to think that you need to stop what you're doing right now and read this article. And I mean need.

[granted]

I posted this on the Politics section but it deserves a much wider audience:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/tax-city-heist-of-century?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

Quite possibly the best newspaper article I've ever read.

He might be OTT. Financial services are this country's biggest 'industry'. We need them. We don't need to give them this much. I'll bet those consulted about the recommendations can't believe how much they've gotten away with.

I thought the Tories might be a good at running the finance side of things given the financial mess that labour got us into by not asking deep enough questions of the financial sector and leaving everything to market forces, I thought that some of the the Tories might have some experience in running a business and understanding balance sheets and all the rest. And be able to run the country for the benefit of all. But i am becoming very quickly disillusioned

Used to vote LibDem but they've turned to the dark side. . Wonder if I should move to Scotland and vote SNP? Feel like there are no choices left.

I'd head for the if it wasn't for the extra VAT. I wonder what the very English revolution will be like when we finally have enough...

What was it oscar wilde said they Know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

lessnarky I dread to think about the gimp cage but I am told that DC hasn't bothered with lube since last summer

"only available to large/medium size businesses..."

Very telling.

if it's in the Guardian, does that mean it's true?

It means they employ fact checkers.

It's also the only independent newspaper in the country.

(Possibly that explains the typos)

Its totally alarmist. Its a piece for those that don't understand the complex rules.

The controlled foreign company rules are not being withdrawn, and in any case other countries (other than switzerland) have similar if not even more flexible regimes just they take a tiny %.

I'd like to know more from someone who works in the industry. Is it more complicated than this?

Is it really as this article says...?

If you don't like what the condems are doing (and I for one CERTAINLY DO NOT) this is what you should do.

If you live in a constituency where there is a lib dem MP you must write to them and tell them exactly why you won't be voting for them or any of their sort in any elections (council/national etc).

With enough pressure, from constituents etc, a fair amount of them will start to want to rebel. Especially against up and coming issues like the NHS bill - which apparently most lib dem back bench MPs hate.

Soon enough the wheels will start to fall off this sad government and they'll have be a general election much sooner than some think.

After all, they have absolutely no democratic mandate for much of what they are doing. The Tories haven't actually won an election since 1992.

It's about time the lib dems found their backbone and acted in the way that they claimed they would when people voted them in. It's only their pathetic sycophancy that is allowing this government to cause the wreckage it's begun, literally beginning to ruin thousands of peoples' lives.

I don't think that Switzerland is a good example of how other countries do this so well.

Housing prices here are so high that the locals cannot afford to live here. They have to go over the border to France.

Why? Because the banks, the UN, the multinationals pay high salaries, often pay for accommodation, often well over the price that locals can pay.

I'm against the banking tax Gids announced today as well.

I voted Tory, I will continue to vote Tory.

thanks for that article, good to see someone is still writing proper pieces to inform and educate us poor taxed souls .....

"fact checkers?"...explain how these mythical creatures co-exist with journalists needing to get paid?

I predict a riot

Unbloody believable! It's genuinely heartbreaking to see my home country being destroyed and the struggles people are now facing. For the first time, ever, I'm glad that I no longer live in England and that in itself makes me very sad..... Thank you for posting.

Just read it.

Great news. Taxation is theft.

Those who are saying this is rubbish, can you explain why?

I read that yesterday- amazing that this has slipped under the radar, presumably greased by oily Dave's slick charm.

And helped by the fact that the newspapers' super rich owners have probably sat on the info.

Presumably, happiest blonde, you'd like to go back to the good old days when the poor had malnutrition and childhood disease to keep the numbers down, not forgetting child labour because most did not get educated. After all, why should you have pay taxes to keep those ungrateful bastards society going?

This is so bloody depressing if it's true. Not surprising, of course, but depressing nonetheless.

What - if anything - can we do about it? I'll gladly write to my MP (she is becoming my regular pen-pal ) but she is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. So what should I be doing instead?

Marching on Westminster????

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/08/tory-funds-half-city-banks-financial-sector 50% of tory funds come from the city

so we shouldn't be surprised...

but labour get paid for by the unions.

We need a new political party.