UK Uncut is the fast-growing organisation behind the recent protests against tax-dodging high street stores. It would be nice if they got the message that the way to stop tax avoidance is to shift from existing taxes to LVT. It is hard not to feel envious at their viral expansion, but then their message is simpler to grasp than ours is.

The final report of the Mirrlees Committee, sponsored by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, has now been published. It makes wide-ranging proposals to simplify the UK’s tax system: income tax and National Insurance should be merged, with an alignment of the way the employed, self employed, and limited company owners are taxed. The Review, chaired by Sir James Mirrlees, argues that a coherent...

Article in New Statesman by Jason Cowley

“I intend to continue taxing wages, good and services.” Ahead of the spending review to be announced in Parliament on Wednesday, the Chancellor, George Osborne, stated last night that he was prepared to do anything to solve the unprecedented financial crisis – except consider the one reform that would help regenerate the economy and lead to a long term solution.

There will be no revaluation of Council Tax bands in England during the current parliament, the coalition government has said. This looks like cowardice but we should welcome the news nevertheless. Council Tax is a badly conceived property tax and investment in a revaluation would have simply provided another excuse for avoiding the real reform that is needed.

Tax avoidance has came back into the news with “revelations” that some of the government’s advisers have been doing it. The journalists and commentators who have latched on to this have, almost without exception, failed to notice that the tax system is inherently leaky. One might have at least thought that these champions of the people’s rights would have marked the fact...

“Taxation, Growth and Employment” is the title of a pamphlet produced by the right wing (we hesitate to use the term) think tank “Policy Exchange”, which describes itself as “an independent, non-partisan educational charity. We work with academics and policy makers from across the political spectrum. We are particularly interested in free market and localist solutions...

Following her acclaimed analysis of the Emergency Budget, Dodgy Dossier’s resident economist Charlotte-Anne Schreiber was yesterday invited to a Press Conference at which it was announced that a source of public revenue far greater than that contributed by the North Sea oil and gas finds had been discovered. What is more, it is environmentally friendly and can be easily collected. “The...

Our resident economist, Charlotte-Anne Schreiber, was in the press gallery of the House of Commons to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, deliver his Emergency Budget speech. Reactions among fellow journalists were mixed, but we are pleased to publish her, as usual, penetrating analysis. Please feel free to circulate her report among your colleagues. The boy wonder surprised everyone...

Faced with a huge deficit and the need to act quickly, what should the Chancellor do? Of course we do not like the present tax system, which is a major cause of all the present problems. Cuts are part of the solution. But there is no gain if those who lose their jobs then spend months unproductively on the dole, and it could – probably will – lead to social unrest. The real problem,...