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Erm, you what?

On Wednesday, the European commission will vote on a series of demands made by the EU parliament on corporate tax transparency.

The commission votes on proposals by the Parliament?

Not entirely sure the EU works that way Ritchie.

Other demands the parliament is making are almost as important, including its call for the creation of a Europe-wide “fair tax payer label”.

Ahhhh….given that it’s failed domestically it’s now to go continent wide is it? No doubt with a substantial grant in aid…..

If all companies bidding for public contracts across Europe needed to have this label, then governments and other bodies would be able to easily assess which companies are paying the taxes they owe.

Yep, naked demand that every company in Europe should be sending money to R. Murphy.

23 thoughts on “Erm, you what?”

  1. What the power-mad cannot cope with is to be irrelevant, and Murphy is coming dangerously close to that. Having rejected a job with the opposition because they wouldn’t pay him enough and seeing his ideas sidelined by a series of increasingly bizarre interviews and public pronouncements (combined weith the general incompetence of the Corbynite opposition), he is looking around for a purpose – could this be the means of providing it?

    Truth be told I think he might be on to something – 80% of the European parliament is populated by groups of whatever nominal stripe who would not have been out of place in the Reichstag post 1933 or the Soviet Duma – people deeply hostile to humanity in general and utterly opposed to private enterprise and the idea of human freedom. This proposal, mindlessly bureaucratic and adding no value to anyone other than the quislings administering it, is right up their alley. Fertile ground for someone as profoundly misanthropic to prosper……

  2. Does the Commission vote on anything? I thought they were the ones who propose crap for the Council and/or Parliament to vote on.

  3. I suspect that there are sometimes votes in the College of Commissioners but we are not permitted to know because this part of our supposedly transparent supranational governement meets in secret and does not produce minutes that are open to the peasants.

  4. @Arnald

    So, did Tim get his facts wrong? Will the commission be voting on those tax transparency matters?

    Or did Richard get HIS facts wrong and did you make yourself look like an idiot in your haste to support your hero?

  5. I’m confused:

    “then governments and other bodies would be able to easily assess which companies are paying the taxes they owe”

    Surely that is what the tax authorities do, and not paying what you owe is a criminal offence (except in a few countries where adherence to tax legislation seems to be more optional *cough Greece, Italy cough cough*).

    Haven’t kept up with this – is the ‘fair tax payer mark’ applied to companies based on an arbitrary set of rules that bear no resemblance to the actual rules? If so, who sets the rules and how do we know what they are?

  6. I don’t think Murphy has thought this through (quelle surprise).

    What kind of world of pain will this fat little provincial tit find himself in if he suddenly gets any serious action?

    I mean, obviously he sees himself as the kommissar with others to do the work, but there will be some period of time while he’s trying to recruit people (and recruit new people after the first lot realise what a cunt he is, and recruit new people after the second lot realise what a cunt he is, and… actually sorry got to go I’m off to found a Norfolk accountancy agency).

    Never mind what sort of legal action will he find himself in?

    Never never mind that it’s all the pipe dreams of a corpulent fraud and will never amount to a hill of beans, of course.

  7. Lawrence of Beria

    The Commission doesn’t vote (at least as Arthur Dent says not with results that are openly available) – The Parliament usually votes on Commission proposals, which can be put forward having originated in the Parliament.

    Look like your record of never allowing the correct facts to trouble your corrections in a post remains unblemished. C+ for effort

  8. Poor old Arnster – your EUrophile credentials are almost perfect but alas nobody likes a clever-clogs.

  9. “then governments and other bodies would be able to easily assess which companies are paying the taxes they owe”

    Having a worthless bit of paper means governments and “other bodies” can easily assess a company’s tax liability?

    What does it introduce which makes this task easy?

  10. Arnald was right on one thing though…

    Can we have the preview box back please – pretty pretty please…:)

    Actually Tim, that donation thingy you did earlier for electrons. Wouldn’t you be better off putting something like that on here.

    Ie, a donation box with a total target revenue – €10 total for some bananas for the web monkey should be plenty… – above which you re-instate the preview box..:)

    A Europe-wide “fair tax payer label” doesn’t yet exist. If Richard is going to do the hard graft campaigning for it, maybe there’s scope to beat him to it with an actual working “mark”? Or undercut him if he does try and propose one?

  11. EU aside, the great man has confirmed in that article that a whole 16 companies have received the FTM to date

    That will be 16 vs his business plan conveniently still available here (get in quick, wont be for long)

    http://www.fairtaxmark.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Fair-Tax-Mark-Community-Share-Offer-28-April-2014.1.pdf

    which “proposes modest but steady growth to a turnover of £150,000 after three years (and having accredited and licenced roughly 350 companies)”

    Going to be a busy 2016 for the FTM then – cant imagine what possible interest he would have in FTM being mandated on a EU level . . .

  12. @RH,

    Assuming those 350 companies are renewing every year, he’s doing an audit of each for £428? Clearly not sustainable.

  13. From the Grauniad article: the €1tn (£730bn) that I estimate the governments of the EU member-states lose in tax evasion and avoidance each year
    [citation needed]

  14. It seems so long ago when he yelled “rent seeking” at every opportunity. Now he just wants a piece of the action.

  15. “16 companies now have the Fair Tax Mark, including FTSE 100 energy company SSE, cosmetics company Lush and several members of the Co-op.”

    So that’s a load of co-ops, a company that didn’t pay minimum wage, and the company that funds Ethical Consumer that in turn runs the Fair Tax Mark for Ritchie.

  16. Arnald,

    You are incorrect. The link to the site shows that on Wednesday the European Parliament is due to vote on the proposals put forward by a committee. Tim is correct that the Commission does not respond to proposals of this sort with a vote.

    http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20151201IPR05523/Economic-affairs-MEPs-ask-EU-Commission-to-table-corporate-tax-measures

    “What’s next?

    The committee resolution will be put to a vote by Parliament as a whole on 16 December. If it is approved, the Commission will have three months to respond to the recommendations, either with a legislative proposal or with an explanation for not doing so.”

    The Commission might eventually decide to table legislation, but before this takes place, the relevant Commissioner can choose whether to put forward legislation and if he does, then it requires the assent of a majority of the commissioners. So the Commission can vote, but it need not – if the Commissioner chooses not to bring legislation.

    Why defend the idiot – who clearly cannot read his own link? And Murphy is an idiot.

  17. Can we have governments with a “fair tax spender” mark, that way they’d be able to ask nicely for tax instead of threatening violence all the time.

  18. Given he constantly bleats on about the likes of Facebook and Google who are using the EU laws to setup where it suits them in the EU and run their tax affairs accordingly how is he going to reconcile this to an EU fair tax mark? Surely any EU wide system would have to take into account compliance with EU rules and refusing it because he feels your cheating some EU countries out of tax at the expense of others isn’t likely to be workable.
    In fact as commented above if you aren’t being investigated or in dispute with HMRC what right does he have to say someone isn’t paying their ‘fair’ tax, would be interesting to see him refuses someone, smugly post about it and then have them threaten legal action.

  19. Sam Jones

    In terms of extreme sensitivity to criticism, generally thuggish demeanour, narcissistic personality disorder, and a complete failure to grasp reality as it is rather than as he would like it to be, Murphy is reminscent of any number of tinpot Third World dictators – a nasty piece of work

  20. Hmm corporate tax … I’m not saying it’s wrong merely that anybody who’s used to paying self assessment tax in the UK and has has “doings” with HMRC – had better not read it – without a hefty dose of beta blockers….

    Anticipate some howling from the SNP and so forth…

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