All in favour of lowering VAT,

though normal prices will just be raised to compensate, but why the extra tax on the high-earners? I mean they're the ones using the very least government funds and paying the very most.

And yes, they earn more than you, communism's great, blah de blah. But the fact is that the Government is taking money from the public to pay for their own overreaching projects and stupidity.

Why not tax the low earners more? There's more of them, so a smaller % tax could be levvied, and you'd encourage people to earn more and be proud of it, not have their accountants shove their extra earnings offshore. Hit £20k and your income rises hugely due to less "low earner tax" is surely a better incentive to work hard and get a better job than "Work really hard, then we'll take your money after our next fuckup".

Alternatively just tax everybody the same. Stop picking on broad groups of the public.

Fine words butter no parsnips

"He said government help should be designed to "get money to real engineering not financial engineering - we can't depend on that anymore.""

Well speaking as a Precision Engineer, I can state with certainty that even if this were accomplished it is 30 years too late.

British engineering manufacturers are forced to find a niche that the Chinese aren't interested in and hope to make a decent living before the niche closes.

British businessmen don't want to run dirty factories. Instead they want to invest in having the Chinese run factories for them.

Show me British owned and run civilian heavy shipbuilding, locomotive works, automotive works or aircraft works if you can. It all left decades ago.

VAT change is going to cost more than it saves

Changing the vat on every signle computer system in the country, i dont see how this could save businesses that are already struggling money??

Even for the companies who dont have a computer system to change the repricing of every item in the shop is going to be costly and take time. My guess is most compaies wont pass the cost saving on to customers as it will cost them more to implenet a 2.5% saving than the extra business that reducing a tin of beens by 2p is going to make.

You think 15% vat will make a difference?

All the reduction in vat will do is make more money for the big stores....do you really think that the vat safing will be passed on to the customer?

The prices will stay the same but the vat will be lower for the companies. Any product that the vat is payed later rather than at the till will not be changed.