I admit to being a little baffled as to what to say on the blog this morning. This rarely happens, as regular readers will know. However, it is also the case that I have never previously lived through days when the country in which I normally reside is choosing to self-destruct. Brexit wends its weary way towards 29 March. The options of leaving on a bad or no deal continue to be real. Staying is, at best, a damage limitation exercise. And the consequences for the future unity and well-being of the United Kingdom remain unknown, but appear stark at best. In the circumstances I do wonder if there is anything I can add to what I have already said, at least today.
Maybe this is why I am spending much of my time thinking even more intensely than usual about research issues. I thought it was worth updating on what I am working on.
First of all, in the past few days I have learnt that a paper I have co-authored with Prof Andrew Baker of Sheffield University on a qualitative approach to tax spillover analysis is to be published in the journal Global Policy. In addition to the journal paper we will also be publishing support documents. One is a guide as to the questions that we think such an assessment should address. The second is a tax spillover analysis for the UK, highlighting where we think the risks within the UK tax system really are. In total these papers will be about 50,000 words: this has been no small exercise.
I am also working on a new estimate of the EU tax gap: I expect this will be published in the new year at an event in the EU Parliament. This estimate builds on work I have been doing on macroeconomic basis for estimating such tax gaps: academic journal work on this issue is progressing.
I also have academic papers on tax on international relations and the Big 4 firms of accountants in progress.
In the background a new Green New Deal paper is in development.
And discussions on accounting standards are taking an increasing part of my time.
And I have to teach next term.
I may not have much to say here today, but I have elsewhere. And it provides some destraction from the despair that I feel about Brexit, which will persist whatever the outcome.
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More depression. This tells of dark money orchestrated by Right Wing groups and , apparently, breaking election law. It begins to feel like our country’s future has been hi-jacked by a sort of coup.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/new-evidence-emerges-of-steve-bannon-and-cambridge-analyticas-role-in-brexit/amp?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR14wW3PoyFBofhXsHuWDE4lse5h4yBcI8p-M-xmkO9oAT5mlQRH4bZlG58
@ Ian Stevenson
“It begins to feel like our country’s future has been hi-jacked by a sort of coup.”
Well it has a largely right-wing Libertarian coup whose members really struggle to balance caring for self and others!
Thatcherism is still very much alive and kicking in the UK!
She went 28 years ago today
Just twiddling your thumbs then 🙂
Only just, at that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4 🙂 🙂
Indeed
Good news about your research work.
To me, it’s a question of watch and wait now.
We are like being in a barrel floating along the edge of waterfall waiting for the surge to push us over head long into the unknown depths……………. and what?
‘Event horizons’ and all that……………….
Cogito ergo sum.
Interesting article by Larry Elliot in The Guardian today.
I have commented in answers on the blog today
Green New Deal or something like it will be needed more than ever, both from a climate change and an economic perspective. Just seems like an obvious option for the parties of Centre and Left to run with. What holds them back?
I wish I knew
“What holds them back?”
Lobbies and Unions?
Up in Anglesey, people are fretting about loss of job opportunities if investors decide to not go ahead with a new-already-old nuclear plant, while down in Swansea Bay the much greener Tidal Lagoon has been rejected…so far.
Lobbies, Unions, and something else too?
Meanwhile, the Green New Deal only has small parties and pressure groups pushing it to the front.
They’re not sponsored by the same Tycoons, Unions or lobbies, clearly.
Follow the money.