Do you know?

[monkers]

The UK carries a debt level of £7.11 trillion. This includes sovereign debt, corporate debt, personal debt, student loans.

The government currently pays £109 billion per year in interest payments on a debt of about £3 trillion using taxpayers money.

Offshore 'investors in the UK' own 32% of UK gilts. They pay no tax - not income tax - not capital gains tax - nothing. This is the construct of UK law - FOTRA. Some corporate arrangements of 'tax wrappers' enable them to 'optimise' their tax on other earnings. Ditto 'shell companies' and aggressively planned tax arrangements.

This arrangement on gilts alone leads to a tax loss of £15.2 billion per year at current rates.

Debt is now exponential in the UK, while growth is maybe 0.4%.

The UK must raise another £252 billion in the next financial year to cover increases in the deficit.

The student loan system is a timebomb waiting to go off. More than £320 billion of debt at higher interest rate guaranteed by the tax payer. Universities are short of income, jobs are at risk. Ditto colleges of further education. Young people are unable to get work across most of the country. Still we have a skills shortage. Skilled labour including both domestic and migrant labour is relocating.

The bottom line is this, that trimming budgets can not stop the problem. Even if the whole social contract is torn down - NHS, schools, pensions, benefits, the lot, the runaway debt will bankrupt the UK economy.

Of course the real villains are Gary Stevenson, Greta Thunberg and Zack Polanski - ask anyone.

The truth is that no chancellor operating under the rules can break the cycle. So the rules have to change. BUT they have to change to break the cycle not to enable billionaires to extract even more.

Waiting for @CR to ask - ''so why do you hate wealth creators?''

 

[Dorset Boy]

Investors generally pay tax where they are resident and there are many, many double tax agreements in place globally to ensure people are not double taxed. Additionally there are UK based investors who hold the equivalent of UK Gilts. Depending on the tax wrapper, they may pay UK tax on the interest they own from those non-UK gilts. So unless you want to restructure global dual tax arrangements.......

I agree the student loan situation is a major issue that needs addressing and that has been discussed here previously. However too many kids go to University and not enough are doing modern apprenticeships. Too many graduates don't have the skills the economy needs, whereas modern apprenticeships will go a lot further to address the skills shortage.

 

[monkers]

So unless you want to restructure global dual tax arrangements.......

Personally I am in the short term unaffected. I no longer live in the UK. I don't live in a tax haven. My money is invested where I reside, and I pay the due tax, which as it happens means I pay an increased level of tax compared to the UK. I don't use tax experts, shell, companies, tax wrappers etc. I just pay the tax due on income.

Offshore places like the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Fisher Island, or any other jurisdictions pay no tax on earnings made in the UK. This created a massive tax gap. Individuals living in these places are not liable for double tax - they pay no tax. That is one of my points.

The major point is the UK, the country where I have lived most of my years, and many other countries too are on the brink of an economic implosion.

Instead of worrying about that, climate catastrophe and the inherent problems of reduction in the numbers of pollinators, low food production, high energy costs, antibiotic resistance etc etc, I see in this place more squabbles about decisions to do with Ed Sheeran concerts, and the personal identities of posters on these threads.

 

[farfromtheland]

Personally I am in the short term unaffected. I no longer live in the UK. I don't live in a tax haven. My money is invested where I reside, and I pay the due tax, which as it happens means I pay an increased level of tax compared to the UK. I don't use tax experts, shell, companies, tax wrappers etc. I just pay the tax due on income.

Offshore places like the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Fisher Island, or any other jurisdictions pay no tax on earnings made in the UK. This created a massive tax gap. Individuals living in these places are not liable for double tax - they pay no tax. That is one of my points.

The major point is the UK, the country where I have lived most of my years, and many other countries too are on the brink of an economic implosion.

Instead of worrying about that, climate catastrophe and the inherent problems of reduction in the numbers of pollinators, low food production, high energy costs, antibiotic resistance etc etc, I see in this place more squabbles about decisions to do with Ed Sheeran concerts, and the personal identities of posters on these threads.

We have to prepare to default, and I hope Andy Burnham has a medium term strategy for this eventuality. Argentina did it, with mixed results, but if enough nations do it together, and they might, there's a better chance. Canada anyone?

Ed Shearan is part of a big, more independent influence group by the way.

First priority must be food production self-sufficiency.

 

[farfromtheland]

Many working people are already wanting real jobs making real things. That's a no-brainer.

Getting closer there before defaulting is the challenge.

 

[farfromtheland]

Council housing funds itself twice over - it breaks even on rent and massively reduces the housing benefit scam.

Nationalisation, with more workers' control to come, of water and trains less easy but do-able.

 

[All uphill]

Did you know the UK taxpayer funds 86, 000 adults to do nothing productive at an average cost of £59 000 per person?

That's a lot of money - £5bn per year.

I'm referring to people incarcerated.

James Timpson, prisons minister believes 1/3 of this people could be out and doing something productive

 

[monkers]

Did you know the UK taxpayer funds 86, 000 adults to do nothing productive at an average cost of £59 000 per person?

That's a lot of money - £5bn per year.

I'm referring to people incarcerated.

James Timpson, prisons minister believes 1/3 of this people could be out and doing something productive

I did. Set every prisoner free, but it won't touch the sides of the problem - such is the scale of it. If the £5bn was met by PAYE payers alone, that would be 167 per person.

I'm saying the average person can't afford it, but there are those who do not contribute - the billionaires.

The point of my post is this - the debt trend is exponential. The growth trend is close to zero. Economic collapse is inevitable without a change in the economic model. Those who can pay must pay, ultimately they have more to lose.

 

[farfromtheland]

The point of my post is this - the debt trend is exponential. The growth trend is close to zero. Economic collapse is inevitable without a change in the economic model. Those who can pay must pay, ultimately they have more to lose.

What do you think of my suggestion that the Burnhamist method might be to stave off IMF intervention long enough to default practically though, with sustainable industry growing?

 

[monkers]

What do you think of my suggestion that the Burnhamist idea might be to stave off IMF intervention long enough to default practically though, with sustainable industry growing?

TBH with you, I haven't really looked into that. Perhaps I should. Where I live I pay a tax on income, a wealth tax and a property tax. Paying them doesn't make me poor.

 

[farfromtheland]

TBH with you, I haven't really looked into that. Perhaps I should. Where I live I pay a tax on income, a wealth tax and a property tax. Paying them doesn't make me poor.

Having left my partner after broken promises when our child was young, I rarely earned enough to pay income tax. Housing benefit is the biggest hidden tax-like burden on the poor though, going straight to the pockets of profiteers, many of whom were nominal Labour party types.

Will Andy B. have the gumption to work it all through? Is he still trying to keep such voters on board?

 

[farfromtheland]

^ Because housing desperation is what has made us bonded labourers.

 

[monkers]

Having left my partner after broken promises when out child was young, I rarely earned enough to pay income tax. Housing benefit is the biggest hidden tax-like burden on the poor though, going straight to the pockets of profiteers, many of whom were nominal Labour party types.

Will Andy B. have the gumption to work it all through? Is he still trying to keep such voters on board?

I have to be honest with you, I'm a tad confused. When you first mentioned Burnham, my thoughts went to Andy Burnham, and then I thought 'hang on' the user's name is 'far from the land' so probably a compatriot, and maybe meaning James Burnham. I just started getting my head around that, but you are now mentioning Andy Burnham.

 

[farfromtheland]

I have to be honest with you, I'm a tad confused. When you first mentioned Burnham,

I first wrote Andy Burnham ^. He's my default Burnham. I've mostly lived in England.

 

[monkers]

I first wrote Andy Burnham ^. He's my default Burnham. I've mostly lived in England.

Ah thanks, sorry to hear about that personal history you shared.

I think you are asking about what some folk are now calling the 'Makerfield Test'. Has he the gumption - I think he possibly has. But the billionaire media is such a powerful force that he's going to need some help from the country if he is to make it through.

I agree with you entirely about housing. Thatcher reset the status quo in the UK and Reagan in the US. I noticed when I was selling up in the UK the language of the estate agents. They were calculating rental values, and then converting that to a likely market sale price, indicating that it is a landlords' market.