The "spend and stimulate until the economy grows" crowd are forgetting two words: credit rating. If the other western economies cut spending and the US doesn't, our credit rating will be cut. This is despite the reserve currency status.
Sadly, that type of tax is par for the course in W Europe. Luckily there are some low tax places and E Europe has mostly gone to flat taxes in the 10-20% range.
That is the most amazing loophole and even more amazing they haven't closed it yet, but I'd be surprised if it sticks around for long. The main problem is trying to do size on spread bets without getting raped on slippage. It's great for long-term trades though.
The guy who started spread betting is the largest supporter of the Conservative Party. So I doubt it would happen.
There are ways round it. First they could set a company and then only live in the country 182 of the year the year they want to take drawings. In addition to that they could put the capital in a EFRBS and pay less tax. They could look at QNUPS - QROPS. As long as they don't mind waiting to get payment.
the government collects their fair share of tax on spreads bets. but its the losers that fund the taxes, not the winners and there are many more losers! the spread bet companies book most trades, dont hedge them and make a big profit from net client losses. these losses effectively get paid to the government as betting duty, corporation tax, dividend tax, aswell as the payroll taxes that are paid to the employees of spread bet firms. So the State does quite well out of the spread betting industry. Taxing the punters is likely to kill the golden goose.