NHS pay rises

C_J

I think 100% of the population would agree that the NHS workers at the bottom and middle of the pay scale are not being paid enough for what they have had to put up with recently. I am not including consultant anaesthesiologists (@benson) or cardiovascular surgeons (@Wasily) in this because their compensation is broadly commensurate with the hardships they endure, in my opinion.

The question is whether their pay rise should be funded from general taxation or not. The 1% pay rise they have been offered is not acceptable and I don’t see how the Tories can ride this one out - but I don’t think a tax on the general public is the correct solution.

My proposal is simple: set up an official NHS COVID BONUS gofundme page, PayPal the NHS your donations and publish and publicise the league table of contributors. This could be great PR for our clap-for-carer Business Community who wouldn’t think twice about sending a few hundred bags of sand to an ad agency (@Along_the_Wire) so we Know They Care about our NHS heros.

Discuss.

alistair

C_J is this anonymous? 😉

Along_the_Wire

Tax tech companies properly. They claim
to be a force for good, but they’re thieving fucking cunts.

I’m an advocate for high taxation as long as it’s being spent well - The NHS and heroin addicts fall into this category.

Old-Dutch

If businesses were being taxed properly and everyone paid their fair share of taxes there’s no way we’d need to have the higher tax bracket set as low as it is.

Those on PAYE basically get hammered

bosstrabs

Agree with Grant.

Along_the_Wire

The UK is upping is corporate tax in a few years and it’ll still be one of the most competitive in the G20. What the fuck have we been doing?!

C_J

Tax tech companies properly. What an ill-thought out, ignorant response. Do you not think if it was as simple as that they’d have done it?

They can shift their operations to wherever they want. Which is why a lot of them have operations in Dublin, paying the bloody mortgages and public services of Irish citizens!!

bosstrabs

C_J Tax tech companies properly. What an ill-thought out, ignorant response. Do you not think if it was as simple as that they’d have done it?

They can shift their operations to wherever they want. Which is why a lot of them have operations in Dublin, paying the bloody mortgages and public services of Irish citizens!!

Hence there need to be stronger accords between governments on taxing them.

The problem is, as soon as it looked like it may happen with us being part of the EU’s Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive, the press barons threw a spaz and convinced all the thick cunts* to vote Brexit.

*i.e. the working class in the UK and the US who can somehow always be persuaded to vote against (and joyfully embrace voting against) their own interests.

Along_the_Wire

C_J Don’t patronise me, CJ. I don’t have the answer, but the government and the IR should hold them to account - it’s not for me to navigate the intricacies of it all - what’s happening is not fair and needs to be changed - why should the general tax-paying public prop up this shortfall? It should as least be one advantage of fucking Brexit.

Amps

C_J Do you not think if it was as simple as that they’d have done it?

It as that simple, but they don’t want that because they’re psychopathic egomaniacs who believe only in money and power.

C_J

bosstrabs Dave. With respect, the EU’s anti-tax avoidance directive is a joke. A complete sham. Look at Dublin, Luxembourg, Switzerland. They are tax havens and that’s why they have the highest GDP per head in the Eurozone. The EU is corrupt and that’s why we left. You’re a somewhat educated person and yet you are wilfully ignorant of these facts.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/time-real-reform-stop-tax-havens-escaping-eu-blacklist

alistair

Tax wealth (assets) not income, and yes, there needs to be a global agreement on the tech giants pronto. They have raped the high street and the jobs of young people.

Smallman1

The answer is of course to sell off and privatise the NHS.

Amps

Buzz Sundar Pichai and tell him you want ten years of back taxes from Google by the end of the month or we will just turn them off at the plug. I reckon you’d have the money within 48 hours, unfortunately though, you may also have a CIA funded coup on your doorstep by June.

C_J

Amps or, alternatively, tell Google they’ll get tax breaks if they set up their campuses in the UK, invest in educating, training and recruiting young British people with the skills they’ll need in the 21st century and raise taxes on bads like sugar, drugs and pollution.

Wasily

@C_J Actually I’m like @benson an anaesthetist, just one who does intensive care. I actually think there shouldn’t have been a pay rise in times where there isn’t the capital to do it, a 1% one just upsets people and makes them feel worthless. I’m probably in a minority here though.

C_J

Apologies Wasily. I agree there isn’t scope to increase it by more out of general taxation but if we can raise £38m for the late Captain Sir Thomas Moore doing 100 laps of his garden I think we can do something for the cunts doing a hundred hours a week on the Covid wards for the last twelve months and counting. I’d chuck in fifty quid, get another couple of million to do the same and you’ve got a hundred milly. If we could get Tesco etc to top that up to £300m that’s about a grand per nurse after my 1% fee.

hugopal

C_J With respect, the EU’s anti-tax avoidance directive is a joke. A complete sham. Look at Dublin, Luxembourg, Switzerland

Reasonable point, though Switzerland is not in the EU.

Amps

C_J Sure, but offering some of these companies tax breaks, when they have paid so little for so long, is a bit like asking your rapist for a reach around. I think you need the leverage / threat in there in some way. It makes little odds, Boris and chums are more interested in being liked by the rest of the psychopaths than helping the country.

Old-Dutch

It’s basically too late to worry about any of this now. Our souls were sold decades ago and it ain’t ever changing

jonattonyeah

3.5% pay cut for us coming July 1 (our fiscal year). City/County charter requires a balanced budget and we can’t be in the red. Is what it is. Hopefully they’ll give us “floating holidays” in rue of the salary loss. But who knows.

For those of us COVID activated, we get 8 extra hours of time away for every 80 hours (two weeks) worked - a way of compensating given they cannot give hazard pay. I’m currently at 1,030 - basically 6 months off. If I ever get the chance, my top might never come back on.