Windfall taxes and Government money grabbing

[james_tigerwoods]

I've been listening to Radio 4 lately and there's been some talk of Windfall taxes - what is the logic behind these and can they really be justified. Or are they just the Government money grabbing anything and everything they can? As far as I can see, the Government grab the money, the company jacks up prices, the company makes more money, the government grab more money, etc.

Surely a Windfall tax is classed as a one off - but there seems to have been a few in the past few years....

In addition to this, I remember the 3G contracts being "auctioned" off - Did the Government know that they were selling a turkey and what happened to that money?

As an extra question about Windfall taxes - what would the position be if the companies based here moved their head offices to Jersey or somewhere like that - can the Government grab that money then? (Or would they just need to move their registered address?)

Sorry for the multi questions and poor grammar, but this has been going over in my head for the past few days....

[JMGS4]

Windfall taxes are just another name for envy-socialist legalised theft!
Has NOTHING to do with correct governmental practice... only bLIARs fiends and Gordon the Morons thieving.....

[walm]

james_tigerwoods said:

As far as I can see, the Government grab the money, the company jacks up prices, the company makes more money, the government grab more money, etc.

Surely a Windfall tax is classed as a one off - but there seems to have been a few in the past few years....

In addition to this, I remember the 3G contracts being "auctioned" off - Did the Government know that they were selling a turkey and what happened to that money?

As an extra question about Windfall taxes - what would the position be if the companies based here moved their head offices to Jersey or somewhere like that - can the Government grab that money then? (Or would they just need to move their registered address?)

Sorry for the multi questions and poor grammar, but this has been going over in my head for the past few days....

Often related to oil companies where it is very hard for them to "jack up prices" since oil is a freely traded commodity.

The 3G cash went into the coffers and was blown on John Lewis home furnishings for MPs or schools and hospitals depending on where you sit politically.
Actually the 3G auction has been held up as one of the greatest examples of game theory put into practice. Neither the government nor the companies paying (obviously) thought they were selling/buying a turkey.

The Govt can grab the money while they are based here and that applies until the day they move. They can also retrospectively apply the windfall tax I believe. So if it were truly one-off there would be no incentive to move. But you are correct they do seem more regular these days hence encouraging companies overseas.

All IIRC and IMHO.

[walm]

JMGS4 said:

Windfall taxes are just another name for envy-socialist legalised theft!
Has NOTHING to do with correct governmental practice... only bLIARs fiends and Gordon the Morons thieving.....

That is true. Effectively the government is stealing cash from lucky/clever shareholders and putting it into the overall coffers.

[Jasandjules]

Just money grabbing by the scum. When imposed on monopoly utility companies the only justification would be if they gave the public the windfall tax to the public to pay their utility bills.

[cmsapms]

walm said:

JMGS4 said:

Windfall taxes are just another name for envy-socialist legalised theft!
Has NOTHING to do with correct governmental practice... only bLIARs fiends and Gordon the Morons thieving.....

That is true. Effectively the government is stealing cash from lucky/clever shareholders and putting it into the overall coffers. Then pissing it up a wall.

EFA

[james_tigerwoods]

cmsapms said:

walm said:

JMGS4 said:

Windfall taxes are just another name for envy-socialist legalised theft!
Has NOTHING to do with correct governmental practice... only bLIARs fiends and Gordon the Morons thieving.....

That is true. Effectively the government is stealing cash from lucky/clever shareholders and putting it into the overall coffers. Then buying an ugly overpriced kitchen that isn't really needed.

EFA

EFA

[jesusbuiltmycar]

walm said:

The 3G cash went into the coffers and was blown on John Lewis home furnishings for MPs or schools and hospitals depending on where you sit politically.
Actually the 3G auction has been held up as one of the greatest examples of game theory put into practice. Neither the government nor the companies paying (obviously) thought they were selling/buying a turkey.

The auctioning of 3G licenese had dire consequences for the telecoms industry - The telcos will be a lot more careful next time bandwidth is auctioned (for LTE).

Incidently when WiMax license auction in Germany only generated about $53Mil in total for all licenses - I am sure a similar reaction will happen in the UK.

[walm]

jesusbuiltmycar said:

walm said:

The 3G cash went into the coffers and was blown on John Lewis home furnishings for MPs or schools and hospitals depending on where you sit politically.
Actually the 3G auction has been held up as one of the greatest examples of game theory put into practice. Neither the government nor the companies paying (obviously) thought they were selling/buying a turkey.

The auctioning of 3G licenese had dire consequences for the telecoms industry - The telcos will be a lot more careful next time bandwidth is auctioned (for LTE).

Why - what happened?

[james_tigerwoods]

LTE?

[Asterix]

james_tigerwoods said:

LTE?

Long Term Evolution - basically, where technology is going and what it will do etc...

[130R]

The government are perfectly happy to share windfall profits, don't expect them to share any big losses though.

[james_tigerwoods]

What's going to happen if all big companies moved their bases offshore and didn't bid for things like 3G contracts?

[walm]

The UK a few years from now ---->

[The Black Flash]

walm said:

JMGS4 said:

Windfall taxes are just another name for envy-socialist legalised theft!
Has NOTHING to do with correct governmental practice... only bLIARs fiends and Gordon the Morons thieving.....

That is true. Effectively the government is stealing cash from lucky/clever shareholders and putting it into the overall coffers.

Except that, when a large number of those shareholders are actually pension funds, they are stealing money from our pensions...to piss up the wall.

Nice one gordo, you one-eyed fkgoblin.

[Bing o]

130R said:

The government are perfectly happy to share windfall profits, don't expect them to share any big losses though.

Precisely, if Shell or someone makes a big loss do you think that they get a Windfall refund?

bks will they....

[tinman0]

walm said:

jesusbuiltmycar said:

walm said:

The 3G cash went into the coffers and was blown on John Lewis home furnishings for MPs or schools and hospitals depending on where you sit politically.
Actually the 3G auction has been held up as one of the greatest examples of game theory put into practice. Neither the government nor the companies paying (obviously) thought they were selling/buying a turkey.

The auctioning of 3G licenese had dire consequences for the telecoms industry - The telcos will be a lot more careful next time bandwidth is auctioned (for LTE).

Why - what happened?

Because they all ran in the red for an awful long time, the implementation of 3G took far longer than expected, the 3G implementation was far more expensive, and they thought the killer application was going to be data at the £5 per M, when it turned out to be voice all along. You could argue that they still haven't made their 3G investments back if you consider that GSM was perfectly capable of delivering voice traffic from the outset.

[Kentish]

There is talk of a windfall tax being levied against the treasury for all the extra revenue they have rec'd recently from fuel price hikes. It was in teh news last week.

Why not eh, I'm all for that!