A new year, and for this blog one that cannot, I suspect, repeat the level of traffic of 2017. The final data for the year was 2,512,000 individual page reads, up from 2,004,000 the previous year. Unique visits increased from 1,286,000 to 1,754,000 in the year. Assuming there is no election and no referendum, which between them have boosted traffic in each of the last three years, those are figures that are not going to be repeated in 2018, I suspect.
So what to do with the blog instead? Indeed, what to do with the year? The first objective is to shake off the lurgy that has blighted my last few days, and which was the almost inevitable consequence of slowing down after a frenetic autumn.
I have to be candid and say that academic work will be dominating my agenda. I am in the second year of a three year grant when the shape of the planned deliverables has to be determined.
New research on the tax gap, and ways to both define and calculate it, is already well under way and in draft.
Work is proceeding rapidly on research on the Big Four firms of accountants and their impact on corporate behaviour.
That's also true of work on new methodologies for assessing tax spillover effects.
I also have research underway on country-by-country reporting and its relationship to mainstream accounting.
An old theme, which is the role of company registrars in tackling tax abuse, is also receiving new attention.
And at City our work on the changing nature of the modern corporation is yielding surprising results that may begin to be published this year.
That is a pretty big agenda and leaves little time over, especially given teaching and other obligations.
I am not planning a new book, although I am being asked to consider it. I will only do so when I am happy I have a tightly defined topic worth the agony book writing involves: suggestions are welcome.
So where does the blog fit in? This is the place where I find out what I think on current issues by rehearsing them, often several times a day. I foresee some of the above themes appearing here, of course. I am also well aware that it is not tax that drives most of the traffic to this site; it is instead the politics and economics that surrounds the issue that do that.
Much of that writing is reactive. I am sure that will continue to be the case. But I would also love to spend time developing issues in a bit more depth and in the process pursue the wiki idea that has rather fallen by the wayside simply due to lack of time and the fact that I have a life beyond blogging. Again, suggestions are welcome, without promises being offered that I will meet requests made.
However, it being new year I might appraise a few fundamentals over the next week or so. There's no harm in that. It might also fit with lecture writing, and that is my first work task of the year.
Have a good one.
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Whichever route you choose, may it be the best for you, for your career, and most of all for your family.
Peace, love, and a Happy New Year!
Thanks Jeni
[…] just pondered upon what the purpose of this blog might be in 2018, a near perfect suggestion came along, pretty much fully formed. This exchange took place […]
Everything above matters and your work is highly commendable. You refer to climate change and other environmental issues in ‘The Courageous State’ yet you do not address their overwhelming urgency in your list of priorities for 2018.
President Emmanuel Macron: “We are losing the battle on climate change.” (12 December 2017)
António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General: “Climate change is moving faster than we are.” (1 January 2018)
I am fond of my grandchildren and I fear for their future so, at the risk of irritating you, here are extracts – from my post of a couple of days ago – of the words of –
Professor Kevin Anderson: “European Union nations can burn gas and other fossil fuels at the current rate for only 9 more years … Every nation wants to burn more than its share of carbon which would cause 3 or 4 degrees of warming – utterly devastating globally, with massive regional repercussions like droughts, floods or heat waves. A 2°C rise would be extremely dangerous. We have to achieve these goals, not simply try to achieve them. We have to remove all our carbon dioxide emissions in just a handful of decades. Nothing we have put in place so far has made any meaningful difference to our global emissions.
The current economic system — of growth and more growth — is completely incompatible with our climate change objective. If we don’t achieve this, then the climate impacts will make growth impossible.
Either way, the future will not fit with the current economic paradigm”. (November 2017)
How should the system be changed? Restraint of the wealthy is needed; it is they (we?) who inflict most damage on the environment. Personal rationing in one form or another would create a measure of personal responsibility rather than leaving everything to governments. Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) would reliably cut emissions while allowing individual choice – and reduce inequality. Housing needs to be rationed — especially because, with sea-level rise, housing stock will be lost. Meat eating needs to be restrained. Cotton is largely grown in water-scarce parts of the world, so rationing of clothing would probably make sense.
Joe
I admit I don’t tend to do environmental issues because so many of my friends do it better than I can
It’s not that I have cased to think them relevant, I promise you
Richard
Book idea: a book called ‘How To Pay For It’, bringing together all the information and arguments on this matter that have been developed on this blog over the last few years.
I quite like that ….
I’d just like to thank you for writing so many articles in language that’s for the most part fairly easy to understand, as so many of us struggle to get our heads round the complexities of tax and economics. I look forward to more of the same in 2018. You could almost write a book on the omissions, misrepresentations and spin that Westminster inflicts on the public and which you’ve highlighted in various articles, for example the ones dealing with the unreliability of GERS – ‘Taxing Your Sense of Credibility’. Thanks again, and Happy New Year to you.
Thanks
As far as I am concerned Richard we are in your capable hands.
I’ve also been reflecting on my own ‘contributions’ and feel that I should ask more often what they add to the debate before commenting or taking up your time to moderate.
One thing I have noticed is that when you offer criticism of Corbyn, comment traffic goes mental! I’m not encouraging you of course!
You know – I am not sure about a decline in contributions this year. I would not underestimate the power of this shambles of a Tory administration to incite anger and outrage from reasonable people and to see that vented here.
Commenting on Corbyn was my most successful strategy in 2017….
Although it wasn’t a strategy
I actually don’t seek traffic: it finds me
And please do comment: I do not always respond to you as much as others. Count it as agreement
I like this bunch of lyrics from Little Steven from the song ‘Bitter Fruit’ which sets out for me at least the progressive mantra for 2018:
“Soon from the fields will come fire
To cleanse the lies from all sides
The flames of freedom grow higher
Until desire, DESIRE! – is satisfied”
And putting the revolutionary aspect aside what interests me here is the word ‘Desire’ – maintaining the desire for justice and fairness (you might remember that the song was about plantation workers/fruit pickers dreaming of owning their own land?). It is a great song. Well I think so anyway.
Unknown to me
I will check it out
My heartfelt thanks to you Richard for providing a valuable guide through the jungle of economic rhetoric which accompanies the politics of our time. As an economics ‘virgin’, it’s been good to have a trusted and succinct source of information over the last turbulent year and I look forward to reading your blogs in 2018. I wish you a happy and healthy new year!
Bill