As the Mail has reported:
The Mayor of London has jumped to the defence of Starbucks, arguing people should not ‘sneer' at its decision to pay £20million in corporation tax.
As the also report:
Boris Johnson yesterday applauded the decision [by Starbucks to voluntarily pay £20 million of tax] and said it showed ‘good corporate citizenship'. Interviewed on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, Johnson also appeared to endorse companies which pay as little tax as possible.
He described the issue of tax as a ‘difficult one', adding: ‘I cannot exactly blame the finance directors of these companies for doing their job. Their salaries and livings depend on minimising tax exposure obligations on their companies.'
There are two sides to the story though:
Last night campaigners hit back at the mayor's comments. Tax accountant Richard Murphy said: ‘If Boris Johnson is saying it's OK for companies to avoid paying tax then what he is really saying is he wants ordinary people to pay that tax instead. It really is us or them. Someone has to pay it — and I would prefer it to be tax avoiding companies.'
And that's why Johnson is wrong.
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Like many neo-liberals, Richard, Johnson clearly takes the view that in society citizens and their interests are always secondary to corporate entities and their agents. Hence an argument such as you set out here wouldn’t even register with him.
Indeed! But that’s not the point – it may register with others
That’s the hope
I think that it is not that they think citizens interests are secondary: they have persuaded themselves that they are identical with the interests of corporations. This is not new. “We are all on the same side” was a plank of the Thatcher administration and “we are all in it together is a continuation”. Coupled with “it is not a zero sum game” and “trickle down” this is the faintly ridiculous fairy story that, for some reason, huge numbers of people across the world have taken as truth.
It is heartening that the alternative analysis now has something of a platform, and I stand impressed by the fact that TJN has managed to a least secure a voice in this debate: it has been deafening in its absence in the mainstream for decades. It is still a small still voice: but growing. And the more the facts are made available; the more the “middle classes” come to realise that they are next on the impoverishment agenda; the more that alternative will gain traction.
People will eventually notice that the end of the cold war has not produced a peace dividend: it has produced falling living standards and increased insecurity for a growing number of citizens across the world: and that is by design
I think there’s clear evidence it is registering, Richard. And for that you deserve a great deal of credit.
Perhaps somebody should explain to Mr. Johnson where his own salary as Mayor of London comes from. Practicalities aside, if politicians’ salaries were the first affected by failure to pay tax there might be less defence of tax cheating.