Er, can we have 250 million quid, please?

[WTF]

just the usual mass one Derek

[MadAsHell]

A land tax perhaps?

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm?id=55362&headline=Aerial photos used for rates reform&sectionIs=NEWS&searchyear=2020

[Butterflies]

If the Isle of Man wanted to lose its main income, most jobs, USPs, identity and everything else that makes it a great place to live - then it could consider giving up its independence! 

Until then the answer is a very firm NO.

If people want to be part of the UK, probably best to move (back) there.

[doc.fixit]

This aerial photography. Does it mean that the dwelling footprint is the arbiter? If so does that suggest that a five storey house will be taxed the same as a bungalow? 

Just how will, 'they', make or create a fairer system?  Why do govts. particularly in the Western world try to re-invent the wheel. Research world good practice and go from there would seem a good idea with no need to visit those places, just use the incredible system we now have called the internet.

[WTF]

23 minutes ago, doc.fixit said:

This aerial photography. Does it mean that the dwelling footprint is the arbiter? If so does that suggest that a five storey house will be taxed the same as a bungalow? 

Just how will, 'they', make or create a fairer system?  Why do govts. particularly in the Western world try to re-invent the wheel. Research world good practice and go from there would seem a good idea with no need to visit those places, just use the incredible system we now have called the internet.

if a  house was rated on so much a square foot of floor area i can't see a problem with that      ( typed from my tiny house )

[PaulJ]

54 minutes ago, doc.fixit said:

 Does it mean that the dwelling footprint is the arbiter? If so does that suggest that a five storey house will be taxed the same as a bungalow?

If like Germany,then yes

[Non-Believer]

2 hours ago, MadAsHell said:

A land tax perhaps?

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm?id=55362&headline=Aerial photos used for rates reform&sectionIs=NEWS&searchyear=2020

There'll be no land tax. Christ on a bike, we only pay landowners for the privilege over here, not tax them.

[doc.fixit]

1 hour ago, WTF said:

if a  house was rated on so much a square foot of floor area i can't see a problem with that      ( typed from my tiny house )

That was my poorly made point. If it's an aerial photograph how do they know how many floors to calculate the floor area? They can calculate the ground area but I would suggest not the total useable residential floor area?

[MadAsHell]

13 minutes ago, doc.fixit said:

That was my poorly made point. If it's an aerial photograph how do they know how many floors to calculate the floor area? They can calculate the ground area but I would suggest not the total useable residential floor area?

In another article on the BBC they mention that floors will be taken into account. Presumably someone will drive around or use street view. Either that or they'll bill everyone for 10 floors and let you argue it out.

[MadAsHell]

31 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

There'll be no land tax. Christ on a bike, we only pay landowners for the privilege over here, not tax them.

My mistake

[Out of the blue]

5 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

Lots of good debate above

Derek, independence is the Isle of Man's only real asset, without it we are back to spuds and herrings. The issue shouldn't be whether we should amalgamate with the UK, but rather how we use our independence to take advantage of new opportunities. If there has been one huge drawback with our current status it is the way the civil service and associated bodies have tried to emulate the UK. We seem to have forgotten that we decide on appropriate management structures and working processes, not the UK. Every decision that is made seems to slavishly follow UK best practice and the associated hierarchy. We simply cannot afford to follow the UK. We have layer upon layer of management and bureaucratic process just like the UK and that is costing us a fortune. The standard response from many is that they have to do this or that due to statutory obligation. They are correct, but only because we largely copy and paste UK legislation in the first instance. In short, retain our current status, but start making our own decisions, and if we want or need to follow UK best practice, adapt it to fit our resources.

 

[The Duck of Atholl]

16 minutes ago, Out of the blue said:

Derek, independence is the Isle of Man's only real asset, without it we are back to spuds and herrings. The issue shouldn't be whether we should amalgamate with the UK, but rather how we use our independence to take advantage of new opportunities. If there has been one huge drawback with our current status it is the way the civil service and associated bodies have tried to emulate the UK. We seem to have forgotten that we decide on appropriate management structures and working processes, not the UK. Every decision that is made seems to slavishly follow UK best practice and the associated hierarchy. We simply cannot afford to follow the UK. We have layer upon layer of management and bureaucratic process just like the UK and that is costing us a fortune. The standard response from many is that they have to do this or that due to statutory obligation. They are correct, but only because we largely copy and paste UK legislation in the first instance. In short, retain our current status, but start making our own decisions, and if we want or need to follow UK best practice, adapt it to fit our resources.

 

I wouldn't say you could call the requirement for 24MHK's in the world's oldest parliament on a tiny Island an example of slavishly following UK.best practise. The tiers of beauracracy here e.g parish commissioners etc seems to be unique and of the Island's own making. This Island cripples itself by being a slave to history and resistance to change.

[Out of the blue]

9 minutes ago, The Duck of Atholl said:

I wouldn't say you could call the requirement for 24MHK's in the world's oldest parliament on a tiny Island an example of slavishly following UK.best practise. The tiers of beauracracy here e.g parish commissioners etc seems to be unique and of the Island's own making. This Island cripples itself by being a slave to history and resistance to change.

Fair point re. the ridiculous amount of local authorities and MHK/MLC’s,  although you will find that the larger local authorities internal processes and department structures will follow the same UK centric model that the civil service have adopted.

[Donald Trumps]

4 hours ago, doc.fixit said:

That was my poorly made point. If it's an aerial photograph how do they know how many floors to calculate the floor area? They can calculate the ground area but I would suggest not the total useable residential floor area?

In the second world war they invented this ariel photography thing where they could establish the height of a radar tower & stuff

[VinnieK]

22 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Welcome back Vinnie!

Thanks!

22 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Any comparison can surely only be made when we find out what levels of taxation and expense are going to be visited upon the IoM population when it's time to pay the piper for the outlay incurred during this episode? It may become distinctly unattractive to live here for the low to medium earners for that reason alone? 

It might, but it would get less attractive for low to medium earners if we were subject to UK levels of taxation thanks to the lower personal allowance, the lower rate starting at 20%, and (I think) the lack of joint assessment. 

Also, the Island isn't the only place incurring a hefty bill: so is the UK, which can probably only be met by more borrowing, more taxation, and/or more cuts.

22 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Would one of the big water firms really be allowed to hold a supply monopoly to the Island? Ditto power? We might at least be given market choice of suppliers. Would the costs be greater than currently bailing out the MUA debt, disguising it as a sewerage charge of well over £200 per household/annum regardless of occupancy or usage?

I don't see why they wouldn't allow a firm to hold a supply monopoly to the Island, since that's what already happens in England and Wales. Those companies may not have the MUA debt, but they have plenty of debt of their own that push their prices up.

Also, you're then paying not just for your own infrastructure, but infrastructure all over the region over which the company holds its monopoly.

22 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

I watched a UK lady dairy farmer on tv a few weeks back, proudly proclaiming that she received £25k pa in subsidies. That's peanuts compared to what they get paid for doing nothing over here currently. We might see an end to our pockets being emptied in the name of that.

But within the UK we would find ourselves contributing to plenty of examples of local, regional, and national spending that plenty will consider wasteful and/or irrelevant to the Island.

22 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

But above all else, our governance might become subject to some scrutiny.

I'm not sure it would.  For a start, if we became a full part of the UK our local government would be greatly diminished, with a lot of its functions moving to district and county councils that probably have enough of their own problems and couldn't care less about us, and to a central government that would have difficulty finding us on a map.  What would still be run from the Island would be run by a local council, and there are plenty of examples in the UK of local councils (and those above them) being run abysmally and receiving little if any scrutiny (thanks to such councils generally being regarded as unimportant).

Anyway, sorry to bang on about individual points.  To put it in a nutshell, my view is that were we to abandon independence and be absorbed into the UK, we'd probably be a lot poorer off both materially and in terms of the services available to us, and we'd hear exactly the same (if not bigger) complaints about waste, tax, scrutiny etc. However, the biggest difference is that within the UK we'd have little to no chance of changing or challenging any major decision that affects the Island that we happen to disagree with.