The Great ‘Tater of Ely insists that income from investment should pay much higher tax rates than it does. Because. Others mutter about incentives and how perhaps higher taxation of the returns to investment might have an effect on the amounts of investment:
The North Sea’s biggest oil producer expects to cut 350 jobs in Britain two months after it claimed its profits were all but wiped out Rishi Sunak’s windfall tax.
The company, which pumped more than 200,000 barrels of oil and gas a day last year, is reviewing its UK operations after the government slapped the levy on North Sea producers.
Harbour Energy has said some opportunities in Britain will no longer be pursued and it will target growth abroad.
Huhn. Score one for the incentive obsessed among the neoliberals then.
I’ve heard similar things said about the investments in gas production here in Queensland.
The Government introduced a windfall tax on excess energy profits last year after oil and gas companies saw profits surge as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent prices soaring.
My gast is still flabbered by how incredibly foolish that was, but I reckon our leaders already knew the sanctions would likely backfire.
However, they already planned to immiserate the proles – that’s what Net Zero is. So the likelihood of the sanctions turning out to be a boomerang made of human shit was insufficient to dissuade them, and may even be giving the German Greens a transgendered lady-boner.
To compound the effects of the Sanctions from Hell with a fracking ban and a windfall tax on oil and gas was insane. The British government has done more damage to the British economy than the entire Wehrmacht did for the entire duration of WW2.
It’s all a bit Covid 2.0. “We”, whatever that now means after the 2022 coups, seem to be incapable of solving any of our own problems.* When “we” make a horrible, shitty and expensive decision that negatively impacts the British public (see: lockdowns, immigration, tax rises, HS2, foreign aid…) “we” can be relied on to dumbly double down on the things that hurt us.
The whole world is full of rakes, and we’re Sideshow Bob.
* When was the last time the British government solved a problem? I’ll tell you when: it was in 2019/20, after they said Boris would never get a deal with the EU. Before that I think you have to go back to Maggie Thatcher’s time to find an example of the British government making something better instead of worse.
But… But Steve under Tony Blair things could only get better.
When I came back to the UK, I realised that there was no point in looking for work because the govt had purposely destroyed the contracting industry. Of
Otto: the way round it is to work through a Swiss agency for a foreign client. No VAT, no IR35. I had my best ever contract doing that last year.
This is the least surprising development imaginable and is likely to happen here in OZ too, because lefties can’t help wanting to tax things more.