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That is correct. They might work, but in context they are not “working people”
Here “working people” is synonymous with “working class”. Thus, not landlords and shareholders obviously
I’m curious about your definition of shareholder; what if I owe £80 worth of fractional shares in an app-based investment service? Does that make me a shareholder?
It’s not my definition. It is the definition that is being used in context in the article. Read it before commenting
The definition being used is proper and common in modern usage.
It certainly doesn’t make you a worker.
Then your income wouldn’t be affected in any real way by raising taxes on those shares and getting cross that Starmer taxing unearned income is affecting you badly is bothincorrect and missing the point.
Starmer is raising tax on unearned income instead of working people’s taxes, which is very fair for a change, and you’re splitting hairs over definitions of who counts as workers. You’re so missing the point.
I agree with everything you’ve said.
I think if Starmer said “we aren’t going to raise tax on personal income, but on capital gains” he wouldn’t have to tie himself in knots trying to define “working people”.
I’m not trying to split hairs; it’s Starmer (who I, for clarity, support) that’s refused to be clearer about what he intends to do and ends up having everyone debate what “working people” means.
The challenge is that they clearly want some kind of threshold where personal income is also additionally taxed, and that’s when “working people” becomes a weird “I’ll know it when I see it” debate.
FWIW, I’m in the highest tax band and I support raising the highest tax band AND raising capital gains tax. It’s not Labour’s intent I disagree with, it’s their crappy own-goal communication style.
There wasn’t any way he could have communicated this that the Torygraph wouldn’t turn into “Strarmer lied and broke his promises to working people”. Saying it the precise way doesn’t make for good campaign slogans.
I suspect they planned this. If he had said “we won’t raise income tax and we won’t raise employee national insurance contributions”, he’d be giving a massive hint as to what he was planning, and the inevitable interview question would be about employer contributions and he wouldn’t be able to rule them out, and then all the headlines would be about “Starmer promised to not raise national insurance but now he’s let on that he’s planning to after all” and all the news would be about Labour’s tax rises and all this arguing would be happening before the election. A bit of ambiguity and headline management is unfortunately necessary.
Based from Starmer there.
Landlords and shareholders aren’t working people.
This might be my favourite thing he’s said yet
Okay, so (hypothetically) I can be working for 50 hours a week to make ends meet. If I put any little savings I have from time to time into stock, I am not working people anymore? Just because I want to be financially responsible?
By your definition I should be called a footballer because I play football once a week casually. Ignore the 50 plus hour weeks of my actual job. I got $50 from football as season champions (it’s a gift card, for the bar, at the place I play). I better go update my linkedin!
You’re funny, good one.
What are you talking about? This is exactly what Keir Starmer is saying and is what I am calling stupid.
If Starmer suggested taxing football income you would be being a bit daft if you claimed that it was going to hurt the guy you just replied to on the grounds that he earned fifty quid from football.
“But he’s a worker too and he’s not rich and you promised not to tax him” is sillier than saying that he isn’t covered by the promise to not raise taxes on working people.
That’s because (and this is the bit that’s not quite got through to you somehow yet) the vast, vast, vast majority of his income is from working, not from football.
This isn’t hard to understand.
Owning stock doesn’t make you a worker. Being a landlord doesn’t make you a worker.
If you work on top of the above, you are a worker. If you do not, you aren’t.
There’s a big difference between “a landlord isn’t a worker” and “a landlord cannot be a worker.”
An absolutely based comment from Starmer.
I agree with you, but that’s not what Keir Starmer said. His spokesperson recanted it, but what he said originally was stupid.
Lol whatever you say.
Read the news please.
When asked by Sky News if someone who works but also gets income from shares or property is a working person, Starmer said “they wouldn’t come within my definition.”
But if he said “income from owning shares isn’t eligible for PAYE taxation and therefore isn’t covered by a pledge to not increase taxes on workers’ earnings” he wouldn’t have a headline and you would be accusing him of talking like a politician and breaking promises.
But no, he was asked this in the context of some disingenuous question like “bbbut you promised not to raise taxes on working people, and this will hurt working people, aren’t people with a hardworking fast food day job and a tiny bit extra from a few shares or renting out their spare bedroom just to make ends meet exactly the working people you promised not to raise taxes on?”
And Starmer says no, and now we have a headline because a bunch of shareholders who are experts at hoarding money because it’s all they really care about are as pissed as they ever get because tHe GovErNmunT iS tAkiN aLL MY mUnnY.
It’s the daily telegraph, for goodness sake. When did they ever care about ordinary people’s finances?!
No he did not.
He said that in his definition of working taxes. No, that person is not a worker.
And the Tory party agrees. That is why they call it capital gains tax rather than income.
This whole argument has been stirred by the right wing press since the election. Tories have constantly tried to claim the manifesto promise of no rise in working taxes means no tax rises at all.
It is an out right lie. And Starmer et al make it worse by refusing to address it.
Nothing the Tory party says or believes on taxation matches these claims. It is just a desperate attempt to sow division.
you’ll put those savings into a stocks and shares ISA where any gains from stocks are tax free guaranteed.
If you have more than £20k a year to put away into stocks and shares then yeah you need to pay some tax bruv.
That’s not what Keir said originally, he said people who own any stock should be excluded from “working people”. Then people got (rightfully) mad and his spokesperson had to recant for him.
🤡
Why are you so cross about this? He only means that he’ll tax their unearned income a bit more, and if they really are working people out won’t affect them much.
The extent to which it affects workers is the extent to which they aren’t workers. It isn’t the logical gotcha you seem to think it is.
Why am I so cross? Because I am stripped my working people status by Starmer despite me working all my adult life and still can’t start buying a house, for putting a bit of my savings into stock, just so he can claim he “didn’t raise working people’s taxes”.
That’s just peak slimey politician behaviour.
Do I think people who own a lot of stocks and assets should be taxed. Hell yes, let’s tax those motherfuckers. But just don’t lie and stop twisting the definition of working people.
Edit: typo
So sorry, there’s a typo in your second sentence and I can’t figure out what you meant to say.
No he did not.
He said people who own any stock should be excluded from “working taxes"
More accurately, he said they do not fit his definition of working taxes. Because that was the question the telegraph was trying to miss represent.
As does the Tory party and every government since the 1950s. That is why we have capital gains tax as well as income tax.
This whole argument is nothing but absurdly biased reporting from right wing press. Intentionally launched to try and sow division in the electorate. Just like every Tory tactic since the election was announced.
Truth hurts I guess.
Comrade Starmer lmao
He’s right though. I’d very much like a PM to take a hard line on these chuckle fucks.
Nothing “comrade” about it. It’s just sense.
He definitely is. It’s refreshing to finally even hear this sentiment from our government. However it’s just words, hopefully we start seeing some positive changes in the rental and housing market.
I’m super dubious because Starmer has done very little to earn my trust, but I would be very keen to be surprised, or even proven wrong
Very small scale landlords are often working people, and lots of working people own shares. That said, the bigger landowners and stock holders are much less likely to be working people. Those fuckers contribute nothing of value to society.
No landlord is a working person, otherwise they wouldn’t be landlords.
I know plenty of people who work full time in real jobs, and also rent out a house. Renting a single building doesn’t give you enough to quit your job where I live.
Nor are you a landlord while doing another job. If you are doing your own investment work while being paid a PAYE job. You are also a thief, but I doubt you have that recorded on your payslip.
It may sound silly. But so is the whole claim of this article. Starmer never said or even suggested landlords cannot work. He was asked the question, in relation to the Labour Party manifesto pledge not to raise “working taxes”
His answer was “not under the definition we are using” (for working taxes)
It is an utterly pathetic attempt to so division to claim “Starmer suggests landlords and shareholders are not ‘working people’”
He definitely did not say it and the telegraphs use of the word “suggests” makes it clear they know that.
It is nothing but an outright lie designed to sow division.
I mean, he’s right. The whole point of my mother leveraging her home to become a landlord back then was because she had a stroke and literally could-not-work. Landlords aren’t working class. They’re just investors.
That may be the first thing he said that I agree with him on ever.
Of course they’re not working people. They are leveraging capital to give them an income. That is not the same as chopping wood and carrying water.
Or filing accounts.
Yeah you may be younger, but let’s remember many folks my grandfathers age did not consider white collar work, to be work.
That idea is as far from correct as this article. Anything that is taxed under PAYE is working taxes. As the Labour Party manifesto and Starmer called it.
Shares growth of property and renting is taxed as capital gains.
Owning a business is the one that depends on how you choose to do it. Most sole traders are by definition covered under Income tax if self filled rather than PAYE.
If you have registered an LTD, you have a little more choice. And most accountants will advise you do not pay yourself as income tax. So you will be treating your labour as an investment. And here we see why the wealthy want false claims like thi in the right wing media. Because there is a possibility, that advice may change in the future and business owners will lose some tax advantages to a pay lower tax % than their employees.
As a landlord (I own two properties) and as someone who also works full time I agree with him.
It may take up some time but ultimately it’s an investment.
Landlords like myself aren’t (typically) struggling, so we should pay more tax, especially now as the country needs it. I am proud to say I don’t tax dodge and pay what I owe. But unfortunately there are many loopholes that can be exploited to avoid paying tax. Just a few weeks ago someone was telling me how I should put my properties under a LTD company to avoid paying tax (I didn’t and won’t). I hope the Labour government does more to close these loopholes for tax dodgers.
Thank you.
Because he is correct
And, as everyone here says. He is correct. It is an investment. Not work. Yes you are taking a risk, that is the point. If you work, you should not be taking a risk. But instead paid for your labour.
Unfortunately, saying it here doesn’t matter. Papers like the telegraph and other Tory press are not going to care about the facts. They only care about creating division.
More importantly, Starmer et al. Are also not going to make the effort to argue this case. No effort is going to be made to push forward the true difference between working class income and actual investment income.
Anyone watching saw this argument starting during the election. It was clear then when labour started talking about working taxes. The Tories instantly started arguing that the Tories were talking about not raising taxers at all. Anyone watching saw this discussion forming.
And Starmer et al. intentionally ignored it rather than draw attention to the difference. They will not bother to fight the terminology now either.
Rare Starmer W
Broken clock moment.
They do no labor, they create no good, they accomplish no service. Literal rent-seeking.
Well I remember when I used to rent I don’t remember my landlord ever doing anything. He owns the property but he certainly didn’t maintain it.
I don’t know why they seem to think they are. Yes some landlords do labor, but that labor is to maintain and improve value of their income from owning things.
Owning shit isn’t working. Why is this controversial?
Because the right wing media wants it to be. The answer is simple.
Cool if owning property is work. Let’s abolish capital gains tax and charge it as income.
Because at the end of it. That is what the telegraph etc is saying. They are trying to argue Starmer agreed to hold all taxes when the manifesto clearly stated working taxes.
Cool call their bluff all capital gains is now charged as income tax.
Ain’t capitalism grand.
Well no other system would sell a waxing kit to a yeti.
So I spose its… unique
Nor does capitalism to be fair…
It’s certainly… something.
