I noted on Friday that Economia magazine had published an exchange between me and Ben Saunders about the Fair Tax Mark, which is a project of which I'm a director.
The ICAEW, who publish Economia, asked me not to reproduce Ben Saunders' comments in full, and to a large degree they did you, the reader, a favour by saying so, since they reflect a strange obsession with weighting in an index on his part that only reveals how little he realises that almost any statistical work is inevitably biased by the choices made by researchers, and that this is, quite literally, unavoidable. In other words, if we changed the index as he suggests we'd simply introduce another bias and we actually chose our biases with care, despite his belief to the contrary.
More interesting though is his final paragraph, which says:
Consensus is vital to the general adoption of this sort of benchmark. So will the Fair Tax Mark campaign listen to others' views of what is fair? Will they listen to independent reviews of their methods? Or have the opinions of the few behind the campaign already decided that what they consider fair is all that matters?
The first sentence represents an extraordinary claim. From what I can tell drom discussion with Saunders he is well versed in philosophy and logic. I am, I think, therefore entitled to presume he has considered the consequences of his claims, and in this case that is worrying. What he is, in effect, saying is that the Fair Tax Mark should not have been published without having sought consensus on that publication first. That gives rise to a number of questions.
Firstly, who should have been asked to agree? I guess Ben was on his own list, but who else?
Second, how were we meant to do this - before publication and therefore before anyone gave us any attention? I should however add we did actually consult a large number of organisations in advance - but not via Tolley publishing, his employer.
Third, what if someone had objected? What were we meant to do? Is the right to publish now subject to veto of the dissenter as Saunders implies?
And it's this last point that is my main one: what Ben Saunders is saying is that unless we had consensus we should not have proceeded, but as the Fair Tax Mark site makes quite clear, it is trying to create change in the way in which tax is reported by companies. That, inevitably, means some who like the status quo will always object. And following Ben's logic that menas we should not have published. And yet that is very obviously an absurd argument; it can only be used to ensure change does not happen since all change is, inevitably, based on dissent from the consensus in the first instance.
Whatever Ben has to say on methodology - and we have listened and noted with care - pales into insignificance in comparison to this much more telling observation that we should simply not have published at all without first asking his opinion. In a country where I think free speech continues to be valued highly that reveals an attitude that is at best worrying. It also explains why we take all Ben's criticisms with a little pinch of salt believing they may have an ulterior motive.
In the meantime I can advise we will be consulting widely on the next stage in the development of the Fair Tax Mark - but will not be granting anyone a veto. Because that's not the way we propose to work.
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Richard, I think you’re being a bit disingenuous with your remarks here. Ben is not saying that you should offer him or anyone else a veto. He is simply asking you to “listen to others’ views of what is fair” and engage with his criticism of your methodology. You may (and I suppose will) argue that you have done so, but having read the various blog posts I cannot agree. You haven’t shown why Ben is wrong in his criticism of your methodology and therefore he doesn’t think the Fair Tax Mark is “fair”, because the flawed methodology produces flawed results.
I think we’ll have to differ – but in our next round of consultation we will raise that issue
We have explained exactly why we chose our weighting – we could not have been more open
Ben and you differ – which is fine. But it does not make us wrong. It merely means we emphasise different issues – which is not the same thing. All choices do that
Richard, I think it’s obvious from my comments that I don’t think that you shouldn’t have published. I just think you should amend your methodology if you’re serious about making it work and getting businesses to adopt it as you want them to.
You will recall my suggestion was to launch this as a beta version in the first instance so you could build consensus around the methodology using hypothetical or anonymised data sets. It’s obviously too late for that, but that’s no reason to be unwilling to adapt your method now.
I should also point out that Economia asked me to repeat the points I raised in my original blog post.
We’re happy to amend when it is shown to be appropriate
We’re not yet persuaded by your comment – and several experienced statisticians have dismissed your comments as simply a preference for one weighting over another
That was also the broad view on weighting from those we consulted with before publication – including two senior professors of accounting
Would you like to be included on our next round of consultation?
Ben
Having lifted the following titles of blogs from your website “Ben’s white space entries – The various rantings of Ben Saunders”, I can’t say that I have confidence that you would contribute constructively to what is in effect a civil society cause:-
Recent Posts
Any bias will do?
Thanks to Economia!
Tax, the Guardian and state subsidy for political influence?
Fair Tax Mark fails by its own standards
Fair Tax Mark: unprofitable = unfair?
But I’ll be asking him to do so anyway
Is there not a difference between publication (which is what you have done) and adoption (which is what everyone else may, or may not do)? Surely what Ben was saying is that for FTM to have a legitimacy in general debate it needs to benefit from consensus support – which by definition it can’t get until it’s been published and made widely available for consideration and criticism. If it fails the critique, it won’t get support and it won’t be generally adopted.
We have had significant offers of help and support since publication
we will be consulting further soon on the next stage if development of the work
But will we ever get adoption from those who do not want to disclose? We presumed not – which is why we always designed it to work only on data publicly available
presumably he is suggesting something akin to a consultation process (ie like HMRC when they are thinking about changing some elements of tax law).
you could have sought views from representatives of the FTSE100, accountants, lawyers and possibly even members of the public I suppose.
you are saying you are consulting now, but you have already started giving out the “awards” havent you? – at least it looks like it on the tax mark website, so what is the purpose of consulting when you have already started marking companies – will you be going back and changing their tax mark if your criteria change as a result of consultation? if so, will you be apologising if their score gets “better” ?
We have called this a pilot
We did consult before going ahead – with quite a number of NGOs and specifically with a number of academic, tax, CSR and practitioner experts
One did comment on the weighting – but only one – and we changed out disclosure as a result to reflect that fact
I’m not sure what more we needed to do – apart from not do it, of course
ok – thats interesting, and new information (at least to me), apologies if I missed it (but others also seemed to have missed the fact you did consult before you released the results, I cant see anything about it on the website)
might be worth thinking about putting this information out there a bit more obviously as its obviously creating a fair amount of debate and arguably detracting from the real issues to be discussed.
We will be
Ha! When did the Thatcherites and neo-liberal ideologues EVER ask anyone’s opinion on anything? Wasn’t smashing consensus the very heart and motivation of Thatcherism? Enough, already! Besides, even when they did “consult” they consciously went off in the opposite direction, treating opposing ideas with contempt, hence the appalloing Health and Social Care Act.
Frankly, Saunders’s plea is on a par with that of one confused old person at the time of decimalization; “Couldn’t they have waited until all the old people died?”
Quite an amusing diversionary tactic. Isn’t the publication of a proposal such as this usually intended to initiate discussion and critique?
Did he actually offer any constructive discussion or critique or did he just complain about not being previously invited to discuss and criticise?
Ben has always criticised the weighting – and I stand by my suggestion that he has misunderstood the fact that all weighting has consequences – including none because then even the number of years impacts the outcome
Was there a proper consensus before the Substantial Shareholding Exemption, the Foreign Branch Tax exemption and the Patent Box rules introduced?
No
arguably there shouldnt be consultation for all proposed tax changes – we elect our MP’s and should trust them to make the tax law in accordance with their manifesto.
I dont recall any consultation before the 50% tax rate was introduced either !
Richard – perhaps Mr. Saunders is a Quaker! As you know, in the Quaker ‘business method’ a decision cannot be taken until there is consensus and is voteless. I somehow doubt he is coming from this place!
As a Quaker I know that
But the outcome is not consensus in a Quaker meeting – it is belief that the right decision has been made
That’s not the same thing
Agreed Richard! I was being ironic, of course!
well, I thought as much!
I don’t think he’s called for you to ask his opinion, he’s just suggested that maybe you should ask someone else’s opinion before going public. Some sort of peer review, if you want to be academic, or perhaps release a discussion draft of your methodology before you start assigning numbers to things.
You may think that some sort of bias is inevitable, but I wuold have thought it more appropriate to try to eliminate as many sources of bias as possible, rather than deliberately introducing more. Surely not weighting has got to be less prone to bias than weighting in a purely arbitrary fashion?
I personally consider your Fair Tax Mark entirely unfair, based both on your methodology and your implicit definition of “fair”. I also rather dislike your arrogation of the term “Fair Tax”.
We did that peer review with 6 people and a number of organisations before going public
And there will always be bias – the number of years selected was bias, for example, and it goes on from there. It always does. We did our best to eliminate it – but not to the satisfaction of all – bit so far Ben has not recognised that his alternatives also include bias and will always do so
And you reveal your bias on the word ‘fair’
It’s a biased world we live in. I accept that.
6 people
Oh, how wonderful!
As a qualified statistician (unlike your goodself) I can tell you that there will NOT always be bias. One of the roles of a statistician is to eliminate all identifiable and manageable sources of bias and more often than not my colleagues succeed (of course where someone publishes a report, such as yours, without a statistician reviewing the “data”, there is a high risk of bias).
Ben Saunders points out an elementary flaw in your methodology which will very frequently give an average tax rate that differs from the standard UK tax rate if a company has all its revenue and costs in the UK and scrupulously pays the exact amount required by HMRC.
A second point is, firstly that tax payments lag profit so a growing company or even one that maintains its real profits in an inflationary period will pay cash tax lower than accrued tax and secondly that six years is too short a period to compare cash and accrual tax bases for any capital-intensive industry whose plants last for thirty years or so (some capex last more than a century).
Perhaps next time you might consult seven people – as I have more experience of looking at company accounts and the taxation notes thereof, I might be able to help.
Respectfully – a statistician who can say that is a fool
Do you really think there is an index without bias? Id you do then you’re as blind to the truth as the microeconomist who claims they make objective assumptions
As for the number consulted – that is three times more than an academic peer review
I think Richard’s integrity in pointing out the omnipresence of bias is a fundamental point. I’ve just listened to Grant Shapps talking about the ‘fairness’ of welfare caps without any reference to the ‘unfairness’ of underlying economic forces created by speculation that have impoverished our communities. However, in my view, the less we are manipulated and exploited by power the further along the iterative process to fairness we are. I would say that Richard’s work is part of this journey.
Your disrespect for those better qualified than yourself is slanderous (not only to myself who am accustomed thereto but also) to all those responsible for double-blind clinical trials. Secondly the bias is rarely in the index itself, more often in the choice of an inappropriate index. Thirdly, any academic peer reviews are not limited to two reviewers and any academic worth his/her salt would have made Ben Saunders’ point.
Fourthly, your insult seems to be a way of sidestepping my points about tax incidence.
Now let’s name some biased indices
RPI
CPI
Most earnings data
GDP
OK for starters?
ANd I think you will find you are wrong on many peer reviews
And on your belief that no academic would disagree with you. Are you really that arrogant?
john77, as a statistician you have been trained to have a very narrow and technical definition of ‘bias’, one that is not universally relevant. The attempt to apply it everywhere, regardless of the context, is simply intellectual chauvinism.
Even the most carefully constructed statistical analysis is imbued with presuppositions, assumptions and blind spots – hence it is always and necessarily ‘biased.’ Statistics can do many useful things but it cannot eliminate bias in this broad, non-technical sense.
Philip is either ignorant or deliberately insolent. It is not statistics that are biased but their misuse by lobbyists and politicians. Statistics started with calculations of the expected results from an *unbiased* die. For nearly two centuries actuaries have calculated life insurance premiums from mortality rates. What is the bias in a mortality rate? Is Philip planning on taking a machine gun to create a bias?
I am sorry – but only a fool could make your claim
Of course a stat such as ‘will I die’ can be objective – and ranges can even be pretty reliably predicted but move from there to many statistical uses and you must know that your claim is just absurd
Not as arrogant as you and I have been pointing out for years that CPI is biased. The FTSE-All Share Index is massively better than the FT-30.
WHAT do you claim is the bias in mortality indices?
I have never said that no academic would disagree with me – from what did you create that lie?
It is mildly interesting that the three examples you cite (apart from the horrendously vague “most …”) are all significantly distorted from 1997 to 2010 – understating inflation and overstating the rate of growth in GDP by an error introduced in 1997,corrected in 2010 and exposed in 2011 by the Royal Statistical Society.
They were not ‘corrected’
The identified error was removed
Not the same thing at all
John77 is cleArly an idiot. Any statistical analysis will have some degree of bias, you may minimise it but it will still exist. On the other hand 6 people!!!! Come on richard, you are better than that, don’t give them an easy target to discredit this stuff. If you are piloting it then fine, but I don’t think you should be giving out low tax marks to real companies before the criteria are nailed. You open yourself to some tricky conversations if the mark improves after the criteria have altered (and its yet more ammo for the critics)
I am sorry but I do not agree
To take an obvious example, most of the companies surveyed had restated their accounts at least once in the period surveyed – mainly because of changes in accounting standards but not always
Does that mean the old accounts were discredited or were th best available at the time?
In practice almost all measurement tools change over time – and no doubt at all the FTM will
Let us see
Ben Saunders described the methodology of the “Fair Tax Mark” as biased. Which it is (ignoring the effect of prior year losses and including dividends that have already paid tax in the denominator both generate a significant bias even before one looks at the exemptions created by Brown or the overstatement of reported profits due to inflation) unnecessarily so since (as you know) IFRS requires all companies to reconcile their effective tax rate to the nominal tax rate of the host country so you *can* work out a fair number.
He and I point out that your numbers contain a bias and your response was that *all* statistics are biased (the ‘everyone else is doing it guv’ defence). I pointed out that the role of the statistician is to eliminate bias: that is one of his/her primary purposes and cite a handful (I could cite hundreds if anyone would read a post that long) that are not – do you dispute that double-blind clinical trials are unbiased: if you know of any that are not please inform the US FDA who be delighted and all other regulatory bodies who would be saddened – and you respond with three indices that I have previously complained about as if they are the whole of the statistical universe. The rest of your responses are just insults.
I started by saying that if you want some help of analysing company accounts and their tax rates I can help. I could also help with your cash flow analyses – you say that the accounting profession has not produced a comprehensible cash flow statement: in the late-middle 1970s when we suffered rampant inflation one of our actuaries asked me to design a useful cash flow analysis template, which I did – and it was comprehensible to our trainees.
Thank you
But in view of the obvious problems you have revealed in understanding statistics of late I will not be taking advantage of your offer
Just to weigh in on the narrow point of the customary number of peer reviewers – Richard is right. My experience with submitting to and refereeing for academic journals and submitting a book proposal to an academic press is that two is by far the most common number of referees. If they do not agree, then sometimes a third might be brought in.
Obviously in the consultation process it is necessary to ensure the input from the tax profession is both useful and constructive.
Perish the thought that “tax shills” for the multi-nationals should try and hijack the consultation process, introduce over complicated changes in order to achieve a “fairer” (their view) result, conclude the changes are unworkable and bury the Fair Tax mark!
I can see the point of a weighting system to encourage people to mend their ways and to give them credit for what they are doing now compared to what they did previously, but your chosen weighting system means that what you do this year is worth as much as the first three years combined. A lifetime of tax payments at the full rate could be wiped out by a major capital investment programme over a couple of years that eliminated the tax on a small profit.
My personal view is that a Fair Tax Mark that actively discourages large scale investment programmes isn’t really doing anybody any favours. Investment programmes should hopefully drive growth and improve the taxable profits of companies. No doubt this is the reason why tax is deferred on these transactions in the first place.
You miss the point – we could have just done 4 years and produced something like the same outcome
Or even one year and had a wholly erratic result
Would that have been better?
Both are biased
There isn’t a lot of point doing 6 years if you are more or less ignoring half of them. As you rightly point out doing just one year would give a very erratic result. The more heavily weighted recent years are the more erratic the calculation becomes because it gets closer to being a 1 year calculation. You could say that doing 6 years without weighting or bias would be more like doing 8-9 years with weighting, which should really eliminate the erratic nature of the whole process, but this would then move away from your desire to rapidly reward good behaviour in recent times.
Personally if I was going to do some weighting in a simple way I would have started with a number higher than 1. If you had used numbers 5-10 for example it would have ensured there was some weighting in favour of more recent years, without making the earliest years almost pointless.
On a completely different note I keep thinking about the difference between capital allowances at 18% and assets depreciated in the accounts. Personally I think it would be a lot better if capital allowances were scrapped in favour of using a fair rate of depreciation. It would simplify the tax calculation and provide more transparency for everybody. If you expect something to last 20 years I am not sure why the government would wants to give you an 18% WDA, but on the other hand if something is only going to last 2-3 years it seems silly that to only give the capital allowances at the end when it is disposed of. It just makes life even more erratic in certain years.
But we didn’t ignore half of them
We weighted for one element of the test. This seems to have been widely ignored
And because we wold have done 4 years without weighting – our original plan – it added to data and information availability
As for CAs – the problem may be that the reduced tax rate has reduced their impact
I had already been wondering about the impact of lower corporate tax rates. It strikes me that to be within 3% of 20% is far easier than being within 3% of 28%. It appears your test will become easier as the older years with higher tax rates drop off the end. To avoid this problem it might have been better to look for being within a certain fraction of the official rate?
We will consider that
“Perish the thought that “tax shills” for the multi-nationals should try and hijack the consultation process, introduce over complicated changes in order to achieve a “fairer” (their view) result, conclude the changes are unworkable and bury the Fair Tax mark!”
that’s just what i was thinking. the so-called `profession` has had decades, vast resource and the collaboration of an irresponsible and deceitful Treasury to do this, so why start squealing now?
Bullies always squeal the loudest when they get even a little pushback.
There’s nothing more harmful to democracy than the demand for a consensus that’s premature. Without the airing of independent, forthright voices there can be no real debate, only immediate capitulation to the status quo.
If this report rubs some people up the wrong way good! Why shouldn’t it? Politics doesn’t exist to make us all feel cosy and settled. Debate cannot presuppose consensus but must strive for it through agonistic argument. Anything else is a waste of time.
You sound quite annoyed by his comments. Digging into your response, presumably your answers to Ben Saunders’ questions are:
Q: So will the Fair Tax Mark campaign listen to others’ views of what is fair?
A: No
Q: Will they listen to independent reviews of their methods?
A: No
Q: Or have the opinions of the few behind the campaign already decided that what they consider fair is all that matters?
A: Yes
So frankly, why say more? He seems to have touched a nerve. Answering the questions like that is fine: your stated aim is a political one (“it is trying to create change in the way in which tax is reported by companies”) rather than an academic point, which would then require stringent / peer reviewed standards.
What I would point out though, is that if you use a methodology which does not have consensus agreement as reasonable, and that is opaque and inconsistently applied, you invite ridicule and lack credibility. If in reply to some fairly minor and constructive feedback is to run around breathing fire then your aims are undermined.
If you’re not bothered about acceptance, then why produce something called a “Fair Tax Mark”? The implication is that you would like companies to comply and have this as a badge of pride. Not even Greggs have adopted it yet.
Thank you for your comment but your answer is wrong in each case
We did consult and are doing so again – would you like to send me an email address so you can be included?
But as for consensus – can you tell me of an accounting standard that achieved that? Or a tax law? And what about something like Fair Trade – did it achieve consensus, ever?
I am curious to see he evidence for this quality you espouse
Richard, tax laws are created by elected MPs. You have no such elected authority. I don’t think that’s a fair or helpful comparison.
Accounting standards are not created by MPs
Nor was the Fair Trade Mark
What about them?
Helen, are you going to contribute something useful and constructive?
As an example, I recall that UITF 40 as part of the revenue recognition rules was introduced without much consultation and a notable lack of consensus!
I think that’s a bit rude – in what way was what you said constructive? I am just pointing out to Richard that one of his examples doesn’t really work.
Buit it was a decidedly selective and rude suggestion you made when doing so
Whether I am elected or not does not matter – tax law is now supposedly consulted upon
And you ignored my other examples
The rebuttal was well deserved in my opinion
I don’t think I was rude at all. I ignored your other examples because I had no issue with them – and that is why it was selective! You don’t have the authority of an elected official and that’s why you cannot compare the FTM process to the process of implementing UK tax law. The rebuttal didn’t add anything useful at all – which is exactly what it accused me of. If someone who disagreed with you posted something like that it would never get published, which is just degrading the quality of the debate in my view. Shame.
I am sorry – but what you’re now saying is that you presented a fatuous argument
Of course I’m not elected – that’s obvious, so pointing it out was wholly unnecessary
And of course there is no link between the FTM and law – the debate was about consensus – and tax law is consulted upon so the argument on law was entirely relevant
So I am sorry – but I still cannot see what is wrong with pointing out that your argument appears irrelevant to debate – from which I assume it has another purpose
If you don’t like my suspicion I am not apologising for it either – achieving change has made me jaundiced of many who defend the status quo, and for good reason
Yes – it upsets some. It’s a price worth taking to achieve change
I merely pointed out that MPs (who act with the consensus of the electorate) make tax law. You cannot therefore compare the FTM with tax law when arguing about consensus not being necessary. That is how it is relevant to this debate, unlike what the other commenter posted. However, I said nothing else, you just assumed I disagreed with you and therefore let another commenter flame me.
It’s not about upsetting people, it just takes the debate to the lowest level, which makes it worthless.
I would refer you to what Sir Peter Bottomley said today
I do not think debate here has been worthless
But nor have I noted your enthusiasm for vies presented
And some claims have jus t Ben wrong in my opinion
Ok, so in answer to Ben Saunder’s questions:
Q: So will the Fair Tax Mark campaign listen to others’ views of what is fair?
A: Yes
Q: Will they listen to independent reviews of their methods?
A: Yes
Q: Or have the opinions of the few behind the campaign already decided that what they consider fair is all that matters?
A: No
That’s great! In which case I don’t see why his comments concern you so much.
I think his main point was that accounting profits are not equal to taxable profits, a situation which can come about as a result of abusive behaviour, or perfectly innocent economic activity / application of accounting rules. The Fair Tax Mark methodology appears to be unable to distinguish and it thus seems a bit of a blunt tool. Personally, I have a number of other problems with it as well.
Perhaps your answer to the above is that you would like to see much more transparency in reporting. In which case: what’s in it for the reporter? If you want their prize for being more transparent to be the ability to display a green fair tax mark… then first you’ll have to have the methodology agreed as a reasonable one by reporters.
I think you have Catch 22: corporate taxes are not a simple system, and so simply looking at ETRs on bottom line profits is unlikely to be accepted as reasonable by reporters. But, you won’t adapt your methodology to what reporters would agree to as then it might not be seen as independent.
That said – your ability to get publicity and your campaigns noticed continues to astound me. If nothing else, I congratulate you on that!
His comments concern me because he is vociferous and seems to have quite significantly misunderstood what we are seeing to do
That does not mean we will ignore him, of course
But we will continue to ask for much better reporting and more transparency
And I cannot explain why people listen. But could it be tha they agree?
Richard, you are welcome to comment on my blog any time you want, which is where I will continue to post my criticisms of the FTM method. I would prefer that you consulted openly with anyone who is interested, rather than selected individuals.
Also, the choices for the bias you imbue your methodology with will get properly discussed and explained. That would be a good use of the blog space on the website and would ensure everything is transparent.
I think you are misunderstanding my comment regarding the weighting issue. Although I think the annual weighting isn’t appropriate, my main criticism is your use of what I think you call the “sum of the digits” method.
I can see the utility of such a method where the raw data is not available to calculate an average correctly. Given you do have the raw data to calculate an actual correct rate, I cannot conceive of any reason to use it.
You are effectively ignoring one variable which has a massive impact on the current rate of tax.
That’s not to say there isn’t a reason to use it, but you haven’t offered an explanation other than personal choice, which is not
As I said in my original post you need to calculate the average correctly before applying weighting. It is not a case of one or the other. I have already suggested that you read Alex Cobham’s suggestion of a suitable formula on my blog.
With respect, I am very amused that you think I am vociferous…
Three things Ben
First I am pleased to note that, as is now clear, weighting apart, you have no problem with the methodology
Second, by endorsing Alex Cobham’s comment you appear to be also endorsing his point that you are inflating your concern
Thirdly, and again by endorsing Alex’s comment you also appear to endorse weighting
But might I also ask – why don’t you respond positively to the points Alex made. I cannot see that you have done so. Positive engagement would help.
Richard, you are a riot! How you get an endorsement from that comment is beyond me. Especially when I am quite explicit in my response to Alex about what I agree with and do not, as you have obviously read.
But then how you get to oppressing free speech from trying to encourage conversation is beyond me too…
It’s almost like you’re trying to put words in mouth so I’m going to try to explain my position in as plain terms as I can. Please do not try to read too much into this. And please refrain from trying to interpret my comments for others. I think they are plain enough.
I am not saying anything about the annual weighting. I think it’s incompatible with your assumptions on deferred tax, but I suggest we park that issue because you are obviously getting mixed up between the two problems.
I am only talking about your “sum of the digits” method.
I was merely pointing out one fix to one aspect of your method. That would solve the mathematical error you have made, which is the same one you made in your tax gap calculations – calculating the sum of the means rather than the mean of the sums.
You are currently making no attempt to justify that choice. If you could justify it, you should have done so.
Otherwise, I imagine, your only option is to try to argue the man rather than the argument.
Ah, so I am not allowed to read and consider what you say Ben; is that what you’re saying? Thanks for letting me know! But you might then see how I get to the comment on free speech… or maybe not.
But let’s return to your concern – misplaced as it is.
Your assumption is that companies are taxed as part of a time series – so you want aggregation of data. Alex seems to do this in his formula so you appear to endorse it.
The trouble is that is wrong: companies are taxed in discrete years. Of courses losses and CA claims can have impact on other years – I accept that – but to suggest that more important than the discret nature of each assessment is just wrong – it is at best a secondary consideration and to have given it primacy as you suggest would have ignored the time delineated nature of our CT system.
Theoretically therefore any weighting along the lines you suggest is directly in conflict with the predominant (but not sole) nature of our tax system – and so wrong.
But you have ignored that point, in my opinion.
Richard, just a note, your website quite often throws up a comment saying I’ve duplicated comments but doesn’t show the original. Hence the duplication of comments (by deleting just one word) to try to resolve the problem.
Sorry – that’s a word press issue
And I am not responsible for them
If anyone thinks they can do a better job, let them do so! I thought your opponents liked competition and free markets
Your argument that statistics are intrinsically biased because they are misused by people (including yourself in the case highlighted by Mr Saunders) is ridiculous. You might as well say all arithmetic is biased because some child gets a sum wrong.
That is not what I am saying and a real statistician would know that
John77, careful, you straying close to making the “Chewbacca Defense”!
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense
Oh dear – knowing that De Moivre was paid to produce statistics for an unbiased die or understanding graeco-roman squares or Fisher’s t-test or the theory of double-blind trials is a lack of understanding? Pull the other one.
Also an apology to the National statistician who has a duty to ensure the honesty of statistics (except those exempted by Blair and Brown) would be in order.
Since your bias is apparent in your comment no apology is forthcoming
And future comments will be deleted