Non Dom, or not Non Dom, that is the question

BobQ

michaels wrote: »

Sure it is not fair but we are almost certainly better off for it - I am a great one for not cutting my nose of to spite my face, but as with the hounding of the investment bankers, the general sentiment seems to be we would rather all be poor together than all be a little bit richer but have too see that some are very rich.

Yes but think of the "poor" domiciled rich. Is it fair to them? :)Duncan Bannatyne thinks the policy good.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/duncan-bannatyne-says-hell-vote-labour-because-of-ed-milibands-courage-in-taking-on-nondom-tax-status-10161411.html

chewmylegoff

Marktheshark wrote: »

Pay your tax like the working class have to or begger off and do not come back.

Thats my ten pence.

Non doms do pay their tax like the working class do - they are subject to uk income tax on their uk earnings and the 115,000 or so non doms paid about £8.5 billion in income tax in 2012/13, the most recent year for which there are publicly available stats.

This is vastly more than the entire working class contribute in tax. Non doms are subsidising the working class, helping to fund their tax credits...

chewmylegoff

BobQ wrote: »

Yes but think of the "poor" domiciled rich. Is it fair to them? :)Duncan Bannatyne thinks the policy good.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/duncan-bannatyne-says-hell-vote-labour-because-of-ed-milibands-courage-in-taking-on-nondom-tax-status-10161411.html

Is Duncan Bannatyne now considered to be the barometer of whether a particular policy is a good idea? Perhaps instead of having a parliament we can just have ideas sent by text message to Duncan Bannatyne who will read three a day at random and implement his favourite one.

chewmylegoff

I think the whole thing is a waste of time. It is likely to yield little or no extra tax revenue and is just a distraction. Labour want people to believe that Non Doms are non tax paying bogey men - a bit like their "£40,000 tax cut for every millionaire" strap line which is also just made up and is just designed to win the votes from stupid people.

They often accuse the Tories of making ideological cuts to public spending. This is the flip side of the coin - and ideological change to the tax regime which even Ed Balls has admitted is likely to cost the country money. This is the trouble with politicians - they will happily damage the country if it means they get to run it.

cells

What is to stop them from funneling UK profits to offshore companies they own thus avoiding their uk 'income' too?

cells

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Non doms do pay their tax like the working class do - they are subject to uk income tax on their uk earnings and the 115,000 or so non doms paid about £8.5 billion in income tax in 2012/13, the most recent year for which there are publicly available stats.

This is vastly more than the entire working class contribute in tax. Non doms are subsidising the working class, helping to fund their tax credits...

The counter argument to a rich person or company paying oodles of tax is that almost all of them fulfill demand that would exist and be catered for if they were alive or not.

think of say asda. If they vanished tomorrow that would not result in lots of kess VAT and corporation tax as the day after tomorrow existing (abd perhaps new) providers would fufill the demand for food that exists if asda is here or not


so unless someone can claim that them leaving also means they take customers away too then them leaving won't matter much.

cells

michaels wrote: »

Sure it is not fair but we are almost certainly better off for it - I am a great one for not cutting my nose of to spite my face, but as with the hounding of the investment bankers, the general sentiment seems to be we would rather all be poor together than all be a little bit richer but have too see that some are very rich.

Happiness is not directly linked to money
wellbeing is to a certain extent but it slows/stops after a certain point

So if you want to maximise happiness and wellbeing its not just a factor of trying to maximise money. Fairness is also important.

In that regard it may well be better to have a slightly lower income but be more happy in a 'fairer society'


Also isn't the free floating exchange rate meant to keep economies in balance?
Assuming these non doms truly do add value and money the act of doing so pushes the poubd up which reduces exports. If they went the poubd would fall and exports increase. In effect I don't think they add that many jobs to the UK. What they do is perhaps reduce export jobs but boost rich-people-servicing jobs

Generali

cells wrote: »

Also isn't the free floating exchange rate meant to keep economies in balance?
Assuming these non doms truly do add value and money the act of doing so pushes the poubd up which reduces exports. If they went the poubd would fall and exports increase. In effect I don't think they add that many jobs to the UK. What they do is perhaps reduce export jobs but boost rich-people-servicing jobs

That only works for traded goods. For non-traded goods, non dom (or anyone else spending money) will have nil impact on the exchange rate.

Even then you have it the wrong way round. If Non Doms increase spending in the UK on traded goods that will increase imports and reduce the value of the pound.

Anyway in the real world away from the textbooks, speculative flows (resulting from real relative interest rates, relative risk premia and the terms of trade) so massively outweigh trade flows that trade flows are comparatively insignificant as a force setting FX rates.

chewmylegoff

cells wrote: »

What is to stop them from funneling UK profits to offshore companies they own thus avoiding their uk 'income' too?

Not much and this is exactly what hedge fund managers do.

However, non-doms are taxed on a remittance basis so if they transfer money into the UK (which includes withdrawing cash from an offshore bank account using a UK ATM or buying something in a UK shop using a credit card issued offshore) then they have to pay UK income tax on the amount remitted.

Graham_Devon

In my very humble opinion, if you want to be here you pay the taxes for being here just like everyone else.

You wouldn't get this sort of thing going on in say, Australia, and they attract the rich too.

I fail to see why we should try to keep people here who avoid paying into our society the same as the rest of us would.

They may bring money and provide jobs to service them. But providing jobs doesn't mean you "have done your bit". Plenty of people create jobs in the UK and pay full UK taxes. Why non-doms should be treated differently to, say, Alan Sugar is beyond me.

We probably do need a system to allow genuine business people to stay for 6-12 months or something along those lines. But some people have been born and have lived here their entire lives, simply inheriting a non-dom status which is rather stupid.