Snap General Election called

[Son of Mathonwy]

If we tax activities not capital income I'm seeking to incentivise productivity (partly through R&D) not as now attempts to simply avoid the tax. Efficiency and productivity are imo the key to the overall business model, what you then do with that is a political decision based on where on sits on the spectrum from highly regulated to a largely free/open market, but the aim should be to promote in the first instance that productivity, and we're shit at it

Can you explain more clearly what you mean by tax on activities, and how this will incentivise productivity?

Whether you tax revenue or costs, you will incentivise businesses to reduce activity. Is that what you really want to happen?

This kind of tax rewards businesses which happen to be in high net profit margin industries (net profit margin = net profit/sales) like luxury goods and punishes low margin businesses, like shops which need high turnover to make profit.

If you don't believe me, ask yourself why, across the world, corporation tax is based on profits? If your idea worked, why is no one doing it? (This doesn't prove you wrong, but it suggests you need to come up with a detailed explanation of how it will work.)

[Son of Mathonwy]

I'm taking profitability to be a measure of success, and I want to promote that success. Failing companies should be allowed to fail seeing that capital and labour return to the markets. As before Corp Tax is in essence a handbrake on the economy seeing more successful companies support struggling companies, and whilst I favour such approach at an individual level I don't at a business level.

And yes, fair enough, it's not a tax on capital as is but a tax on capital income, poor wording there on my part.

Couple of things:

1) Who's talking about supporting struggling companies? Corporation tax income doesn't go towards paying crap companies!

2) Promoting success is all well and good, but above a certain level, profit is just socked away in savings and investments and doesn't reenter the economy. The theory that cutting corporation tax removes a handbrake on the economy doesn't hold true below a certain level, because the additional money just goes in dividends to people who won't spend it. In fact higher tax can encourage investment as it's better to spend the money on futureproofing the company than to declare it as profit and get taxed upon it.

One point where I definitely do agree with you is that transaction taxes are a hell of a lot easier to administer. Profit can be hidden and moved around, especially for multi-nationals, and relies on a certain amount of honesty from the companies. A transaction tax makes a lot of sense for someone like Amazon or Starbucks who refuse to play ball with HMRC.

Puja

1) Exactly. The closest thing to support is the ability to offset losses against profits (any future profit or back 12 months). So you can only get back tax you've already paid. It's never a corporate benefit.

2) Agreed on transaction taxes versus tax-avoiding offshore entities like Amazon and Starbucks (and any bastard who has their money in the Cayman Islands...but that's off-topic). In this case though it would be used as a stick to beat (or at least threaten to beat) these companies, so my objections about transaction taxes harming businesses fall away .

[Son of Mathonwy]

If I’m honest, I kind of see the current shareholder system as breaking the system...

It means that the company has a duty to return money rather than a duty to customers. The customer needs to come first. But because we have so many monopolies and pseudo monopolies now, the market doesn’t do that itself

But at a certain level of growth, shareholders provide capital which may not otherwise be obtainable. Whilst it may seem unfair, in reality shareholders lend their money at risk and without such investment many products we take for granted may not have been available.

The alternative is to lend from the banks which could be more expensive and is still money that a business needs to pay out and potentially benefits fewer people.

Oh, I agree! It’s a problem we’ve created with no obvious way out.

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

[morepork]

But at a certain level of growth, shareholders provide capital which may not otherwise be obtainable. Whilst it may seem unfair, in reality shareholders lend their money at risk and without such investment many products we take for granted may not have been available.

The alternative is to lend from the banks which could be more expensive and is still money that a business needs to pay out and potentially benefits fewer people.

Oh, I agree! It’s a problem we’ve created with no obvious way out.

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

Epidemiological data coming out of the US in the next couple of decades is going to be "interesting".

[Banquo]

But at a certain level of growth, shareholders provide capital which may not otherwise be obtainable. Whilst it may seem unfair, in reality shareholders lend their money at risk and without such investment many products we take for granted may not have been available.

The alternative is to lend from the banks which could be more expensive and is still money that a business needs to pay out and potentially benefits fewer people.

Oh, I agree! It’s a problem we’ve created with no obvious way out.

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

what industries and how do you propose such regulation would take effect?

[Son of Mathonwy]

Oh, I agree! It’s a problem we’ve created with no obvious way out.

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

what industries and how do you propose such regulation would take effect?

All industries.

For a start, existing regulations should actually be enforced (eg there are laws the Environment Agency can use to prosecute polluters, but it is so underfunded and pressured by ministers that it's largely toothless).

A serious tax on greenhouse gases (with offsets for carbon capture eg via trees). Ideally this would be coordinated internationally.

Some changes need to be made to company law - to create a legal duty for the executive to act in the long-term interests of the company and stakeholders etc

Limits on corporate pay (possibly to some multiple of the lowest salary in the firm or industry), the ability to revoke past bonuses unjustified by performance.

Reform of corporate audit to make auditors truly independent (eg by having the state assign an auditor to the company; regular rotation of auditor).

Concerted international effort to shut down tax havens. An end to secrecy in banking. Ensuring that multinationals report profit correctly apportioned by country so that it can be taxed in that country.

No doubt there's a lot more......

[Banquo]

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

what industries and how do you propose such regulation would take effect?

All industries.

For a start, existing regulations should actually be enforced (eg there are laws the Environment Agency can use to prosecute polluters, but it is so underfunded and pressured by ministers that it's largely toothless).

A serious tax on greenhouse gases (with offsets for carbon capture eg via trees). Ideally this would be coordinated internationally.

Some changes need to be made to company law - to create a legal duty for the executive to act in the long-term interests of the company and stakeholders etc

Limits on corporate pay (possibly to some multiple of the lowest salary in the firm or industry), the ability to revoke past bonuses unjustified by performance.

Reform of corporate audit to make auditors truly independent (eg by having the state assign an auditor to the company; regular rotation of auditor).

Concerted international effort to shut down tax havens. An end to secrecy in banking. Ensuring that multinationals report profit correctly apportioned by country so that it can be taxed in that country.

No doubt there's a lot more......

Ah ok, frankly most of that is hygiene rather than some form of radical intervention.

[Digby]

I'm taking profitability to be a measure of success, and I want to promote that success. Failing companies should be allowed to fail seeing that capital and labour return to the markets. As before Corp Tax is in essence a handbrake on the economy seeing more successful companies support struggling companies, and whilst I favour such approach at an individual level I don't at a business level.

And yes, fair enough, it's not a tax on capital as is but a tax on capital income, poor wording there on my part.

Couple of things:

1) Who's talking about supporting struggling companies? Corporation tax income doesn't go towards paying crap companies!

2) Promoting success is all well and good, but above a certain level, profit is just socked away in savings and investments and doesn't reenter the economy. The theory that cutting corporation tax removes a handbrake on the economy doesn't hold true below a certain level, because the additional money just goes in dividends to people who won't spend it. In fact higher tax can encourage investment as it's better to spend the money on futureproofing the company than to declare it as profit and get taxed upon it.

One point where I definitely do agree with you is that transaction taxes are a hell of a lot easier to administer. Profit can be hidden and moved around, especially for multi-nationals, and relies on a certain amount of honesty from the companies. A transaction tax makes a lot of sense for someone like Amazon or Starbucks who refuse to play ball with HMRC.

Puja

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

[Digby]

But at a certain level of growth, shareholders provide capital which may not otherwise be obtainable. Whilst it may seem unfair, in reality shareholders lend their money at risk and without such investment many products we take for granted may not have been available.

The alternative is to lend from the banks which could be more expensive and is still money that a business needs to pay out and potentially benefits fewer people.

Oh, I agree! It’s a problem we’ve created with no obvious way out.

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

Btw, if you want to promote strong environmental standards then one idea is to tax those transactional areas of business, energy and material consumption and pollution/waste rather than rely on corporation taxes

[morepork]

Oh, I agree! It’s a problem we’ve created with no obvious way out.

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

Btw, if you want to promote strong environmental standards then one idea is to tax those transactional areas of business, energy and material consumption and pollution/waste rather than rely on corporation taxes

That would get immediately flicked on 100% (or more) to the consumer?

[Digby]

Government needs to regulate better to get companies to serve interests other than the shareholders and management (which is always management's primary concern ).

That means strong worker rights, consumer rights, strong environmental regulations etc. All things which will be decimated (in other words brought down to US levels) if Boris wins.

Btw, if you want to promote strong environmental standards then one idea is to tax those transactional areas of business, energy and material consumption and pollution/waste rather than rely on corporation taxes

That would get immediately flicked on 100% (or more) to the consumer?

Well what isn't? We already have tax now, I'm not saying we remove tax, I just want it levied more efficiently and not in a way which penalises productivity

In practice they're (almost) sort of doing what I want by having a race among nations to drive corporate tax rates to zero, at which point I assume we'll see quick fix taxes bolted on to try and recoup taxation revenues, and that's not really going to deliver what I want. I'd much prefer we reinvent the system to begin with, taking into account as many of the (competing) factors as possible. Such an idea is I admit vast, but if we can tie up our civil service on a pointless and even harmful endeavour like Brexit I hold out some very faint hope we could do it for something useful

[morepork]

FedEx over here are reportedly filing Zero tax for 2018 thanks to fiddling with corporate tax rates and laws. All of it seems to have gone into buybacks for shareholders. That's a fucking disaster. Picture all the big consumers of natural resources doing the same, and then watch environmental and public health plummet. The lobbyists will be greasing Boris up for forced entry.

[Puja]

I'm taking profitability to be a measure of success, and I want to promote that success. Failing companies should be allowed to fail seeing that capital and labour return to the markets. As before Corp Tax is in essence a handbrake on the economy seeing more successful companies support struggling companies, and whilst I favour such approach at an individual level I don't at a business level.

And yes, fair enough, it's not a tax on capital as is but a tax on capital income, poor wording there on my part.

Couple of things:

1) Who's talking about supporting struggling companies? Corporation tax income doesn't go towards paying crap companies!

2) Promoting success is all well and good, but above a certain level, profit is just socked away in savings and investments and doesn't reenter the economy. The theory that cutting corporation tax removes a handbrake on the economy doesn't hold true below a certain level, because the additional money just goes in dividends to people who won't spend it. In fact higher tax can encourage investment as it's better to spend the money on futureproofing the company than to declare it as profit and get taxed upon it.

One point where I definitely do agree with you is that transaction taxes are a hell of a lot easier to administer. Profit can be hidden and moved around, especially for multi-nationals, and relies on a certain amount of honesty from the companies. A transaction tax makes a lot of sense for someone like Amazon or Starbucks who refuse to play ball with HMRC.

Puja

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

I remain confused about how bad/worse companies are being supported by corporation tax. The money doesn't go back to the worse companies and it's not a case that crap companies are somehow getting in a plum situation by profitable companies paying tax. Granted, if a company continually makes a loss, then they won't pay tax, but they'll also continually make a loss which doesn't seem like much of a loophole (accountancy shenanigans aside).

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

what industries and how do you propose such regulation would take effect?

All industries.

For a start, existing regulations should actually be enforced (eg there are laws the Environment Agency can use to prosecute polluters, but it is so underfunded and pressured by ministers that it's largely toothless).

A serious tax on greenhouse gases (with offsets for carbon capture eg via trees). Ideally this would be coordinated internationally.

Some changes need to be made to company law - to create a legal duty for the executive to act in the long-term interests of the company and stakeholders etc

Limits on corporate pay (possibly to some multiple of the lowest salary in the firm or industry), the ability to revoke past bonuses unjustified by performance.

Reform of corporate audit to make auditors truly independent (eg by having the state assign an auditor to the company; regular rotation of auditor).

Concerted international effort to shut down tax havens. An end to secrecy in banking. Ensuring that multinationals report profit correctly apportioned by country so that it can be taxed in that country.

No doubt there's a lot more......

Ah ok, frankly most of that is hygiene rather than some form of radical intervention.

Sorry to disappoint (what did you have in mind?). Evolution not revolution.

However, I doubt the FT, Telegraph, Mail, Economist, Express etc would consider this to be merely hygiene.

[Son of Mathonwy]

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?

[Banquo]

All industries.

For a start, existing regulations should actually be enforced (eg there are laws the Environment Agency can use to prosecute polluters, but it is so underfunded and pressured by ministers that it's largely toothless).

A serious tax on greenhouse gases (with offsets for carbon capture eg via trees). Ideally this would be coordinated internationally.

Some changes need to be made to company law - to create a legal duty for the executive to act in the long-term interests of the company and stakeholders etc

Limits on corporate pay (possibly to some multiple of the lowest salary in the firm or industry), the ability to revoke past bonuses unjustified by performance.

Reform of corporate audit to make auditors truly independent (eg by having the state assign an auditor to the company; regular rotation of auditor).

Concerted international effort to shut down tax havens. An end to secrecy in banking. Ensuring that multinationals report profit correctly apportioned by country so that it can be taxed in that country.

No doubt there's a lot more......

Ah ok, frankly most of that is hygiene rather than some form of radical intervention.

Sorry to disappoint (what did you have in mind?). Evolution not revolution.

However, I doubt the FT, Telegraph, Mail, Economist, Express etc would consider this to be merely hygiene.

I didnt know what you were thinking hence asking.

[Stom]

Just as an aside, just went through a really painful phonecall to sort out my vote! The guy on the other end had no idea about anything around the vote...if I'd have followed his advice, I might not have got a chance to vote in person.

If that is repeated elsewhere, it's a massive problem. The least councils can do is properly train the staff, it's not as if there are many questions they need to be prepared for. They just need a checklist on their desk to confirm everything, it's not a complicated process. If there was an actual problem with my registration, I'd expect something different, but there wasn't...

[Which Tyler]

Just as an aside, just went through a really painful phonecall to sort out my vote! The guy on the other end had no idea about anything around the vote...if I'd have followed his advice, I might not have got a chance to vote in person.

If that is repeated elsewhere, it's a massive problem. The least councils can do is properly train the staff, it's not as if there are many questions they need to be prepared for. They just need a checklist on their desk to confirm everything, it's not a complicated process. If there was an actual problem with my registration, I'd expect something different, but there wasn't...

My postal vote confirmation form included a direct lie I hadn't seen before, telling me that I will not be eligible to vote in person.
I'll only be ineligible to vote in person if I USE the postal vote - my guess is that it's an obfuscation to confuse and put-off new (student) voters.

[Digby]

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.

[Stom]

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!!!

[Digby]

Couple of things:

1) Who's talking about supporting struggling companies? Corporation tax income doesn't go towards paying crap companies!

2) Promoting success is all well and good, but above a certain level, profit is just socked away in savings and investments and doesn't reenter the economy. The theory that cutting corporation tax removes a handbrake on the economy doesn't hold true below a certain level, because the additional money just goes in dividends to people who won't spend it. In fact higher tax can encourage investment as it's better to spend the money on futureproofing the company than to declare it as profit and get taxed upon it.

One point where I definitely do agree with you is that transaction taxes are a hell of a lot easier to administer. Profit can be hidden and moved around, especially for multi-nationals, and relies on a certain amount of honesty from the companies. A transaction tax makes a lot of sense for someone like Amazon or Starbucks who refuse to play ball with HMRC.

Puja

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

I remain confused about how bad/worse companies are being supported by corporation tax. The money doesn't go back to the worse companies and it's not a case that crap companies are somehow getting in a plum situation by profitable companies paying tax. Granted, if a company continually makes a loss, then they won't pay tax, but they'll also continually make a loss which doesn't seem like much of a loophole (accountancy shenanigans aside).

Puja

It's simply about efficiency, I'm happier to see the companies making a loss forced out of the market, and resources being up by companies making a profit.

[Digby]

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!!!

Me? I wouldn't choose Boris to run a PTA.

One interesting feature that has happened to the Tory party is they are starting to actually look at housing, historically they've never touched it with a bargepole other than right to buy because in essence they see social housing tenants as Labour voters so why on earth would they cater to that. Now they haven't actually done anything interesting yet, but they are finally talking more about housing in their planning, and they are finally talking about social housing if perhaps in more limited fashion to Labour. And the things the kids have hard probably relate mostly to pensions and housing

[Digby]

If you don't believe me, ask yourself why, across the world, corporation tax is based on profits? If your idea worked, why is no one doing it? (This doesn't prove you wrong, but it suggests you need to come up with a detailed explanation of how it will work.)

it turns out someone is sort of doing it, the mighty Estonia, I've taken this from a website called something like Work in Estonia (it might have been Live in Estonia)

"The income tax rate for private entrepreneurs and corporations is 20%.

Corporate earnings taxation in Estonia is truly unique – it shifts the moment of corporate taxation from the moment of earning the profits to the moment of their distribution.

This means that earning profit in itself does not trigger income tax liability. The tax obligation arises only when earnings are distributed to shareholders. If the profit distributed to shareholders originates from dividends received from a subsidiary or permanent establishment in another country, there’ll be no tax to pay on profit distribution."


The thing about noting this is I don't want to limit the conversation to a particular plan on what should replace corporation tax, partly because I wouldn't want to discuss it with a diagnosis already in mind, and partly I've never put the time and effort into devising a new tax system, I'm probably not odd in not doing that but you never know. I'm merely of a view that taxing business activity and/or taxing distributed income is a much more efficient model than taxing capital income. I'm not in advance thinking the Estonia model offers a huge amount to us, it might, but I suspect they've a much younger working population, entirely different demographics around their retired and retiring population, entirely difference pension schemes,

[Mellsblue]

If you don't believe me, ask yourself why, across the world, corporation tax is based on profits? If your idea worked, why is no one doing it? (This doesn't prove you wrong, but it suggests you need to come up with a detailed explanation of how it will work.)

it turns out someone is sort of doing it, the mighty Estonia, I've taken this from a website called something like Work in Estonia (it might have been Live in Estonia)

"The income tax rate for private entrepreneurs and corporations is 20%.

Corporate earnings taxation in Estonia is truly unique – it shifts the moment of corporate taxation from the moment of earning the profits to the moment of their distribution.

This means that earning profit in itself does not trigger income tax liability. The tax obligation arises only when earnings are distributed to shareholders. If the profit distributed to shareholders originates from dividends received from a subsidiary or permanent establishment in another country, there’ll be no tax to pay on profit distribution."


The thing about noting this is I don't want to limit the conversation to a particular plan on what should replace corporation tax, partly because I wouldn't want to discuss it with a diagnosis already in mind, and partly I've never put the time and effort into devising a new tax system, I'm probably not odd in not doing that but you never know. I'm merely of a view that taxing business activity and/or taxing distributed income is a much more efficient model than taxing capital income. I'm not in advance thinking the Estonia model offers a huge amount to us, it might, but I suspect they've a much younger working population, entirely different demographics around their retired and retiring population, entirely difference pension schemes,

Whilst we’re over there, we could take a look at their internet infrastructure.

[Banquo]

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!!!

I don't 'feel' I have fairly grown it, I have fairly grown it . But ok, come after me again, its not like I haven't paid a fortune in taxes over a 37 year working career.....and never avoided them (well other than pension contributions and ISA's). Being a shareholder directly or indirectly is not a bad thing.