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Post by 25 quid on May 5, 2022 7:09:18 GMT
With Shell being the latest to announce huge profits, should the government tax them or let them keep the cash to invest and pay to their shareholders?
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Post by struttg on May 5, 2022 7:29:14 GMT
There's enough for both
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Post by gerryhatrick on May 5, 2022 8:32:05 GMT
With Shell being the latest to announce huge profits, should the government tax them or let them keep the cash to invest and pay to their shareholders? There are a number of aspects that dictate against this but politicians don’t want to mention it, only sound bites that they think may be attractive to the voters. We are already getting a windfall tax but it does not suit the media to mention it. The Treasury is doing very well out of the high profits being made by BP & Shell. Oil companies have to pay a higher rate of corporation tax than other companies do. About 40%. Thus we are getting a lot more tax than we would have in “normal” times. It is a windfall tax and was designed as such. If the extra profits are used to invest in new production concepts then they can offset that expenditure against tax. We therefore get less revenue from them. If they are asked to pay an extra windfall tax then it would only be right and proper to pay them a subsidy if the market meant losses were being made. To be fair it ought to work both ways. The suggestion is only a one off payment. What then? The bills could still be just as high, if not higher. Labour, because it suits them to say it, suggest £600 per head. But they don’t provide any proper costing. Labour have a track record of doing such. Indeed a track record of costing us all a lot more. I suspect they use Dawn Abbott to check the maths!
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Post by struttg on May 5, 2022 10:40:25 GMT
Good points gerryhatrick and I guess its how our leading jesters deploy the tax receipts. They certainly know how to waste it. No matter if they're from the right, the centre or the left we have a limited gene pool pretending to run things. No matter where they're educated they lack wisdom and those with intelligence could use it more positivley rather than mop up after our leading jester proves how thick he is when unscripted.
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Post by 25 quid on May 5, 2022 11:45:54 GMT
Indeed! I'm not defending them, but maybe we have got the politicians we deserve? Who in their right mind would want to open themselves up to the abuse that those in the public eye receive...
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Post by struttg on May 5, 2022 16:45:01 GMT
I get your point @ 25 quid. If we don't get some leaders that we can respect for their honesty and intellect then we're on an increasing circle towards dystopia. It's probably too late, but at least where not quite at the level of the USA with a significant % of flat earthers.
Things will never improve if public accept that MP's are just a reflection of society - perhaps thats just not possible in this double edged internet information age.
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Post by 25 quid on May 6, 2022 13:20:16 GMT
It's a great goal struttg, but I feel fairly pessimistic about turning it around along the lines you suggest. The fact the MPs voted to not accept the pay rise an independent committee recommended, speaks volumes. They were scared of the response from their constituents and perhaps from the competition for their jobs from the more able people that might be attracted by a better salary. Instead, they sit pretty and continue to claim whatever expenses they can to be comfortable. Nevertheless, I think there are some MPs with good skills and intentions. Good luck to them!
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Post by struttg on May 6, 2022 14:20:28 GMT
I agree @25 quid and one can only hope. Yep big up for the worthy MP's who work hard and as you say......have good intentions. Its the dishonest ones and those that want to protect the crud that they create. Perhaps we need a French Revolution...
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Post by 25 quid on May 6, 2022 18:17:17 GMT
...or a benevolent dictator? Oh, hang on, that doesn't work for long!
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Post by struttg on May 6, 2022 20:03:09 GMT
No ego Z's.
Men and Power thats always been the problem for our planet...its a builtin instinct that man struggles with, may take several millenniums for us carbon units to evolve as a bit of lipi and cross dressing won't cut it.
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Post by gerryhatrick on May 7, 2022 9:13:56 GMT
Over the years I have met and dealt with many politicians from all the political parties, mostly at a local level. Most do mean well. The Independent ones do a better job. But mostly they don’t have the knowledge and experience or background to be able to make the decisions required and obscure, if not obtuse, ones appear. It is fine to have good ideas, but without the experience and knowledge to fulfil them, they are dependent on the civil servants to advise and carry out instructions. Some, knowing those instructions are silly, still carry them out. Frightened to make their voices heard and tell the politician he or she is not right. Subservient. I have seen officers in awe of and intimidated by elected officials wielding power. We also suffer from officers putting forward ideas which are also bereft of common sense, which they would have had, had they worked in the private sector for some time. I had frequent problems trying to get them to see the other side of things and the potential for something better.
From what we see in central government it appears this is replicated. We have lifetime politicians and some have limited ability. Do we get what we deserve? Yes in a way. We have allowed this to happen. A career politician is not the best one to have nor is a career civil servant,. Way back in the mists of time MPs had other jobs. They had experience of life and its problems, they brought that into the decisions they made as politicians. They went to the “office” in the morning and to Parliament in the afternoon, staying until late at night. We have one or two who bring to bear their experience and whose advice is sound but not popular if you are not of the Party, or they do not put money into the voters’s pockets.
I don’t know the answer but it would help if we had a law that said you cannot become an MP if you have not worked outside politics for 20 years or are perhaps over the age of 40. The latter not so good an idea for the young have some great ideas. Sometimes initially not workable but form the basis of something that is. Politics today is not attractive to those who would serve us better.
Perhaps we should be grateful. Some countries have the likes of Putin, Hitler, Trump, Xi and the idiot in North Korea!
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Post by gwyndy on May 12, 2022 18:25:17 GMT
With Shell being the latest to announce huge profits, should the government tax them or let them keep the cash to invest and pay to their shareholders? Labour, because it suits them to say it, suggest £600 per head. But they don’t provide any proper costing. Labour have a track record of doing such. Indeed a track record of costing us all a lot more. I suspect they use Dawn Abbott to check the maths! In the absence of Diane (aka 'Dawn') Abbott.Labour actually suggested 'Approximately £200 per household' with an extra '£400 per eligible household' via an increased Warm Homes discount - I can find nothing where they claim £600 per head. And they did have a 'reasonably accurate' costing based on the OBR's figures for an increase in expected VAT Receipts and North Sea revenues, plus £1.2 Billion they added via a 'one-off' 10 percentage point second surcharge on the tax on profits (currently, oil companies pay 30% Corporation Tax, plus a 10% Supplementary Charge - far lower than the the Supplementary Charge up until 2016, which was 32%). According to at least one set of figures, from the Green Alliance, this low charge, plus a generous series of tax offsets for exploration, construction, and decommissioning, meant that in 2019, the UK government received less than $2 per barrel of oil in tax, compared to nearly $22 per barrel in Norway, and the UK government, in effect, paid oil companies to operate in the North Sea. In 2019, BP’s North Sea operations paid an effective tax rate of minus 54 per cent.I've actually tried to calculate it out to post here, several times, but every time I try to 'bold' anything it kicks me out of the post - argggh Labour’s calculated ‘expected additional income’ approximately £6.6 Billion composed of:1: OBR estimated VAT revenues for 2021-2022 increased by £3.1bn as a result of rising prices. Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) Estimated VAT revenues 2021-2 at the Budget in October was £131.9bn The OBR later produced projections that 42.2% of VAT receipts would arrive between November to March. £78bn was raised to October 2021, meaning a little under £57bn could be expected over the rest of the year. This would bring total VAT receipts to about £135 Billion. 2: The OBR’s North Sea oil and gas receipts forecast shows a £2.1 Billion increase for 2022-23 3: A Windfall Surcharge on the oil companies would raise £1.2 Billion - £1.95 Billion (this is expected to be more as profits increase, who knows we may even hit the 2007 peak of £12 Billion?) Labour’s income calculations £6.4 Billion to £7.15 Billion Labour’s costs1: Remove VAT from energy bills £2.5 Billion (see calculations)Households in UK: 27.8 million, VAT on £1,971 OFGEM ‘Average CAP’ = £93.86 Total Cost £2,609,308,000 (Labour estimated it as £2.5 Billion, I guess they have a better idea for total UK energy bills?) 2: Increase value and scope of Warm Home Discount £3.5 Billion (see calculations) Currently Energy companies pay £350 Million towards the Warm Home Discount with limited eligibility for the ‘Wider Group’ – Labour’s plan was to increase the scope of this to include up to 9.3 million households in ‘fuel poverty’ and pay £400 instead of £140 (Cost up to £3.72 Billion – less the £350 Million energy companies already pay in - due to rise to £475 million this year.) 3: £600m contingency fund would be established to support energy-intensive firms. Total cost £6.6 Billion (Labour’s figures) £6,454,308,000 - £6,579,308,000 (My Calculation) Labour additionally suggested taking the costs of the failed energy companies onto the Government's books, at a cost of £2.6 Billion, to be paid back by a lower surcharge on domestic energy bills, spread over 5 years, rather than the current value included in the Standing Charge.
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Post by gerryhatrick on May 13, 2022 8:27:49 GMT
Thanks, helpful. Labour were spouting the £600 on radio interviews without any explanation of it. It seems from your figures, if I have understood them correctly, Labour are using existing income that the Treasury would have anyway to support their figures. That income will already be committed. It then follows their problems amount to an extra cost to the country. I think they call it creative accounting! Dawn Abbott could not have done what/you have done though!
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Post by gwyndy on May 13, 2022 8:46:50 GMT
Well they are fairly clear that it 'up to £600 per household' on Twitter I got my figures for Labour's claims, in the interests of fairness, from that well known 'left-wing' paper, The Sun. Everything else (except for the £2.6 billion Labour claim taking SoLR into Government hands) I dug out from OFGEM, and the OBR Reports - I couldn't find anything which placed a total value on the costs of SoLR - my best guess is they either have OFGEM figures for what the companies were paid (which we don't have access to) or they've calculated it from the levy included in the price cap. The whole point of Labour's argument, other than taking the £2.6 Billion (approx) hit for the companies which fall into SoLR, was that the money they were planning to use was 'additional revenue' the government (or at least the OBR) hadn't accounted for in October's budget. Labour didn't need 'creative accounting,' the independent Office of Budget Responsibility, and the Commons Library, gave them the basic formulae for the figures they used. Disclaimer 1:The government may have allocated this money for something since October's budget, and since Labour made the suggestions, but at the point Labour costed this out, this money was not in the Government's budget figures for 2021-2. Disclaimer 2:The figures obviously, as with most government budgets, are a projection, there's no way to guarantee that the OBR's figures aren't over, or for that matter under. Disclaimer 3:I'm not sure why this idea is so controversial, it's not as if governments haven't done it before Geoffrey Howe levied a windfall tax on bank profits, and North Sea Oil in 1981, The former was reintroduced by the Coalition, and later Cameron's government, www.gov.uk/government/publications/bank-corporation-tax-surchargeLabour did it to the privatised utilities. The former head of BP thought it was 'justifiable.' www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/397199/former-bp-lord-browne-windfall-tax/At the risk of getting into a 'political argument' I feel 'creative accounting' is not a 'Labour issue' it's a 'politician one' - whatever happened to George Osborne's (oft delayed) projections for 'paying down the debt,' ah well, at least no numpty's recommended reintroducing the 'Sinking Fund' yet, that one appears to have died when Churchill almost buggered the economy up (in his defence, the return to the Gold Standard was something he initially opposed, although accepting it a pre-WWI levels was his decision) - the 'Ten Year Rule' - that appears to have solely been his idea, along with his constant renewal of it.
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Post by 25 quid on May 13, 2022 10:21:16 GMT
Great research. I'm struggling to apply my takeaway from this though. I think it illustrates that politics is hard and there are many views of the truth.
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