The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has called on the Chancellor to put in place a series of measures to aid recovery. United Leeds Endeavours investigates the Mayor’s suggestions.
Mr. Johnson has been outspoken in his criticism that the government has not done enough to help the recovery of the country. Today he has once more urged to Chancellor to offer a national insurance holiday to create jobs, investment in infrastructure and a crack down on stamp duty avoidance in the budget.
United Leeds Endeavours has seen the difficulty faced by individuals and businesses in the financial crisis and are as keen as anyone to look for solutions to improve the situation. A representative of the company said, “Boris Johnson has been accused of being too cosy with the City but at United Leeds Endeavours we believe that he is actually pretty fair in his praise and criticism. Whilst there have obviously been errors made by the financial sector, that doesn’t mean that all bankers are criminals and Mr. Johnson has been outspoken in pointing this out.”
United Leeds Endeavours listened this morning as Mr. Johnson told the Andrew Marr show, “I would much rather we stop focusing so much on bashing people and start looking at what we can do to help people into work. That’s what I mean about national insurance, supporting infrastructure – those are the things that are going to drive jobs and growth over the next 10 years.”
Mr. Johnson is currently battling Labour rival Ken Livingston for re-election to the London Mayor role but United Leeds Endeavours is impressed that he doesn’t seem to be changing his stance to simply gain popularity. He has always been a vehement critic of tax avoidance and he cemented his stance on the problem this morning. He said that the scheme of selling properties through offshore companies to avoid stamp duty was “a scandal”.
He wrote in a piece for the Daily Telegraph today that the Government could raise £1 billion by outlawing a scheme where the wealthy are dodging the tax levy by treating their houses as a company. This means that instead of paying stamp duty at five per cent, they buy shares in the company, which results in them being taxed at only 0.5 per cent.
The representative of United Leeds Endeavours finished, “According to recent analysis, one property in twenty in London is now owned offshore. That is a shocking statistic and Mr. Johnson is correct, it’s a fairly easy way of raising a huge amount of money. At United Leeds Endeavours we’ve been impressed by Mr. Johnson’s no nonsense approach to the financial crisis, he makes sensible, realistic suggestions that the government would do well to take notice of.”
