Credit Crunch Busters

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair darling has announced that he has drawn up plans to discourage large businesses from relocating their HQs abroad. The plans include a tax exempt year in 2009 for businesses that have no plans to relocate. This is good news for Britain as it would mean that the jobs stay in the country and so less people are unemployed.
The compensation package created by Government for the abolition of the 10p tax rate means that 22 million taxpayers will be paying £145 a year on tax. However, 500,000 people will still be paying more tax than they can afford.
The credit crunch has now well and truly hit India as 40 of the countries richest people have lost 60% of their wealth in the past year.  As well as this it is thought that the top20 businesses in India have also lost 71% of the value of their developments, totaling £150bn this year.
Many house prices have dropped up to £100,000 in London this week as people strive to sell their homes before Christmas. The two most expensive boroughs of London are experiencing the biggest reductions in house prices and in Westminster an average of £108,166 has been knocked off the price of houses.
Thames Water bosses have given themselves a bonus of £131m this year. This comes after announcing an increase in customer’s bills that could soar as high as 25% more within the next five years. This is bad news for Thames Water customers as their bills will increase which is not necessary to make a profit for the company as a huge profit is already being made if the company is able to give £131 million away as bonuses.
Many well known companies are struggling as companies including Land of Leather, and ScS. The companies are struggling as homeowners are not buying new furniture as they are not spending money on luxury items. However, this has resulted in Land of Leather’s shares dropping form 149p in 2005 to 6½p this week.
The Chancellor has stated this week that the biggest problem for businesses in this recession is the lack of access to credit; therefore tax payments are being spread out over time to ensure that more businesses stay afloat and can employ Britain’s population. This is important as it is predicted by the British Chamber of commerce that unemployment is likely to reach over 3 million during this recession.