Cobden Centre Advisory Board member Chris Neal writes on ConservativeHome’s Platform:
We have endured a torrid time of late and appear to be in the process of throwing the baby out with the bath water. For years now we have benefited from a robust and thriving financial services sector. City firms contributed £67.8billion to tax coffers in 2007 but this had already dropped to £32.5billion to the end of March 2009. Arguably this is the most transportable global business; consequently droves of hedge funds and private equity firms are relocating to jurisdictions with tax friendly regimes.
Well chaps, let me make this clear: we are losing these tax revenues and the high earning individuals that spend lavishly on smart homes and consumer lifestyle – which benefits society as a whole. These guys have had enough. They are not all responsible for what happened, yet the knock-on effect of their departure is plain to see but you are all ignoring it: choosing to kill the golden goose with higher taxes and by handing over regulation to an unelected Brussels elite.
