Leave aside whether this is actually true or not and just consider it for its own sake:
John Mann, the Labour MP and member of the influential Treasury Select Committee said:
‘Its unfair competition. If other cafes around the country including those owned by families are paying proper British taxes, why shouldn’t this company? I think people will be shocked to see Caffe Nero is free-loading on the back of the taxpayers’.
So this senior-ish Labour MP believes that taxea on business are a burden upon business. This must be true: it can’t be unfair competition otherwise, can it?
Which leads to the thought that if taxes on business is a burden upon business then perhaps we’d better reform the tax system so that we’re not imposing a burden upon business? You know, what with ths shortage of jobs around and all that?
This is going to be brilliant, because I actually like Caffe Nero. When all the moonbats boycotted Starbucks it affected me in no wise, since I don’t go there anyway. But now it means I will get served more quickly. Huzzah!
remind me, what’s the difference between the burden of taxes and the incidence of them?
Should somebody write a post exclaiming Worstall finally concedes burden of taxes falls upon firms?
suppose we live in a world in which all firms are taxed equally, but the burden is fully passed on to workers. That is to say, relative to the zero tax counterfactual, the owners of firms are no worse off but workers are.
Now suppose one of these firms finds away to avoid this tax. It will be at an advantage over other firms. A senior left wing politician could rightly call that unfair competition, without the logical implication that the burden of taxes falls on firms, because by assumption it does not.
You’re making a logical leap which doesn’t follow from your premise. John Mann MP believes taxes on businesses are a burden on said businesses, and on their owners (“families”). It does not follow that lightening this burden would alleviate the alleged shortage of jobs.
How is Cafe Nero structuring itself – can anyone explain what is going ok here? The Mail article is a trifle light on detail.
Luis
I’ve had this discussion with Ritchie; you’ve had a few I know. He started by screaming unfair competition and then moved into pure name calling when I began walking through the process.
No, there is no breakdown in Tim’s logic here. (P.S. He has always noted that SOME of the incidence is on Capital) Ultimately there is no burden on the firm because there is no ‘firm’ in terms of the flow and the sticking points of the tax. The tax burden falls on the shareholders/bondholders etc or on the staff or on customers (Tim I believe thinks this last is incorrect; perhaps he could give me a better understanding of this). Mr Mann here is expressing the view that it falls heavily on the customer. Ritchie meanwhile has stated quite emphatically that employers NIC (I think just employers) falls entirely ENTIRELY on workers in the form of lower wages; tax competition doesn’t come into it. At the same time he states equally emphatically that CT falls entirely ENTIRELY on capital.
Go figure.
MP accuses company of freeloading.
Oh, irony, sweet irony…
Christ on a bike, is this the EU tax law thing again?
Does John Mann have an ISA? If so does he pay tax on the interest from said ISA? If not, why not?
They make the damn laws, don’t they? If they don’t like the way it works out, change the laws why don’t you?
Oh yes, that would be because they don’t make the laws, they gave away that power to someone they can’t influence or remove, but they don’t want to admit it, so they moan at law-abiding taxpayers instead.
They make the damn laws, don’t they? If they don’t like the way it works out, change the laws why don’t you?
Oh yes, that would be because they don’t make the laws, they gave away that power to someone they can’t influence or remove, but they don’t want to admit it, so they moan at law-abiding taxpayers instead.
ha. HA.
Can. Worms. All over the parquet.
paying proper British taxes
Is this meant to be a new line like “British jobs for British workers”?
“Proper British taxes for proper British businesses”.