Bank Shares Anyone?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Bank share distribution proposal

Not sure it'll ever get off the ground. Gloomy mutterings about the amount of admin involved already. But what an interesting idea to parcel up all the RBS/Lloyds shares bought by HMGov in '08, give them out to everyone on the electoral roll (they are ours, after all), and then let us, rather than the Treasury, keep any profits when we sell them. Watch this space...

[LoveBeingAbleToNamechange]

Never gonna happen.

Nc trying to get some fans back me thinks.

I have more than enough rbs shares that are worth sweet fa, in fact my plan is to leave them to my children in my will which they can then pass to their children and they might be worth something by then!

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

LOL! I too have RBS shares worth zip. We must be optimists. But if they're going to go up at some stage, I'd quite like to add to my portfolio with some 'free' ones.

[Strix]

What about all the taxpayers who aren't on the electoral role?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

If they're not on the electoral roll they're not on it. Can't vote and won't be paying council tax either. Don't see what point you're making.

[LoveBeingAbleToNamechange]

Not at all, just an ex member of staff who invested my wages in the sharesave scheme.

[Strix]

There are plenty of tax payers who contributed to the bailout but who are not British citizens and therefore not on the electoral role. Don't they deserve a piec of the pie. Or is this just about who can vote for Nick, and not about a fair share for all those who contributed.

[Strix]

And you do not have to be British to pay council tax.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I suppose it's a question of how wide a net you want to cast. All tax-payers wheither resident or non-resident or all voters whether tax-payers or non tax-payers? Think the latter is more inclusive and would be a much greater number of people.

[Strix]

I wonder what portion of taxes are paid by expats. I have no idea. But, it would be interesting to find out... does anyone know?

[TalkinPeace2]

Strix
There are several million of us and many of the people in the 50% tax band are not British.
The Government does not have records of the number of us with resident status but that is a couple of million at least

[Strix]

So it looks like he is looking to shmooz with the voters and not thank the contributors.

[niceguy2]

As a political stunt, it has legs. But that's all it is really. A political stunt.

The UK treasury pumped in a lot of money in exchange for shares. The principle being that one day they could sell those shares and recoup the money and at the very least not make a loss and with luck make a bit of a profit for UK PLC.

That would undoubtedly benefit everyone in terms of the government have got their money back and any extra in the coffers at this moment in time can only be a good thing.

Giving us all shares sounds great in theory but in practice I like many others would probably sell them and with the money buy stuff that isn't made in the UK. Thereby benefiting foreign companies. Ok, I guess I'd pay VAT on my purchases so the govt would get 20% of what I spend back but if they didn't give me shares, they'd be getting 100% and I'd not miss what I never had.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

If you limited the share distritbution to tax-payers only you'd exclude millions of pensioners, people on income support/low incomes, disabled people, full-time students, SAHPs etc., etc. Very bad PR if war veterans are excluded from the cut. Ex-pats living outside the UK for more than 183 days in the tax year don't pay UK tax anyway. A few rich foreigners might be contributing to UK coffers and not on the electoral roll but they are in a minority.

Schmoozing voters... why not? Doubt anyone's seriously going to switch allegiance on the strength of a few hundred £ in shares.

[bitsyandbetty]

No thanks. Put the money back in to the State pension thank you. The administration would cost a fortune and it will end up being a big mess.

[Clytaemnestra]

I'd rather they kept the shares, sold them at the best price and then used the money to save on a few cutbacks countrywide, rather than small individual windfalls for people.

[TalkinPeace2]

Cogito
A few rich foreigners might be contributing to UK coffers and not on the electoral roll but they are in a minority.
Sorry but you are totally wrong there.
There are several million non UK citizens who live and work here permanently, paying taxes, having kids, who have never given up their other passports and cannot face paying over £800 for the right to be on the electoral roll.

[headfairy]

I agree with Clytaemnestra

and I don't agree with Nick.

Desperate bid to win some friends. Not going to work. Give it to the students so they can sell them and pay back some of their mounting debts.

[bitsyandbetty]

This fund could be ring-fenced for future generations for education or student grants. The future generations will be paying for the bank debts in the longer-term or for their future pensions.

[Callisto]

This is a terrible idea. Hope the Treasury keeps the money and pays off some of the debt.

[wordfactory]

As much as I would love to be given some shares to sell at my leisure, I'm wondering whether the treasury ought not to try to recoup the debt at the earliest point possible to reduce the amount we've borrowed.

[MoreBeta]

Fact is that the Govt has been taking soundings round the stock market among institutional investors and found it can't sell the shares for anything like the amount of money pumped into RBS. Rather than admit that they will do a 'privatisation' and flog them off to the public at a pumped up price because they will not give them away and that's for sure.

Wonder if we will have a Tell Sid Campaign? Am I cynical?

Yes I am and it pays to be in this world.

[HHLimbo]

The public would only get shares once the government had recouped what it paid in 2008 to bail out these banks.

So this is quite a useful policy that ensures we know whether the government has managed the shares wisely (and got a return on our investment)
OR whether they have sold them cheap and sold us short in order to have a cynical pre-election tax giveaway to boost their election chances.

[HHLimbo]

I found the report on this proposal here which explains how it all works. Quite interesting reading.

[midoriway]

Cogito
A few rich foreigners, WTF? There are millions of them, working side by side with brits, in the same crappy jobs, getting the same crappy public services, getting the same wages, not all foreigners work in the City. I was one of these unseen working foreigners until last December, when I finally convinced the Home Office to naturalise me. I would have done it sooner if the government hadn't kept changing the goal posts in a nice little meaningless appeasement to anti-immigration sentiments.

Pissing off people who can't vote is a easy, lazy, step to take.

[mumblechum1]

Surely if it was the taxpayers who bailed out the banks, it should be the tax payers who get the shares?

Why should people who don't pay tax benefit?