The headline employment data today looks good. 239,000 new jobs. However, self-employment accounted for 146,000 of the increase. But as I have shown, firstly no one really knows how many self employed people there are and secondly, they earned an average of £10,400 each in 2011-12, on a steadily falling trend. These people will be
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As some will know, I have been advocating the use of local government bonds to fund local Green New Deals for as long as I have been involved with tax justice campaigning. It was good therefore to note a new post on the Climate Bonds web site that reports that the French region of Ile
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According to Reuters: Starbucks Corp said it decided to move its European headquarters to the United Kingdom from the Netherlands following criticism over its low tax payments in Britain last year, The Times reported. The world’s largest coffee chain said the relocation was primarily to get closer to Britain, its biggest and fastest-growing market in Europe,
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I  wrote a blog yesterday suggesting that despite the impression given by law and practice direct taxes, such as corporation tax, are not in fact taxes on profits, as is implied by their description, but are in fact taxes on specific transactions.  The inevitable adverse reactions were received, suggesting that I had,  as usual, got
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Mid tier chartered accountants Mazars are staging a debate on the Fair Tax Mark tonight. Against the advice of those who have concern for my health I am taking part. This is what I intend to say in my opening comments (click the image for a bigger, easier to read version):

If you talk to tax practitioners they will tell you that tax is divided into two broad types. Firstly there is direct tax, which, they say, is charged on things like income and profits. Examples would, of course, be income tax and corporation tax but capital gains tax also very clearly falls into this category,
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Many people are now realising that inequality matters. Even economists have caught up with the issue. So too has the FT. As it reports this morning the widely reported claim that neoliberalism has solved poverty is little more than a myth: More than one-third of the world lives on between $2 and $10 a day,
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A quiet revolution is going on in economics. It’s down to one man in particular. His name is Thomas Piketty. His new book is called ‘Capital in the 21st Century’. I’m not claiming to have read it all as yet, but it seems pretty clear that in his enormous work there is one central idea,
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As some will have noticed, I have been critical of George Osborne’s plans for new tax penalties over the weekend. There have been three reasons for doing so. First, I am wary if his explanation for this move. I am not convinced this is a real change in policy and is much more a PR
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