Sunday 14 February 2021

Everything you ever wanted to know about the GERS numbers is here .

 Why should Scots be able to trust the GERS numbers which are Scotlands financial accounts and published on the Worldwide Internet ?

The above question is partly self answering , why would the SNP Scot Gov allow publication of economic numbers on the Worldwide Internet for the leaders of any Country of any Government in the World to see for themselves if they were not reliable truthful numbers ? Allowing the publication of false numbers would mean any Government allowing that wouldn't be taken seriously and there are no Senior Members of the SNP dispute the GERS numbers are not already 100% reliable. 

The Video link given below here shows the SNP's long associated Economist Margaret Cuthbert , Richard Murphy and other Scottish MSP's at a Holyrood Commitee Meeting in 2017 , Cuthbert makes clear here she spent years checking the numbers and being involved in updating GERS to make them as accurate as possible, she also says the SNP has its own Group that makes changes to the GERS numbers. 

Margaret Cuthbert, Richard Murphy and Scottish MSP's at Holyrood Meeting on GERS Video Here


Here is a Podcast and  published Website articles on how both UK and Scotlands economics works from the Economics Dept of Strathclyde University here.

Podcast : Strathclyde University GERS Podcast  (Worth listening to)

How the Scotland inside the UK Economic model currently works Scotlands economy in the UK 

Guide to understanding the GERS Report from Strathclyde University GERS Guide 2020 

More on the accuracy of GERS & "Confidence Levels" GERS Accuracy & Confidence levels


"Back to School for GERS", what the numbers mean ,who makes them and some commentary on the numbers from 2019. Back to School for GERS 2019  

Wikpedia Link to "Who are Fraser of Allander at Strathclyde University" which includes the statement "The director of the institute is Professor Graeme Roy, a former Senior Economic Adviser and head of the First Minister's Policy Unit under Nicola Sturgeon."  Who are Fraser of Allander ?

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The Scottish Government GERS report 2020 can be found on the Scottish Government website here Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) 2019-2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)   which shows that for the financial year 

2019-2020  Scotland spent £81bn (seen in Table S.5)  but raised less from ALL Scotlands own Tax Revenues at £65.8bn (seen in Table S.3) which means an overspend of approx £15bn. 

By scrolling down the lower half of the linked page the Scottish Government also provides some commonly asked Questions and Answers ..a few of them coped to here.

"Q: Who produces GERS?

A: GERS is produced by Scottish Government statisticians. It is designated as a National Statistics product, which means that it is produced independently of Scottish Ministers and has been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority as being produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. This means the statistics have been found to meet user needs, to be methodologically sound, explained well and produced free of political interference.

Q: Do you use company headquarters to assign corporation tax or taxes like VAT?

A: No. Corporation tax on trading profits is estimated on a company-by-company basis, depending on the economic activity each company has in Scotland, not location of company headquarters. VAT is a consumption tax, and is therefore estimated based on purchases that are made in Scotland, rather than the location of a company’s head office.

Q: How do taxes from the whisky industry feature in the GERS estimates?

A: Like any industry, the whisky industry’s activity in Scotland generates tax revenue through a range of sources, such as corporation tax on profits, income tax and national insurance contributions on staff earnings, and non-domestic rates payments on business premises. These are all captured in the estimates of Scottish public sector receipts reported in GERS.

In addition, whisky consumed in the UK is subject to VAT and alcohol duty. This is assigned to Scotland on the basis of how much is consumed in Scotland. Whisky which is exported does not generate UK VAT or alcohol duty. There is no export duty in the UK.

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The Scottish Government also produce another page on Question and Answers on Scottish Exports including this one which is often used to deliberately misinform people 

Scottish Government Scottish Exports Questions and Answers

Are Scottish goods which are exported via ports from the rest of the UK counted as international Scottish exports?

Yes. The ESS publication measures the destination of goods exported from Scotland regardless of the port from which they leave the UK.

How are Scotch Whisky exports treated?

All international exports relevant to Scotch Whisky are counted as Scottish exports, irrespective of the port at which they depart the UK. The data is sourced from the HMRC Overseas Trade Statisitcs report.

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As it isn't everyone who can easily understand complicated financial reports there is an easier and simpler explanation  of one single years GERS figures for 2018-2019 here , it is fully cross referenced to the Scottish Governments own website numbers so that you can doublecheck and verify  the information given for yourself.

2018-2019 GERS figures simply explained here   

The follow up to that article can be found here and is also worth a read What GERS can and cannot tell us

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Along with the debunking of the "Whisky Export Taxes" and "Scottish Goods through English Ports"  misinformation revealed on the Scottish Governments own website earlier there are others that can be easily exposed as being completely deliberate fraudulent lies. 

"Scotland pays for Londons New Sewer System "  This one is another deliberate Lie spread around many places by Nationalist Fake propagandists of which this is only one of many versions.

This is only one of hundreds of fake invented memes by Yes Scotland and you would be a complete fool to beleive any of them they are only produced to deceive.

 This one though called the London Tideway Tunnel has information on it on Thames Water companies own Website and reveals the only people paying for it will be its own customers alone. Who will pay for London Tideway new Sewer ? Just another one of the hundreds of Nationalist Lies used to deliberately misinform other Scottish people, ask yourself seriously why they need to do that ?

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With the Holyrood election now coming in May new Nationalist fake propagandists have started to appear already.


Making the false claim Scotland is paying Billions for HS2 , the actual truth published by the Scottish Government that can be found online in their own published accounts added up to £131 million in a whole 5 years. More information on this Lie can be found on this link here Nationalist HS2 propaganda lies

If Scottish Independence is such a good thing why do so many Nationalits organisations spend so much of their time deliberately lying to Scotland ? It's almost as if they are afraid to campaign honestly ?
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Another wholesale producer of Nationalist fake propaganda memes is " Business For Scotland" and its sister propaganda unit  "Beleive in Scotland "  which are both filled with exactly the same invented meaningless propaganda produced by one Gordon McInytre Kemp.


So how do we know this is just rubbish ? Well for a start it simply asserts this is fact a without actually showing us where the evidence comes from or whether its even real or even matters. This is a common theme with all Nationalist memes, you are just simply to swallow they are truthful without any evidence to prove that they actually are (and you can bet they are NOT)  This one is basically a play on Scotlands Oil Revenues which Scotland produces large volumes of in the past but we know the future of Oil Revenues is not going to be good as we move to an electric vehicle future. Although Oil Revenues produce large Sales Volume Value it also costs an awful lot to get out the ground and to refine which means the actual profits from Oil are pretty small as a fraction of the Sales value,  on top of these very slim profits the Scottish Government only gets Taxes on Oil producers so Kemps attempts at trying to bullshit people with fake propaganda memes like this actually don't mean very much at all and so  Business For Scotland and Beleive in Scotland are better ignored for their fake propaganda is worthless, better to get real numbers from Scottish Governments own website and other verifiable sources than from fake propaganda outfits like these. 

More information on Business for Scotland, its fake propagandists and debunked articles are available here  Stop getting GERS wrong  and here The big lie about Scotlands Oil  and here Who Do Business for Scotland Represent ?

Another recent push of nefarious invented propaganda seen below here , all of this stuff is just regurgitated meaningless rubbish that was also being circulated during Indyref in 2014 and is just the same pitiful misinformation attempt but put through a "rinse and repeat redesign cycle" for new "useful idiots" to swallow. Are you going to be one of them ?   All this sort of stuff was debunked years ago elsewhere and can still be found on this link. The big Meaningless list 


Of course all they want you to do is "Beleive "  and don't dare actually take ten minutes  to think for yourself and investigate whether you are just the target of a Con trick deliberately trying to mislead Scots Voters on the realistic size of real economic numbers that the Scottish Government already publish elsewhere themselves.  The big Meaningless list . The Scottish Government publishes details of  how it collects actual real Tax Revenues from any profits companies make from all of these items , ita ONLY taxes collected from company profits that really matters and how that is done can be found here. Open the document and scroll down for the full list of items th Scottish Government collects tax revenues from.

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT DETAILED REVENUE METHODOLOGY PAPER 2019-20

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Another good source for finding debunking of Nationalist fake memes can be found here 

A year on and some crap about the Vow  

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So the after all this information , the really important question again is, if Independence for Scotland is supposedly so good then why do Nationalists organisations spend so much of their time deliberately trying to lie to other Scots voters about it with so much invented fake garbage ? Especially so when they spend so much of their time actually trying to rubbish the factual financial numbers their very OWN SNP Scottish Government produces itself and publishes to the whole World already ? 


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