CBI: Mike Devereux must be fed up with them

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Mike Devereux at Oxford University must be very fed up with the CBI today.

Mike spends all his time going round arguing that companies don't really pay corporation tax at all, and then the CBI goes and shoots him and all the others from the right wing who use arguments about 'tax incidence' as justification for cutting the tax rate on businesses in the foot by saying the the corporation tax burden on business is too high.

There is, of course, only one obvious explanation for this. They think Mike is wrong. No, more than that, they know Mike is wrong.

But then on this I'm at one with the CBI. All of us who've been out in the real world know that the tax incidence arguments look great on the academic blackboard but don't work in reality. Reality involves multiple states, multiple legal systems, differing tax allowances, and the opportunity to use tax haven secrecy to avoid liability, and that's just for starters. None of these are taken into account in the incidence arguments.

Time to do something else, I suggest Mike. You're flogging a dead horse to the deaf right now.


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