I have to say I thought John Moulton’s contribution to the Private Equity debate this weekend was amsuing, it was so counter-prodcutive. Writing in the Telepgraph on Saturday (because I suspect he could find no one else to take the piece) he said:
It’s been a bad week for private equity. The industry has done an [...]
I do get angry about tax dodging. I don’t like cheats of any sort. Most of all I dislike those who abuse tax rules whilst masquerading as the pillars of society. And there’s a simple reason for this anger. Cheating has a cost.
Tax this as an example. Just as the Observer was reporting on the [...]
Quite a lot of comment today suggests that the private equity industry is willing to agree that 10% is too low a rate of tax for what they earn. The suggestion is that they will bargain something between there and 40%, which is the income tax rate.
I have two comments. The first is that the [...]
I’m not so rash as to say that the argument for change in the taxation of private equity has been won yet. But today’s coverage has been exceptional.
The Sunday Times and Observer both gave the issue prominence. The former broke, rather publicly, the fact that I have done some work on this issue with the [...]
That was a headline in the Telegraph today.
What seems like a poorly briefed Treasury Select Committee beat up the private equity industry yesterday - and the killer questions weren’t even asked.
The simple fact is that the private equity industry cannot justify its low tax rates. They have to go.
And don’t believe private equity will quit [...]
I wrote yesterday about what is, in common parlance, greed. It’s good to see that on the same day the FSA announced that banks will be subject to scrutiny on their exposure to private equity deals. Private equity is also about greed, and bankers suffer from this complaint very badly indeed. So badly they’re happy [...]
Will Hutton was also writing in the Observer this weekend. I’m not a committed fan of Hutton’s. But he’s right about private equity: this is a real threat to the UK economy. I stress, I’m not talking about real venture capital. That’s positive stuff, which I support. I’m worried about the asset stripping type: the [...]
