Yesterday I read about all the empty High-Street shops all over the place. It’s really bad in Wolverhampton (they say) with about 1 in 8 shops closed!
Of course there are myriad reasons given…
But then, later, I was reading our local freebie ‘newspaper’ and apparently our local council (Bury) is to introduce fines for ‘queue-jumping and using bus-lanes’.
Bury council say they can raise £153,000 a year with such a plan – which will help towards their £3.25 MILLION budget deficit.
So, rather than use cars….or run High-Street shops…folk just use….
MORNIN’ ALL!
amatuer business……it’s TRYING to run the country!
Sources: Daily Mail & bbc sites. Prestwich Advertiser.
I was trying to find some information on something earlier and saw this on wikipaedia:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom
“Local government revenues come primarily from grants from central government funds, business rates in England and Wales, Council Tax and increasingly from fees and charges such as those from on-street parking.
In the fiscal year 2007-08, total government revenue was 39.2 per cent of GDP, with net taxes and National Insurance contributions standing at 36.9 per cent of GDP[1]—approximately £606,661,000,000.”
Note the bit about “increasingly from fees and charges such as on-street parking” and the amount of money raised in 2007-08 – yes, that is over £607 BILLION!
Yes. The problem is; it doesn’t cover the cost(s) of collecting it! Hence: yearly deficits at ALL public-sector levels.
The BT pension-fund deficit – £9 to £11 billion (it depends which sources you check) is, for most part, underwritten by taxpayer!!!
Deficit figures are now ludicrous.