City pays as much tax as all of Scotland
WORKERS in the Square Mile contributed £11bn to the public purse last year through income tax and national insurance, according to research.
In the tax year 2010/2011 the amount of income tax and NI contributions paid by staff working in the City was the equivalent to the tax paid by the entire Scottish workforce (£11bn).
Scotland’s contributions to the treasury were £366,000 per square mile, 0.003 per cent of London’s Square Mile, the data from global recruiter Ambition found.
The amount paid by City workers for the year 2010/2011 is the equivalent to the total spent by the UK government in 2009/10 on winter fuel payments (£2.7bn), TV licences for the over-75s (0.6bn), the entire wage and pension bill for British armed forces (£5.5bn).
Simon Lynch, managing director of Ambition UK, said: “The City has received a torrent of abuse over the last three years but it’s time people woke up to how valuable a contribution its workers make to the public purse.
“Not everyone in the Square Mile works in a bank or walks away with a multi-million pound bonus.”