I thought this tweet was interesting:
Chris Jordan links to this article in Taxation. It in turn links to this article on the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales web site where ample evidence for Chris' hypothesis appears to be on view.
I'm beginning to know what Marmite feels like.
But, as usual, a couple of other thoughts occurred to me.
First, what would these people have said if PWC had launched this scheme? I saw no such opprobrium for the Total Tax Contribution, for example.
And what if the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales took the Fair Tax Mark over. What would they say then if the Institute was to promote better tax transparency? After all, isn't that entirely consistent with its public duty responsibilities imposed by its Royal Charter?
I believe it was me who first compared you to Marmite 3 years ago.
http://www.internationaltaxreview.com/IssueArticle/2924575/Archive/The-50-biggest-influences-in-tax.html
“Richard Murphy
Blogger
They say you can judge a man by the strength of his enemies and Richard Murphy, an accountant who largely turned his back on his trade to become a tireless campaigner for tax justice, has made some very powerful ones in the world of international business and among his former peers.
Much like Marmite, you may love him or hate him, but Murphy has never shied away from his campaign to stamp out tax avoidance through country-by-country reporting, a standard he claims he was instrumental in devising.
“We want to know what tax companies owe, where they owe it and the profits and losses they make in each jurisdiction,” says Murphy. “And we want to know how many people you employ and where. We want to know who you exploit. That is what this is about, the poorest people in the world.”
A founder of the Tax Justice Network, Murphy is always among the first to leak the information tax avoiders and tax authorities don’t want you to hear on his daily blog. Multinationals may not like him, but they ignore him at their peril.”
Thanks Salman
The judgement of your peers should at least be salutary. Little bit like peer review in the scientific community! I don’t know that people either love or hate you (or even agree or disagree), but I think it is true that the world view you espouse tends to be binary so it would not be surprising if you do generate “Marmite” responses.
Rather oddly, the last thing I see about my world view is that it is binary
I think it is viewed from a singular perspective and that is very different
Singular; Binary. Not that different really. You rarely seem to have room for multiple options – its either you agree or you don’t! The Fair Tax Mark is a good example.
But that’s not me: in a neoliberal world it is either you agree with a neoliberal commentator or you don’t. I don’t. The consequence is it appears that I offer a binary choice but the truth is that in my choices there are a range of options and the sad reality is that in neoliberalism there is just one. If you view the whole world from a neoliberal perspective you will inevitably see the disparity between my position and that of the neoliberal consensus as a binary choice. Maybe that is why you think I am offering a binary choice when that is not the case.