An independent Scotland might be a great idea for the Scots

[DimPrawn]

Forget Switzerland - hedgies should be setting their sights on Scotland - MoneyWeek

Matthew Lynn and I both wrote in last week's magazine (see: An independent Scotland could make a play for the City - and win; and Smart investors move north and buy Japan) that we weren't as depressed about the prospect of Scottish independence as everyone else.

Why? Because it wouldn't, for example, take much more than a few tax tweaks to encourage more of the financial industry to shift to Edinburgh. The houses are lovely, the city is very accessible, and the lifestyle vastly superior to those on offer in London or Geneva (assuming you don't mind the wind).

If the SNP were to hold a referendum on independence; win (unlikely I know); and then to get it right, Scotland could have a chance of ending up not a miserably over-indebted nation populated entirely by the unemployed, but a dynamic global financial centre.



What about sasguru's bwanker chums all leaving him on his lonesome? Awwwww diddums.

[doodab]

The houses are lovely, the city is very accessible, and the lifestyle vastly superior to those on offer in London or Geneva (assuming you don't mind the wind).

And it has the infrastructure (and enough houses) to accommodate a few hundred thousand extra people does it? I doubt that the quality of life there would hold up very well under the strain.

[AtW]

And it has the infrastructure (and enough houses) to accommodate a few hundred thousand extra people does it?

People can stay in London whilst registration of business will move to Scotland - this way staff in London can be treated as cost base where as profits can be taxed (lowly presumably) in Scotland.

This could actually work if Scotland was independent.

[Incognito]

People can stay in London whilst registration of business will move to Scotland - this way staff in London can be treated as cost base where as profits can be taxed (lowly presumably) in Scotland.

This could actually work if Scotland was independent.

You mean they'd be our Bobs? Well Sas certainly fits the bill.

[doodab]

People can stay in London whilst registration of business will move to Scotland - this way staff in London can be treated as cost base where as profits can be taxed (lowly presumably) in Scotland.

This could actually work if Scotland was independent.

No it couldn't, because the people in London would amount to a "permanent establishment" which would mean that profits would be taxed in the UK.

[OwlHoot]

If the SNP were to hold a referendum on independence; win (unlikely I know); and then to get it right, Scotland could have a chance of ending up not a miserably over-indebted nation populated entirely by the unemployed, but a dynamic global financial centre.

Can't see it working, TBO. England is full of "who do they think they are?" back-biting socialist whingers; but Scotland is even worse.

As soon as all the conspicuous wealth became evident, with nouveaus buying up all the grouse moors and so on, the Scots would vote in a socialist Government to start pinching it all.

P.S. Gordon Brown is Scottish remember.

[Incognito]

Can't see it working, TBO. England is full of "who do they think they are?" back-biting socialist whingers; but Scotland is even worse.

As soon as all the conspicuous wealth became evident, with nouveaus buying up all the grouse moors and so on, the Scots would vote in a socialist Government to start pinching it all.

P.S. Gordon Brown is Scottish remember.

Have you ever been to any other Scottish city apart from Glasgow?

[AtW]

No it couldn't, because the people in London would amount to a "permanent establishment" which would mean that profits would be taxed in the UK.

That's what highly paid tax lawyers are for - say some well known search engine company has got massive office in London with lots of people yet they paid half a million in corp tax because actual sales are handled by their subsidiary based in Ireland: so profits go there, costs here.

[Churchill]

P.S. Gordon Brown is a Scottish twunt.

ftfy

[Churchill]

Have you ever been to any other Scottish city apart from Glasgow?

What? There's more than one?