Tax Research UK

Also worth reading

• Revenue expects to collect €40m in offshore inquiries - The Irish Times - Fri, Aug 27, 2010 2010/08/28
  THE REVENUE Commissioners expect to collect up to €40 million by the end of this year from special investigations into trusts and offshore structures which have been used to evade tax.
  
  Officials are investigating at least 1,133 cases in jurisdictions such as Jersey, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Cayman Islands where trusts may have been used to keep funds out of the Revenue’s sight.
  
  Many of these funds were designed to create the impression that the non-resident trustees or entities are the owners of the funds, concealing the identities of the Irish beneficiaries.
  
  The Revenue has already collected around €20 million in voluntary disclosures and settlements from 100 cases, or an average of €200,000 per individual, since last October.
  
  It is now focusing its attention on funds across hundreds of trusts where individuals have not made voluntary settlements.
• Tax Justice Network: Columbia's Fred Mishkin exposed for promoting Iceland's "prudential regulation" 2010/08/28
  We have previously blogged on Iceland's precipitous financial collapse, and linked through to American organisations pushing their toxic anarcho-capitalist agenda in that country. Now check out this link which explores the contribution of Columbia University's Fred Mishkin. Embarrassingly for him, just before the financial crisis washed over Iceland, Mishkin penned a rather ill-conceived report on financial liberalisation in that country claiming that "prudential regulation and supervision is generally quite strong" on the basis of absolutely no research or in-depth analysis, and failing to register that the report was funded by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce - whoops, not the first time we find senior academics and / or business schools failing to declare potential conflicts of interest. Do watch the video link here and watch Mishkin fail to answer the questions about his professional conduct.
• Land value tax – not old or New but true Labour | Andy Burnham | Comment is free | The Guardian 2010/08/27
  So David Miliband was wrong this week to warn that radical tax reforms of this kind are a retreat to a Labour comfort zone. Instead, the comfort zone we risk slipping into is the New Labour comfort zone that says minimal change and more of the same is the way to go.
  
  We can no longer base our politics on the New Labour approach of trying the patience of Labour members on a daily basis. There is only so long that you can defy gravity and ask people to be relaxed about inequalities that made them Labour in the first place. Now, of all times, we must have the courage of our Labour convictions and set out a credible and principled alternative to the destructive path of the coalition.
• Nick Clegg responds to the IFS: another new definition of fairness | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC 2010/08/27
  The cuts that the Government plan to intoduce in the CSR will have a disproportionate impact on the poorest, who will lose public services worth around 20 per cent of their household incomes. Whatever additional spending is targed to the worst off families, it will be impossible to protect them from cuts of this scale. International evidence shows us that spending cuts are made, those who have the least feel the most pain.
• IFS analysis is not selective: Treasury model only included two-thirds of benefit and tax credit changes | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC 2010/08/26
  The Deputy Prime Minister has joined his Treasury colleague in maintaining that the IFS analysis of the distributional impact of the Budget is selective and partial. This is simply wrong. The Budget documents clearly state that only ‘two-thirds‘ of the benefit and tax credit changes are modelled in their analysis of the Budget’s impacts.
  In contrast, IFS models all of them (using government data). This includes cuts to Housing Benefit, falls in the relative value of benefits after 2012/13 (as a result of CPI uprating), cuts in DLA and various cuts in Tax Credits. This is why their analysis shows the poorest losing most – all of the cuts the Treasury chose to leave out are highly regressive.
  Unsurprisingly, IFS have told Channel 4 News they are ‘surprised by criticism from govt, we’re essentially doing exactly same as they did in Budget annexe, but incl more measures not less’.
• More evidence cuts can’t be “progressive” | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC 2010/08/23
  A new study by John Hills shows that the last government’s spending held back rising inequality and that cutting it is likely to be regressive. At the same time, an evaluation of the 1990s cuts in Sweden and Canada – often cited by the coalition as an inspiration – reveals that they led to significant increases in poverty and inequality.
• Cuts Watch #210: Public Sector Jobs and Services | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC 2010/08/19
  PCS have published an analysis of the impacts of the Coalition’s first 100 days on public sector jobs and services. Job cuts identified by PCS include:
  Up to 450 posts under threat at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
  250 job cuts at the Skills Funding Agency
  800 job cuts at Becta and the QCDA
  1,700 jobs to be lost at the Borders and Immigration Agency