[geeks] Taxes

[Phil Stracchino]

Lionel Peterson wrote:
> IIRC, that is why certain entertainers fled the UK back in the 70's and 80's, as they were "enjoying" 95% tax rates on their earnings... Which kinda makes you want to stop working (a lesson some politicians here in the US of A could stand to learn... It's way too easy to just say "we'll provide you X by taxing the rich").

Yeah, the UK labor governments of the 60s and 70s created a huge number 
of "tax exiles".

During the height of the Harold Wilson labor governments in the mid-70s, 
if you earned more than about #21,000 a year, made all of it from 
investment (you were a stockbroker, say), and met one other condition 
that currently escapes me, it was possible to be taxed at 102% of your 
taxable income.


Footnote:  When the UK decimalized its money, the ten-shilling note was 
replaced with a fifty-penny coin.  The new 50p piece was the same size 
as the 10p coin that replaced the florin or two-shilling piece, but 
while the 10p piece (and the florin, to which it was identical except 
for markings) was a standard circular coin with a milled edge, the 50p 
piece was a seven-sided constant-diameter polygon with a smooth edge.

To the great displeasure of then-PM Harold Wilson, this new 50p coin 
rapidly became known as the Wilson, because it was said that like him, 
it had many sides and two faces.


-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
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          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
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