If you re-read my post again, I said most White British people. I'd be intrigued if you could find statistics that found that most White British people in the country have partners or spouses from a BME background. Given that they outnumber BMEs quite significantly, I don't think that's actually possible.
Yes, that's called stacking the deck in your favour. It's more important to look at the proportion of people marrying outside of their own race compared to ethnic make up of the country. Honestly, you are dancing on the head of a pin here trying to avoid the fact that in Pakistani and Muslim communities women who marry outside of their communities are shunned and condemned. There may be the odd case where it doesn't happen, but it's quite rare. In other groups, women of East Asian, Indian, West Indian and African backgrounds very rarely experience the same treatment if they intermarry. Either you accept this fact or you don't. Clearly you are in the latter group, trying to delude yourself that there isn't a huge integration problem in the UK wrt to Muslims and intermarriage is just a symptom of a much larger problem.
Labour can't go on tax, they have such a poor record on tax avoidance and not prosecuting tax evasion that any attempt by them to hurt the government is going to fail. One thing this government have been good at is closing loopholes and fixing the tax net so it is much more difficult for companies to avoid tax. The diverted profits tax is interesting, but it will only work if it is levied with absolute ruthlessness.
Yes, it was rather entertaining to watch McDonnell going on about the Google settlement.
Question - how much tax did Labour get from Google for the period they were in office?
And how much tax has this Govt got from Google for the period Labour were in office?
If you re-read my post again, I said most White British people. I'd be intrigued if you could find statistics that found that most White British people in the country have partners or spouses from a BME background. Given that they outnumber BMEs quite significantly, I don't think that's actually possible.
Yes, that's called stacking the deck in your favour. It's more important to look at the proportion of people marrying outside of their own race compared to ethnic make up of the country. Honestly, you are dancing on the head of a pin here trying to avoid the fact that in Pakistani and Muslim communities women who marry outside of their communities are shunned and condemned. There may be the odd case where it doesn't happen, but it's quite rare. In other groups, women of East Asian, Indian, West Indian and African backgrounds very rarely experience the same treatment if they intermarry. Either you accept this fact or you don't. Clearly you are in the latter group, trying to delude yourself that there isn't a huge integration problem in the UK wrt to Muslims and intermarriage is just a symptom of a much larger problem.
It's not stacking the deck in my favour. Maybe next time, you need to read my post. My main point wasn't about how many White British people have BME spouses anyway. It was to criticise the logic that integration should be measured on inter-racial marriage rates. I used the example as analogy.
I'm not trying to avoid anything. I've never denied or said anything about whether Pakistani and Muslim women are condemned and shunned from marrying outside of their communities. That is you putting words into my mouth. On the integration of Muslims, I've never said anything on that either in this discussion. So, again that's you putting words into my mouth.
Not watching, but sounds like JJ had another barn stormer at PMQ's.
He took a step into grown-up politics with tax (google and bedroom). But couldn't sustain it. There was no sense that he was even interested in the principle, save because his SPADS had told him to lead on it. And so was walloped by Dave.
He was much more passionate about, and relapsed into discussing Yemen, which of course is on his safe territory of being a far off place which no one (apart from @Sandpit) cares about but which students and Islington lefties, no doubt, get very agitated about.
Did Corbyn ask questions from Jeff, Sally and Neil on Google Tax, Calais children (Whilst looking very serious no doubt) and some other subject whilst Dave replied back with various tractor stats and stuff about how awful Labour would be ?
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
Not watching, but sounds like JJ had another barn stormer at PMQ's.
He has the same problem Ed has, he can't think on his feet, when Dave gives an answer he wasn't accepting (and then moving onto other topics)
The last question about the Yemen was bizarre. He asked about that last week as well.
More concerned about the middle east than middle England.
He conforms, week after week, to the negative stereotype of Labour - welfare obsessed, London centric, more interested in other countries' citizens than ours and now he's doing the tax complaints when Labour's record was abysmal.
Labour need a big recession to get back into the game.
''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''
Cameron smashing Jezza on tax. Frankly, who really cares about Google taxes?
Eh? Joe Public is as furious about mega-corporations "cheating the taxpayer" by not paying their fair share - even the Daily Mail commenters have been ranting about it.
Though of course the Tories will get away with it while Corbyn is leader.
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
I heard a quote on the radio from an MP on the Treasury select committee, it was in reference to corporation tax and he was talking about revenue.
''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''
Waaaaaayyyyyycists!
I personally would think of their parents as racists. Why, do you think I'm wrong?
Cameron smashing Jezza on tax. Frankly, who really cares about Google taxes?
Eh? Joe Public is as furious about mega-corporations "cheating the taxpayer" by not paying their fair share - even the Daily Mail commenters have been ranting about it.
Though of course the Tories will get away with it while Corbyn is leader.
And the fact that Labour did nothing about it for 13 years, and in some cases actively encouraged it.
I care about Yemen! It's 500 miles from here and they're all still lobbing bombs around!
500 miles? Eh? Yemen not Bremen.
Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?
Sandpit works in Dubai as I recall, so about 500 miles from Yemen indeed.
Yep! A few months back the UAE lost 40 soldiers in an attack in Yemen, it was the first time this 44 year old country had ever lost men in numbers while abroad. There were three days of national mourning and the radio stations all played classical music for two weeks.
While most of Europe is concentrating on Syria, most of the Gulf are concentrating on Yemen as the seat of terrorism.
There is a trial ongoing in Abu Dhabi now of 41 Emiratis charged with sedition, for which they face the death penalty. They are accused of plotting to bomb AD and Dubai, to try and overthrow the government in favour of an Islamic caphiliate. http://www.thenational.ae/uae/courts/terrorists-planned-to-bomb-mall
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.
Actually in the case of Amazon, they aren't making much. They really aren't. Wall Street and other investors are doing their nut at Amazon for not making money the sort of money they should on what is their "traditional" business.
Wall Street talk about them still acting like a start up where market share is everything and profit is nothing. The reason is Amazon want to dominate a whole host of things, flogging crap from China at tiny margins isn't the end goal. They are already starting to "outsource" that via their "fulfilled by" program.
The main tax "dodge" they used to be involved in was VAT, but it was shown again that was passed on to the customer, as it was a way of undercutting the high street and gain market share.
On the other hand, some others are coining it and using your transfer pricing etc e.g. Facebook.
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
The issue is that multinationals in the EU can establish anywhere in the single market to do business. Duh! That's the whole point of the single market. No wonder then that they establish in low tax jurisdictions. Their subsidiaries in higher tax ones have to pay all sorts of fees and charges back to the low tax parent - for brand use, for finance charges, for R&D support, for marketing support, for legal support, for IT charges - blah blah blah . (Believe me I lived this shit all day, you can easily dream up a very defendable set of charges that wipe out all your local profit). What higher tax jurisdictions need to do to be able to push local profits (and therefore taxes) up is to attack the basis for intra-company charging. Tax authorities if they were aggressive enough could challenge the true financial benefit of, say, R&D. Is that really, really worth £0.15 per cup of Starbucks or £0.15 per engine search? Bollocks it is. They could impute profits to be taxed.
Or...even better...they could reduce their corporation tax rates and compete.
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.
In the case of Amazon, at least, they just don't make any money. I think HMRC should give them a winding up order soon if they don't start making money.
The leftish outrage at 'bunch of migrants' will only consolidate the thinking of the majority who are weary of immigration and all the problems being associated with it.
Tom Hamilton @thhamilton 2m2 minutes ago Had a childcare crisis today so instead of #PMQs spent the last hour in a room full of babies. Make your own joke, I can't be bothered.
If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!
No, it's even easier than that. Pro-rate the operating profit margin to stated UK revenue as a proportion of their global revenue. Tax that figure at 25%.
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
The issue is that multinationals in the EU can establish anywhere in the single market to do business. Duh! That's the whole point of the single market. No wonder then that they establish in low tax jurisdictions. Their subsidiaries in higher tax ones have to pay all sorts of fees and charges back to the low tax parent - for brand use, for finance charges, for R&D support, for marketing support, for legal support, for IT charges - blah blah blah . (Believe me I lived this shit all day, you can easily dream up a very defendable set of charges that wipe out all your local profit). What higher tax jurisdictions need to do to be able to push local profits (and therefore taxes) up is to attack the basis for intra-company charging. Tax authorities if they were aggressive enough could challenge the true financial benefit of, say, R&D. Is that really, really worth £0.15 per cup of Starbucks or £0.15 per engine search? Bollocks it is. They could impute profits to be taxed.
Or...even better...they could reduce their corporation tax rates and compete.
But when the EU wants to consider itself a single 'country' they have to be prepared to deal with this. Of course they will go about it the wrong way and try and limit what Ireland and Luxembourg (and increasingly the U.K.) can do in terms of minimum Corp tax rates.
In the US a large company wanting to set up a factory will play the states off against each other, often getting individual tax deals in exchange for jobs.
It's a bit like Apple issuing bonds in the US while holding hundreds of billions of dollars offshore, the money will always move to where it is cheapest, and the world is becoming more international.
''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''
Waaaaaayyyyyycists!
I personally would think of their parents as racists. Why, do you think I'm wrong?
The number of relationships between black and Asian people is vanishingly small, even in trendy metropolitan areas.
If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!
I was in Australia recently, and the Austrlian Financial Review had a story about how Chevron avoided tax there. It turns out that Chevron Australia owed $27bn to Chevron Bermuda, on which it was paying 8% a year interest.
It's not clear how leaving the EU would stop people pulling that kind of trick. Likewise, I don't see how leaving the EU - unless we weren't to have a free trade deal with it - would stop Starbucks (UK) Ltd buying its beans from the Netherlands Antilles subsidiary, and thus spiriting profits out of the UK.
It seems to me most of the transfer pricing scams are unaffected by our membership or otherwise of the EU.
Goodness, are Labour really going to make the PMQs story the innocuous "bunch of migrants" comment, rather than going with the much more fertile attack of a millionaire PM saying a 3% tax rate for a mega-corporation is a success?
Goodness, are Labour really going to make the PMQs story the innocuous "bunch of migrants" comment, rather than going with the much more fertile attack of a millionaire PM saying a 3% tax rate for a multinational is a success?
Seems that way....Bunch.....SWARRRRMMMMMM....Red Doors.....Festival Wristbands....all top of the voters concerns.
If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!
No, it's even easier than that. Pro-rate the operating profit margin to stated UK revenue as a proportion of their global revenue. Tax that figure at 25%.
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.
In the case of Amazon, at least, they just don't make any money. I think HMRC should give them a winding up order soon if they don't start making money.
If I was an American I would be seriously ticked at that but these are profits made in Europe and elsewhere on which no meaningful tax has been paid at all because the profit has been diverted to countries with zero or minimal CT. Some of that profit was made here and the profits generated here should have created a tax charge.
George Osborne has been a world leader in pursuing this behaviour and seeking payment. But if Google, with their turnover, end up paying £13m a year he has failed.
If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!
I was in Australia recently, and the Austrlian Financial Review had a story about how Chevron avoided tax there. It turns out that Chevron Australia owed $27bn to Chevron Bermuda, on which it was paying 8% a year interest.
It's not clear how leaving the EU would stop people pulling that kind of trick. Likewise, I don't see how leaving the EU - unless we weren't to have a free trade deal with it - would stop Starbucks (UK) Ltd buying its beans from the Netherlands Antilles subsidiary, and thus spiriting profits out of the UK.
It seems to me most of the transfer pricing scams are unaffected by our membership or otherwise of the EU.
Make a law that allows a court to decide if a company arrangement is an accounting fiction made for the purposes of tax avoidance ?
For those thinking that the Tories might get second place in Scotland the Scottish Parliament website has quite a useful election results analysis section including this page: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Electionresults/2011 election/2_Share_of_Constituency_Regional_votes.pdf Adding the constituency and regional votes together Labour got almost exactly twice the Tory vote in 2011. The trend for Labour is terrible. In the constituency vote they have got: 1999 38.8% 2003 34.6% 2007 32.1% 2011 31.7% ...... I think that Labour will indeed fall, probably to the mid 20s, and that the Tories will rise, possibly to the high teens, but cross over needs a total Labour meltdown. Not impossible but not at all likely.
You omit the GE figs. 2010 SLAB got 42% 2015 SLAB got 24%. Now if SLAB have slumped further, then circa 20% or lower is not impossible.
''From talking to friends who also have a BME background, their parents are 'okay' with them marrying only 'certain' races outside of their ethnic group (and in many cases, it's only really one race outside of their ethnic group). ''
Waaaaaayyyyyycists!
I personally would think of their parents as racists. Why, do you think I'm wrong?
The number of relationships between black and Asian people is vanishingly small, even in trendy metropolitan areas.
Yep, I agree. This is why I say reading into intra-relationships as a sign of intergration isn't cut and dried. I find on both Black and Asians sides, from talking to my own family, and my friends that their relatives are open to them dating a someone white, but not someone Asian or Black. I find this to be quite sad.
The leftish outrage at 'bunch of migrants' will only consolidate the thinking of the majority who are weary of immigration and all the problems being associated with it.
yep. Political correctness gone mad and immigration in one soundbite. Cons up a percentage point.
Goodness, are Labour really going to make the PMQs story the innocuous "bunch of migrants" comment, rather than going with the much more fertile attack of a millionaire PM saying a 3% tax rate for a multinational is a success?
Seems that way....Bunch.....SWARRRRMMMMMM....Red Doors.....Festival Wristbands....all top of the voters concerns.
Andy Burnham MP studied English, he might know which is the collective noun for migrants.
''George Osborne has been a world leader in pursuing this behaviour and seeking payment. But if Google, with their turnover, end up paying £13m a year he has failed.''
It wasn't the amount it was Osborne's triumphalist attitude, I think.
If I was an American I would be seriously ticked at that but these are profits made in Europe and elsewhere on which no meaningful tax has been paid at all because the profit has been diverted to countries with zero or minimal CT. Some of that profit was made here and the profits generated here should have created a tax charge.
The problem isn't that the profit has been diverted, it arises because the US has a brain-dead policy of taxing on the basis of whether or not the cash is repatriated. More fool them.
More widely, progress is being made on updating international accounting and tax rules to take account of changes in technology and market practice, but it's inevitably taking a long time. Osborne was being accused a year ago of jumping the gun by putting in place UK-only measures. Now he's being accused of not doing enough. Oh well.
Goodness, are Labour really going to make the PMQs story the innocuous "bunch of migrants" comment, rather than going with the much more fertile attack of a millionaire PM saying a 3% tax rate for a mega-corporation is a success?
Yes.
*chortles*
I believe I suggested earlier that Labour aren't very good at politics.
Disappointing to see loads of political journalists trying to cook up a fauxrage over Cameron saying 'bunch' of migrants.
Would anybody really raise an eyebrow if the PM said he had met with a bunch of voters, or constituents, or academics? Or maybe if David Miliband said he had met with a bunch of bananas....
The Left demonstrating that currently it really has nothing relevant to say about anything.
The leftish outrage at 'bunch of migrants' will only consolidate the thinking of the majority who are weary of immigration and all the problems being associated with it.
yep. Political correctness gone mad and immigration in one soundbite. Cons up a percentage point.
You do wonder whether it's a the No 10 tactic to hang out a comment that the left will get wildly excited and angry about while the majority will think the PM has a point. I suspect not; it probably just comes through habit.
The leftish outrage at 'bunch of migrants' will only consolidate the thinking of the majority who are weary of immigration and all the problems being associated with it.
yep. Political correctness gone mad and immigration in one soundbite. Cons up a percentage point.
You do wonder whether it's a the No 10 tactic to hang out a comment that the left will get wildly excited and angry about while the majority will think the PM has a point. I suspect not; it probably just comes through habit.
There's a concerted line being pushed about Labour being against the British.
British servicemen and British taxpayers both received an airing today.
Hey most of the media seem to think sales / income = profit, or something like that. I mean that must be the only reason they quote the likes of Amazon's business in sales, not profit, when it comes to bashing them over tax.
I think it raises the question of why they are bothering to sell all this stuff if they are not making a turn on it. The only sensible inference is that the profits are being hidden by accounting mechanisms and as a result the tax is being avoided. The government has been quite radical in seeking to address this but the results, in comparison with the turnover, are frankly disappointing.
In the case of Amazon, at least, they just don't make any money. I think HMRC should give them a winding up order soon if they don't start making money.
If I was an American I would be seriously ticked at that but these are profits made in Europe and elsewhere on which no meaningful tax has been paid at all because the profit has been diverted to countries with zero or minimal CT. Some of that profit was made here and the profits generated here should have created a tax charge.
George Osborne has been a world leader in pursuing this behaviour and seeking payment. But if Google, with their turnover, end up paying £13m a year he has failed.
The big problem with recent developments in the US is that these companies just hold the cash and do nothing with it. For years Apple didn't pay a dividend and Steve Jobs was said to be incredibly resistant to the idea. It was only when he died and Cook took over the job that Apple has begun paying a dividend. They have mountains of cash higher than the Rockies. Microsoft have taken a different view, they spend their overseas money on buying useless companies like Skype and Nokia's mobile division then write down the goodwill. Google, who knows what they really do, but they don't give it to shareholders or invest it in any meaningful way.
I'm an economic liberal and believe that it is better for companies to spend cash rather than have it taxed and then wasted by the government, corporate spending and investment has a very high multiplier effect. The issue is that they just aren't spending the money. I've brought it up in the past and I think it is the only way to get companies to spend, but we need to start looking at balance sheet taxes which can be offset by capex.
If we REALLY want to extract the full amount of tax from Google, Starbucks etc all we need to do is to leave the EU. Simples!
No, it's even easier than that. Pro-rate the operating profit margin to stated UK revenue as a proportion of their global revenue. Tax that figure at 25%.
Yes; I think has to be the long term solution.
If the government did this then I think US companies would get their houses in order. I do wonder how the Netherlands and Luxembourg would react if practices like these were adopted to catch tax avoidance, it would basically ruin their tax avoidance industries.
Comments
I should do some threads on it.
I think I might log-off and go and have a cold shower.
Angus Robertson off this week, usually better.
Is this another Shakespeare reference I'm not getting?
Question - how much tax did Labour get from Google for the period they were in office?
And how much tax has this Govt got from Google for the period Labour were in office?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12124650/If-leaving-the-EU-is-so-important-why-do-the-Right-have-so-little-to-say-about-it.html
Let's hope that someone credible steps up to front things and pull together the right people and arguments.
I'm not trying to avoid anything. I've never denied or said anything about whether Pakistani and Muslim women are condemned and shunned from marrying outside of their communities. That is you putting words into my mouth. On the integration of Muslims, I've never said anything on that either in this discussion. So, again that's you putting words into my mouth.
He was much more passionate about, and relapsed into discussing Yemen, which of course is on his safe territory of being a far off place which no one (apart from @Sandpit) cares about but which students and Islington lefties, no doubt, get very agitated about.
I wish Ros Urwin would get her old soundness back, she used to be fun.
I didn't watch it but I can guess how it went.
Numpty
He conforms, week after week, to the negative stereotype of Labour - welfare obsessed, London centric, more interested in other countries' citizens than ours and now he's doing the tax complaints when Labour's record was abysmal.
Labour need a big recession to get back into the game.
Waaaaaayyyyyycists!
Though of course the Tories will get away with it while Corbyn is leader.
'They met with a bunch of migrants in Calais'
As ever, Dave's hung the bait out and the stupid lefties can't resist.
While most of Europe is concentrating on Syria, most of the Gulf are concentrating on Yemen as the seat of terrorism.
There is a trial ongoing in Abu Dhabi now of 41 Emiratis charged with sedition, for which they face the death penalty. They are accused of plotting to bomb AD and Dubai, to try and overthrow the government in favour of an Islamic caphiliate.
http://www.thenational.ae/uae/courts/terrorists-planned-to-bomb-mall
Wall Street talk about them still acting like a start up where market share is everything and profit is nothing. The reason is Amazon want to dominate a whole host of things, flogging crap from China at tiny margins isn't the end goal. They are already starting to "outsource" that via their "fulfilled by" program.
The main tax "dodge" they used to be involved in was VAT, but it was shown again that was passed on to the customer, as it was a way of undercutting the high street and gain market share.
On the other hand, some others are coining it and using your transfer pricing etc e.g. Facebook.
Or...even better...they could reduce their corporation tax rates and compete.
It's too pathetic for words
Oh please, appalling trivially.
Had a childcare crisis today so instead of #PMQs spent the last hour in a room full of babies. Make your own joke, I can't be bothered.
In the US a large company wanting to set up a factory will play the states off against each other, often getting individual tax deals in exchange for jobs.
It's a bit like Apple issuing bonds in the US while holding hundreds of billions of dollars offshore, the money will always move to where it is cheapest, and the world is becoming more international.
It's not clear how leaving the EU would stop people pulling that kind of trick. Likewise, I don't see how leaving the EU - unless we weren't to have a free trade deal with it - would stop Starbucks (UK) Ltd buying its beans from the Netherlands Antilles subsidiary, and thus spiriting profits out of the UK.
It seems to me most of the transfer pricing scams are unaffected by our membership or otherwise of the EU.
If I was an American I would be seriously ticked at that but these are profits made in Europe and elsewhere on which no meaningful tax has been paid at all because the profit has been diverted to countries with zero or minimal CT. Some of that profit was made here and the profits generated here should have created a tax charge.
George Osborne has been a world leader in pursuing this behaviour and seeking payment. But if Google, with their turnover, end up paying £13m a year he has failed.
The Bermuda deal clearly appears to be.
Now if SLAB have slumped further, then circa 20% or lower is not impossible.
It wasn't the amount it was Osborne's triumphalist attitude, I think.
@stephenkb: And like the "stabbed his brother" dead cat, one that the majority of people agree with. https://t.co/ZWWJ18xDoW
More widely, progress is being made on updating international accounting and tax rules to take account of changes in technology and market practice, but it's inevitably taking a long time. Osborne was being accused a year ago of jumping the gun by putting in place UK-only measures. Now he's being accused of not doing enough. Oh well.
The Left demonstrating that currently it really has nothing relevant to say about anything.
British servicemen and British taxpayers both received an airing today.
I'm an economic liberal and believe that it is better for companies to spend cash rather than have it taxed and then wasted by the government, corporate spending and investment has a very high multiplier effect. The issue is that they just aren't spending the money. I've brought it up in the past and I think it is the only way to get companies to spend, but we need to start looking at balance sheet taxes which can be offset by capex.