{"id":36467,"date":"2017-03-01T06:55:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T06:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=36467"},"modified":"2017-03-01T06:55:27","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T06:55:27","slug":"plan-b-as-a-tax-haven-is-not-a-viable-option-for-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/03\/01\/plan-b-as-a-tax-haven-is-not-a-viable-option-for-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Plan B as a tax haven is not a viable option for the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I spoke at an event jointly organised by <a href=\"http:\/\/classonline.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Class think tank<\/a> and Verso Books (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.versobooks.com\/books\/2410-dirty-secrets\" target=\"_blank\">there to promote my new book<\/a>) \u00a0last night at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. It was good to share a platform with Faiza Shaheen, Ann Pettifor and Gracie Mae Bradley.<\/p>\n<p>The event was on the economy and Brexit and covered a lot of ground but I began talking about the UK as a tax haven which we are led to believe is Philip Hammond\u2019s Plan B. I explained why this was a terrible idea roughly following these notes:<\/p>\n<div id=\":3qt\" class=\"ii gt adP adO\">\n<div id=\":3qu\" class=\"a3s aXjCH m15a861e576b3630a\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Tax haven UK\n<ul>\n<li>The threat\n<ul>\n<li>To turn the UK into a low tax nation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The problem\n<ul>\n<li>The world hates tax havens<\/li>\n<li>There are now measures in place to beat corporate tax abuse like country-by-country reporting<\/li>\n<li>The EU is proposing a tax haven tax list<\/li>\n<li>We are members of the OECD<\/li>\n<li>Retaliatory measures are possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Will it work?\n<ul>\n<li>No: there is no evidence low tax rates boost investment, productivity, employment or growth<\/li>\n<li>In fact they tend to discourage investment because the tax incentive to spend is reduced<\/li>\n<li>They do encourage the artificial relocation of mobile tax bases\n<ul>\n<li>But usually only if secrecy is available and it is not in the UK<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>And because mobile tax bases are only owned by the wealthy inequality increases<\/li>\n<li>Which we now know reduces growth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>And the Laffer effect?\n<ul>\n<li>That kicks in at tax rates well over 50% and we don't have those<\/li>\n<li>So this is a tax giveaway<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>So why do it?\n<ul>\n<li>Spite\n<ul>\n<li>To harm our neighbours<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>To favour the wealthy<\/li>\n<li>To punish the economy<\/li>\n<li>To make the UK worse off<\/li>\n<li>To undermine other governments<\/li>\n<li>The very worst of motives<\/li>\n<li>And results<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>But there are alternatives\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/02\/23\/the-post-brexit-economy-could-be-better-but-only-if-its-radically-transformed\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read this blog<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spoke at an event jointly organised by Class think tank and Verso Books (there to promote my new book) \u00a0last night at the Institute<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/03\/01\/plan-b-as-a-tax-haven-is-not-a-viable-option-for-the-uk\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170,35,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dirty-secrets","category-economics","category-tax-havens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}