International attitudes to moneysaving

A._Badger

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is one of the most perceptive financial writers around at the moment and has some interesting things to say about savings being one of the possible underlying causes of the current recession.

Readers from the pre-Twitter/Facebook era who still have an attention span might find this thought provoking.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9471018/Five-years-on-the-Great-Recession-is-turning-into-a-life-sentence.html

CKhalvashi

somethingcorporate wrote: »

As an aside...I remember reading somewhere that Greece has more Porsches than higher rate tax payers.

CK, what precisely are you suggesting should be implemented elsewhere? Which country are you referring to? (from memory is it Georgia?)

Should the UK be encouraging investment by lowering tax rates, for, say 5 years?

I admit that the high wages in the UK may be a problem, but there we are.

And it's 5% Corp Tax, 10% Income tax and dividends taxed at 0% in certain circumstances

Yes, I'm Georgian.

CK

chewmylegoff

ireland has got very low corporation tax rates compared to the UK. they aren't doing too well. i am not convinced that if we lowered CT to 10% for 5 years that it would make that much difference to the level of inwards investment and the govt would probably fill the black hole in their finances by raising direct personal taxation and VAT.

if you wanted a major stimulus it would also have to come hand in hand with other measures like softening labour laws and other de-regulation, which we cannot actually do because of the EU. (plus if we hacked our CT down to 10% the rest of europe would go mental about it - france is forever trying to get ireland to abandon their low rate).

CKhalvashi

chewmylegoff wrote: »

ireland has got very low corporation tax rates compared to the UK. they aren't doing too well. i am not convinced that if we lowered CT to 10% for 5 years that it would make that much difference to the level of inwards investment and the govt would probably fill the black hole in their finances by raising direct personal taxation and VAT.

if you wanted a major stimulus it would also have to come hand in hand with other measures like softening labour laws and other de-regulation, which we cannot actually do because of the EU. (plus if we hacked our CT down to 10% the rest of europe would go mental about it - france is forever trying to get ireland to abandon their low rate).

Hey Chewy!

That is a good point regarding EU regulation; I work more than 48 hours a week, and I know that many people here do, too.

The black hole should be filled by the extra investment? Or am I going bonkers? :rotfl:

CK

oldvicar

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Hey Chewy!

That is a good point regarding EU regulation; I work more than 48 hours a week, and I know that many people here do, too.

The black hole should be filled by the extra investment? Or am I going bonkers? :rotfl:

CK

I think that is allowed, even in the EU .... but you have to write yourself a letter giving up your rights not to work more than this (over an average 13 weeks) or you will be thrown in the clinker. Its having Rights, and also having the Freedom to give them up.

P.S. Either you or the French must be bonkers ... but not sure who it is though.

Thrugelmir

somethingcorporate wrote: »

As an aside...I remember reading somewhere that Greece has more Porsches than higher rate tax payers.

The Porsche Cayenne, more common in Greece than the number of taxpayers who declared annual incomes in excess of 50,000 Euros. :eek:

chewmylegoff

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Hey Chewy!

That is a good point regarding EU regulation; I work more than 48 hours a week, and I know that many people here do, too.

The black hole should be filled by the extra investment? Or am I going bonkers? :rotfl:

CK

I work more than 48 hours a week on average as well. My old employer used to make me sign a form saying I had voluntarily waived my rights under the working time directive. This one seems to just ignore it.

I suppose we could hope that increased growth would lead to increased tax revenues, but the effect wouldn't be instant and this we would effectively be borrowing money to fund a tax cut on the hope that it might all work out better in the long run. Not sure how that would go down with the markets...