What are we to make of Gordon Brown’s conversion to the wonders of a tax on financial transactions? Test it against the Maxims of Taxation, as put forward by Adam Smith. Here they are – judge for yourself.

New businesses would get big tax breaks for job creation under Conservative proposals announced today. George Osborne told the Tory party conference  that 60,000 jobs would be created by the scheme, intended to encourage investment in new ventures. The Shadow Chancellor said that employers creating new jobs would not have to pay National Insurance contributions for the first two years of a Conservative...

Our first reaction to the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable’s proposal for a “Mansion Tax” worth over £1 million, was that he had severely damaged his credibility and upset his party colleagues. He had claimed that the money could be used to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000. The proposal had been savaged within hours of its announcement, though some journalists...

The Brixton pound was launched last week at an event at Lambeth Town Hall in South London. Local currency initiatives are popping up all over Britain. Totnes and Lewes, Sussex are the oft-quoted examples of local “pounds” already in circulation; and this week Brixton became the first urban community to launch its own currency. What are we to make of this phenomenon?

Our resident accountant has just been analysing the effect of the current tax rates. Their most significant impact is of course at the margin. An unemployed single person receives about £200 a week in Jobseekers’ Allowance, housing benefit, &c. Of that, about £20 a week is paid back to the government in tax, a nice example of churning, so the real purchasing power of the £200 is £180....

Henry Law’s scathing personal comments on the proposed phone tax can be read on the LVTC blog.

The government is proposing to levy a tax of £6 a year on all telephone lines, to pay for the expansion of high-speed broadband services to give nation-wide coverage. This is an excellent example of the government’s lack of understanding of economic principles. High speed broadband is a good thing, but not everyone wants it, needs it, or is even capable of using it. If people want it they...

Tommas Graves takes a step back from considerations of winners, losers and avoiders, and gives a view of the budget from a broader perspective “Dishonest” says the Economist. Taken together with the steps to deal with the banking crisis, what we can see is the attempt to get the economy back to normal. NORMAL? But what is normal?

Temperatures are apparently rising among the small business community over tolls charged to use the major river crossings in England and Wales. Although not all businesses are affected, the Federation of Small Businesses wants road tolls abolished in England and Wales, following the lead of the Scottish Executive.

We keep on saying that people are mobile but land is fixed and cannot be hidden or destroyed. This means that  a tax on the rental value of land cannot be avoided or evaded. But Britain’s politicians and civil servants can’t get the message. A pre-Budget “modelling” exercise conducted by the Treasury had forecast that 69 per cent of those hit by the new 50% top income tax...