President Obama is now calling for international tax reform, following the latest tax avoidance revelations. Someone ought to tap him on the should and point out that the remedy is in the hands of the governments who are losing their revenue. If the tax system has built in leakage holes, then it will leak. Though on reflection it is a bit strange that he does not already know what needs to be done....
Offshore capital my foot
At last the truth is coming out. All the blather about vast flows of capital flooding offshore turns out to be nonsense. There is no fleet of ships ferrying containers full of wealth to places like the British Virgin Islands. The owners of this capital have most of their investments in the middle of London, as this Guardian article explains, and this one too. Nothing has gone offshore.
This means...
Proposed high speed rail alternative – and a funding model
High Speed UK is the greener, well-connected alternative to HS2, write Colin Elliff, Andrew Coulson & Stephen Stretton – and it would save taxpayers billions. Financed by taxing property owners in connected cities on their windfall gains, HSUK would create a low fare, high capacity, interconnected railway network which would generate huge long-term profits for the nation.
Our interest...
Scottish local tax study kicks LVT can down road
The Scottish Local Tax Reform Commission has just published its 96 page final report, Just Change: A New Approach to Local Taxation. The remit of the 13-member commission was
“To identify and examine alternatives that would deliver a fairer system of local taxation to support the funding of services delivered by local government. In doing so, the Commission will consider:
The impacts on individuals,...
Economic effects of immigration
Concern about immigration was one of the reasons why the Brexit camp won. In the post-referendum recriminations, it has led to the Brexiters being denounced as xenophobes. The Campaign as such does not have a view on anything other than LVT, and certainly not something as sensitive and controversial as immigration. However, migration certainly has economic consequences. These underpin the whole...
Begging according to Georgist principles – update
Abour twenty years ago there was a man in Brighton who would go up to people in the street and ask them for ten pee. He cannot have been very successful as he later reduced his request to a pee. Perhaps he did not generate sufficient sympathy, being big, sturdy and obviously well-fed. Other beggars adopted different strategies. A popular one was to ask for the bus fare to Eastbourne as they had...
Land a bigger fish than the Mansion Tax minnow
On 15th Sept. a colloquium on land value tax (LVT), held at the Westminster HQ of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), was presented with economic analysis suggesting that a single annual tax based on land values would be capable of producing potential revenue flows of £82 billion: sufficient to replace all existing property taxes.
Scotland votes no
The Campaign as such never had a view on whether Scotland should be independent. Scotland suffers from the disadvantage of being distant both from the main centres of population in Great Britain, and also from the ports in the South-East that provide easy connections to mainland Europe. Thus, since the decline of the heavy industry which was the mainstay of the Scottish economy, the country has...
Mansion tax resurfacing
We note that discussion of the wretched mansion tax is re-surfacing, having been adopted as a policy by the Labour Party. When a tax is based on some round-number threshold, it must be concluded that it is based on no sound principle. It will also lead to endless disputes from property owners who find themselves caught through being just above that threshold. At a time when property prices are volatile,...
Barlow tax avoidance humbug
By Robin Smith
Today has brought another frenzy of anti-tax-avoidance hypocrisy. Even the top British newspaper, The Times, is now co-opted into the lie.
We admire Mr. Barlow for the best of reasons. He is exposing how bad the entire system of taxation really is by revealing how easy it is to avoid tax.
For that alone he deserves his celebrity status and all his wealth. By this act he is doing far...