I like this, on Twitter this morning:
SSE plc is a Fair Tax Mark company.
I am a director of the Fair Tax Mark.
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It’s good to see that co-operative enterprises make up a large proportion of the examples of who’s signed up to Fair Tax Mark. I have to say I’m even a bit surprised to see SSE in the list based on their past performance in things like the mis-selling scandal.
I suppose you can’t comment, but have they modified their previous tax policy or were they always paying their fair share and therefore it was an easy marketing exercise to help repair their tarnished brand?
I am a natural cynic when I see a Plc offering to pay more for anything, much like the CSR movement of a few years ago seemed nothing more than a PR exercise for many.
They made significant changes to get the FTM
Richard I have picked a quiet post to go off-topic(sort of)and bring something quite disturbing to your attention (and your readers’ attention).
I was reading an article in The Guardian about Cameron’s plan to deport non-EU migrants earning less than 35K.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/mar/12/eu-workers-deported-earning-less-35000-employees-americans-australians#comment-70496634
The comments forum featured a number of persistent trolls pushing an ill-conceived but apparently established tax idea that they refer to as “net contribution”. It wasn’t their focus so much as an assumed part of their collective mindset.
Under anonymity, one excellent commenter summarised their nonsense in the following terms (his post is a little long but well worth reading):
‘MarcFive 4h ago
READERS BEWARE — THE “NET CONTRIBUTION” LIE.
Dear CiF readers,
This comments forum and this topic are among those have become subject to a toxic and deliberate deceit that passes itself off as fact and research. It has become apparent here in comments like this:
gtegte — Hermann22: “Why should the UK accept migrants who pay less in tax than they consume in state spending”
This concept known as “net contribution” is largely the work of right-wing ‘think tanks like the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and Tory papers like The Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/10638283/How-much-we-give-the-state-in-tax-and-how-much-we-get-back.html
Their basic suggestion is that everyone who earns less than 35K is some sort of a ‘scrounger’ a “net beneficiary” who receives more in state services than they pay in tax — and that everyone who earns more than 35K is a net contributor who generously supports the rest of us.
This concept would have us believe that the working poor are not exploited, they are subsidised, and that the greatest consumers of state services — the owners of British finance and industry are somehow doing us all an enormous favour. The idea and its premise are garbage, simple and plain. I will explain why:
1. The ‘Beneficiary’/ State Services fallacy
The ‘Net Contributor’ lie is based on an average — the assumption that we all consume an equal amount of state services. That alone is ridiculous. Some us do not drive or use roads or rail or airports to any great extent, definitely not shipping ports. Some will not have school children, suffer serious illness or injury, some will not have been to university here (the well-off are more likely to do so).
We all use state services to varying degrees and the greatest users of transport infrastructure and energy infrastructure are British industry (whether local or foreign owned). And the greatest beneficiaries of state services are not the poor, they are the owners of that industry. Those owners are also the main users of an educated workforce that is largely transported and trained by the state.
2. The Taxable Income Fallacy
One half of the trick with the Net Contributor Lie is that it assesses personal income tax and welfare but it fails to consider the consumption of state services by industry. It also fails to consider the contributions made by workers WITHIN the context of production.
If I owned a firm with 10 employees doing all of the work, I was making a huge profit and they were getting minimum pay – they would be making a massive contribution – to me (and hopefully) my customers.
If I was self-employed in a competitive industry with tight profit margins, my net income may be lower than 35K, but I’d be contributing strongly through the value that my customers received in paying lower (competitive) prices.
3. Rent-seeking and the Real Economy
If I was running a monopoly, my taxable income may be great but my contribution would be negative because additional income was acquired at the expense of my customers (and, quite likely, my suppliers and workers as well).
If I was running a casino I would be producing nothing. I would merely redistribute wealth from the losing gamblers to the winners and the house.
If I was speculating in the price of existing houses or financial instruments I could make well over 35K and would still be producing nothing.
The financial markets are a giant casino redistributing income from the real economy to themselves.
If you think that a speculator, banker or derivatives trader is making a bigger contribution than a hard-pressed worker on minimum pay, then you are seriously kidding.
The low paid are making the greatest contribution because the rest of the economy benefits at their expense.
END of POST
There is not much I could add to that other than the fact that the numerous trolls in this case had what I could only describe as a weird kind of posh blackshirt attitude. And I get the feeling that I haven’t seen the last of them and their stupid IFS idea.
In any case I would like your thoughts on the subject.
What can I add?
The commentator you quote seems to have done a good job
True enough, and I’m glad you agree.
Mind you, he did gild the lily a little in saying that: “The Net Contributor Lie is based on an average — the assumption that we all consume an equal amount of state services”
The actual IFS methodology is a little more complicated and opaque – although it is much the same in principle, just as stupid and apparently more distorted than a straight average.
To be honest, I was feeling a little rattled by the way that this idea had appeared to gain some sort of traction – and by the way that this 35K threshold seems to have become a benchmark for government actions – like these migrant deportations.
According to the statements quoted in the Guardian article, there is no official connection between the Migration Advisory Committee’s 35K threshold and the IFS/Telegraph claim that “net contributors” are those on incomes <35K. But the coincidence, in my opinion, is more than suspicious (to say the least).
The aforementioned trolls in the Guardian article's forum seemed to assume that there was no coincidence and that this deportation rule was an expression of the "net contributor" principle. They didn't even discuss it. they just assumed.
I may be over-reacting a little but I smell a giant rat in all of this. There is something going on here. The IFS, Telegraph, Tories et al. are playing at being some sort of fake-plastic Kuznets, fabricating there own socially toxic, self-serving, economic metrics and indicators.
I think that this 'net contributor' nonsense needs to be put under a big spotlight and seriously taken to task so it doesn't get the chance to become well established or "official", at least not comfortably so. Part of the reason that I have brought this to your attention is that your spotlight is better than most.
I'll leave these thoughts with you.
Correction: ‘those on incomes >35K’ (not ‘<35K')