I have already noted this morning that David Cameron is desperately playing his anti-tax haven line again. This may not be by chance. Something co-ordinated may be going on. As the Guardian says in a headline this morning:
Why Osborne may override his austerity agenda to track down missing tax
Labour's focus on uncollected tax is an idea the chancellor might well pinch at next week's Tory conference. But it would upset his chums in the Treasury
As they say:
Next week the current chancellor, George Osborne, steps up to the podium. His mentions of HM Revenue & Customs will be worth hearing. For all the Tories' ideological objection to taxation and Osborne's determination to cut staff numbers, HMRC has in recent years been one bit of Whitehall that has received words of encouragement from a politician who isn't exactly the public sector's best friend. Lin Homer (who will be gone by the next election) is one permanent secretary to have basked in Tory approval.
Osborne has been known to nick ideas and capture trends started by Labour and setting HMRC on the hunt for missing taxes would suit his financial plans as well — but would he boost HMRC at the expense of abandoning cuts in staffing and pay?
Could it be that George Osborne will be the next minister to borrow my ideas? I could not object, and would not, of course. The idea that Osbornomics might try to absorb Corbynomics this quickly is intriguing but if he is going to do it he'd better do it well or no one will be deceived. And I will be watching.
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Hmrc are recruiting from the big 4 to set up a new anti avoidance unit. Unfortunately they are recruiting mid level managers so not really the type of people with masses of experience but at least it’s s start. I wonder whether the pay constraint is why they aren’t going for the more senior/experienced people?
Here’s what I said a couple of days ago in the comments following this post:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/09/29/reframing-the-instruments-of-economic-governance/
“it occurs to me that there is another distinct possibility that Labour will need to prepare for. They (the Tories) could start pinching your policies while trying to pass that off as something different, something of their own.”
Well, that didn’t take long did it?
For what its worth here is the remainder of my little insight from 3 days ago:
“If this happens. The one thing you wouldn’t want to do is be reactive — shift when they shift in order to maintain difference. No, they don’t get to call the shots (especially when they are backing down). What you would want to do is be prepared, hold your ground and immediately commence a loud major narrative that describes exactly what they are doing and how you have set the agenda”
Etc. etc.
Even if they do absorb and implement Corbynomics and it works well, we should still be very wary of a government who are doing the right thing for their own selfish interests and not the interests of the populace.