Posted in Taxation

Osborne’s decadent budget

'Gideon' OsborneLet’s scotch a myth that’s been multiplying like typhus in news about the so-called emergency budget. George Osborne is no “political genius”. Take a look at the measures he’s outlined. All of them are imprinted with his partisan political economics designed as traps for the Labour Party.

  • The cut on corporation tax – any attempt to reverse it is a tax on business.
  • Increasing the inheritance tax threshold – a reversal appropriates a chunk of a lifetime’s hard work.
  • Opposing the extension of the MOT is punishing car ownership.
  • Wanting to see public sector salaries rise above 1% is “profligacy”.
  • Voting against freezes to tax credits would be not getting serious with the social security bill.
  • Fighting the conversion of grants to loans falls into the trap of allowing the successful to be subsidised by the not-so-successful.
  • Getting hot and bothered about forcing market rents on “high earners” in social housing is cut from the same cloth. And taking the field against the ill-named living wage for the over 25s is obvious political suicide, even though the recipients on the whole are going to be left worse off when the subsidy of their low pay is cut back. Continue reading →

Scandal of 100,000k properties covering 1/2m acres owned in tax havens

Pop-up tax haven on London's South Bank as part of the Christain Aid Enough Food IF campaignThe Eye has done a remarkable service in exposing the magnitude of offshore ownership of the UK’s historic country houses and of the huge swathes of the British countryside that they control. Using FOI applications and extensive analysis of other data, it has found that since 1999 titles to no less than 97,500 properties covering 490,000 acres have been acquired by companies vested in tax havens. With much land already acquired by offshore companies before that date, it is likely that the total area acquired could be a million acres or more.  Continue reading →

Try as he may, Osborne cannot “eliminate the deficit”

Osborne digging a hole, based on original by by coljay72The Fabian Society invited Nicola Smith of the TUC, Dan Corry – once a Labour government adviser – and me to address their Summer Conference ten days ago. The theme: how can Labour restore its economic credibility with the electorate? The audience was large – about 300 earnest, well-informed and assertive Fabians. The discussion was lively, with a buzz, as the session immediately following was to be a hustings for Labour leadership candidates.

However silly no-tax-increases are, they should cut tax reliefs to pay off deficit

tax justice logoEnforcing £12bn welfare cuts (and a lot more beyond that if the deficit is really to be eliminated) is draconian and callous as a means of making the poor subsidise the rich so that the latter can walk away free of any liability, but no-tax-increases in this Parliament doesn’t end the matter. It doesn’t preclude cutting back sharply on enormous and wasteful tax breaks which could make a huge contribution to paying down the deficit.

To take one example, the IMF, no less, has calculated that fossil fuel companies globally get £3,400bn a year subsidies, at a rate of £10m every minute of every day, more than the total health spend of all the world’s governments. That is 6.5% of global GDP, and if the UK hands out fossil fuel subsidies proportionately to that, it would be spending £100bn a year subsidising oil, gas and coal. The current UK budget deficit is £92bn a year. Continue reading →

Did New Labour spend too much?

Did New Labour spend too muchIt is not sufficient for big business to have secured an election victory and an overall Parliamentary majority for the Tory Party. It is also necessary to intervene in the Labour Party to ensure that its leadership also conforms to big business interests too.

This currently takes the form of candidates in the leadership contest being asked to declare that Labour ‘spent too much’ in the run-up into the Great Recession. Answering Yes to this question is effectively a loyalty oath to big business interests, a renunciation even of the social democratic vestige of economic policy under New Labour. Continue reading →