We're in the Money!

[TheTeapot]

16 hours ago, jaymann said:

 

I did hear recently that Tax/NI incomes to treasury haven't dropped since March, which doesn't stack up given the unemployment figures. But if it is true.. great!

https://covid19.gov.im/media/1424/2020-erg-dashboard-2-october-2020-published-v2.pdf

[Boris Johnson]

1 hour ago, TheTeapot said:

https://covid19.gov.im/media/1424/2020-erg-dashboard-2-october-2020-published-v2.pdf

The people laid off over Covid are mostly the low paid and they generate little tax or NI. A 1,000 laid of that are paid the minimum wage and say a generous guess of £300 in tax & NI per month is not a lot percentage wise So that does not surprise me.

Edited November 14, 2020 by Boris Johnson

[Filippo]

18 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

You're not supposed to say that 

It's presented as good news for the huddled wassnames to rejoice in and spur them to give even more to our great and good. We have an image to maintain here....

 

21 hours ago, jaymann said:

I did hear recently that Tax/NI incomes to treasury haven't dropped since March, which doesn't stack up given the unemployment figures. But if it is true.. great!

 

21 hours ago, Uhtred said:

Fair enough...I accept it’s always an estimate, but c’mon....that’s wide of the goal, not even against the post.

 

3 hours ago, Boris Johnson said:

The people laid off over Covid are mostly the low paid and they generate little tax or NI. A 1,000 laid of that are paid the minimum wage and say a generous guess of £300 in tax & NI per month is not a lot percentage wise So that does not surprise me.

 

The Isle of Man has been relatively well managed during past few decades. It has happened because of necessity, deriving from the peculiarities of its situation. And because of successive governments that saw their mandate and focus the best interest of the island, rather than fighting ideological wars or just fighting to hold their grip on power. There is a large constituency here that wants the island to be prosperous and successful, as a priority. This is not what happens in the UK often, where ideological and power struggles are the order of the day.

The flaws of the present system are bloated government bureaucracy, poor value for taxpayer money, vested interests, dysfunctional and hypocrite health care service. You name it. But fortunately, not too much welfarism and consequential social ills, in comparison to other European countries. Improving on the flaws is politically difficult. Some of this economic dysfunction is seen as a trade-off for keeping the peace and other political priorities.

My concern was how much of the good part can be retained in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis. Many see the crisis as an opportunity for political change, in the direction that of course does not look good to me. For instance, unrestrained public spending funded through quantitative easing, an euphemism for “printed money”, which is what is now happening in the UK on a large scale, is not a system of governance compatible with the viability and independence of this island; nor with other policies that have underpinned prosperity on these shores so far. We can be insulated from the UK only up to a certain point. Furthermore, the crisis has brought here a reversion to nativism and insularity that has simply horrified the non-Manx-born of libertarian complexion.
 

[Apple]

11 hours ago, Filippo said:

My concern was how much of the good part can be retained in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis. Many see the crisis as an opportunity for political change, in the direction that of course does not look good to me.

An excellent analysis. What do you think of the possibility for (any) future restriction measures the Govt may be tempted to leave in place post Covid ?

[Filippo]

41 minutes ago, Apple said:

An excellent analysis. What do you think of the possibility for (any) future restriction measures the Govt may be tempted to leave in place post Covid?

Thanks. For the time being, and for what I know, the so called “border force” is the only Covid legacy that IOMG has promised us; without clarifying what it would consist of precisely (and the head of the local constabulary is so keen to be put in charge of it). Of course my concerns span a whole range of other issues.

At the least on the financial side the situation for the government is not as bad as initially feared; though the surplus is a backward-looking statement. A return to normality (our normality) would certainly be possible.

[Escape Artist]

Although the surplus is a backward-looking statement, as it has been pointed out in the above, because of the peculiarity of the IOM economy, where tourism is only 1% of our GDP and the low-waged part, and for having a local economy mostly intact, government finances don’t have a particularly bad outlook at present; especially if compared to the other jurisdictions of the British Isles.

However, having closed the island to non-residents and made return travel so difficult, for such a long and indefinite amount of time, may have undermined confidence. Is this going to happen again every time we have a bad flu season? And what about all those jailings? Which other European country has done as many jailings as IOMG on a per-capita basis? The kind of people who are sensitive and dissenting to the restrictions and suppression are likely to be those who contribute more to the revenue in the longer term I am afraid.

[Lxxx]

17 hours ago, Filippo said:

 

 

 

 

The Isle of Man has been relatively well managed during past few decades. It has happened because of necessity, deriving from the peculiarities of its situation. And because of successive governments that saw their mandate and focus the best interest of the island, rather than fighting ideological wars or just fighting to hold their grip on power. There is a large constituency here that wants the island to be prosperous and successful, as a priority. This is not what happens in the UK often, where ideological and power struggles are the order of the day.

The flaws of the present system are bloated government bureaucracy, poor value for taxpayer money, vested interests, dysfunctional and hypocrite health care service. You name it. But fortunately, not too much welfarism and consequential social ills, in comparison to other European countries. Improving on the flaws is politically difficult. Some of this economic dysfunction is seen as a trade-off for keeping the peace and other political priorities.

My concern was how much of the good part can be retained in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis. Many see the crisis as an opportunity for political change, in the direction that of course does not look good to me. For instance, unrestrained public spending funded through quantitative easing, an euphemism for “printed money”, which is what is now happening in the UK on a large scale, is not a system of governance compatible with the viability and independence of this island; nor with other policies that have underpinned prosperity on these shores so far. We can be insulated from the UK only up to a certain point. Furthermore, the crisis has brought here a reversion to nativism and insularity that has simply horrified the non-Manx-born of libertarian complexion.
 

Simply put, this crisis has the potential to expose the underlying liabilities the island has carried relatively successfully for the past few decades. The free lunch is over. Time to evolve or perish.

[pongo]

There will be growth in the spring.

[Max Power]

All great news, cue a soire where we boast about how wonderful we are, being a low tax regime benefitting from huge VAT windfalls!

[Lxxx]

1 hour ago, pongo said:

There will be growth in the spring.

Dead cat's have been known to give the appearance of bouncing.

[Anyone]

14 hours ago, Apple said:

An excellent analysis. What do you think of the possibility for (any) future restriction measures the Govt may be tempted to leave in place post Covid ?

If you give the elite power they will eventually abuse that power. We now have a steam ahead for a border force. That will be not nice. The balance between freedom and safety is a fine one. I would not trust civil servants and law enforcement agencies to deliver that. We need robust politicians elected by the people to decide that. That I will always believe but we can only hope those we elect share the liberal views of freedom and transparency. Despite Quayle getting his CM gig on the promise of that he has proved to be elusive , secretive and shifty ( watch the Panorama interview ). But he is no worse than most of those who came before him ( Bell , too tired by the process , Brown just sat on his hands and did bugger all , Gelling was complacent so did nothing , Corkhill was probably a good chemist. So not exactly a procession of excellence ).

 

 

 

 

[Non-Believer]

[asitis]

Government and the CS are like a 'Godzilla' type entity devouring the island and seemingly unstoppable, despite the reservations of the electorate about how they spend public money.

[Non-Believer]

1 hour ago, asitis said:

Government and the CS are like a 'Godzilla' type entity devouring the island and seemingly unstoppable, despite the reservations of the electorate about how they spend public money.

If part of Dan Davies' brief was to reduce Govt headcount he's clearly failing and perhaps we could make a start with, er, Dan Davies?

[asitis]

15 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

If part of Dan Davies' brief was to reduce Govt headcount he's clearly failing and perhaps we could make a start with, er, Dan Davies?

You would also extrapolate that on a small island with a huge raft of well paid civil servants, we should be very slickly administered and efficient in all we do. The reality of the situation is we are drowning in red tape, bureaucracy rules in everything we do and is generally obstructive to any out of the box thinking. So many opportunities are missed because of an inflexibility and unwillingness to embrace new ideas. We pay to obstruct ourselves, ironic really.