Immigrant tax

sovtek

Blackjack wrote:

I don't think it is to be honest. Even as an Irish Citizen in the UK you have to go for a Tax/Social Welfare Interview before they will issue you with a National Insurance number. (I believe) that non-EU citizens have to get their Visa and pay for the privelege (don't know how much, but Marriage Visa and indefinite Leave to remain costs in excess of £700 to arrange).
I don't believe the UK is any cheaper than Ireland in that respect.

In Ireland we also have to get a Work Permit/Visa that costs €500. Although that is paid for by the company. A GNIB card is a different matter altogether. I don't know if they have the = in the UK.

ressem

The UK government are proposing a similar situation in light of all the hubbub over eu-immigration numbers 'matching' the growth in unemployment over the last fortnight.
Their immigration service came out and said that they don't know how many legal immigrants are in the country as they don't record the numbers exiting the country. So the biometric id card is meant to be a techno cureall that should be swiped/ read using RFID when leaving the country.

toomevara

This is an interesting debate and one which we've got to have as a nation in a grown up way. The problem is there's alot of emotion hype and frankly,nonsense, building up around the core issue, which to me is; who are we as a country, what do we stand for and where do we see ourselves headed?

I also notice a big generation gap emerging in ths issue. Alot of the Celtic cubs, if I might use the term for want of another, dont know what its like to be an emmigrant, not from choice but from God awful necessity, the need to plunge yourself into a foreign country and culture, where at best the attitude to you and your fellows was ambivalent and at worst openly antagonistic.

Remember that a little over ten years ago WE were these people, turning up with the arse quite literally out of our trousers anywhere from Boston to Berlin and all points in between,, most of us just desperate to make a living and secure some sort of future for ourselves. WE did the crap jobs, made the ****e money and lived in the ghettoes and we banded together to cover each others arse when the **** hit the fan. How quickly we forget (as a nation) where we came from....I think any debate we have on this crucial emmigrant issue should be tempered with that remembrance....

Mad Finn

New_Departure06 wrote:

Tell the Germans and French how much immigration has benefited them economically. :rolleyes:

I think the Germans call it the Wirtschaftwunder. Loosely translated as 'Economic miracle'. It's what made them grow from a devastated smoking ruin in 1945 to the most powerful economy in Europe in a generation.

toomevara

Mad Finn wrote:

I think the Germans call it the Wirtschaftwunder. Loosely translated as 'Economic miracle'. It's what made them grow from a devastated smoking ruin in 1945 to the most powerful economy in Europe in a generation.

Would agree and disagree, the gastarbeiters were and are a huge component in germany's economic recovery, but for the immediate post war years I'd credit the yanks and the Marshall plan.