Raising money

[newwave]

I am looking for posters ideas for raising money in the UK to be used to keep our public services.

I would put "tax the rich more" but that is to obvious although it is a good idea.

My idea is for a job export tax, jet Take for example Dyson, he started his company in the UK but after a few years he transfered production to the Far East so as to take advantage of cheap labour.

So here is my idea, for every job he exported overseas he should pay say £100,000 in a jet a portion is to go to the person losing their job and the rest to the treasury.

This idea may stop the banks for example transfering their call centres to India if transfering 400 jobs cost then £40 million pounds.

The only people who could lose is the shareholders/owners/directors by getting lower dividends or salaries which is not altogether a bad thing.

This could not work within the EU but may stop UK companies exploiting cheap labour elswhere and laying off UK workers in the callous manner just to increase profits.

All that would happen is that manufacturing companies wouldn't set up in the UK in the first place. They'd have the official headquarters of their business in another country and operate a 'UK branch'... I work for such a company, in fact.

My suggestion for raising money in the business sector would be more carrot than stick i.e. encouraging more companies to set up in the UK. I don't know enough about the barriers in the way of that happening at the moment but I'm sure that there are some. The banking sector may have gone 'pop' due to too little regulation but, learning the lesson from that experience, we could combine greater incentives with better control. More businesses choosing to set up here means more employment, growth and more tax going into the economy all round.

Let's just for a moment say this came into effect.

What would happen? Well firstly Dyson would find his products are way more expensive than competitors as his manufacturing costs (in the UK) are 10x higher. So he'd sell less hoovers which would mean less profits and of course less corporation tax. He'd then have to make people redundant who then aren't paying income tax.....rinse & repeat.

Didn't M&S try this? They tried for over a decade to keep their products made in the UK "St Michaels" brand anyone? It nearly killed them and eventually they had to offshore just like all their competitors had.

Call centres are already coming back to the UK. The reason again is competition. Costs in India have gone up substantially making it less attractive. That and increased demand from customers for UK call centres has meant that a lot of companies (and many banks) are now advertising "UK based call centres" because we're sick & tired of talking to people whom we can't understand.

Actually that's a good example of where us consumers get what we demand. We buy the cheapest clothes and don't care if they are made in China or not. Result, companies like M&S are forced to offshore. But we do care about being understood when calling our banks/utility suppliers so they onshore the call centres to avoid losing customers.

"The only people who could lose is the shareholders/owners/directors by getting lower dividends "

I take it you do not have a private pension or expect to have one in future? The biggest shareholders aren't fatcats, they're the pension funds on which our retirement prospects depend. They've already been hit massively by dividend tax changes: how much more do you think pensioners can afford to lose?

Cut regulation and cut taxes on business - then they can create the jobs that will in turn produce more revenue in income tax etc.

What about the Indian call center workers? Why are they less deserving of work than UK ones? This would be pretty callous to them.

Taxing companies for moving jobs out of the country wouldn't work I don't think. It would be a highly protectionist measure that would cause firms to become uncompetitive and go out of business. If a company kept their production in the UK, they would obviously have to pay UK labour market rates, whilst a firm from a different country could base their production in a country such as China. The wage rates would be much lower and so the cost of production would be lower meaning they could charge a lower price for their good making them more competitive.
Another option would be for a company to have their hq in another country and just have a branch in this country.
The idea would also almost certainly go against many free trade agreements that the UK/EU has signed.

The solution of the left rears its head again - tax those evil companies more!

I would do the very opposite - give corporations a tax cut for every person they employ long-term.

It would make entrepreneurs from around the world want to invest in Britain, instead of driving them away.

Hudd "going out of business" or leaving the UK both are the same as far as the UK unemployment level is concerned.

LFN, "I would do the very opposite" well of course you would, your a Tory stooge.

Taxing the rich more is a good idea but too obvious is it OP? I reckon you should have stopped your post right there. If that has become too obvious a notion then breathing's too obvious.

newwave- Its not though is it, if the HQ is based in this country then people are being employed even if the goods are produced elsewhere. We can't compete with developing countries when it comes to producing low-skilled goods and services as they have such a large competitive advantage over us. We need to look at encouraging more higher skilled goods and services to grow in the country like they have in Germany

Newwave - no it isn't. If other parts of the company remain here, that provides employment and tax revenue. If the company closes down or leaves the UK you don't get that.

Businesses will soon have more incentive to keep their opperations in the UK, ammendments to the basic minimum wage bill.

Politicians believe the way to keep businesses here is to allow them to exploit cheap labour, just as they have been doing in India and China.

All these horror stories we hear of slave labour, people working for pennies and sleeping rough, coming to a factory near you soon! Not content to facilitate corperations greed and exploit of third world countries, Dave would like to see such enterprise here.

The problem is that everyone wants the UK to have a manufacturing industry but they're not prepared to put their money where their mouth is and buy these more expensive goods which factor in higher labour costs

Take a look around your kitchen. How many of your white goods are made in the UK? What about your car? TV? Laptop? Nope, thought not.

We can't have it all ways.

My car was made in Germany, which is not a low wage country.

Bored with more tax as the solution to everything.

(Newwave - "Atlas Shrugged" is soon to be released as a movie, I shall be going to see it, hope it is true to the book)

Check out the LAffer Curve for reasons why more taxation is not the answer to anything much.

And also, start looking for the phrase "Galtian strike", you will see it more and more. Remember you heard it here first girls & boys - essentially people stop producing when taxation gets beyond a joke.

Coalition- no, but productivity per man in Japan/Germany is higher so labour cost per car is lower......but I guess the failure to mechanise and de-man when we had the chance (sacrifice 5 jobs to save 5, rather than keep 10 for 5 years and then lose them all forever) is a whole different issue.

We have the worst of both worlds- relatively high labour costs and relatively old/ labour intensive plant. You can succeed with one but not both.

thecoalitionneedsyou. Companies pay Indian call centre workers less. that's why they are set up in India.

complimentary - yes I know. What is your point?

Put a stop immediately to the nonsense of unpaid 'internships'. I've only just cottoned on to this and I'm appalled. Slavery was abolished in the UK in 1807, supposedly. What a sick society that people are starting to take financial advantage of the young and green and broke.

A little more money will go into the economy if those people exploiting new graduates etc with unpaid internships would put their bloody hands in their pockets and pay them wages, so the new staff in their turn have money to spend.
I know this is a miniscule aspect of the problem, but it's an example of the rich exploiting the poor and it sickens me.

It's interesting too, that no one seems to have noticed there may well be a link between the shrinking of our economy under George Osborne's 'safe' stewardship and the enormous debts bearing down on 2012's students. The link being, parents want what's best for their kids. Most parents don't want their children made into debtors before they've even secured their first job.

It's my guess that parents of kids coming up for university in 2012 and later are squirrelling money away like mad so as to lessen the financial pain for their kids. Most parents of students are decent and see their role as stepping in to make their kids' situation as close now as it can be to the situation as it was when they themselves went to college - ie (financial)worry free.

You can't spend money on yourself or your house or your holidays when you know there's a big personal debt looming for loved ones facing an uncertain future.

A tiny money saving/raising idea...

How about a national scheme (ie government funded) incentivising employees to come up with money saving/waste cutting ideas at work - I'm thinking small prizes for people's ideas which are implemented... the money expended on the 'prize' fund would be a tiny fraction as compared to the savings made from feasible ideas put into practice.

glasnost

Taxing the rich more is a good idea but too obvious is it OP? I reckon you should have stopped your post right there. If that has become too obvious a notion then breathing's too obvious.

FFS I did not say it was wrong just to obvious, I was looking for some original ideas.

i watched something the other day, where someone suggested paying elected politicians after five years or so office - hence they would have to stick to promises made before they were elected.

made perfect sense - politicians just blatently lie and yet get away with it, it's so corrupt

I wouldn't tax the rich more, some honest wealthy pay 50%, just as they should, others find elaberate ways to tax dodge. We need to ensure tax dodgers pay what they owe.

I would charge for health care and education. On a sliding scale. So people earning over a certain amount would be expected to contribute directly for the services they use.

My reason, well I know plenty of fairly wealthy people too stingy to pay for pre-prep but happy to pay for private post 11. I also know of others who make use of NHS GP's, dentists etc, but que jump when it suits them to get procedures done quickly, often in the same hospital under the same consultant.

One women even told me she went private at the local hospital because she hated sitting in the waiting room! probably couldn't stand be surrounded by proles.

I would also take away the charity status of private schools.

southeastastra- the issue with that is that only people who can afford not to get paid for 5 years would go into politics- i.e. it becomes the preserve of the trustafarian/ those with a private income or those who have made a lot of money before entering politics.

QBS- but charging for education/health on a sliding scale is taxing the rich more. They've already paid for these services through 50% tax. There is a lot of hoo-ha about these rich tax avoiders but they are actually few and far between. Anyone who is resident in the UK and employed (i.e. most people) and are rich, pay their 50%. The loopholes mainly concern people who are either not UK citizens, are Non-doms or at least non-residents.

At the moment the top 1% of earners account for 25% of the total income tax take. Arguably, the issue is not that the rich are not taxed enough, but that there is too big a gap between the rich and the poor in terms of income. Now you could argue that redistribution is the best way of going about closing this gap but then you're aiming your big guns at the people most likely to go somewhere else. We hear a lot on these threads about "oh well if all these bankers leave, good riddance" but actually, the UK cant afford them to or the income tax take will drop by about 15%.

Taxing the rich more is always tempting but history shows us it is inefficient.

Certainly increasing income tax to 50% and removing the personal allowances of high earners has had a negligble effect upon the current situation.

I suspect we're going to have to look at one of our most precious eggs...the NHS, state education, the welfare state...and make some huge and unpopular changes.