Thread: Another figure
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Old 15-12-2004, 10:05 PM   #9 (permalink)
Anthony Butcher
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IMHO, the net figure is meaningless. If you doubt this, try applying the same logic to your income tax payments.
The problem is that it gets very blurry talking in terms of gross numbers. We do get that money back, and much of it goes on services or subsidies that we would probably have to cover if the EU didn't. So then we are left quibbling over which subsidies we would or wouldn't want.

Therefore I just think it is easier to talk about the net contribution. It is a very substantial amount, and the pro-EU lobby can't argue with it, they can't dismiss it by saying "we get that back through subsidies" etc. In other words, it is rock solid.

We can say that we pay £4.3 Billion that we never see again. On top of that, a further £6.7 Billion of our money is redistributed by the EU for projects that we do not control.
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