Taxing bankers won't send them overseas, honest

Interesting spin on the story here. The way they tell it, things are peachy and noone in the financial services industry wants to leave the UK.  That means we can tax the bankers as much as we want, they're not going anywhere!

Looking at the numbers they present gives a rather different story however.

The majority of respondents (80%) had either not had the opportunity to move abroad (43%), declined an overseas opportunity (9%) or were not willing/able to relocate (28%).

Fully 20% of those surveyed have moved abroad.  I don't know about you, but I reckon that's quite a lot.  Further, another 43% had not had the opportunity (presumably because they're happy where they are?) but they go on to say:

The 43% who had not had the opportunity to move abroad stated that they would however be open to the idea. New York (23%) was their preferred destination, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore (both 13%). Dubai and Sydney were close behind, both with 9%.

So from the figures they give, 63% of financial services staff have either moved abroad or are willing to do so.   I know that this is a small sample size, but I'd still consider that there's a definite problem if raising taxes on this particular sector...