rone -back to the question, if we do have a system that “worships” financiers why do they want to re-locate. Are they crazy?

There’s a difference between threatening to re-locate and actually doing it.

Which other large scale ‘industry’ would have been subsidised to the same £££ as the finance sector just to stay alive?

Market forces would’ve prevailed under other circumstances. If that’s not worshipping and I don’t know what is.

Which other large scale ‘industry’ would have been subsidised to the same £££ as the finance sector just to stay alive?

Before the crash Financial Services were paying corporation tax and income taxes to the tune of 60% of the NHS budget every year. The massive loss of FS jobs is one of the reasons that the deficit is proving very difficult to reduce – for all the talk of building new industries that create jobs and wealth the reality is that we’ve knackered one of the sectors that has contributed amongst the most in financial terms over the last 15 years. Even the “bailout” will largely be repaid in full, so overall we’re just left looking at an increasing gap in tax receipts – likely to accentuated if the likes of HSBC and StanChart do relocate

The massive loss of FS jobs is one of the reasons that the deficit is proving very difficult to reduce – for all the talk of building new industries that create jobs and wealth the reality is that we’ve knackered one of the sectors that has contributed amongst the most in financial terms over the last 15 years.

Contributed to whom?

I’ll be one of the first in the polling station in the morning with my Tory vote.

I’ll be one of the first in the polling station in the morning with my Tory vote.

Round here you could go in at 21:55 and be one of the first in with a Tory vote.

I look forward to SNP landslide in Scotland. 😆

Freedoommmmm!

Randomly, my local green party candidate caught me as I was getting out of my car on drive.

I was fairly curious for my first conversation with a party person, only for him to politely wait at the boundary for me to get out of the car, pass me their newspaper and day “I’m your local green candidate, you can read about me on page 6” and with a friendly nod, he was off.

Don’t know whether I’m grateful for his (apparent) consideration I’d just finished work or disappointed I didn’t get chance to have my first chat with a member of any political party.

Probably the latter. Still, nice chap – newspaper very nice and ideological; just too ideological – only to be expected I suppose to make an impact, but would like to have seen some substance – but a shame though; I imagine what they’d like to stand for resonates with many moderate folk.

Contributed to whom?

you’re an idiot…

Even the “bailout” will largely be repaid in full, so overall we’re just left looking at an increasing gap in tax receipts – likely to accentuated if the likes of HSBC and StanChart do relocate

How do you know the bailout will be repaid in full?

You are also assuming there will be only ever be one bail-out.

I’d say your banks will re-locate anyway if it suits them. Holding the nation to ransom is like your playground bully. Let them go. Something less parasitical could take their place.

@rone, I worked for Stan Chart for 11 years, the bank did not need a bailout FYI

So far it looks like all the bailout funds will be repaid in full, the government has made a big profit on the guarantee scheme (banks paid a big fee and it was never used).

The banks where bailed out (not HSBC, Stan Chart or Barclays for example by the way and Lloyds would have been fine had it not been talked into rescuing HBOS by Brown) as had they failed the country is on the hook for all the small savers anyway and a collapse of the banks would have ruined massive numbers of small businesses which are reliant on overdrafts plus caused a mjor disruption in all our lives with regard to credit cards, mortgages etc.

Special bank levy, the new tax we have in the UK and which I believe does not exist anywhere else in the world, now costs Stan Chart £300m pa and HSBC much more. Why pay that when so much of their businesses is outside the UK ?

Contributed to whom?

@wan to the country, huge amounts in taxes (employee, national insurance, etc). most of the big EU banks have their senior well paid staff in London paying millions and millions in taxes to the UK, they could just sit in Frankfurt or Paris but the UK is the center of excellence and our personal taxes are lower (for the time being)

I’d say your banks will re-locate anyway if it suits them. Holding the nation to ransom is like your playground bully. Let them go. Something less parasitical could take their place.

They are OUR banks. They lend us money for mortgages to buy homes and to businesses to grow the economy. BUT, the majority of the their business is overseas, not in the UK, so their choice of domiciled location for corporation tax is very much a valid one.

They aren’t holding the country to ransom either – they are just saying that if tax is too high they will relocate in order to protect shareholders. This is actually a fiduciary duty of company directors not that this fact will get in the way of the usual left wing reality distortion field – we should also remember that the “let them go” argument simply results in everyone paying a lot more income tax to make up the shortfall and what normally happens is that those who cheerlead for this sort of thing are also the ones who very rarely if ever imagine they will personally have to pay it.

Well said @just5

Biggest issue for me is that the current bunch of knobbers are making life intolerable for the poor and the sick in order to reduce the state benefits bill by £3bn or so, yet they want to cut taxes. It all strikes me as a little bit obscene, as if they’re hitting the poor and sick until they suddenly become entrepreneurs while cutting a teeny bit of tax for everyone earning over £150k.

I’ve waffled on about the amount of money lost to tax avoidance before, so I’ll spare everyone the repetition. Sooner or later though, we’re going to have to look at how wealth is distributed and acknowledge that “trickle down” Reaganomics/Thatcherism really doesn’t deliver.

That said, I detested New Labour even more back in 2010 thanks to the antics of Honest Tony and his spin machine. I’d like to see him step on a rake.