you might be referring to my post tashtodd/Elenor (you know, you can always raise it on the thread itself rather than commenting somewhere else!)
I thought Cameron's response was rubbish and too aggressive. I want to hear what he's going to do. I don't want to hear shouting and name calling and him going red in the face (largely because I think he had been riled by the Belize taunting). I want answers and his plans and exactly how he thinks he will do a better job.
We've had none of that yet. Why anyone thinks Cameron will be our saviour when they have Osbourne as chancellor is beyond me. The man can barely string an economic sentence together.
We have sold out to the public sector. If you look at employment growth and salary growth, it has all happened in the public sector. I have been in the private sector for many years and this government is killing us.
I don't know if any articles have been written about this but HMRC now has the right to demand payment when they assess you. They have never had this right before so let's just say they slap an assessment on a business for £1m. To be able to defend your case, you now have to pay that amount IN ADVANCE of a tribunal. In this country we are now guilty until proven innocent. I can't go into details but we had one HMRC visit last year which resulted in an assessment being slapped on us. We'd done nothing wrong. The inspector had picked up something he thought might have happened but which hadn't. Luckily that new rule hadn't come into play yet otherwise we would have had to pay the assessment and then wait a year to get a tribunal date. It's worse than Africa.
In addition, HMRC have started applying rules retrospectively. So let's say one rule applied 5 years ago. They have decided, today, that another rule should have been in place and they will apply it as if it was in place 5 years ago. HMRC have announced these measures with great pride saying they will raise billions! Great! At the expense of driving every legitimate business out of the country. We cannot operate in the UK with such uncertainty over tax law.
This government has killed off the private sector and now wants a pop at banking sector which is one of the most important sectors of our economy (some would say too important but with the aggressive tax regime here at the moment, god knows why anyone would come here).
In our sector, we have seen 3 major companies relocate out of the UK this year, meaning hundreds of jobs were lost. It is a serious consideration for us and if we do so, it will mean everyone will be out of a job.
They are literally killing us. And all to pay for public sector final salary pensions, middle management bureaucracy in hospitals and support to win an election. I can see that the schools around me have improved but everyone I speak to in the NHS say v little filtered down to the bottom line.
I'd like to vote for an alternative but I'm not sure anyone has come up with anything solid yet.
One thing I know is that someone needs to do something to save the private sector and persuade companies to come back here and invest in the UK. With such an aggressive HMRC with untapped powers, uncertainty over tax law and huge public debt, at the moment, I wouldn't advise anyone to come here.