[wdmmg-discuss] Tax and Spend, BBC 2

Thu May 26 14:38:13 UTC 2011

Dear Imran,

Just following up and seeing whether you need any additional
information for Tax and Spend? Was the Tax Calculator useful?

We are here to offer help if you need it!

When is Tax and Spend going to be broadcast?

Lucy

On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 7:40 PM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> On 18 April 2011 15:36, Imran Jina <Imran.Jina at bbc.co.uk> wrote:
>> Hello
>
> Hi and welcome!
>
>> I am journalist working on a BBC 2 programme called Tax and Spend which will
>> basically look at how much we pay and what we get back in cash/in-kind
>> benefits and services.
>>
>> I was wondering if anyone may be able to help me.
>>
>> 1) I am really interested in how the tax paid by an individual is
>> calculated. Is there some sort of formula to assign indirect taxes etc? Is
>> there some sort of "Tax calculator"?
>
> Yes there is. We have a Tax Calculator API (at the bottom of the page):
>
> <http://openspending.org/api>
>
> Example output:
>
> <http://openspending.org/api/mytax?income=20000>
>
> {
>  alcohol_tax: 217.26799007444168
>  explanation: [ "This household income falls between national average
> income decile 3 (which has average gross household income of 17204.00,
> and pays 1939.00 in direct tax, 1125.00 in VAT, 1295.00 in smoking
> taxes, 317.00 in alcohol-related taxes, 182.00 in car-related taxes,
> and 373.00 in other indirect taxes), and decile 4 (which has average
> gross household income of 22040.00, and pays 3108.00 in direct tax,
> 1262.00 in VAT, 1562.00 in smoking taxes, 320.00 in alcohol-related
> taxes, 243.00 in car-related taxes, and 505.00 in other indirect
> taxes).",
>  "Therefore, a household with an income of 20000.00 pays
> approximately 2614.87 in direct tax and 3638.90 in total indirect
> tax."
>  ]
>  tax: 6253.771712158808
>  tobacco_tax: 318.7344913151365
>  car_related_tax: 449.317617866005
>  total_direct_tax: 2614.8734491315136
>  vat: 1449.3697270471464
>  total_indirect_tax: 3638.898263027295
> }
>
> Underlying source code which is fairly heavily commented:
>
> <https://bitbucket.org/okfn/wdmmg/src/b759f035a415/wdmmg/lib/calculator.py>
>
>> 2) On the Daily Bread spending, the site mentions using "linear
>> interpolation" to assign benefits in kind to individuals. Again here is
>> there some sort of formula for how the value of particular services is
>> assigned to individuals according to their their income?
>
> As you've read on the <http://wheredoesmymoneygo.org/data/overview/>
> we use interpolation from the decile data we get from the ONS report
> (Table 14):
>
> <http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/article.asp?ID=2440>
>
> Some details of the ONS analysis is in that publication but you could
> ask the ONS for more details.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rufus
>
> _______________________________________________
> wdmmg-discuss mailing list
> wdmmg-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wdmmg-discuss
>

-- 
Lucy Chambers
Community Coordinator
Open Knowledge Foundation
http://okfn.org/
Skype: lucyfediachambers