Budget 2012

hurfdurf said:
Care to give concrete examples of businesses actually making good on their threat and upping and leaving a country based on them being taxed a little more?
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Loads of people have left uk for cheaper tax, also one of the oil refineries never opened back up after the higher rate of tax for oil was levied was it two years ago.
Then it's also business looking to set up HQs where hey going to go, we have strong completion hese days with othe majour cities. Places like HK.
 
hurfdurf said:
Care to give concrete examples of businesses actually making good on their threat and upping and leaving a country based on them being taxed a little more?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire_plc#Tax_Avoidance

That company is worth over £12 Billion, for example. I found that in the first 30 seconds of Googling. I'd imagine the number of small, particularly high tech companies with British owners/founders that have never even bothered to set-up here is quite high.
 
In 2010 we were manufacturing lighting control equipment in Wembley, London.

In 2011 we shifted to China.

This resulted in the loss of UK jobs, creating unemployment and loss of taxation. Additionally we now send a lot of money to China for parts and labour. Not anywhere near as much as it cost us to import the bits from China and assemble it here though.

Loss of jobs, tax and money flowing out of the UK. Excellent.
 
hurfdurf said:
Care to give concrete examples of businesses actually making good on their threat and upping and leaving a country based on them being taxed a little more?
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Off the top of my head Google, Ebay, WPP, Shire and i think even Apple all have their European headquarters in Ireland due to Corporate Tax and they will be hundreds of others Im sure. Although it hasn't happened yet, I think I read HSBC are considering moving headquarters to Hong Kong.

I think Ireland were put under pressure to increase their tax rates, as part of the bailout they recieved. If they are doing this, or will be then, you can bet that a lot of these companies will then look to move, and if London is one of the places considered, will come down to these tax rates.
 
shoes said:
In 2010 we were manufacturing lighting control equipment in Wembley, London.

In 2011 we shifted to China.

This resulted in the loss of UK jobs, creating unemployment and loss of taxation. Additionally we now send a lot of money to China for parts and labour. Not anywhere near as much as it cost us to import the bits from China and assemble it here though.

Loss of jobs, tax and money flowing out of the UK. Excellent.
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To be honest I don't think that's a particularly good example; low-tech (please correct me if I'm wrong) manufacturing is ripe for moving overseas regardless of tax implications - the biggest consideration is the cost of labour.
 
Glaucus said:
Isn't a third of all tax goes to benefits and anothehuge slice of the pie to NHS.
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I read that income tax is out stripped by the cost of welfare alone, although welfare covers a huge spectrum and I'm not opposed to where most of it goes.

Personally I think we could make a start by stopping foreign aid, all of it. Then we would do well to abandon some human rights and get the work shy working for their benefits - and do it properly, not this pansy work for 2 weeks if you like - bullocks to that - get down that mine you lazy layabout work shy cretin - along with your 15 illegitimate children.

It can't hurt to spend less on the NHS too and actually make it more efficient. This seems to be impossible - I can't help thinking that they need these guys to step in a sort it out:

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I'm sure that if we stopped local councils wasting our money on all sorts of crap it would be beneficial to all - I'll start with speed humps. The single most irritating invention after the gatzo. I hope the people who invented both catch some horrible disease and their eyes fall out.

We could spend a lot less on the arts. I know they're pretty and they give academically challenged people something to do, but we have the army for that. Cut all funding to arts projects immediately.

On the subject of the army - I don't think it would hurt to stop invading the world, again. We've done quite enough of that in the past and it's not achieving a great deal of use to the UK. In fact, I fail to see any benefit of raping and pillaging afghan and iraqi villages on behalf of uncle sam. When we actually needed them, during the riots, they were nowhere to be seen.

I think we can also stop spending money on political correctness, and the associated personal development BS that accompanies it. Unless it's something particularly serious, I think we need to revert back to my grandparent's generation's attitude of grow a thicker skin and stop being such a pansy. Been offended? Get over yourself you angry little pepper pot.

Don't even get me started on the cost of the EU....

Burocracy is another thing which could be cut - starting with relaxing health and safety. 99% of the accidents I have seen on building sites have not been due to H&S being ignored, they have happened through sheer stupidity and a wanton ignorance of self accountability. Take responsibility for your actions people!

Prisons cost us a ridiculous amount of money and all evidence points to the fact that cushy rehabilitation is a waste of time. Lock 'em up, force feed them education, and keep them alive on rice and rain water.

Now we've made loads of savings, perhaps we can address taxation and lower taxation to a point where the UK is a good place to do business if you're not Vodafone. Bring the call centres back. Bring manufacturing back. Hell, we could even try to bring primary industry back.

This country is going to the dogs economically, and I can't help feeling that there is a very left wing attitude in this country - something which has never worked out for any country, ever.
 
PMKeates said:
To be honest I don't think that's a particularly good example; low-tech (please correct me if I'm wrong) manufacturing is ripe for moving overseas regardless of tax implications - the biggest consideration is the cost of labour.
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It depends on what you call hi-tech - personally I'd agree with you that its low tech, PCBs made from a sandbox of electrical components, nothing particularly innovative or uncommon, and a handful of electromechanical switches (relays and contactors).

Either way it costs us less by a long way, the tax on wages, NI, import duty and services was prohibitively expensive. Now we pay a token amount to import the finished product.
 
shoes said:
It depends on what you call hi-tech - personally I'd agree with you that its low tech, PCBs made from a sandbox of electrical components, nothing particularly innovative or uncommon, and a handful of electromechanical switches (relays and contactors).

Either way it costs us less by a long way, the tax on wages, NI, import duty and services was prohibitively expensive. Now we pay a token amount to import the finished product.
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In a sense though, that's progress. To stay at the top of the global wealth pile we need to remove the baggage of things that others can do and focus on what they can't do. We are particularly good at invention, creation, financial services, high-tech manufacturing and development etc, and we should concentrate on that.
 
Glaucus said:
Loads of people have left uk for cheaper tax, also one of the oil refineries never opened back up after the higher rate of tax for oil was levied was it two years ago.
Then it's also business looking to set up HQs where hey going to go, we have strong completion hese days with othe majour cities. Places like HK.
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Which refinery was that? Or do you mean the gas field in the Irish Sea?
 
Glaucus said:
Might of been the gas field.
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If it was they restarted production 2 months later, but the point still stands I guess. There are valid examples of high tax rates causing companies to think again or leave. Sometimes it's not that a company will leave the UK but that it will move work elsewhere which also isn't good for the UK economy.
 
PMKeates said:
The main reason is that setting VED based on the CO2 output of a car per kilometre distorts demand and encourages the purchasing of more fuel efficient vehicles, even if you don't drive very many miles. Something to bear in mind is that maybe ~15% of the cars on the road are with their first owner - the rest are used, and being driven over a different distance per annum than the intention when they were bought new.

There is, however, a finite supply of used cars, exactly equal to the supply of new cars minus a bit - if you don't have fuel efficient and environmentally friendly new cars, then you don't get environmentally friendly used cars. If you don't have a VED then people who drive very small distances will be happier buying a heavier polluting vehicle; manufacturers of cheap utility cars could have them output 260g/km, and because the typical buyer only drives 2000 miles per year, create a cheaper ownership proposition than a technically advanced, more economical, but slightly more expensive competitor. The £1000 first year VED rate discourages that. It's an extreme example, but that's the principle. If you then don't have these technically advanced low emissions cars being bought new, then you don't have them in the parc to be driven used, potentially over much larger distances.

In reality it's only a small influencer, as fuel taxes reduce the appeal of uneconomical used cars for high mileage drivers, but I'm sure it does have a measured affect, though probably not as much as BIK in the UK.
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Not to appear to embarrased, but I don't get what your saying mate, probably because I don't understand the above ! How does any of that re-inforce the costs we must incur managing and enforcing the use of tax discs, over simply moving the taxation to the fuel pump.

If we need to have a emissions tax on new cars, fine, do it at the point of sale as part of the calculations on a new car, part of the VAT, whatever as a one of tax?

Maybe I'm being hillariously over simplistic in what is obviously a complicated world, but I'll dammed if we all honestly believe the current system works in the most efficient way.
 
Lucero said:
Your dad? Have you only been driving for 4 years? It was 89.9 in 2008. It was 49.9 when I first started driving in 1997
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Aye I've only been driving for about a year and a half although I've heald my license for nearly 5.

I need to put another 50 litres in tomorrow as I've used a tank since Friday. :o
 
It's about time mileage allowance increased.

In the last 10 years I think the <10,000 miles rate has increased by 5p from 40p to 45p but everything else is unchanged.

25p a mile for everything over 10k wouldn't cover the cost on a new car. I imagine a diesel Insignia uses about 15-16p per mile of fuel (on a run) let alone all of the other costs and depreciation!
 
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