Nimrod103 wrote:Dod101 wrote:
Yes I agree. And do not read threads like this. They will change nothing and are mostly I think from self opinionated people who like to push their views as though they are the gospel.
Dod
I agree with you to a certain extent, but I also think it is a fair question to ask whether the incentives (to both individuals and to companies) in the UK are now being blunted by the high levels of taxation. So far there seems to be evidence that too many late 50 to 60 year olds have been withdrawing from the labour force during and since Covid, so that there are something like 6 million economically inactive people below retirement age. I think there is evidence that the better off are doing this because they have sufficient pension savings, while the poorer are being signed off with 'bad backs' and 'mental issues'. I think there is also evidence that a younger cohort of 20 year olds is doing much the same, starting a life of idleness and crime.
At the corporate level, raising CT to such high levels was very ill advised. The most immediate response has already happened where the North Sea windfall tax has caused the termination of that industry pretty well stone dead. Already Hunt is trying to backtrack - how could he not see it coming? Who is advising him? And similar plans will already be being discussed in the boardrooms of British companies in other industries. Raising taxes is not the way to encourage British industry.
It all comes down to incentives to work, and the present set up in the UK doesn't seem to be providing them.
I do not disagree with any of that. A granddaughter of mine is just graduating with a good economics degree and has cost her parents very little to get through the four year Scottish degree course by working in a call centre during her studies. She already talks about getting some post graduate training and then moving abroad to the Middle East or Singapore probably. Her sister is already living in Canada. That is, from the point of view of this country's economy, very sad, although I cannot blame them. I did much the same by spending my productive years in Hong Kong. I think it is partly but not entirely due to high taxation. She tells me that many of her graduating friends talk along the same lines. Not all will do so of course but quite a lot probably and it is the ones we need to keep here who will go off and seek their fortunes elsewhere. I do not know how typical my granddaughter is but at the age of 23, she has already travelled as a child with her parents to the US and Europe and on her own has been to Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Singapore as well as eastern Europe so travelling abroad is absolutely commonplace for her and others like her.
Dod