I admit that there are moments when I quietly despair of the harm that is likely to result from so called tax reforms. This morning the FT has reported that:
Corporation tax should be scrapped and replaced by extra value added tax
adding that:
The proposal, which is designed to address the growing difficulties faced by the Treasury [...]
You don’t believe me? It was KPMG that said it. OK, they’re only talking VAT, but this is an enormously important tax for the economy and for the companies that operate it. And they’ve issued research showing the follwoing::
- UK tops league table of VAT-friendliness in KPMG International survey
- Multinationals predict shift to indirect taxes [...]
As if to follow up the publication of Oliver James’ new book ‘Selfish Capitalism’ (about which I wrote here), the FT has reported that:
More than half a million young Britons are officially too sick to work and claiming incapacity benefits, a higher tally than the number claiming unemployment benefit. The figure, which includes more than [...]
It’s a fact that we cannot do without taxes. That’s because we cannot do without government. And we cannot do without markets either, at least in the world as we know it. The relationship is symbiotic: governments provide the structure in which markets can work: markets need government as their insurer of last resort: populations [...]
One of my Jersey correspondents tells me that the public’s repulsion for the regressive GST (Goods and Services Tax) to be introduced in Jersey in 2008 has even got to the local pantomime at the Opera House, Jersey.
A question was asked to the audience “What does GST stand for?”
The retort was “Get Stuffed Terry”.
Senator Terry [...]
I note that Nick Shaxson has re-christened the Channel Islands the Selfish Isles on the TJN blog, and ne’er was a name so well chosen.
I’m afraid there’s another Selfish Isles story from this weekend to illustrate the point, this time from the Guernsey Evening Post, the partner to Jersey’s Evening Post. Peter Body, the editor [...]
I have complained about BBC Jersey in the past, here and elsewhere.
So, fairness where it is due: they not only quote me here, they even provide a link.
Thanks.
We have to ask ourselves: are we, as a government, morally bankrupt when we are taxing pensioners on a loaf of bread?
So said Alan Breckon, a Deputy (MP) in the States of Jersey last week to the Guardian, as reported by Duncan Campbell. The comment was made in anticipation of a demonstration yesterday in St [...]
Jersey has a tax gap of, give or take, £95 million as a result of it moving to Zero / 10 taxation of companies. There now seems widespread belief that I am right that this will result in about £120 million of tax revenue being lost by the Island (22% of its current state income) [...]
I feel sorry for the French.
24.5% VAT is not going to help their economy in any way. But Sarkozy has conned them into it.
I suspect my French colleagues will be having a lot to do quite soon.
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