent upon the working class to escalate their conflict with the employer to raise the wages (as another price) to compensate. This i think is also the case with those taxes. In most developing countries, income tax is not an issue simply because most don't earn enough declarable income but indirect taxation as on fuel and goods are important (a pending general strike in Nigeria because of a tax rise on petrol.) I think when we respond to the issue of taxes, there is a certain amount of automaticity assumed by ourselves that increased taxation will be reflected in higher wages. We don't emphasise enough that it requires a militant active working class to ensure that it does. My answer is a British-based one. I have no idea about the US system or elsewhere where is might be that everyone is not PAYE but treated more as self-employed with annual tax returns even when employees.
rodshaw wrote:I've always struggled with the notion that the working class as a whole don't have a significant tax burden. It's a very hard idea to sell. The amount workers pay may be insignificant compared to the capitalists, but there again so is what they receive.Payslips show a deduction for tax. There's council tax to pay, water rates, and heaps of indirect taxes. The self-employed don't get tax deducted at source but have to put money aside to pay it later on.And council tax isn't deducted by employers but comes out of net wages. Ok, you can budget for it, but you still have to pay it, or apply for relief.In the long run taxes are a burden on the capitalist class. Wages and salaries (not some theoretical gross, but what is actually received, what the employer invests as ‘variable capital’) corresponds more or less to the cost of maintaining and reproducing the working skills which employees sell to employers. During their time in employment employees perform surplus labour, they create surplus value which belongs to the employer. The upkeep of the state and its machinery of government ultimately fall on surplus value, or incomes derived from surplus value, through taxation. Furthermore, it's in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the state apparatus because it maintains their dominant social position.Rises in tax (direct and indirect), which increase the cost of maintaining employees and their skills, are generally passed on, through the operation of market forces, to employers in the form of increased money wages and salaries. However, this process is not automatic or inevitable: workers have to struggle for higher wages and salaries.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/state/taxation-myth
The short version is, "if you tax us, we only have one place to get the money from: our employers." Our position doesn't assume we will be able to raise wages, taxes can be succesfully 'imposed' at a loss to workers, but that reflects our weakness in the labour market, and suggests wages were due to fall anyway, all the state has done in that case is seize the profit that would have gone to the employer. In some cases, this money is returned in the social wage…
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