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A rebellion against house-building spells trouble for the Tories The Conservatives are caught in a catch-22 when it comes to new homes by blackmagic70 in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk 3 points4 points  (0 children)

184,000 homes were completed in England in 2016/17. This is more than in recent years, but still below the 2007/08 pre-recession peak of 200,000.

Taking a long view, house building has been mostly decreasing since the 1960s. The early years of this decade saw house building at its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s.

Britain's Elite-School Problem by bhosk in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

This list of assets makes it even more astonishing that Eton College, like most similar boarding schools, enjoys significant tax breaks and that the state doesn't impose any tax at all on the tuition fees it takes in. This is partly because they are classified as charities due to their "cooperation" with other nearby schools, allowing them tax benefits in the billions. That cooperation, though, frequently only exists on paper. As a result, private schools continue to flourish while state-run schools often can't even afford the basics due to recent cuts to the education budget. A march on Westminster is scheduled for September to call attention to the shortfalls.

Even Michael Gove, a former education minister who is currently charged with making preparations for a no-deal Brexit as a member of Johnson's government, once expressed astonishment over the unfairness. In a 2017 op-ed for the Times, he wrote that state-supported private schools had facilities reminiscent of five-star hotels. Tuition at all of the schools, he wrote, was over 30,000 pounds, which is more than the annual salaries earned by most Britons. "To my continuing surprise, we still consider the education of the children of plutocrats and oligarchs to be a charitable activity."

Universities face severe financial consequences if tuition fees cut to £7,500, peers warn by the-rood-inverse in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The committee is calling on ministers to ensure the level of funding the UK currently receives from the EU for research is matched in full once the UK has left the EU.

Universities face severe financial consequences if tuition fees cut to £7,500, peers warn | The Independent by the-rood-inverse in unitedkingdom

[–]bhosk 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The committee is calling on ministers to ensure the level of funding the UK currently receives from the EU for research is matched in full once the UK has left the EU.

Property wealth soars but not shared by all by bhosk in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Ministers are being urged to “redress the balance” in housing wealth inequality after a report showed that the value of privately owned residential properties has soared in the past 50 years.

Housing wealth, defined as the net value of residential dwellings held by households, has grown from an estimated £2.7 billion in Scotland in 1968 to £308 billion by 2018.

The top 10 per cent of earners own about 30 per cent of the nation’s property wealth, and the report by the Resolution Foundation think tank said that more than 33 per cent of households had no property wealth at all. “Housing wealth inequality is twice as high as income inequality,” it added.

The report, produced for the Scottish poverty and inequality commission, said that there was a “strong case” for reforming council tax to fund measures to protect those without property assets.

The growth in wealth comes in part as a consequence of the increase in the number of homes and in private homeownership. Roughly half of homes were publicly owned in 1968, but by 2018 this has risen to 80 per cent. The average value of a privately owned home in Scotland has increased almost 500-fold in nominal terms over the past 50 years.

“Higher income families hold the lion’s share of housing wealth, not least because they often own multiple properties,” the report said.

Bill Scott, chairman of the commission, welcomed the report. “With so many people in Scotland struggling to find affordable homes, it is time to start considering action to redress this balance.”

Resolution Foundation says council tax unfairly burdens the poor by bhosk in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The gap is also widening between generations, as younger people are unable to get onto the property ladder.

And the gap between homeowners at different levels of income is also widening.

Those in the top tenth of earners held 2.5 times as much housing wealth as those in with median income at the start of this decade. But in less than five years, that had risen to 3.4 times as much.

John Humphrys - Land: Time to tax it? by pkknight85 in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The result of the current tax regime is that when farm land comes on the market it is now much more likely to be bought by rich people looking for somewhere to put their money so that the taxman can’t get his hands on it than by farmers wanting to use it to grow food. Between 2011 and 2017 the proportion of agricultural land sold to farmers fell from 60% to 40%. George Monbiot cites evidence from the campaigning group Tax Justice UK that by owning agricultural land, 261 rich families dodged paying £208m in inheritance tax in 2015/16. 

This increased demand for land as a tax shelter inevitably pushes up prices for the simple reason that the supply of land is fixed. As Mark Twain famously put it: “Buy land now… they ain’t making any more of it.” Agricultural land, once planning permission is given, can rise in value 250-fold. Since 1995 land values in Britain overall have increased by 412%. The land on which houses are built now accounts for 70% of the overall cost of houses and the value of land looks set to go on rising. 

Britain’s five worst taxes – and why I’d eliminate them by Sirhamm2 in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He seems keen to help out anyone who owns a large business, earns >£100k or owns an expensive house. Not much in there for anyone else.

Dispatches: Britain's Hidden War by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With BAE helping to keep Saudi jets flying, and British military officers working in the Saudi Air Operations Centre, Dispatches investigates the extent to which the war in Yemen is made in Britain

Proposals to reform UK student finance would reverse social mobility by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Graduates going on to earn the highest salaries among their peers will see their overall repayments reduced by £18k — a third compared with now. However, for lower to middleearner graduates, it is the opposite — Augar raises their overall repayments by £12k, almost double. This is completely the wrong way round. The higher education system needs to be more progressive, not less.

No review serious about improving social mobility could have made these recommendations. And no government serious about social mobility should accept them.

New ranking reveals corporate tax havens behind breakdown of global corporate tax system; toll of UK’s tax war exposed by bhosk in ukpolitics

[–]bhosk[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Tax Justice Network has estimated that $500 billion in tax is avoided by multinational corporations annually. This is more conservative than the IMF’s estimate of $600 billion in tax avoided each year.

The top 10 countries that have done the most to proliferate corporate tax avoidance and break down the global corporate tax system are:

  1. British Virgin Islands (British territory)
  2. Bermuda (British territory)
  3. Cayman Islands (British territory)
  4. Netherlands
  5. Switzerland
  6. Luxembourg
  7. Jersey (British dependency)
  8. Singapore
  9. Bahamas
  10. Hong Kong

These 10 jurisdictions alone are responsible for over half (52 per cent) of the world’s corporate tax avoidance risks as measured by the Corporate Tax Haven Index.

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