Brexit (merged threads)

[Capeesh]

When it comes to public finances EU migrants contribute far more than they cost

It's not EU migrants putting a strain on our public services, it's criminally negligent underinvestment and mismanagement from our abysmal Tory government.

The last thing the country needs is to start booting out working age tax payers.

Maybe those rich, tax dodging Tory party donors and their pals could start paying their share like the rest of us.

These charlatans are playing an absolute blinder convincing people it's the EU's free movement to blame for the strain on our public services.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Capeesh

[Wheelsup]

I also think, that in future, if you are in unemployed you’ll offered a job henting taaties, or strawberries, or cleaning, or waiting tables. If you turn it down you’ll probably find you lose your unemployment benefit. They’ll regret their Brexit and Boris then.

[Davie P]

When it comes to public finances EU migrants contribute far more than they cost

It's not EU migrants putting a strain on our public services, it's criminally negligent underinvestment and mismanagement from our abysmal Tory government.

The last thing the country needs is to start booting out working age tax payers.

Maybe those rich, tax dodging Tory party donors and their pals could start paying their share like the rest of us.

These charlatans are playing an absolute blinder convincing people it's the EU's free movement to blame for the strain on our public services.

Completely agree. The last thing we need is to prevent tax paying workers from contributing to and growing our economy, and the vast majority of EU workers contribute positively.

 

It's myth that economic migrants are a burden on the welfare system. The lion's share of welfare payments (almost half) goes on pension payments based on NI contributions and funded from current tax payers, and only about 1% goes on unemployment benefits. There are (or were) many restrictions on the amount and length of time EU migrants could claim benefits for, and EU nationals were proportionally far less likely to claim benefits than UK nationals.

 

The coalition government tightened up benefits eligibility criteria in 2013/14 and EU claimants were on the decrease at the time of the referendum, but you wouldn't have known that if you read the Daily Mail or Express. Westminster could have further tightened these criteria should they have wished - no need for Brexit to do that. The 'sponging foreigners' argument for Brexit was shamefully peddled by the right wing media, and amplified by social media misinformation despite being constantly debunked.

 

“In the period following the introduction of the [entitlement] measures . . . there was a 47 per cent fall in the number of new [unemployment benefit] claims by EEA nationals,” said the Department for Work and Pensions’ report..... Those who said that it was perfectly possible, legally and administratively, to take measures within the current EU legal framework . . . to address issues of ‘benefit tourism’ or ‘abuse’ by recently arrived EEA nationals were correct — we could and did,” [Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London] added.

 

But Mr Portes said that, “equally, those who said that this would make no visible difference at all to actual migration flows, since benefits are not a significant pull factor, were also correct”.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/520f183e-8bdd-11e7-9084-d0c17942ba93

 

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I didn't think the government would be so reckless as to see through with this particular Brexit promise, but it looks like they're going to crash on....

[NullVoid]

As Scotland has 100,000 unemployed why must we bring in people from overseas to do low paid jobs. Some of these 100,000 will not be disabled so why should they not be doing some thing to get a wage or their dole money.I do admit to not knowing much about these things so i am sure that some one will tell me that this is a stupid question and why it cannot be done.

 

Because when you have tonnes of poor people looking for work and being unable to find it you dont have any reason to raise wages as productivity increases.

 

Lots of people live in towns where there isnt enough work for somebody to get a nest egg to move and the barrier to entry is much higher, Scotland also boarders the Englands rust belt and has its own smaller pockets of deindustrialization.

 

Shetland has some difficulty finding people to fill some jobs because it is expensive to move to Shetland if you want to know why throw a dart at a map of the uk mainland and crunch the numbers to find out how much it would cost divided by how much income remaining after average wages and average housing costs for said area are deducted.

 

here is a map of economic growth(more chances to get a nest egg) from during the Great Recession notice anything?

 

Given how low wir current unemployment rate is and how we’re already struggling to fill vacancies in areas like fish processing, hospitality and social care I canna see this being good news for us.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-51550421

 

High unemployment and growing poverty is great if you are an employer and terrible if you are an employee,

you can also make geat profits renting out a buy to let to immigrants or locals on the dole and the banks profit from this too,

Plus this has the added bonus of increasing property values which means mortgages can take longer and produce more interest.

 

who does the bifactional Conservative-Labour Unpiarty work for again?

 

If anyone criticized one of the faces you like just crack open this book for a zinger that will shut them up

Edited February 20, 2020 by NullVoid

[George.]

As Scotland has 100,000 unemployed why must we bring in people from overseas to do low paid jobs. Some of these 100,000 will not be disabled so why should they not be doing some thing to get a wage or their dole money.I do admit to not knowing much about these things so i am sure that some one will tell me that this is a stupid question and why it cannot be done.

 

I wonder if the English will ever be able to get a job, or is it a little beyond them? I wonder just how many of them could get a job? I wonder what sort of percentage of them would find it rather beyond.......

Edited February 20, 2020 by George.

[Davie P]

^ xenophobic nonsense. There's no need for comments like that

[Urabug]

It is not those who are able to work hard that are a drain on the welfare system, but the mams,dads and other dependent relatives that many immigrants seem to bring with them .

 

The welfare state is intended for those who need it and have contributed to it, but is abused by many who do not qualify but being a compassionate country we do not turn them away when they need help. 

 

THE NHS will never divulge how many of their patients are genuine, like lived in this country for years and paid tax and NI.

 

All this costs money that those of us who pay tax and NI fund.

 

Any employer paying the minimum wage and able to get reliable staff to work, when and if he/she needs them will of course think they have struck gold, they do not have to pay a steady wage..      .

 

"0" hour contracts ideal for employers but not much good for someone who has a family and requires a reliable wage. But that is the way the country is going someone works 1hr ? a week but statistically they are employed. 

 

Immigration definitely needs to be controlled, look after our own first. 

[Roachmill]

Before we all go bashing immigrants and their families for wasting all our hard earned money, let's spare a thought for our ruling government and their millionaire MPs who are personally invested and take large contributions from large corporate backers who don't pay any taxes at all. Don't be mad on them. Stick it to the immigrants who cost far less than taxes lost.

[Urabug]

Before we all go bashing immigrants and their families for wasting all our hard earned money, let's spare a thought for our ruling government and their millionaire MPs who are personally invested and take large contributions from large corporate backers who don't pay any taxes at all. Don't be mad on them. Stick it to the immigrants who cost far less than taxes lost.

Yeah ! but there lies a problem,we live in a "global" market so over tax those company's and they just move elsewhere . Better to get something from them than nothing at all.

 

When many of those company's move they still trade on the internet so we the customer see no change ,but government is unable to impose restrictions or tax them.

 

We want open borders but at what price !.

[Roachmill]

I don't quite follow. It's not better to get nothing from them than nothing at all. Where taxes don't exceed profits there's money to be made which is what companies want to do i.e. they can afford to pay taxes but don't because they are allowed to. So long as MPs have a financial interest in that not changing... that won't change.

 

Thankfully we have the media telling us who to hate and blame for stealing our money. The same media organisations not paying taxes where at all possible. No conflict of interest there and they certainly wouldn't shine a light on immigrants, the unemployed, gingers etc. to stop fingers being pointed in their, and subsequently their chums, direction /s

Edited February 20, 2020 by Roachmill

[George.]

^ xenophobic nonsense. There's no need for comments like that

 

There was no need to have to suffer xenophobic nonsense that had to be responded to.

[Urabug]

Off course all those big company's Google,Amazon ect, ect  should be paying far more tax,their is no denying that ,but how do you get them to pay when their headquarters are probably in some foreign country.

 

They answer is simple You and I and everyone else should stop using them but we won't.

 

Amazon employs hundreds ,what would happen to them if the government slapped a great tax bill on the company and Amazon said no thanks bye bye we will post from China.

 

Remember what happened to the British Merchant Navy ,shipping company's registered their ships in foreign ports and took on foreign crews destroying the jobs of many British seamen. All to save costs.

[Davie P]

It is not those who are able to work hard that are a drain on the welfare system, but the mams,dads and other dependent relatives that many immigrants seem to bring with them .

 

The welfare state is intended for those who need it and have contributed to it, but is abused by many who do not qualify but being a compassionate country we do not turn them away when they need help.........

 

I'd be interested to see some statistical evidence of this as pretty much every economic analysis I've seen shows the net economic effects of EU migration to be positive.

 

However, statistics are easy to ignore in the battle for hearts and minds, and the perception that EU migration is a drain on resources is a persistent myth that was a key driving factor in why people voted to leave the EU. The government and sections of the media have done an excellent job of blaming migrants for overburdening public services when underinvestment is the key factor. This is a common trait of populist politics - ignore the facts and blame the migrants!

 

 

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/migration-funding-distribution/

 

EU migrants contribute positively to UK public finances. According to recent research, they pay more into the system through taxes than what they take out by using public services and receiving benefits. Furthermore, EU migrants’ contributions over their entire lifetime are usually much higher than those of natives, partly because most migrants arrive fully educated and many leave before the cost of retirement and old-age starts to weigh on public finances.

 

Still, the public’s opposition to EU migration is driven, in large part, by economic factors, often focused on migrants’ use of state funds, welfare and public services such as the NHS and schools. While the British public has become increasingly positive about the overall economic impact of EU immigration since the EU referendum in 2016, the same opinion polls still show that a substantial part of the population think migration has had a negative economic impact.

 

So why do experts and parts of the public view economic impacts of EU immigration so differently? One explanation could be that the public’s economic concerns are centred around low-skilled EU migrants rather than the aggregate effect. Indeed, a recent study found that low-skilled migrants contribute less to public finances than high-skilled migrants. But their contribution was still positive, and this is before accounting for the fact that low-skilled migrants often fill important shortages in the labour market.

 

Another explanation would be that parts of the public are simply ignorant of EU immigrants’ positive impact on public finances, or that their judgement is biased by other considerations. For example, those who oppose immigration for cultural reasons may simply be choosing to ignore or reject the economic facts. But it’s also possible that the public are simply looking at the issue from a different perspective, and that this is view is as informative as the perspective of experts.

 

Recent NIESR and British Future research found that people operate with a hierarchy of evidence. People tend to trust local and personal experiences including what they hear from friends, family and colleagues, more than narratives from experts and the media.

[Roachmill]

Off course all those big company's Google,Amazon ect, ect  should be paying far more tax,their is no denying that ,but how do you get them to pay when their headquarters are probably in some foreign country.

 

They answer is simple You and I and everyone else should stop using them but we won't.

 

Amazon employs hundreds ,what would happen to them if the government slapped a great tax bill on the company and Amazon said no thanks bye bye we will post from China.

 

Remember what happened to the British Merchant Navy ,shipping company's registered their ships in foreign ports and took on foreign crews destroying the jobs of many British seamen. All to save costs.

 

But it's not tech companies I'm specifically on about, it's BJ, Mogg and co. who all have their millions buried in all sorts of things that pay no tax. Why do you think they do that and are allowed to do it???

 

As for the Amazon example - were they to start shipping from somewhere like China, people would stop buying from them as delivery would take forever. They'd go to somewhere closer to home and give them their money instead; which would pay somebody their minimum wage, their employer pays their taxes and pockets the profit. Said profit wouldn't be as much as compared to not paying any taxes, but it's still a profit.

 

While we're on a techy vibe, I read just today that Google (I'm sure they won't be the only ones) are looking at storing UK user data outside of the EU and keeping it in the US. Coincidently, that would make it subject to the very lax US privacy / protection laws and not the wonderfully stringent EU ones.

It is not one little bit surprising (there's money to be made!) and yet people voted to enable something as obvious as this to happen. Brilliant. How very well done.

[Urabug]

It's a strange old world we educate our accountants to collect and understand taxes ,but also to advise us how to avoid paying tax.

 

I can only assume that the many business entrepreneurs who are able to avoid paying tax have the very best accountants available and that governments are unable to,or unwilling to make it more difficult,ma'be  to the MPs own advantage.

 

Surely all our honest, trustworthy MPs would never try to avoid paying tax or allow anyone else the opportunity.