Cutting corporation tax will be deeply counterproductive for UK. Business won’t come here for fear of being accused of tax avoidance
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) July 3, 2016
To be followed by
Cutting corporation tax makes no sense unless you want to increase tax abuse https://t.co/Zh0TxWbJGV via @richardjmurphy
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) July 4, 2016
Paying the right amount of tax, in the right place, at the right time, is now tax abuse.
He is a special kind of stupid.
More of a threat.
Businesses won’t come here for fear of being accused of tax avoidance . . . by me.
If corporation rates fall and there is less incentive for actual tax avoidance, there will be less for tax campaigners to campaign about.
Not invited on telly or radio, or interviewed by the Gurardian.
He might need to go back to actual accounting. Blimey, that would be dull.
Having said that, he has burnt so many bridges (the Corbyn guru tag will be hard to shake) that there are amoeba on Pluto likely to have more influence on coming events than him.
“Tax abuse” is nice – for those occasions when evasion and avoidance aren’t wide enough to cover everything you want to complain about.
“tax abuse” = abuse by Murphy of people paying the correct, legal, amount of tax.
But who’s going to accuse them of tax avoid….
Oh. Right.
Surely, lower tax rate -> lower tax avoidance. What’s not to lik for the Murph?
So the UK cutting CT rates will not apparently cause any corporate to change its behaviour because cbc has shot that bolt right? But those offshore tax havens (very low rates of CT and so on) are having a terrible effect on behaviour and the British gov’t just isn’t doing enough, right?
And this circle is squared…how exactly?
Definition: Tax abuse consists of people paying less tax than they ought to.
Axiom: The amount of tax they ought to pay is fixed.
Axiom: Reducing the rate reduces the amount of tax paid.
Calculation: A reduction in rate increases the difference between the amount which ought to be paid and the amount actually paid
Conclusion: Reducing the rate increases the amount of abuse
Q.E.D.
Maybe I’m very dim, but it seems to me the reasons businesses won’t move here for tax avoidance reasons is the arbitrary rule of law (what I think it should be, vs what the law says it is, supported by certain shed owners and QCs) and also the politicisation of it. Getting panned by the mob let by Hodge and the Guardian who are doing the exact same things.
No business wants to set up in a country with arbitrary politically applied laws.
In the former soviet shithole Murph would have been charged with “economic sabotage”.
I was wondering what his reaction would be. I am assuming he will accuse us of being a “tax haven” and call on foreign powers to invade us and impose a ‘fair rate’ of corporation tax.
I have this delightful mind picture of Mrs Murphy with her head in her hands in despair over her husband’s mental state in the manner of Roy Hodgson at England’s performances at the Euros.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/06/13/21/0896B93200000514-0-image-m-13_1434228860452.jpg
Best not to tell him about Ireland then.
Wot Pellinor said.
Thankfully, while this shows that the soul of the electorate is in peril, the Courageous State will not be starved of funds. People’s QE will provide limitless investment funds and the perfect level of inflation.
I really am intrigued to know the extent to which companies base their decisions about where to do business on how much sniping they think they’ll get from Murphy. I would hazard a guess that it’s not a terribly significant factor.