Conservatives » Tax Research UK

Changing the culture of greed

Banking, Conservatives, Ethics 20 Responses »

Feb 012012

So Sir Fred Goodwin is now just Fred. I suspect it is a crushing blow to his ego. I suspect he’s a man for whom ego is important. And let me be clear, for him and his family I feel a little sorrow: I don’t revel in other’s hurt.

But I don’t regret the change of heart: the decision to grant Fred Goodwin and others knighthoods and peerages because they commanded the assets of public companies for personal gain without due consideration for others was an error of judgement, although a collective one of which all senior politicians were guilty.

Now it is time to make the gestures and do something much more important, and that is to really move on and change capitalism. Cameron shows no sign of doing that; he just makes the gestures.

Real change is needed. It starts with accountability and transparency. Backing country-by-country reporting would be a serious sign of commitment to that. It moves on to demand that companies are tax compliant – which is seeking to pay the right amount of tax (but no more) in the right place at the right time where right means that the economic substance of the transactions undertaken coincides with the place and form in which they are reported for taxation purposes.

And it continues by recognising the rights of employees, customers and society.

When business people are rewarded for their responsibility to society and not their greed I will be happier. But we’re a long way from there as yet.

Sometimes you just need your spirit lifted

Conservatives 2 Responses »

Jan 162012

This is good for doing so:

Hat tip: Sue Davies

Why Cameron’s high pay plans have not a hope of working

Conservatives, Economics, Ethics, Uncategorized 17 Responses »

Jan 092012

I was amused (in a depressed sort of of way) to read the Observer’s headline yesterday saying:

David Cameron to curb ‘fat cat’ pay with people power

It takes some considerable stupidity (no point beating about the bush here) to suggest that when the market has failed (as it has) that individual shareholders can be given the power to put things right.

Let’s think about why that isn’t going to happen. The last survey of share ownership in the UK was prepared by the Office for National Statistics in 2010 based on ownership in December 2008. It showed the following:

So Cameron says ‘people power’ voting against high pay is going to solve the problem. Let’s ignore how Blairite that sounds for a minute, let’s instead just look at the reality of it.

More than 40% of the FTSE is owned overseas. They’re not going to run to the defence of the UK economy.

Pension funds and insurance funds are for all practical purposes similar – and part of the same financial power hierarchy as the banks. So they’re not inclined to vote for change. Sorry to be so cynical – but this group have shown themselves time and again to persistently fail those whom they are meant to represent and to side solely with those who might pay their bonuses – many of which are based on inappropriate trading and, frankly, churning.

The same pretty much applies to the banks and all other financial institutions.

So in the vast majority of cases we’re down to charities and individuals. The trouble is those individuals are likely to be very wealthy. And first they don’t vote – their fund managers do for them and second whose wide are they on?

So maybe charities and the public sector can be relied on to support the call on most occasions.

So much for ‘Cameron’s people power’ but candidly it’s so ludicrous an idea he really must think we’re stupid to believe that all these people will vote against high pay.

And yes. I know the odd resolution has got support counter to this argument – but it’s so rare it’s simple proof of the rule. They’ve also almost never been won.

So Cameron is offering reform safe in the knowledge it will never harm his friends. How Tory is that?

Cameron claims the government is tackling tax avoidance whilst Osborne is going out of his way to promote it

Conservatives, Tax avoidance 21 Responses »

Jan 052012

David Cameron claimed today, when speaking about tax avoidance, that:

“With the large companies, that have the fancy corporate lawyers and the rest of it, I think we need a tougher approach.

“One of the things that we are going to be looking at this year is whether there should be a general anti-avoidance power that HMRC can use, particularly with very wealthy individuals and with the bigger companies, to make sure they pay their fair share.”

He said the government was doing its bit to cut the rate of corporation tax – and businesses should recognise they “should pay that rate of tax rather than try to avoid it”.

Well of course I agree. But he either has no clue what he’s talking about or he’s ignoring the fact that his government is one of the biggest supporters of large corporate tax avoidance there’s ever been. As I explained in a report I wrote for the TUC last May, In December 2010 George Osborne announced the biggest tax loophole ever deliberately introduced for large companies by a UK government when he announced that any UK company moving its treasury function out of the UK to a tax haven would have its tax bill on that treasury operation cut to 5.75%. The cost is estimated to be more than £800 million a year, and it was all designed to be a direct shot in the arm for the Crown Dependencies and Cayman.

And Osborne has also abandoned residence based tax – creating vast numbers of new loopholes for multinational corporations.

Cameron has to walk his talk on this issue before we believe him on this issue. Right now no one should. He’s simply not telling the truth.

Cameron’s choice: the UK is now a tax haven

Conservatives, Economics, Europe, Uncategorized 52 Responses »

Dec 102011

Cameron made his choice yesterday.

I make clear, the direction of travel in Europe is not one I like. But he simply chose to leave. And he did so for all the worst reasons.

He chose to support the City.

He demanded the right to exploit the working people of the UK on behalf o the City.

He demanded the right to undermine the economies of Europe and the regulation it wishes to establish over errant banks.

Cameron’s choice was a simple one: he declared the UK a tax haven. A land for the very rich. A land where abuse is not just tolerated but encouraged. A land where the ordinary people are treated with contempt.

It was the wrong choice. It was made for the wrong reason. It’s a choice we will bitterly regret.

When silliness is a crime

Conservatives 30 Responses »

Dec 022011

Last summer two youths said on Facebook that they and others should meet up to loot a shop.

They never did loot.

No one else met them.

They went to prison. For a considerable period.

Jeremy Clarkson on Tuesday said on national television that strikers should be shot in front of their families.

So far he hasn’t been arrested, let alone charged with inciting the murder of 2 million people.

Who committed the bigger crime? Clarkson, by far.

Why has he got away with it? Because he’s a mate of the Prime Minister who said it was just ‘silly’.

Like the Bullingdon rioting, I guess?

This is a divided society. Clarkson reminds us that is so. And why we have to stop it. I remain of the view he should now be under arrest and that a case should be taken with all haste to bring him to justice. Because I don’t think he was being silly. I think he was inciting violence. Deliberately. And for his own political ends, and those of his mate, David Cameron.

Welcome to the Nasty Party. They gave themselves the name. And it fits, perfectly.

It’s class war – declared by Osborne

Conservatives 4 Responses »

Nov 302011

That’s what Polly Toynbee says today:

Class war, generation war, war against women, war between the regions: George Osborne’s autumn statement blatantly declares itself for the few against the many. Gloves are off and gauntlets down, and the nasty party bares its teeth. Here is the re-toxified Tory party, the final curtain on David Cameron’s electoral charade. No more crocodile tears for the poor, no more cant about social mobility or “the most family-friendly government” or “we’re all in this together”. Forget “vote blue go green”, with this mockery of husky-hugging. Let the planet fry.

She’s right.

As I’ve just said on air in Northern Ireland, whatever Osborne could do to make things worse, he has done.

He set out to use the downturn to destroy the public sector and all that most value in society.

And that is exactly what he is doing.

He is saying he doesn’t care about the elderly, the poor, the unemployed, school leavers with no hope, those on low pay, the environment, the green belt anmd so much more.

All he cares about is exploiting labour so that profits grow.

And yes, that is class war. He declared it.

If Osborne was right markets should be pushing UK interest rates upo strongly today – but they won’t

Conservatives, Economics 5 Responses »

Nov 292011

George Osborne has said since before coming into office that beating the deficit and curtailing debt is vital.

Today he will admit he’s going to fail to do that in this parliament.

He’ll say he’ll overshoot by £30 billion. Others by much more. Since all Osborne’s forecasts so far have been far too optimistic I’ll go for the ‘much more’.

And what Osborne has always said is that if he fails to deliver that cut in the deficit then the markets will panic, the interest rates we pay will sky rocket and the economy will spin out of control as money pours out of London.

Instead we have rates lower than Germany.

And they won’t change today.

That’s not because Osborne’s getting a vote of confidence.

It’s becasue Osborbe was wrong.

The markets never demanded that the deficit be cleared with undue haste. The markets never demanded 20% youth unemployment, a crash in demand, a threat to well-being that is the harbinger of real instability and a massive increase in benefit payments because the government wantonly cut services people needed. All it needed was confidence that the government can pay. That’s all that matters to it. And Labour had, before the crisis, left the UK with very low debt at less than 40% of GDP, and very long repayment terms at 14 years on average. And Brown had refused to let us join the Euro. As a result the markets had all they needed in April 2010. And as a result of that sound foundation they still have.

All that’s happened since is that Osborne has trashed the domestic economy for no good reason and certainly not because the markets demanded it.

Beware market fanatsist: they’re very dangerous people.

Remember George Osborne was the man who wanted us to copy Ireland in 2006. That’s how good his judgement is.

Conservatives, Economics 12 Responses »

Nov 282011

I well remember when George Osborne said if only the UK was more like Ireland all its problems would be solved. Oh for the heady days of 2006, eh, George? When you wrote in The Times of the “Irish miracle” that “stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking”.

Think what a mess we’d be in now if George had been in charge then.

And remember that tomorrow when George blames everyone but himself for the mess he’s made now he’s in charge here.