to ask how you would stop companies and investors leaving the UK?

[LargeDeviation]

AstraZeneca (the UK's most valuable company) has said they are thinking of delisting from the London Stock Exchange with a view to list in America. Other companies like Invidia, TUI, have also delisted. ARM is of course another one that got away.

At the same time, billionaires and centimillionaires are leaving the UK at the greatest rate ever.

Each delisting leads to redundancies or lower future growth. Each billionaire lost needs the equivalent of thousands of median income taxpayers to make up the tax lost.

What would you do to stop the rot? My solutions:

1. Incentivise listings: Allow extremely large bonuses and executive remuneration as long as they are tied to long-term performance. Remove stamp duty on shares. Bring back reduced oversight for AIM etc so small companies can easily list. Actively invest government funds in high-tech incubator companies (as long as it's done by the likes of the Vaccine Taskforce, not by idiot civil servants whose idea of good governance was to try to obstruct the OneWeb investment).

2. Incentivise share ownership in UK companies. Reduce dividend taxes. Revive the idea of the British ISA from Jeremy Hunt. Introduce low long-term capital gains tax rates (as many other countries have) to encourage long-term investing. Simply cutting Cash ISA allowances won't help.

3. Encourage entrepreneurs and the rich to come to Britian rather than leave. Reverse the non-dom changes. Large increases in IHT allowances, cut the top rate of income tax. These tax cuts can be conditional on providing a large number of jobs to British workers to make them politically palatable.

4. Cut corporation tax back to 20%. Sunak made a huge error in increasing corporation tax.

5. Ditch the Rayner changes which makes Britain even more uncompetitive.

Of course Labour won't do any of the above (or even acknowledge that companies/investors leaving the UK is a problem)...

I was going to post similar (assume it's about FTSE, not Thames Water).

But - if you're trying to interpret this as FTSE strengths then I'm sorry.

The explanation is here:
FTSE 100 hits 9,000 points for first time

Investors are wary of US and Europe is not in a good place due to tariffs, so it's hiding in the UK rather than investing.

"However, investors said the UK government’s tight fiscal position remains a barrier to further growth. “I will struggle with the UK until we’ve got some more certainty on the fiscal position,” said Birrell. Barclays’ Cau said “if we see a proper bond market strop” about the UK’s fiscal position, then “there might be a ‘sell UK’ moment”."

Added to this is Leeds reform and talks about ISA changes. So it's a combination of hiding and banks deregulation (remember 2008?).

Some people will make huge money on current moment and these aren't your middle/low earners.

I posted it here several times - Scandi are much more tax heavy at the bottom and almost the same at the top. And those at the top are entitled to all the same public services, not like our childcare stupidity.

And Norway did lose their wealthy:
Super-rich abandoning Norway at record rate as wealth tax rises slightly | Norway | The Guardian

So predictable. 🥱

Thanks for FT info

Which taxes would you have raised to bring in the money required for the NHS/Public Services and to pay for the unfunded commitments Hunt left Labour?
The latest one is 850m to fund the Afghan resettlement scheme - botched.

Its all very well complaining about growth/taxes/wealthy leaving BUT HNWI have been leaving since 2016... Tory supporters are always very quiet about this and also the 8 years in which we had stunning low growth.

We were in recession in 2023.

I wouldn't raise taxes at all.

I'd borrow and establish state building company to build masses of mid- rise IKEA style flats. Spacious enough to be a perm home for a family. Not for sale, but anyone would be able to rent there for some very reasonable amount, eg. £500/month in Lon. Given it's infra, not regular spending, markets would approve it and it wouldn't even cost that much. I wouldn't resolve housing crisis via planning permissions on green belt to profit making building corporations, they won't reduce prices. In this case NMW would be sufficient for a person to live on without state top ups and for a couple to raise family. It's not COL and low wages which is a problem in the UK, it's the cost of housing.

State childcare for 1-4 yo, similar to other European countries, might not be free, but very cheap.

In parallel I'd review PIP to allow diagnosis only, not self certified things. And make UC time limited, e.g. you get 80% of your previous salary for 3 months, then 50% for 6 months and then nothing, you have to find a job. This would reduce welfare bill drastically, no tax rises would be needed.

Where would you build these flats -buying land in London would cost millions - building them would cost millions, infrastructure like schools would cost millions - 500£ a month would take forever to repay the loans ,then thers the interest on the loans
not that it’s not a good idea but it can’t be that easy

Borrowing for the billions needed to fix public services, the compensation scandals, pay review body rises.. and now £6 billion needed for Afghan relocations...

Borrow that amount and the UK will have another gilts crisis.

Housing requires materials and land and skills, all of which cost a fortune... on the scale required?

Free childcare.... costs billions....

On UC... people don't get 80% of their previous salary, it might be 20%.... or less, its £93pw for a single person.

Lets hope no one tries your plan.

One thing we seem to spend so much time and money on is inquiries and reviews into every thing that goes wrong - Covid, hs2, anything at the bbc, they take forever and little seems to be done. Sack a few people, acknowledge the mistakes and move on

It is really (in context) cheap to build a mid- high-rise building. Where - the same land which is given to builders like Barratt. They hoard land and sell at astonishing profits. State would still own this. It's not about renters repaying. It's about making sure that a person in employment is self sufficient and doesn't require UC. Then turn the tap.

At the moment 25p out of every £1 of our taxes goes on welfare EXCLUDING state pensions. I shared stats on this thread earlier. Yes, I'd pay high state support for the first few months AFTER a person lost their job to allow retraining if needed and give time to find another job. But then the tap is turned. By doing this people who are looking for jobs aren't pushed in destitution, aren't forced to take lower level jobs immediately, but this payment depends on previous employment taxes paid. This system is very similar to Scandi.

Our main problem is way too many people are state dependant with no incentive to do better. This is what needs to be tackled to break never ending cycle of raising taxes, reducing public services to fund this group.

@Alexandra2001 free childcare does cost billions but it allows women to work and pay taxes. State subsidises it for most anyway (apart from those high earners who pay most taxes to fund this for other people, oh irony), but it's owners of childcare businesses who take most of the profit. If this was arranged, not just funded, by state on not for profit basis it would be considerably cheaper.

It seems that the only alternative you suggest is raising taxes. The results aren't reassuring so far