Freeports

there were some who championed this for 'Teesside' - usually the ones who moan like a banshee should a snot rag be dropped, a car scratched by 'scrotes' or noisy kids playing football in the street - we wont mention scooterists not wearing a skid lid - thats an hanging offence and a call to bring back national service.

In any case, it will deliver nothing but harm. Freeports attract organised crime, money-laundering, drug-trafficking and terrorist finance, while bringing minimal benefits to the nations that host them. But this was never about improving our lives. On the contrary, it’s about subordinating our needs to those of favoured capital.
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  • George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist​
 
Freeports are tax havens for businesses. They don't have to pay business rates , corporation tax or even employee national insurance contributions although the employee still has to pay their own! Teesport is owned by a Canadian asset management company, so it will be shareholders ahead of worker's wages like everything in a tory Britain.
 
I seem to recall a thread last year in which some posters were championing the Freeport because it gave the area more jobs at the expense of others?
 
There was a great article recently in the Private Eye about this, Ben Houchen and his cronies did not come out of it too well.
I would still love to know why these were in existence in the UK until Cameron stopped the licenses.
 
Part of having a more equal society is to give certain tax advantages to disadvantaged regions. Of course other areas lose out to some degree just as the disadvantaged regions have lost out in the past to other schemes, but overall there are more winners than losers if we have a more balanced economy. Part of the balancing out is to give incentives for businesses to locate in struggling regions.

ICI was given incentives to move production of chemicals and plastics from places like Croydon to Wilton in the early 1950s

The biggest tax dodge is businesses like Amazon saying their sales office is in Luxembourg and saving billions in non paid corporation tax.
 
Redwurzel said:
Part of having a more equal society is to give certain tax advantages to disadvantaged regions. Of course other areas lose out to some degree just as the disadvantaged regions have lost out in the past to other schemes, but overall there are more winners than losers if we have a more balanced economy. Part of the balancing out is to give incentives for businesses to locate in struggling regions.

ICI was given incentives to move production of chemicals and plastics from places like Croydon to Wilton in the early 1950s

The biggest tax dodge is businesses like Amazon saying their sales office is in Luxembourg and saving billions in non paid corporation tax.
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Freeport's don't give "tax advantages to certain regions" they give tax advantages to certain companies. The regions don't see anything from it: The workers still get taxed, and then all the missing tax revenue that the companies are avoiding means the workers public services get reduced.
 
ST - My understanding of latest type of FPs in the UK is that they are linked to small regions e.g a lot of Tees Valley. The purpose is to create more economic activity in areas of the country that are struggling so people in those areas move into employment and/or better employment. Organisations are given carrots to move to these areas in the form of lower taxes (VAT, import duties, Employees NI) to the set up in these regions.

If the system is completely abused its stopped.

The alternative is we give large lump sums to organisations to move there or we do nothing and have a distorted economy as we have now.
 
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thewanderer said:
Guarantee your question will go unanswered, but you will get a bit of abuse for asking.
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Another fan of feudalism?

What's wrong with you people that you want to take us back to the dark ages?

The last 40 years has seen us go backwards because of the erosion of wealth for the working class to though attacks on trade unions, no doubt backed by you and Anton.

The erosion of local democratic rights, the selling off of essential industries to foreign investors by the Conservative Party, you know, the party you voted for to get Brexit done.

You doing a little bit of research into why we're going backwards rather than relying on the right wing press would be an improvement for one thing.

Look at the more successful European nations rather than that joke of a country across the Atlantic for inspiration, that would be another improvement

Discussion with the workers (that's you and me by the way) on how our industries and environments could be improved, there's another improvement.

Selling your @rse to big business may be your idea of a way forward, if it is and the feeling is the same across the country then we're going to fall even further behind. We certainly aren't going to have our lives improved.
 
It's not a Freeport it's a Charter City. If these Libertarian Tories get their way the whole of Teesside will be turned over to corporations that will run outside of any jurisdiction. Think New Detroit ran by Omni Corp in RoboCop.
 
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