Brexit ! what will this mean ? ( lets get a good thread going )

[javelin10]

16 hours ago, WesD said:

Also how many salaries do they provide that both gets taxed and goes back into the economy when spent on living. 

Not as many as if they had to pay an equal proportion as the rest of us instead of hiding it away in off-shore tax havens, then we'd have more badly needed jobs in the NHS and proper investment in business instead of already-overvalued luxury homes in the SE and ridiculous sums paid for 'investment' in art, which produces no income or jobs.

[javelin10]

8 hours ago, matelot said:

When did communism collapse in East Europe? The best part of thirty years ago... I think you'll find that large parts of East Europe have been "dirt poor" for centuries.

I think you'll find there were many parts of Eastern Europe doing just fine before nazism then communism.

8 hours ago, matelot said:

 

The UK only looks after people "with lots of property"? Really? There's millions of people in the UK that make little contribution to the UK but they can still go to Spain on holiday and get Sky telly, all thanks to the UK benefits system  

Millions, really? Oh you must be thinking of Phillip Green or Mike  Ashley (Sports Direct) who pay their staff below-living wage 'cos they know the UK taxpayer will top up their miserable incomes. Yes, we've been VERY generous to those dole-scroungers!

8 hours ago, matelot said:

 

Virtually every problem the UK faces is made worse by migrants coming to the UK to help themselves to a bit of UK pie. I'd say the three biggest problems facing the UK are:

 

1. Fiscal, the Chancellor is not getting much tax in and he has to continually borrow. Do you think that is sustainable?

2. Lack of decent well paid jobs.

3. Pressure on public services like roads/ NHS/ schools etc.

 

I think many people that voted Brexit can see that EU open doors makes these problems worse.... But what do we get in return from the EU? Ohhh, that's right, we get to have our say on EU vacuum cleaner standards....

 

I actually agree with your 3 biggest problems! Leaving the EU will either not help, or make things worse, because the average EU citizen makes a higher tax contribution than the average UK citizen, at any given income level, so that screws problem 1.

 

Problem 2 is something they don't have nearly as bad in France, or Germany, or Denmark, Sweden or Norway (all of them in the single market with free movement of people) so it is definitely not an EU problem but something we've been doing wrong ourselves.

 

Problem 3 is the same. All those countries have better infrastructure, schools and healthcare, and have had way before Poland and Romania joined. Again, a problem we caused by ourselves. Brexit is the wrong solution because it 'solves' the wrong 'problem'.

 

[john p]

Why are you so keen to throw away the idea of the "nation"? As a nation Britain is a good place to stay. We are wealthy, have a decent standard of living, have a functioning democracy. I just don't how joining a federal europe with dirt poor corrupt ex communist states improves our quality of life?
 
I read last week there are now 3,500 Roma gypsies in Glasgow. They must be costing the taxpayer at least £10k a year each and causing untold crime. So in a time of austerity and cutbacks the British taxpayer is paying £35 million a year to look after people that have nothing to do with the UK.
 
I'd rather have a British "nation" that looks after Brits...

Out of interest where did you read there are 3,500 Roma in Glasgow?

[Richard 1234]

Obviously they have but for the last 40 years their wealth has been running away so fast they don't even live in the same world as us (I assume none of you are on 250k/year?) So what if they pay 30% of the income tax? If they own 50% of the wealth then 30% isn't enough. Add to that the fact that Income tax is less than one third of treasury revenue, do you think they pay the same proportion of VAT, or Council tax, or fuel duty, or booze duty? The poorest households pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes than the richest; fact.
 
Maybe you think that's fair? And you need don't worry yourself about my family thanks; we're better off than most in the UK, which makes me wonder how most people manage.

I’m not worried about your family particularly as I can tell from your posts that you are reasonably well off. I too am probably classed as better off than most.
Why people like you think that the government should steal more from the rich when they pay far far more in tax than the general population baffles me. Maybe if they reduced the tax percentage then the rich would not try and hide so much.
As for not living in the same world as us I personally don’t care but that’s a minority view I know

[WesD]

2 hours ago, javelin10 said:

Not as many as if they had to pay an equal proportion as the rest of us instead of hiding it away in off-shore tax havens, then we'd have more badly needed jobs in the NHS and proper investment in business instead of already-overvalued luxury homes in the SE and ridiculous sums paid for 'investment' in art, which produces no income or jobs.

People hiding wealth happens in every country no matter who or how its run, its called greed and it is only human nature to want to keep what you perceive as your hard earned! Being in or out of the EU will not stop that however if you try to punish the rich who have handed the jobs out in the first place well they could always close shop and keep their money to themselves and live a happy life you know sort of take their ball home. 

 

I personally wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me for want of an appropriate metaphor. 

 

Is tax avoidance the same as tax evasion? 

[matelot]

14 hours ago, javelin10 said:

 

I actually agree with your 3 biggest problems! Leaving the EU will either not help, or make things worse, because the average EU citizen makes a higher tax contribution than the average UK citizen, at any given income level, so that screws problem 1.

 

 

 

Do you have any proof that EU citizens pay more tax than Brits? You really think all the Roma "Big Issue" sellers pay a lot in tax? I think you'll find that migration is an ENORMOUS burden to the taxpayer.

 

14 hours ago, javelin10 said:

Problem 2 is something they don't have nearly as bad in France, or Germany, or Denmark, Sweden or Norway (all of them in the single market with free movement of people) so it is definitely not an EU problem but something we've been doing wrong ourselves.

A basic rule of economics is that when you have more of something the value of that good goes down. You might not be able to grasp that fact but most people do. Most Brits know that allowing millions of migrants in that will work for pitiful wages in bad conditions lowers wages.

 

I'll be honest, I'd expect a 12 year old to understand that more workers reduces wages, so I'm staggered you don't seem to understand it.

 

15 hours ago, javelin10 said:

 

Problem 3 is the same. All those countries have better infrastructure, schools and healthcare, and have had way before Poland and Romania joined. Again, a problem we caused by ourselves. Brexit is the wrong solution because it 'solves' the wrong 'problem'.

 

Again, most Brits will know that allowing millions of people in puts a strain on public services. I'll use an anecdote to prove my point. I know someone whose daughter's school has kids with 18 different languages. The school has to provide extra support to those kids. Do you think mass immigration has made schools better for British kids?

[matelot]

14 hours ago, john p said:

Out of interest where did you read there are 3,500 Roma in Glasgow?

I must apologise, it's actually 5,000 Roma in Glasgow. It's 3,500 Roma in one area of Glasgow.

 

What will a single Roma cost the taxpayer? £10k a year each? That's £50,000,000 to look after Glasgow's Roma community. Do you not think that money could be better spent elsewhere?

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/govanhill-a-close-community-where-threats-make-it-hard-to-speak-out-0w2kfp69l

 

"Natalie, who said she did not want her real name to be used, knows Govanhill’s 3,500-strong Roma population better than most."

[javelin10]

22 hours ago, Richard 1234 said:

I’m not worried about your family particularly as I can tell from your posts that you are reasonably well off. I too am probably classed as better off than most.
Why people like you think that the government should steal more from the rich when they pay far far more in tax than the general population baffles me. Maybe if they reduced the tax percentage then the rich would not try and hide so much.
As for not living in the same world as us I personally don’t care but that’s a minority view I know

And @ WesD as well:

 

Taxes aren't stealing. With taxes we buy our civilisation; literally everything that keeps this country functioning. The richest have benefited most from this country, so i think they should contribute the most as a proportion of their income and not just in absolute terms.

 

People don't pay taxes out of guilt either, or avoid paying them out of a sense of unfairness. Some people will always cheat on their taxes illegally (tax evasion, as someone was asking) and some will exploit our over-complicated tax laws to pay next to nothing in many taxes entirely legally; tax avoidance. Neither group pays a penny more than they have to legally, unless of course they are too poor to hire a fancy accountancy firm to set up tax avoidance schemes for them. One of my friends works for a huge accountancy firm and does exactly that for a living; only for those with lots of taxes to avoid and the money to pay her rates.

 

I don't blame anyone, private or corporate, for avoiding taxes really, but I do blame the rest of us for letting them get away with so much for so long! And plenty of people in the government want to make taxes even lighter when we do leave....eventually.

[javelin10]

9 hours ago, matelot said:

Do you have any proof that EU citizens pay more tax than Brits? You really think all the Roma "Big Issue" sellers pay a lot in tax? I think you'll find that migration is an ENORMOUS burden to the taxpayer.

Do you have any proof that every Roma just sells 'Big Issue' or that most EU citizens over here are Roma? Or are you just picking a convenient unrepresentative sample that seems to justify your bias? Maybe round your way there aren't many foreigners, but where I grew up there are 100's of thousands, and they all do the same jobs as the Brits and do them just as well, and the city is a much better place for them.

9 hours ago, matelot said:

 

A basic rule of economics is that when you have more of something the value of that good goes down. You might not be able to grasp that fact but most people do. Most Brits know that allowing millions of migrants in that will work for pitiful wages in bad conditions lowers wages.

 

I'll be honest, I'd expect a 12 year old to understand that more workers reduces wages, so I'm staggered you don't seem to understand it.

Yes but it takes someone with a slightly more sophisticated mind than that of the average 12 year old to realise that an economy is not a closed system. When more people come and do work, then they create wealth, keep some for themselves, and then spend most of that, creating more jobs elsewhere, no matter their nationality. There is never a finite number of jobs, I've heard that fallacy argued before.

 

Our problem in the UK is that no-one calls out bad working conditions and no-one feels able to ask for a pay rise because we've been drip fed the line (by the tory press) that unions are bad for the economy and we should always leave things to the 'market'. In that environment, where many jobs are unskilled, it's no wonder foreigners are doing them, because we don't want to do them anymore.

9 hours ago, matelot said:

 

Again, most Brits will know that allowing millions of people in puts a strain on public services. I'll use an anecdote to prove my point. I know someone whose daughter's school has kids with 18 different languages. The school has to provide extra support to those kids. Do you think mass immigration has made schools better for British kids?

Kids learn when they want to. There are schools in Tower Hamlets where more then 50% of the kids arrive not speaking English, but they learn fast and they get excellent results in those schools, in one of the most deprived boroughs of the country. When I first went to nursery I only spoke Spanish. I don't even remember learning English but I didn't need any support because I just learned it off my school mates. By the time I was in juniors I had no accent and by the time I left primary my English was as good as anyone's. You're making mountains out of molehills; you may put a few foreign kids into school but what you get out is British adults.

[Richard 1234]

Kids learn when they want to. There are schools in Tower Hamlets where more then 50% of the kids arrive not speaking English, but they learn fast and they get excellent results in those schools, in one of the most deprived boroughs of the country. When I first went to nursery I only spoke Spanish. I don't even remember learning English but I didn't need any support because I just learned it off my school mates. By the time I was in juniors I had no accent and by the time I left primary my English was as good as anyone's. You're making mountains out of molehills; you may put a few foreign kids into school but what you get out is British adults.

From earlier post. No taxes aren’t stealing but forcing the higher earner to pay an ever greater percentage may we’ll have the opposite effect you so crave. They may just decide to close up shop and take it with them to Monaco for example.

But your stance becomes very clear with your last post and wanting to stay in the EU. I presume you have residency here and want others to have that opportunity?
On the immigration side I have never really had a problem with it because it does mean that stuff that locals don’t want to do gets done and that is down to the benefit system not encouraging work enough.
I’ve heard loads of people not far from me complaining that the immigrants steal their jobs but I don’t see it as employers want people who will work hard and that’s what they get with the immigrants.