Digby wrote:Son of Mathonwy wrote:Digby wrote:For me I'd much rather be able to tax dividends than corporation tax as that taxes distributed income and leaves the companies more incentivised to invest. There might need to be consideration additionally given to companies storing capital in investments, but we're seeing that happen now anyway
And of course corp tax supports bad/worse companies, the money has to be raised somewhere, so if the non profit making companies aren't paying their share the slack is being picked up elsewhere
Dividends
are taxed - within income tax.
A company that neither pays nor receives from the state can hardly be said to be being supported. That's like saying a homeless person is being supported by the state (hey, they don't pay tax do they?).
If a company has a couple of tough years (which often happens when starting up), do you really want the state to push them over the edge into bankruptcy?
The company that is not being supported is using labour, using capital, using... and those things can be returned into the market.
However I'm not entirely convinced so many firms would be forced under by such change, it doesn't broadly make a difference if costs go up in a sector for a given firm providing they go up across all firms in the sector. Over time there would be a shift as the firms who manage the affairs better start to enjoy a competitive advantage, but then that advantage will be competed away (though obviously never perfectly)
I would say the idea that corporation tax be scrapped for being a tax on capital income at a corporate level is hardly new, I was at uni just into this century and it wasn't new thinking then, though at the time by big interests outside our given reading matter were sustainability and competitive advantage (and actually agricultural economics as my Uni had a huge agrics. dept. and from meeting those students and some of the talks put on I got a little interested in that, but more on the historical economics side). I didn't start to think myself about a shift towards such large scale changed to the tax structure until maybe a decade or so later, also about a decade ago.
At school and college, I did feel tax needed some reform, but my opinion was definitely formed by those I was around. Given some of the economic and political events we got to attend were those organised by the Young Tories, Liam Fox, and other Tories, my views as an 18 year old were very different to what they are now, after years living in the real world.
Given that at 20 I was involved with Boris' London Mayor election campaign...
Jeez, I was a dick who knew nothing back then.
Now, I can see how any threat to a pension pot someone like Banquo feels like he has fairly grown is greeted by scorn.
But I can also see how society needs a bit of change to work for the many. Young people have it both easier than ever and harder than ever.
And that clash often has the job market and therefore economic policy at its heart.
Finding a balance to that is difficult, but we never said politics was easy!
My biggest problem with the current Labour leadership is their lack of respect for the sheer difficulty of the task ahead.
My biggest problem with the current government is that they don't give a toss for the difficulty if they can line their own pockets.
Boris Johnson's previous conduct should mean he is ineligible for office, not that he is Prime Minister!!!
Why no-one is talking about it in more detail I have no idea.
He is not to be trusted, he has no backbone, and he only cares about himself. Why the hell would you want to CHOOSE him as your Prime Minister!!!