Angela Rayner – a few thoughts on other people’s money

You know, most of us start as … well, left-leaning adults. You know how it is: you’re young, healthy, optimistic, possibly beautiful. Everything looks great for you, the future appears to be bright, BUT you know a few people who simply appear to have been unlucky. Things didn’t work out for them. Because you’re – once again – young, beautiful, healthy etc, you feel like it’s natural for you to care about others.

So whenever tax comes up, you’re all for it. As a young person, it doesn’t affect you that much. The way those discussions tend to be framed, it sounds like a huge load of nothing. “We could fix things if we’d tax the richest ones in the society, just 0.5% on top of what they’re paying”. You think about it, you look at your earnings, 0.5% is basically nothing. So you’re all for it. Tax the bastards, how is this even a conversation? It sounds like common sense.

It’s only later that you start figuring things out – and by “figuring things out”, what I really mean is “you figure out that taxation is theft; all of it”.

When I was 20, I couldn’t care less about any kind of property tax. The reason for it was that, well, I didn’t have any. Buying a house was “centuries” away for me – not to mention that I was too young and too stupid to figure out something as simple as “if you tax the landlord, he’s just going to raise the rent, dummy, so you’re the one who’s going to be paying for it, duh”.

In fact, taxation didn’t bother me at all. None of it. The little I was making was barely taxed anyway. Income tax was meaningless. I didn’t own a car, so the 4219421 taxes related to it meant nothing to me (no, it’s not just vehicle tax; fuel duty is a thing, so are other things – think ULEZ, congestion charge – but let’s not get sidetracked here)

But enough about me. Let’s take a look at Angela Rayner, because she’s all over the news today. She was supposed to be some kind of poster girl for the left-wing, but it looks to me like she’s instead going to be the poster girl for … evolution.

Those of you who might be interested in her can find some details on wiki.

The short version is this: she owner a property (ex-council), she “sold” it (if I understand correctly, she actually put it in a trust, naming one her children as beneficiary) and… she bought a 800k flat. But there’s the problem: if you already own a property, you’re supposed to pay more tax – significantly more. Let’s illustrate that using the Rightmove stamp duty calculator, shall we?

If that’s your first home, you owe 30,000 in tax.

What if you already own another property?

Ouch. You now owe 70,000. Why? Because you can probably afford it, according to HMRC.

On the matter of affordability, the wiki page is quite interesting, but the Telegraph reporters were somewhat better at explaining what happened there.

Wait…a left-wing politician sued the NHS and got compensation? I guess that free care really hits home when it’s your son’s life, huh?

I’d assume – and it’s just an assumption, really – that the NHS (read: you and me, completely uninvolved in whatever happened to her son) would’ve paid that amount of money in order to ensure that Angela Rayner could cover her son’s … care, I suppose. Whether buying that 800k flat in Brighton would’ve been the best way to spend the compensation money is beyond me. Who knows; either way, it’s Brighton. Regardless of disability, a sunny day spent close to the shore is unlikely to hurt too much.

Either way, Angela Rayner had to choose. Does she mark that flat down as a second property – in which case she’d have to pay 70,000 in stamp duty – or does she somehow claim that it’s her only property, in which case she’d have to pay 30,000?

Naturally, she went for the second option. I say “naturally” because, well, 40k is 40k. Note that the average yearly salary in the UK is less than 40k, so one could call this a “no-brainer”. So who in their right mind would WANT to pay 40k and get…wait…we don’t actually get anything in return. Never mind the 70k; you don’t get anything in return if you pay 30k either. The flat is just…there. It’s not as if some government official shows up on the day of the exchange to, I don’t know, spray the walls or something. It’s just tax. It’s just…theft. It’s just another racket. Pay us – or else. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why. Pay up or we’ll jail you. It’s that simple. Mafia.

Now, if we look at Angela Rayner’s “career”, it gets interesting.

…and just like that, she entered politics. It’s quite interesting, isn’t it? It sounds like a poster girl for the left-wing parties.

A mother with bipolar disorder. A grandma with 3 jobs (I never quite understood these “I’ve got 3 jobs” claims; do you perhaps mean that you work for 3 different organizations for a grand total of like 4 hours/day? Because we all know you couldn’t possibly work 3 * 8h shifts in a day, unless you never eat/sleep and you’re just able to teleport around). Then we’ve got her. Pregnant at 16, leaving school, basically going on benefits, because why not.

What I found particularly funny in that story was this:

Never mind “where’d you get the money for it”, but .. you sold your ex-council house? So…I guess you must’ve bought it first? Because, hands down, that sounds like what a right-wing person would do; one of those much-hated Thatcherites. Right to buy, right? How exactly do you reconcile that with pretending to be left-wing?

Hello, Labour HQ? WTF?

Then she somehow…bought that 800k flat. At which point, of course, she had a choice to make, one along the lines of:

• do I pay 30k and get literally nothing in return?

or

• do I pay 70k and get literally nothing in return?

You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out what she chose.

It does, however, become funnier if you read the headlines from 2 weeks ago:

Awww. New property tax?

It’s always easier to come up with ideas when it’s about other people’s money, I suppose.

Some people might think that what we’ve got here is a classic case of tax avoidance or evasion or something along those lines. I disagree. What I think we’ve got here is evolution.

You leave school at 16 because you’re pregnant. No formal qualifications. You likely would’ve received a council home – young, single mother. You’re left-wing. It’s your right. You become a social care worker of sorts and somehow, just somehow, you also become a trade union representative – because of course you would. Don’t tell me the local trade union didn’t offer you the job as well…

So you do whatever trade union representatives do (which is likely to be a very demanding, requiring extremely skilled people, really – like whoever leaves school at 16 with no formal qualifications). You enjoy a sweetheart deal – of course you’re leftwing.

You get compensation from the NHS because whatever happened resulted in one of your children being left with a disability. That’s normal; after all, you gave them a bonus when they did things right, it’s only normal for them to pay you when they screw up. Oh. Wait. Hmm. Well, never mind that.

But then, for whatever reason, you decide to buy a 800k flat. Mmm. Not so left-wing, one would think. Alright. So you have to pay stamp duty, at which point you suddenly start leaning more towards the right. Like replacing the stamp duty with something else. Like maybe you forget that you already own a house. But maybe if you place it in a trust…you could just pay 30k instead of 70k. After all, why would you pay the state 40k extra? What for?

What we’ve got here isn’t a tax evader/dodger. It’s not a political scandal at all. It’s merely metamorphosis. In one word: evolution.

Of course you’re left-wing when you’re poor, when you lack skills, when you’re basically on benefits. Why wouldn’t you be? You offer nothing, you get everything at no cost to you. Of course you see nothing wrong with taxing millionaires/billionaires…or just working people. Anyone else – just not you.

Of course you suddenly become right-wing when it’s your turn to foot the bill. Of course you look for a way out. Of course you’d much rather not pay jack shit – much less 40k extra – especially when you KNOW that you’re not getting anything in return.

This, mind you, is not an exaggeration. Imagine, if you will, that 800k flat being sold 12 times in a year. Each month, someone sells the flat to someone else who’s buying it as an additional property. In one year, that the sale of that 800k flat will have collected 840k in tax. In return, in that scenario, the government would’ve done…wait for it…jack shit. Absolutely nothing. Free money. Pay up or we’ll jail you.

It’s a racket. Of course it is. Of course everyone who’s ever had to pay stamp duty knows this. Even first time buyers who’d have to pay less tax (stamp duty for a first time buyer would’ve been around 30k for that flat, apparently) are still gutted by it. I mean, it’s 30k.

(note that the “average” isn’t “mean” and that it’s 37k gross, which is significantly less after tax)

It’s pretty a “we’re taking away one year of your salary/life because fuck you, pleb, that’s why” approach.

Of course, someone who first got a council flat at no cost wouldn’t have cared. Get pregnant, get a house, yooooo, let’s go! Tax the rich (people who have enough money to buy a house)!

Of course, when that same person had to cough up 800k (plus interest, let’s not forget about that) for a flat, they suddenly feel like they’re being exploited. Because of course they are.

It’s always easier to support taxation and various socialist ideas when you’re poor. Because you’re not the one who’s going to have to pay up. But then, once you actually start earning money – and we’re not talking millions here, we’re talking “random person getting a slightly above average salary, looking to borrow the money to buy a flat” – you suddenly discover that taxation is theft. That you’d much rather not pay a huge amount of money for quite literally nothing.

Of course, faced with these accusations, before discovering that her position had become untenable, Angela Rayner simply said that it was a mistake. Of course. We all make mistakes. What? Have you never accidentally set up a trust to hold your home in just prior to buying another flat? Like what, you never forgot that you already owned another property held up in a trust? It could’ve happened to anyone – or at least to anyone who managed to get rich enough to buy a second property.

Property tax or stamp duty. Council tax. Vehicle tax. Fuel duty.

It’s all theft – and everyone who’s ever “owned” (note: we’re using the English lie of being an “owner” even though the bank still technically owns that property) a home or a car knows it. It’s just not as annoying when you’re not the victim. It’s always easier to support theft when it’s other people’s money.

You say “mafia” and everyone thinks of Goodfellas or perhaps Godfather. Some Italian-Irish blokes threatening a poor shop owner; pay us for protection or we’re going to break your legs. Oh-so-violent. But the real mafia is not hidden in a back room, surrounded by thick cigar smoke. They’re wearing suits and they’re probably at a press conference, discussing new taxes. Oh, “they’re just politicians, they’re harmless, they’re not going to break your legs”. Sure they’re not. They’ll just jail you, ensuring that your life and your career is destroyed.

Hey, would you rather….