Stuart Jack

More on the theme of the public finances

All the recent correspondence between Chris Bryant, the FCO Minister with responsibility for the Overseas Territories, and McKeeva Bush, Leader of Government Business of the Cayman Islands, is now on our website. The Cayman Islands government is now free to undertake borrowing at its own risk. The FCO will be monitoring the situation closely. 

The government in Cayman now needs to get on with the two studies that were agreed in this correspondence: of the public service (and the scope for cuts) and of possible new taxation. 

I have been struck how many people in the business community are now seeing the need for some form of direct taxation, though not many are saying so publicly. One who is is Tim Ridley, the former Chairman of the Monetary Authority, who in a well argued article in a recent edition of the Observer weekly newspaper advocated a property tax and also called for people to stop bashing the UK. 

From my own conversations there seem to be quite a few businessmen, particularly but not exclusively in the financial services industry, who would support a property tax as more equitable and less likely to harm the key financial industry than the alternatives. We’ll have to see what the study concludes.

Posted at 20:32 19 October 2009 by Stuart Jack  |  Comments[5]