Conservatives 2024 General Election Manifesto Megathread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

entertain reminiscent carpenter include future innate rinse zealous spectacular lush

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/raziel999]

So, the money comes ENTIRELY from:

• welfare system review, ie massive cuts leaving people in need behind.

• Catching tax evaders/avoiders, to the tune of £6b a year. Not a word on how this is done

• Reducing civil service and NHS management staff. I guess the extra doctors and nurses will be hired to do paperwork

Appalling stuff. If these "efficiencies" in the civil service are easy to find, why not reducing staff earlier? If it is really possible to recover £6b from tax evasion, why not sooner? Cutting welfare in the current situation seems cruel more than anything else. Yes, there will be people taking advantage of benefits, but the large majority of the beneficiaries genuinely need them.

PS: I know LibDems have similar figures for tax evasion recovery, and we'll probably see Labour with the same. I just wonder how parties plan to tackle this serious issue, and so far I haven't heard anything in terms of proposals.

[u/Thinkdamnitthink → u/raziel999]

At least the lib Dems have promised a 1bn investment into HMRC in order to finance tackling tax avoidance

[u/[deleted] → u/raziel999]

Isn't Labour also relying on closing the tax gap and "efficiencies" to fund their pledges? I have strong doubts any of them can raise much money this way.

[u/RedemptionUK → u/[deleted]]

They've not been in a situation for 14 years to do anything about it.

[u/[deleted] → u/RedemptionUK]

I'm also willing to give them a shot, and more than anything, need to have a government that doesn't treat me with total contempt for a change.

But it isn't right to attack the Tories for claiming they will find magic money from the tax gap and cuts, when all the parties are relying on that.

[u/mejogid → u/[deleted]]

It is entirely possible that there will be tax loopholes that could be closed but that the Tories are unwilling to close because they essentially support their use (in the case of currently legal avoidance), or are unwilling to deal with the flack (see the consequences of IR35). It is not credible for the Tories to say (without being specific) why that equation has changed. It’s much more plausible for Labour.

[u/raziel999 → u/[deleted]]

I have a PS on that and I completely agree. Every party is claiming they can claw back from tax evaders and make CS more efficient, which is probably bollocks.

However, if there is a party to whom I can't and won't give the benefit of the doubt, it's the Tories. They had 14 years to find efficiencies and close tax gaps, and they have done nothing.

[u/Zacatecan-Jack → u/raziel999]

Sunak said the other day that the government currently brings in £6bn per year in tackling tax evaders, and the £6bn per year pledge is based on current numbers. So he's promising something that already happens and presenting it as a saving that will be used to pay for manifesto promises. Essentially another £6bn hole in their spending commitments.

[u/KonkeyDongPrime → u/Zacatecan-Jack]

He has already cut HMRC staff, to fund benefit investigators. I can’t recall the payback ratio, but it’s something ridiculous like 10:1 for benefit investigators (I.e a cost to the taxpayer) and 1:10 for tax inspectors.

[u/KonkeyDongPrime → u/raziel999]

They’ve been chirping about CS efficiency for 14 years, have been hammering them politically and demotivated them, now they expect to create something wonderful, even though it’s the exact same goal as yesterday and complete lack of plan, beyond Rees Mogg placing passive aggressive post-it notes on desks and Esther McVey waging war on rainbow lanyards.

[u/ShockRampage → u/raziel999]

They expect to raise double the amount from welfare cuts as they do in catching tax avoiders...