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Friday, 5 April 2013

Friday, April 05, 2013 Posted by Jake 6 comments Labels: benefits, Big Society, budget cuts, defence, education, inequality, jobs, NHS, pay, taxation

Most people eligible for benefits are in work, because benefits subsidise employers who pay low wages

Fee and KJ work out who the real scroungers are...

SOURCE TELEGRAPH: Minimum wage could be frozen or cut if it starts to cost jobs or damage economy
At present, the Low Pay Commission, which sets the minimum wage, only has to “consider” the impact on the wider economy. The government now wants to force it to set a minimum wage that supports government cutting costs during a recession. The news alarms anti-poverty campaigners who have been urging the government to adopt the higher “living wage”, which is estimated to be £7.45 this year. Labour is considering making the living wage a key part of the party’s 2015 election manifesto.

GUARDIAN: Revealed: soldiers, nurses and teachers hit by benefit curbs
Report says 500,000 key staff will lose income under the coalition's benefits crackdown.

OUR RELATED STORIES:

Cutting benefits will push the work-shy into employment? Actually benefits subsidise the low wages of millions of working Britons

Is the top rate tax really paid by the wealthiest? In fact, the low paid have the highest marginal tax rate at 95%

Thursday, 4 April 2013

Thursday, April 04, 2013 Posted by Jake No comments Labels: Roundup

Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 4th April)

Over 300 banking adverts caught mis-selling last year
Financial companies were forced to remove or amend more than 300 advertisements last year. But the bank regulator refused to name the offending promotions. So consumers have no way of knowing if they were a victim. Consumer champion Which? says: “It’s ridiculous that if you run a misleading advert for chocolate spread you’re named and shamed, but the names of the firms that have issued hundreds of misleading adverts for complex savings, investments, insurance products and bank accounts are kept secret.” A study six years ago found that more than three-quarters of all adverts published broke the bank regulator's rules. FINANCIAL TIMES
(Said the bank regulator: “Of course we won’t name the offending banks. They lied. They were caught lying. They were forced to stop lying... For an industry that depends on lying, that’s punishment enough.”)

Employers raid workers' pensions to pay fees for external consultancy

New pension rules mean millions of workers are being automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme. The consultancy is for setting up these schemes, but the advice is of no benefit to the workers. Despite this, many employers are charging the huge consultancy fees to the individual employees' pension funds. For example, fees deducted from each worker’s pension can be £400-£450 for the first year plus ongoing annual charges. For a low earner, this could see their pension fund reduced by nearly half in the first year. The government regulators have no plans to intervene. MONEY OBSERVER
(You plebs are too stupid to save for your old age. Your government’s too stupid to save for your old age. So everyone’s gonna have to depend more and more on their employer and the private pension providers. And as you can see from the huge fees they charge, they’re not stupid at all…)

Energy supplier SSE fined £10.5m for mis-selling gas and electricity

The SSE fine is the largest ever imposed on an energy supplier by Ofgem. EDF Energy was forced to pay £4.5m compensation last year. Investigations into E.On, Scottish Power and Npower are still continuing. Among the catalogue of evidence, some customers were told they would save money when in fact they were switched onto a more expensive contract. The people SSE employed to audit doorstep sales got a commission on sales, so had no incentive to report mis-selling. SSE was forced to stop doorstep sales in 2011 due to mis-selling, but continued it in stores and over the phone. The fine is 0.5% of the cash generated year-in and year-out by SSE. No heads have rolled among SSE's senior executive team, but their bonuses have been squeezed. BBC NEWS

(Bonuses "squeezed"? And what’s the difference between squeezed and cut? When you squeeze something you make it smaller, temporarily. Sometimes you just change its shape a little.)

Welfare cuts unjust, say four churches

The Easter criticism comes from the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist and United Reformed Churches, and the Church of Scotland. They accuse politicians and parts of the media of making the cuts easier to impose by misrepresenting poor people as lazy. They said the British public had "come to believe things about the poorest in our society which are just straightforwardly not true... The public believes that the major cause of poverty is laziness, yet the majority of people in poverty work." Figures published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates that families will be an average of £891/year worse off starting this week because of tax rises and cuts to tax credits and benefits introduced since 2010. BBC NEWS
(Said one bishop: “This crisis was caused by the rich and powerful! And what a time to launch all these cuts against the poor! It’s Easter. The holiest part of the Christian year. When we remember how the life of one that was innocent and defenceless was taken, so that the rest of us can be saved... Oh, right… I get it now…”)

Benefit changes: Who will be affected?Ministers argue the changes are necessary to tackle the rising cost to the taxpayer and cut the budget deficit. They also say it will simplify the system and provide greater incentives for people to work. However, charities and opposition politicians say the moves will force families into rent arrears and increase homelessness. BBC NEWS

Petition avalanche for Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week
On Monday's Today Programme David Bennett, a market trader on benefits, said that after his housing benefit had been cut, he lives on £53/week. The next interviewee was Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who was defending the changes. The interviewer then asked IDS if he could live on this amount. He replied: "If I had to, I would." Within hours a petition was launched calling on IDS to live on this budget for at least one year. Within 48 hours over 360,000 had signed. EVENING STANDARD
CLICK HERE FOR THE PETITION
(Has David “We’re all in this together” Cameron signed it yet? I don't think so...)

Minimum wage could be frozen or cut if it starts to cost jobs or damage economy

At present, the Low Pay Commission, which sets the minimum wage, only has to “consider” the impact on the wider economy. The government now wants to force it to set a minimum wage that supports government cutting costs during a recession. The news alarms anti-poverty campaigners who have been urging the government to adopt the higher “living wage”, which is estimated to be £7.45 this year. Labour is considering making the living wage a key part of the party’s 2015 election manifesto. TELEGRAPH
(“Stop scrounger businesses from abusing the system! A business depends on people spending their wages on the high street. So businesses that pay crummy wages are living off the backs of businesses that pay decently,” said the right wing press and government ministers. Not.)

Big rise in firms hiring staff on “zero-hours” contracts
23% of employers with more than 100 staff have adopted the flexible "zero hours" contract terms for at least some staff following a surge in the number of public sector services contracted out to private providers, including the police and the NHS. These contracts keep workers on standby and deny them the same conditions as regular employees. The contracts have long been popular with companies like McDonald's, Poundland and Abercrombie & Fitch. Large charities and public sector organisations have also adopted the arrangements. Employers say the contracts provide flexibility for workers juggling other commitments. GUARDIAN
(...such as hours spent at job centres looking for an employer that won’t screw them over.)

Sunday, 31 March 2013

Sunday, March 31, 2013 Posted by Jake 2 comments Labels: Article, Big Society, inequality, public sector

Outsourcing promises cost savings in a time of austerity. History shows these promises of efficiency and cost savings are false. But even if they aren't don't give up your rights in exchange for a handful of silver.

Hold on to your rights. Rights are not given to you by the powerful through their benevolence. Rights are given only when the powerful need you to fight their wars, work in their companies, or vote for them in elections. Rights are given reluctantly, and are taken back when the opportunity arises. Such an opportunity was created by the banking crisis, smuggled in under the cloak of 'Austerity'.

In the last two centuries the industrial revolution and worldwide wars made the powerful very dependent on ordinary people. Robber barons needed ordinary people in their armies and their factories just to stay ahead of other robber barons. Things are changing. Recent decades have brought automation of factories, computerisation of routine jobs, globalisation of the supply chain, and missiles and drones requiring very few to press the buttons that destroy very many. As time passes, the powerful need us less.

When the powerful tell you they are taking away your rights for your own good, don’t trust them. Employment rights, the right to a fair trial judged by your peers, the right of habeas corpus, the right to a fair share of the nation’s wealth, the right to the protection of the law regardless of your ability to pay a lawyer, the right to a high standard of health and education, and many more hard won rights are being eroded. The powerful are using the opportunity brought by banking crisis austerity as cover.

They tell us we are in a crisis so severe that we must cut costs by cutting benefits, pay, pensions, and services. But not severe enough that we can't still cut top rate income tax, cut corporation tax, and not severe enough that we need a wealth tax. Give the rich a bigger share and, in exchange for our rights they promise the rich will be generous to us. We don't trust in this bargain, but in the face of the powerful we feel powerless.
Organisations ruthlessly pick their leaders for the benefit of the organisation. Companies select for profit, political parties select for power. But there are still ordinary people in the halls of the powerful. People the powerful in government strive to purge by 'outsourcing'.

Public servants are perhaps the greatest protectors of our rights. Not the top mandarins, who have gone through the same ruthless selection process as company executives and cabinet ministers. It is the ones in the middle and bottom of public service that watch and witness our rights. In hospitals it is those public servants doing long shifts wearing a doctor’s stethoscope, carrying a nurse’s bedpan, and pushing a cleaner's mop that are our protection. It is those public servants who stand at the interactive whiteboard in a school, who patrol our streets in a copper’s helmet, who march through foreign lands in camouflage. It is all those grey men and women pushing mice on civil service mouse-mats. Ordinary public servants of all sorts who are, in short, just more of us ripped-off Britons.

They aren't heroes any more than the rest of us are. But when the targets and tick boxes set by their bosses make them behave badly, they know it is people like themselves who suffer. They themselves have to endure what the powerful dictate. The powerful can buy private health and education, and have no need for benefits to supplement their pay.

Sure, it is harder to fire a public servant and private sector labour flexibility can bring benefits. But this very inflexibility means a public servant is less in fear for his job, and more likely to 'blow a whistle'. And it is this fear of the whistle-blower that slows down the rate and ruthlessness of the powerful eroding our rights.

Public services can be bumbling, inefficient and incompetent. It is said that a focused properly incentivised commercial organisation can do better. But ‘better’ for whom? Public services are monopolies. We don’t have two armies who compete to see how many foreigners they can quell per £. Hospitals, police forces, councils sweeping streets and collecting your bins, they are all virtual monopolies in their own local areas. When they are outsourced these monopolies are handed over as monopolies to organisations motivated by profit for the duration of their outsourcing contracts.

And so with outsourcing we are still left with inefficient monopolies. Only now their inefficiency is not due to bumbling and incompetence but due to the pursuit of profit. They are even able to claim they are not inefficient. “Inefficiency” to us ripped-off Britons is poor service. “Inefficiency” to these private monopolies is poor profits. By their own measure the private companies are very efficient. They achieve this by providing the bare minimum service using the bare minimum resource. Minimum efficiency in service provision equals maximum efficiency in pocketing the difference in profits.

And so the reduction in costs is not returned to us ripped-off Britons. There is no long term reduction in the price paid by Britons for the service. And a further price is paid by Britons in the degradation of the services that are our rights.

There are bodies that keep watch, staffed by ordinary public servants. The Office of National Statistics (ONS), which is a great source of data for our blogs, and the National Audit Office (NAO) are two. Ordinary public servants, with no hope of a bumper bonus, watch what is happening with the nation and what is being done in our names. In the single month of March 2013 alone the National Audit Office made the following statements:

Government initiative to cut costs by putting more stuff online: “Online working is increasingly central to the delivery of government services and rightly so. But it is important to remember that there are significant numbers for whom this does not work – who cannot or do not want to go online.”
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/digital-britain-2-putting-users-at-the-heart-of-governments-digital-services/

Government attempt to save costs on procurement for the Fire Brigade resulted in the creation of a nationwide procurement company, Firebuy Ltd. This was closed down in July 2011: “The extent of the missing documentation and explanations in relation to Firebuy Ltd’s activity is so great that I cannot conclude with sufficient certainty whether the 2010-11 financial statements are free from material error.”
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/firebuy-ltd-2010-11-and-2011-12-financial-statements/

Provision of new school places: “despite increases in places and funding over the last two years, it faces a real challenge, with 256,000 places still required by 2014/15. Furthermore, there are indications of strain on school places.”
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/capital-funding-for-new-school-places/

Provision of out-of-hours GP services by the outsourcing company SERCO: “During 2012 Serco regularly had insufficient staff to fill all clinical shifts. It also frequently redeployed some GPs, taking them out of the cars available for home visits and using them to cover clinic shifts instead. In July 2012, the Care Quality Commission reported that the out-of-hours service did not have enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff to meet people’s needs.” http://www.nao.org.uk/report/health-memorandum-on-the-provision-of-the-out-of-hours-gp-service-in-cornwall/

The National Audit Office scrutinises public spending on behalf of Parliament, auditing the accounts of all central government departments and agencies, and many other public bodies. Local government has been audited by the Audit Commission that has had responsibility for appointing independent auditors.

Sadly, the government in August 2010, decided to abolish the Audit Commission, and outsource its function:

“On 13 August 2010, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced plans to disband the Audit Commission, transfer the work of the Audit Commission’s in-house practice into the private sector and put in place a new local audit framework. Local authorities would be free to appoint their own independent external auditors and there would be a new audit framework for local health bodies.”

By this change in the law local government politicians busily outsourcing their functions will be free to appoint their own auditors. Auditors chosen and paid by the people they are supposed to audit and hold to account. For what reason?

“£250 million savings for local public bodies expected from Audit Commission outsourcing”

Another government wheeze is the buyingin of services by GPs directly from private as well as NHS providers, rather than from their local NHS Primary Care Trusts. GPs will be given control of budgets previously held by the NHS Primary Care Trusts (PCT), and will have wide discretion how to spend the money. The British Medical Journal reported in March 2013:

“More than a third of general practitioners on the boards of new clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have a conflict of interest due to directorships or shares held in private companies, reveals a BMJ investigation today.

It provides the clearest evidence to date of the conflicts many doctors will have to manage from April 1, when the GP-led groups are handed statutory responsibility for commissioning around £60bn of NHS healthcare.

The BMJ used Freedom of Information requests and CCG websites to analyse the registered interests of almost 2,500 board members across 176 of the 211 commissioning groups in England.

It found 426 (36%) of the 1,179 GPs in executive positions had a financial interest in a for-profit private provider beyond their own GP practice – a provider from which their CCG could potentially commission services.”

And who will be holding the GPs to account? According to their graphic, the Department of Health will wash its hands of responsibility leaving "accountability for results" with the "Patients and Public". So it is up to us to hold the GPs to account!

History is full of examples where a handful of silver is enough to dupe people into giving up a good thing. A handful of silver is quickly spent, and probably not on you.

If the price of protecting your rights is inefficient public service, rather than outsourced "efficiency", then hold on to your rights.

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Saturday, March 30, 2013 Posted by Jake 2 comments Labels: Article, Big Society, budget cuts, credit crunch, Guest, public sector

Outsourcing public services: a case of privatised profits, socialised losses

Guest post from the Scriptonite Daily blog; the "Barnet Casino" video is from The Barnet Alliance (produced by Azi Khatiri, drawn by Ellis Nadler).

It is clear and beyond doubt: it simply costs more to live in a state where the basics we need to survive are handed over to private interests to profit from. We had it better when we shared.

So, the privatisation of our public services has seen a rise in personal debt; that makes sense. But one would think that there would have been a corresponding fall in public debt. Instead, as we have seen, the debt has risen. So what are they spending all this money on?

The truth is, they never really privatised as they said they did. They privatised profit, and they socialised investment and losses.

It doesn’t matter which sector you choose, the role of the state has become handing out tax breaks and subsidies whilst acting as a guarantor against losses. This is the role of tax payer money which successive governments have prioritised above social utility – or making life better.

Socialised Losses

The most obvious recent example was the Bankers Bailout. In the bailout of 2008/9, the UK government had to guarantee funding to the banking sector, of 101% of GDP. That is, the UK diverted over £2trillion of tax payer money from public expenditure, to a handful of banks.

This is equivalent to almost 3 times its entire annual budget; twenty years of NHS spending (£106.7bn a year); forty years of education spending (£48.2bn); or five hundred years of job seekers allowance (£4.9bn a year).

In the 2013 budget, George Osborne offered another £130bn to banks in the form of mortgage guarantees, effectively making it so banks can grant mortgages to people, reap the profits, but never fear a default as the government (you and me) will pick up the tab.

Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)

Our hospitals and schools have been built under private loans called Private Finance Initiatives, rather than government borrowing. These loans are at least twice the rate of interest that government loans would have been. These loans are then repaid over 25-30 years.

Today, 22 of the 103 NHS trusts to enter PFI are facing difficulty due to the exorbitant repayments required to pay back the so-called NHS Mortgage (paying back the company for building the hospital). Some hospitals are having to handover a fifth of their annual budget on paying for the PFI deal.

In Education, it was revealed that we are due to have a shortfall of 250,000 school places for our children by 2014, whilst the tax payer has picked up a £70m bill for PFI schools which had to close.

Overall, for a capital investment of £54.7bn (that’s how much money we actually borrowed to build stuff), the tax payer will pay back an astounding £301bn in just twenty five years. Given the disasters of debt witnessed so far, many of the 771 PFI projects currently running will bust the budget of these schools and hospitals long before then, leaving us with the debt but not the service.

Outsourcing

There has been massive outsourcing of the provision of public services, effectively leaving many services as public sector branded, tax payer funded private interests. I covered this extensively in an article last year so please see that for the full detail. Here I will use just one example, our courts.

The cost of running a court room has increased to £110 a minute due to the rapid rise on private contractors high costs for security, language services, cleaning, transport, and so on. Companies such as G4S and Serco are making enormous profits, where once that money would have been used to pay staff, improve services, or simply never charged. G4S provide 800 staff to the Old Bailey. They charge £11.49 per security guard, while paying the guard just £6.45 – that’s just under £42m a year they make from this one court.

This has been replicated in the health service, education, prisons, probation, the police force…everywhere. The result? The costs of the service rise exponentially, the service quality declines and the service itself becomes less and less accountable to us.

Subsidies, Tax Breaks and Tax Avoidance

While we have privatised rail, energy, utilities and energy – we continue to pay massive subsidies to the private companies running them now. When we aren’t handing money over directly, the government is letting them off paying their dues.

The UK government made £5.3bn by selling British Rail. This equates to a mere 3 years in the increased, yes increased, state subsidy agreed by the UK government. This means, the companies gave us £5.3bn in 1996, and we gave that back in subsidies in the following three years. Not only that, but we continue to pay the subsidy. In fact, today, the rail subsidy stands at £5.2bn per year. Fare-payers contribute £6.2bn per year. Therefore, we sold a service for £5.3bn in 1996, which we now rent back for £11.5bn per year.

Gas and Oil prices were subsidised to the tune of £3.6bn in 2010, whilst renewable energy projects received just a third of that. And with the exception of the first two years of the financial crisis, this figure has risen consistently over time. Yesterday’s budget announced more of the same, with shale gas exploration receiving massive tax breaks.

And finally, taxation. Only one in four of the UK’s top companies pay their taxes, meanwhile they were receiving tax credits to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds by people who did pay their taxes.

Company taxes now constitute only 12.5% (Corporation Tax is just 7%) of the tax revenues of the UK. In comparison, the people’s taxes, (income tax and VAT) make up more than 60% of the tax income.

Corporation Tax is lower today than at any time in its history. UK Corporation Tax in 1984 was 52%. By 1986 it was 36%. In 1999 it dropped to 30% and in the most recent budget it was cut to 20%.

Meanwhile, tax avoidance is costing us almost £70bn each year.

David Cameron lamented in a June 2012 speech “Today, almost one pound in every three spent by the Government goes on welfare.” The truth is Cameron wants that pound joining the other two, funding a tax payer subsidised corporate state.

Every budget, every policy, every sound bite is designed to promote the ideas that have us facing spiraling debt, rising unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, bankrupt schools and hospitals and a rapidly eroding welfare state to mop up the mess.

It is time for us to share the proceeds of our industrious, innovative, caring society with each other. It is time to end this parasitic relationship where the state is ever more simply the vehicle by which the few are delivered the profits of the endeavours of the many.

Friday, 29 March 2013

Friday, March 29, 2013 Posted by Jake No comments Labels: banks, pay, regulation, taxation

Cayman Islands revokes HSBC’s local banking license

KJ to the rescue?...

SOURCE CAYMAN NET NEWS - The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority has officially revoked the banking license of HSBC S.A. (Cayman Islands Branch)
The CIMA concluded that HSBC’s activities were “detrimental to the public interest, the interest of depositors or of the beneficiaries of any trust or other creditors and that the direction and management of its businesses has not been conducted in a fit and proper manner.” Following recent record fines for money laundering whilst paying multi-million pound bonuses to hundreds of its staff, HSBC’s marketing teams are already at full stretch trying to rescue their reputation.

OUR RELATED STORIES:

In numbers (+ a cool animation): Global tax evasion and money laundering

The US imprisons accountants at firms like PwC, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Deloitte, for enabling tax dodging. Why not the UK?

Thursday, 28 March 2013

Thursday, March 28, 2013 Posted by Jake No comments Labels: Roundup

Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 28th March)

New £80bn 'Help to Buy' scheme may get you on the housing ladder – but if prices rise, so does your debt

Help to Buy should initially mean it becomes easier to get on to the property ladder. But the Chancellor admits he hopes it causes a steep climb in house prices. But this will cause a mini bubble. When the scheme ends in three years, the number of buyers will drop, and house prices will fall again. This could leave many homeowners who bought a home with a small deposit stuck in negative equity — i.e. they owe more than the value of their home. DAILY MAIL

(“Cheap credit to house buyers who can’t otherwise afford it? Why didn’t I think of that first? Oh, right, I did,” said every bank that caused the biggest global economic collapse since the 1930s...)

OECD says UK tax hits stay-at-home mothers hardest

A family with one worker and two children lost 27.9% of wages in tax in 2012. This compared with 26.2% in 2009 before the Coalition was elected. The international average for such a family is 26.1%. Also, “well off” British families with stay-at-home mothers are now worse off, paying 40.5%of earnings in tax compared to international average of 38.6%. This contrasts with both single people and two-earner families which have benefited from cuts in the tax-free personal allowances and other changes. DAILY MAIL

The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority has officially revoked the banking license of HSBC S.A. (Cayman Islands Branch)

The CIMA concluded that HSBC’s activities were “detrimental to the public interest, the interest of depositors or of the beneficiaries of any trust or other creditors and that the direction and management of its businesses has not been conducted in a fit and proper manner.” Following recent record fines for money laundering whilst paying multi-million pound bonuses to hundreds of its staff, HSBC’s marketing teams are already at full stretch trying to rescue their reputation. CAYMAN NET NEWS

(NEWS LATEST: HSBC launches new advertising campaign, called “We try so hard to dodge tax for you, even the Cayman Islands won’t touch us.”)

45% rise in UK banks’ core profits wiped out by billions in fines, regulation violations and their own mistakes

The UK’s five major banks were hit by PPI mis-selling compensation costs of £7.4bn. In addition, there were other fines and penalties from regulators and "redress provisions" of £4.7bn, and a £12.8bn accounting hit for losses caused by the revaluation of "own debt." The news is likely to provoke stern words from bank shareholders. BBC NEWS

(...those stern words being: “Either stop screwing customers, or stop getting caught. Preferably the latter.”)

Prime Minister in rip-off price clash with energy firms

Britain’s biggest energy firms have attacked the PM’s plans to force them to simplify billing options. Soon, energy suppliers must only offer 4 tariffs, and clearly inform all customers of cheaper options. Currently there are around 300 tariffs, causing confusion and poor choices by consumers. But the energy firms claim this reduction in choice was “unreasonable” in a competitive market, and that the cheapest tariff today may not cut your bill in the long term.“ A snapshot forward-looking view of the cheapest tariff may well, in hindsight, turn out not to have been the cheapest,” npower said. TELEGRAPH

(“…and we should know. ‘cos that’s precisely how we’ve been gipping money out of you fools all these years,” said six of the Big Six energy firms.)

£16m pay bonanza for five British Gas bosses: Windfall came just weeks after inflation-busting price increases

British Gas chief Phil Bentley will walk away with a nest-egg worth more than £10m when he steps down in June, in addition to a £5.4m pension pot. The CEO of its parent, Centrica, Sam Laidlaw is handed £5m. British Gas made £606m profit. The average gas and electricity bill will rise to £1,420 by end of next year. The coldest spring for decades means everyone has been hit with a 6% rise in bills of around £100 each over the past few months. A spokesman replied: ‘At Centrica, pay and bonuses are based squarely on performance.' DAILY MAIL

(Errr… whose performance? Performance of the weather, which is poor this year. And performance of the energy regulator, which is poor every year.)

£166 reduction in energy bills, boasts Government, provided we green appliances

Households will have to spend thousands of pounds buying new green appliances to benefit from the Government’s claims its policies are bringing down energy bills. Ministers claimed this would more than “offset” green taxes and subsidies, which are likely to contribute around £199 to your average bill by 2020. For example, the Government estimates we will replace our washing machine every 12 years. But the White Goods Trade Association say a good quality appliance can last for 10,000 hours, so we would need to use the machine for 15 hours a week to wear it out in 12 years. TELEGRAPH

(...And the only one to do that much laundry every week is the Department of Energy & Climate Change. To their data.)

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Tuesday, March 26, 2013 Posted by Jake No comments Labels: banks, budget cuts, credit crunch, HMRC, taxation

Cyprus latest: EU forces closure of banks

Cameron catches up on the news...

SOURCE GUARDIAN: Cyprus bailout deal with EU closes bank and seizes large deposits
The Cypriot economy is based on a banking sector that has been used as a tax haven and a home to laundered money. The EU bailout plan will close the second largest bank, with the wealthiest depositors, shareholders and bondholders losing substantial amounts.

OUR RELATED STORIES:

The UK is a global leader in tax dodging services. Is Cameron serious about closing it down?

In numbers (+ a cool animation): Global tax evasion and money laundering

Sunday, 24 March 2013

Sunday, March 24, 2013 Posted by Jake 4 comments Labels: Article, Big Society, budget cuts, Guest, HMRC, taxation

Britain's tax policy helps those who help themselves

As the 2013 Budget cuts corporation tax to the lowest in the G20, we look at some statistics from our guest post from the Tackle Tax Havens blog

$1-1.6 trillion

Annual cross-border flow of the global proceeds from tax evasion, corruption and criminal activities. Every $100 million recovered could fund full immunisations for four million children or provide water connections for 250,000 households.

www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2007-09-17.html

$120 billion

Amount that could be delivered to fight poverty per year by Tax haven crackdown.

Oxfam, press release, 13th March 2009

$100 billion

Amount that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations estimated in 2008 that the U.S. lost in tax revenue due to offshore tax abuse every year.

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

$1 trillion

Amount of unrepatriated foreign profits sitting offshore.

Drucker, Jesse. “Tax Holiday for $1 Trillion May Lure Back Profits Without Growth.” Bloomberg. 17 March 2011

$810 billion

Average outflow of illicit money from developing countries per year between 2000‐2008 as estimated by Global Financial Integrity.

Kar, Dev and Curcio, Karly. Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries 2000-‐2009. Jan 2011

18,857

Number of registered businesses at one address in the Cayman Islands.

Government Accountability Office, International Taxation: Large U.S. Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries In Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Secrecy Jurisdictions, Dec 2008

217,000

The number of companies housed at 1209 Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware.

Shaxson, Nicholas. (2011) Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and The Men Who Stole the World (p.143). London: The Bodley Head

759

Number of offshore subsidiaries in tax havens for Citigroup, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley combined.

83

Number of the 100 largest U.S. companies that use offshore tax havens ‐ including the big banks taxpayers bailed out in 2008.

$57.2 billion

Amount of money Egypt lost to trade mispricing and other forms of commercial
crime between 2000 and 2008.

Kar, Dev and Curcio, Karly. Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries 2000-‐2009. Jan 2011

$2

Daily earnings for at least one third of Egyptians.

Bronner, Eithan. “Mubarak Denies Corruption and Defends His Legacy.” New York Times. 11 April 2011

30% – 6.6%

Change in corporate share of the US’s tax receipts mid 1950s – 2009.

Kocieniewski, David. “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether.” New York Times. 24 March 2011

64%

Publicly traded U.S. parent companies incorporated in Delaware.

Dyreng, Scott, Lindsey, Bradley P. and Thornock, Jacob R., Exploring the Role Delaware Plays as a Domestic Tax Haven 28 April 2011

51%

Publicly traded U.S. subsidiaries incorporated in Delaware.

Dyreng, Scott, Lindsey, Bradley P. and Thornock, Jacob R., Exploring the Role Delaware Plays as a Domestic Tax Haven 28 April 2011