FT.com / UK – UK tax-take to reveal depth of crisis


On the tax-take and on the risk to the nation’s finances, via FT.com / UK – UK tax-take to reveal depth of crisis:

A dramatic deterioration in the public finances is expected to be revealed on Thursday morning as official figures show extremely weak tax revenues in the crucial month of January and lay bare the cost of the government’s capital injections into Britain’s banks.

The Treasury is bracing for investor disappointment given expectations for a cash surplus of £16bn for January, only £9bn worse than the bumper receipts in the same month last year.

But the government injected £17bn of capital into the Lloyds Banking Group alone last month, making those market predictions far too optimistic.

And via John Redwood MP | Honey, I’ve lost he UK’ s tax revenue:

Understand that the UK Parliament now has to supervise a large bank with a medium sized government attached. If they nationalise LLoyds as well as RBS the banks balance sheets will be more than twice the national income and more than five times the annual tax revenue. That’s taking a crazy risk.

I’m fed up with slumpflation, and the banking and monetary madness which has brought it on us. Please don’t nationalise another bank. Please start to sort out the bad banks, and please run a monetary policy that finds the right balance between too much and too little.

The monetary authorities have been in the shower, tugging the control from cold to hot to cold to hot again. Set it for comfortable and stop fiddling with it. Let’s hope they haven’t broken it with their violent moves.

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