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Idris Francis
Others may have seen Nigel on a late night discussion show on Sunday or Monday, when a lefty journalist – anyone know who he was? – claimed that because “immigrants pay more in income tax than they take as benefits” they benefit this country.
He was quoting a recent asinine analysis from University College London that was so incompetent that an Emeritus Professor of the same University took the highly unusual step of issuing a vehement rebuttal within days, criticising the authors and calling their assessment “juvenile” amongst other things.
Here are the facts of economic life.
1/ A job becomes available.
2/ If a British resident gets it
a/ HE pays the income tax related to the salary for that job
b/ HE then receives markedly less or more often nil subsidy from the Government aka the taxpayer, and spends most or all of his income in this country, boosting demand and output.
c/ The immigrant gets nothing because he is not here, or if he is here and cannot get a job, goes home.
d/ We do not need to build a house or provide other services for him or his family because they are not here
OR
3/ If an Immigrant gets the job
a/ The British resident continues to be subsidised by the Government aka the taxpayer
b/ The immigrant pays much the same income tax as the British resident would have paid had he got the job – no benefit for the taxpayer there.
c/ Worse, the immigrant may actually pay his income tax to his former country under the “no double taxation” rules (as I was told only this morning – can anyone confirm?) adversely affecting our balance of payments.
d/ He may in any case send much of his earnings back to his home country, with the same effect.
e/ The Government aka the taxpayer sends child support payments to his home country even though those children have never been here.
f/ This, one of the most densely populated countries in the world sees further increases in population not only due the presence of the immigrants but due to their tendency to have more children than our own people do, and (again as I was told this morning) to increase child support payments.
Does anyone with half a brain really believe that all this brings benefits to this country? Incidentally, I realise of course that higher level immigrants with particular skills can and do bring net benefit, but their numbers are relatively small and cannot possibly out-weigh the economic costs of the vast numbers of unskilled immigrants.
I hope that UKIP MEP’s and others will take note of this and use it to challenge those monstrously misleading claims at every opportunity.
Idris