These factors were obviously not uppermost in the minds of most of those who voted “leave”, but before the referendum we pointed out that EU has in practice applied policies which are entirely against the principles we are promoting.

Today’s Guardian hand-wringing session on the “Panama Papers” includes this piece, called,  “Panama Papers: 10 ways for the UK to get its house in order”. One of the ten is the following. “Root corrupt money out of the UK property market and reveal the true holders of the keys to UK homes.” The files include the details of 2,800 secret companies, or “vehicles”,...

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....

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...

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...

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,...

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.

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,...

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...

We are constantly astonished by the number of people in general, and the experts, professors, social campaigners, journalists and the rest of this priesthood in particular, who are blind to simple reality. A financial transaction tax is a classic example of the height of ignorance. When a transaction is taxed, less transactions of that class will take place as a direct result. And the capital will...